Physicochemical characterization of degradable thermosensitive polymeric micelles

Amphiphilic AB block copolymers consisting of thermosensitive poly(N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide lactate) and poly(ethylene glycol), pHPMAmDL-b-PEG, were synthesized via a macroinitiator route. Dynamic light scattering measurements showed that these block copolymers form polymeric micelles in water with a size of around 50 nm by heating of an aqueous polymer solution from below to above the critical micelle temperature (cmt). The critical micelle concentration as well as the cmt decreased with increasing pHPMAmDL block lengths, which can be attributed to the greater hydrophobicity of the thermosensitive block with increasing molecular weight. Cryogenic transmission electron microscopy analysis revealed that the micelles have a spherical shape with a narrow size distribution. 1H NMR measurements in D2O showed that the intensity of the peaks of the protons from the pHPMAmDL block significantly decreased above the cmt, indicating that the thermosensitive blocks indeed form the solidlike core of the micelles. Static light scattering measurements demonstrated that pHPMAmDL-b-PEG micelles with relatively large pHPMAmDL blocks possess a highly packed core that is stabilized by a dense layer of swollen PEG chains. FT-IR analysis indicated that dehydration of amide bonds in the pHPMAmDL block occurs when the polymer dissolved in water is heated from below to above its cmt. The micelles were stable when an aqueous solution of micelles was incubated at 37 degrees C and at pH 5.0, where the hydrolysis rate of lactate side groups is minimized. On the other hand, at pH 9.0, where hydrolysis of the lactic acid side groups occurs, the micelles started to swell after 1.5 h of incubation and complete dissolution of micelles was observed after 4 h as a result of hydrophilization of the thermosensitive block. Fluorescence spectroscopy measurements with pyrene loaded in the hydrophobic core of the micelles showed that when these micelles were incubated at pH 8.6 and at 37 degrees C the microenvironment of pyrene became increasingly hydrated in time during this swelling phase. The results demonstrate the potential applicability of pHPMAmDL-b-PEG block copolymer micelles for the controlled delivery of hydrophobic drugs.     

Multigrid solvers in reconfigurable hardware

The problem of finding the solution of partial differential equations (PDEs) plays a central role in modeling real world problems. Over the past years, Multigrid solvers have showed their robustness over other techniques, due to its high convergence rate which is independent of the problem size. For this reason, many attempts for exploiting the inherent parallelism of Multigrid have been made to achieve the desired efficiency and scalability of the method. Yet, most efforts fail in this respect due to many factors (time, resources) governed by software implementations. In this paper, we present a hardware implementation of the V-cycle Multigrid method for finding the solution of a 2D-Poisson equation. We use Handel-C to implement our hardware design, which we map onto available field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). We analyze the implementation performance using the FPGA vendor's tools. We demonstrate the robustness of Multigrid over other similar iterative solvers, such as Jacobi and successive over relaxation (SOR  ), in both hardware and software. We compare our findings with a C++$\mathrm{C}++$ version of each algorithm. The obtained results show better performance when compared to existing software versions.     

Global Behavior of Positive Solutions of a Generalized Lane–Emden System of Nonlinear Differential Equations

In this paper we discuss the existence and the global behavior of positive solutions of the following generalized Lane–Emden system of differential equations:

$$\begin{aligned} -u''= & {} a(x)u^{\alpha }\,v^{r}\quad \text{ in } (0,1), \\ -v''= & {} b(x)u^{s}\,v^{\beta }\quad \, \text{ in } (0,1), \\ u'(0)= & {} v'(0)=0; \quad \, u(1)=v(1)=0, \end{aligned}$$

where \(r,\,s\in {\mathbb {R}}\), \(\alpha ,\,\beta <1\) such that \(\gamma :=(1-\alpha )(1-\beta )-rs>0\) and the nonnegative functions \(a,\,b\) satisfy some conditions related to the Karamata regular variation theory.

     

Influence of deposition conditions on the optical properties of erbium-doped yttrium oxide films grown by aerosol-UV assisted MOCVD

Erbium-doped Y₂O₃ films were prepared by aerosol-UV assisted metal-organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) at 410 °C. The effects of humidity of carrier gas and UV-assistance on their structure and optical properties were investigated on the as-deposited and thermal annealed films using infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the as-deposited Er:Y₂O₃ films crystallise in the Y₂O₃ cubic structure and present a very low organic contamination when the deposition takes place under high air humidity and, even better, with UV-assistance. After annealing, two different structural phases are observed corresponding to the cubic and the monoclinic structures of Y₂O₃. The Er³⁺ luminescence analysed in the visible and IR regions, shows the classical green transitions. The best optical properties were obtained with as-deposited and annealed Er:Y₂O₃ films grown under high air humidity with UV-assistance. Under such deposition conditions, ⁴I_13/2 lifetimes was found to be 3.07 and 6.1 ms for films annealed at 800 and 1000 °C, respectively, and up-conversion phenomena were underlined. This indicates that the deposition conditions, in particular air humidity, play an important role in the luminescent properties even after annealing.     

Response of periodic structures due to moving loadsRéponse de structures périodiques à des charges mobiles

A method is proposed to calculate the response of periodic structures subjected to moving loads. It is based on the Floquet decomposition which allows the restriction of the analysis for the overall system to a generic cell. The main contribution of the approach presented hereafter is that the response is directly deduced from transfer functions in the space-wavenumber domain calculated in an unbounded generic cell. Moreover, the equivalence of this new solution with the response of invariant structures obtained using Fourier transforms is established. To cite this article: H. Chebli et al., C. R. Mecanique 334 (2006).     

Identification de la relation de dispersion dans les barresIdentification of the dispersion relation in rods

Dispersion and attenuation of longitudinal waves in elastic or weakly viscoelastic rods are measured by analysing the resonant frequencies present in the strain spectrum due to an unknown loading. The method takes the finite measuring time of the test into account. It is applied to an aluminium bar, in which the dispersion relation is identified very accurately at frequencies up to 60 kHz. To cite this article: R. Othman et al., C. R. Mecanique 330 (2002) 849–855.     

An optimisation method for separating and rebuilding one-dimensional dispersive waves from multi-point measurements. Application to elastic or viscoelastic bars

When using a classical SHPB (split Hopkinson pressure bar) set-up, the useful measuring time is limited by the length of the bars, so that the maximum strain which can be measured in material testing applications is also limited. In this paper, a new method with no time limits is presented for measuring the force and displacement at any station on a bar from strain or velocity measurements performed at various places on the bar. The method takes the wave dispersion into account, as must inevitably be done when making long time measurements. It can be applied to one-dimensional and single-mode waves of all kinds propagating through a medium (flexural waves in beams, acoustic waves in wave guides, etc.). With bars of usual sizes, the measuring time can be up to 50 times longer than the time available with classical methods. An analysis of the sensitivity of the results to the accuracy of the experimental data and to the quality of the wave propagation modelling was also carried out. Experimental results are given which show the efficiency of the method.