Antifungal activities of amino acid ester functional pyrazolyl compounds against Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. albedinis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast

Series of functional multidendate ligands based on pyrazole and amino acid derivatives were prepared in good and excellent yields (75–5%) by condensation of one equivalent of amino acid ester hydrochloride substrates with two equivalents of (3,5-dimethyl-1H–pyrazol-1-yl)methanol. These tridentate functionalized compounds and their starting materials were screened for their antifungal activities against Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. albedinis and the yeast of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Considerable activities were recorded with respect to the two studied microorganisms.     

Phase behavior of polystyrene acrylonitril copolymer and polymethylmethacrylate blends under shear

Polymer blends undergo external stresses such as pressure and shear in course of processing cycles. The knowledge of their phase behavior at each step of these cycles is crucial for understanding their physical properties and eventually improves their performance in practical applications. The effects of shear on the phase diagram of binary polymer blends are considered. A theoretical formulism is used upon which the free energy is the sum of two terms. The first term is modeled with the Flory–Huggins free energy of mixing and describes the thermodynamic behavior of the system in the quiescent state. The second term represents the excess free energy stored during flow. In the presence of shear flow, the excess free energy is expressed in terms of the viscosity and the shear modulus. Both quantities depend on composition and shear rate. The curvature of the variation of viscosity versus composition has a tremendous impact upon the nature of phase separation. Phase diagrams are described by the spinodal curves and show for the case considered here miscibility enhancement with increasing shear rate. A good correlation is found with experimental data of the literature on blends of polystyrene acrylonitril copolymer and polymethylmethacrylate. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2011     

Calibration transfer of near‐IR partial least squares property models of fuels using virtual standards

Partial least squares (PLS) models of 10 important jet and diesel fuel properties were built using spectra from a master near‐IR dispersive instrument and then subsequently transferred to a secondary dispersive instrument via a novel calibration transfer method using virtual standards and a slope‐bias correction. Implementation of the transfer requires that only seven spectra of neat solvents be acquired on the master and secondary instruments. The spectra of the neat solvents are then used to digitally replicate spectra from the calibration set to generate virtual standards. Comparison of PLS predictions for the master and secondary instrument virtual standards provides a simple but effective slope‐bias correction for transfer. The transferred fuel properties include American Petroleum Institute gravity, % aromatics, cetane index, flashpoint, hydrogen content, % saturates, and distillation temperatures at 10%, 20%, 50%, and 90% volume recovered. Transfer error was lower than using either the pure solvents with a slope‐bias correction or than using a piecewise direct standardization calibration transfer using fuel spectra. Transfer error was higher than when using actual fuels to transfer the calibration. The use of virtual standards eliminates the need to maintain either complex fuel standards or the master instrument for future instrument calibration transfers. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling NASDAQ Series by Sparse Multifractional Brownian Motion

The objective of this paper is to compare the performance of different estimators of Hurst index for multifractional Brownian motion (mBm), namely, Generalized Quadratic Variation (GQV) Estimator, Wavelet Estimator and Linear Regression GQV Estimator. Both estimators are used in the real financial dataset Nasdaq time series from 1971 to the 3rd quarter of 2009. Firstly, we review definitions, properties and statistical studies of fractional Brownian motion (fBm) and mBm. Secondly, a numerical artifact is observed: when we estimate the time varying Hurst index H(t) for an mBm, sampling fluctuation gives the impression that H(t) is itself a stochastic process, even when H(t) is constant. To avoid this artifact, we introduce sparse modelling for mBm and apply it to Nasdaq time series.     

Shakedown analysis of periodic composites with kinematic hardening material model

Lower-bound limit and shakedown analysis of periodic composites with the consideration of kinematic hardening are carried out on the representative volume element level. In combination with homogenization theory, the homogenized macroscopic admissible loading domains are determined. Furthermore, the strengths of periodic composites by using elastic perfectly plastic, unlimited and linear limited kinematic hardening material models are calculated and compared. (© 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Synthesis and structural determination of novel 5-arylidene-3-N(2-alkyloxyaryl)-2-thioxothiazolidin-4-ones

As part of our project devoted to the synthesis of heterocycles including thiazole rings, some new 5-arylidene-2-thioxo-3-N-arylthiazolidin-4-ones were synthesized by Knoevenagel condensation. An interesting feature of these compounds is that their chirality is induced by that of their 3-N-(2-alkyloxyaryl)-2-thioxothiazolidin-4-one precursors, which in turn is due to the presence of a C2 axis of chirality. These new compounds were characterized by spectroscopic methods (IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR). The structure of compound (Z)-(2g) was further determined by X-ray diffraction.     

Comparative Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of cyclohexanone on Fe-pillared clays and iron tetrasulfophthalocyanine covalently supported on silica

The Baeyer-Villiger oxidation of cyclohexanone to caprolactone has been investigated at room temperature over AlFe-pillared clays, using oxygen as oxidant in the presence of benzaldehyde. A nearly complete conversion is observed with a selectivity into caprolactone above 80%. The observation of an induction period in the kinetics, of high activity of the non-pillared clay, and the detection of Fe traces in the reaction medium, suggest a process involving homogenous catalysis. The reaction is indeed catalysed in homogeneous phase by a few ppm of Fe. By contrast, iron phthalocyanine covalently supported on silica appears as a true heterogeneous catalyst, giving a selectivity above 95% to caprolactone at 61% conversion.     

Decay rates at low and high frequencies for a plate equation with feedback concentrated in interior curves

In this paper we study the stabilization of plate vibrations by means of piezoelectric actuators. In this situation the geometric control condition of Bardos, Lebeau and Rauch [6] is not satisfied. We prove that we have exponential stability for the low frequencies but not for the high frequencies. We give an explicit decay rate for regular initial data at high frequencies while clarifying the behavior of the constant which intervenes in this estimation there function of the frequency of cut n. The method used is based on some trace regularity which reduces stability to some observability inequalities for the corresponding undamped problem. Moreover, we show numerically at low frequencies, that the optimal location of the actuator is the center of the domain Ω.     

Approximation numérique d'un problème de membrane non linéaire

We study numerically the deformations of a nonlinearly elastic membrane. We consider the nonlinear membrane model obtained by Le Dret and Raoult using Γ-convergence. In this model, membrane deformations minimize a highly nonquadratic energy. We consider a conforming finite element approximation of the problem and use a nonlinear conjugate gradient algorithm to minimize the discrete energy. To cite this article: N. Kerdid et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 340 (2005).