Differential effects of synchronous and asynchronous multifinger coactivation on human tactile performance

Background  

Repeated execution of a tactile task enhances task performance. In the present study we sought to improve tactile performance with unattended activation-based learning processes (i.e., focused stimulation of dermal receptors evoking neural coactivation (CA)). Previous studies show that the application of CA to a single finger reduced the stationary two-point discrimination threshold and significantly increased tactile acuity. These changes were accompanied by an expansion of the cortical finger representation in primary somatosensory cortex (SI). Here we investigated the effect of different types of multifinger CA on the tactile performance of each finger of the right hand.     

Some remarks on general commutators theorems

The paper proves some general facts on commutators that refer to Fuglede-Putnam classical theorem in the spectral theory of not necessarily selfadjoint operators.     

P-harmonic obstacle problems

We prove an extension theorem for Sobolev functions which plays an important role in the partial regularity theory of vector valued functions which minimize degenerate variational integrals subject to some nonlinear side conditions in the image space.     

Studies on pre-hump and main fractions of cellulose-2,5-acetate in acetone

Technical cellulose-2.5-acetates (CA 2.5) were characterized regarding their carbohydrate composition in comparison to the raw material. The association of the CA 2.5 samples in acetone was studied by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) using various acetone grades and styrene divinylbenzene copolymer columns. In HPLC grade acetone with and without addition of 1% water up to three different pre-humps eluted in front of the main fraction of the polymer. The evaluation of the main peak by light scattering measurements resulted in high molar masses indicating that for these technical CA 2.5 samples even the main fraction is not dissolved without association. No pre-humps or association phenomena were observed after addition of 1 ppm LiBr to HPLC grade acetone or with p.a. grade acetone. In addition pre-hump enriched and pre-hump free fractions were isolated by fractionated precipitation. The carbohydrate composition of these fractions was determined and correlated with their association pattern in SEC investigations.     

Indecomposable modules over the Virasoro Lie algebra and a conjecture of V. Kac

We consider a class of indecomposable modules over the Virasoro Lie algebra that we call bounded admissible modules. We get results concerning the center and the dimensions of the weight spaces. We prove that these modules always contain a submodule with one-dimensional weight spaces. From this follows the proof of a conjecture of V. Kac concerning the classification of simple admissible modules.Preprint Université de Bourgogne-mai 1990     

Atomistic packing models for experimentally investigated swelling states induced by CO2 in glassy polysulfone and poly(ether sulfone)

Atomistic packing models have been created, which help to better understand the experimentally observed swelling behavior of glassy polysulfone and poly (ether sulfone), under CO₂ gas pressures up to 50 bar at 308 K. The experimental characterization includes the measurement of the time‐dependent volume dilation of the polymer samples after a pressure step and the determination of the corresponding gas concentrations by gravimetric gas‐sorption measurements. The models obtained by force‐field‐based molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics methods allow a detailed atomistic analysis of representative swelling states of polymer/gas systems, with respect to the dilation of the matrix. Also, changes of free volume distribution and backbone mobility are accessible. The behavior of gas molecules in unswollen and swollen polymer matrices is characterized in terms of sorption, diffusion, and plasticization. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 1874–1897, 2006     

Self-commutator inequalities in higher dimension

Three natural multi-dimensional substitutes for the self-commutator of a Hilbert space operator are introduced and generalizations of Putnam's inequality to tuples of operators with semidefinite self-commutators are indicated. In addition, a Riesz transform model is developed and investigated.

     

Mouvements rigides associés à des masses positives et négatives

The Note deals with rigid solutions of the N-Body Problem, i.e. solutions with constant mutual distances between the bodies. It is shown that for these motions, the configuration is balanced in the sense of Albouy and Chenciner [Invent. Math. 131 (1998) 151–184] even when the masses are of different signs. This fact was proved only for positive masses, using the scalar product they define. A consequence of the result is the constancy of the rotation velocity. It is also shown that any configuration can generate non-planar rigid motions for certain masses. Such motions do not exist with positive masses. All the results can be generalized to systems with N charged particles. To cite this article: M. Celli, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 340 (2005).