β-cyclodextrin-bonded silica particles as novel sorbent for stir bar sorptive extraction of phenolic compounds

A stir bar coated with β-cyclodextrin-bonded-silica (CDS) as novel sorbent has been developed and used to analyze seven phenolic compounds in aqueous samples, followed by thermal desorption and gas chromatography-mass spectrometric detection. Significant parameters affecting sorption process such as the time and temperature of sorption and desorption, ionic strength, pH and stirring rate have been optimized and discussed. The coating has a high thermal stability up to 300°C and long application lifetime (80 times). The porous structure of CDS coating provides high surface area and allows high extraction efficiency. Under the selected conditions, linearity range of 0.1-400 μg/L, limit of quantifications of 0.08-3.3 μg/L and method detection limits of 0.02-1.00 μg/L have been obtained. A satisfactory repeatability (RSD ≤ 6.5, n = 7) with good linearity (0.9975 ≤ r(2) ≤ 0.9996) of results illustrated a good performance of the present method. The recovery of different natural water samples was higher than 81.5%.     

Propagation of Lamb waves in an immersed periodically grooved plate: Experimental detection of the scattered converted backward waves

Guided waves propagation in immersed plates with irregular surfaces has potential application to detection and assessment of the extent, depth and pattern of the irregularity. The complexity of the problem, due to the large number of involved parameters, has limited the number of existing studies. The simplest case of irregularities of practical interest is the two-dimensional corrosion profile. Even this case is in general so complex, that one can extract several amplitude dominant periodic surfaces only by using a Fourier spectrum of the surface. Guided waves in plates, with one or both free surfaces having periodic perturbations of different shapes, have been presented in specialized literature.     

A fast approach of nonparametric elastic image registration problem

In this paper, we present a fast algorithm of the nonparametric elastic image registration using a simple implementation of the Range Restricted GMRES (RRGMRES) method. This approach differs from the others in the fact that it is specified to the tridiagonal block matrix type to resolve a nonsymmetric linear system. In what follows, we prove existence and uniqueness of minimizer of the elastic registration problem and present the corresponding discrete problem by employing a finite difference scheme. The accuracy of the proposed method is demonstrated on different image registration examples; we also show the speedup of the proposed approach by calculating the corresponding CPU time and compared it with the classical elastic registration method.     

Production of γ-Decalactone by a Psychrophilic and a Mesophilic Strain of the Yeast <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rhodotorula aurantiaca</Emphasis>

Among 18 psychrophilic strains isolated near the Antarctic Station, the psychrophilic strain Rhodotorula aurantiaca A19 was selected for its ability of growth and γ-decalactone production at low temperatures. The effects of temperature, initial pH, and castor oil concentration on the growth and γ-decalactone production by a psychrophilic and a mesophilic strain of R. aurantiaca were investigated. The highest γ-decalactone production in flasks (5.8 g/l) was obtained with the strain A19 at 14 °C and initial pH 7.0 in medium containing 20 g/l castor oil. On the other hand, these factors did not affect the production of γ-decalactone by the mesophilic strain. In fermentor, a γ-decalactone concentration of 6.6 g/l was reached with the strain A19, whereas a maximum of 0.1 g/l was obtained with the mesophilic strain. Our results suggest that the ability to synthesize γ-decalactone is a particularity of the strain A19, since the mesophilic strain (no. 30645) produced small amounts, and the other (no. 31354) did not exhibit this property. It is, to our knowledge, the first report of γ-decalactone production by R. aurantiaca and furthermore by a psychrophilic yeast strain. Moreover, the amount of γ-decalactone obtained in fermentor with the strain 19 was on the order of concentrations usually described in patents.     

The band spectrum of the periodic Airy–Schrödinger operator on the real line

We introduce the periodic Airy–Schrödinger operator and we describe its band spectrum. This is an example of solvable model with a periodic potential which is not differentiable at its extrema. We prove that there exists a sequence of explicit constants giving upper bounds of the semiclassical parameter for which explicit estimates are valid. We completely determine the behaviour of the edges of the first spectral band with respect to the semiclassical parameter. Then, we investigate the spectral bands and gaps situated in the range of the potential. We prove precise estimates on the widths of these spectral bands and these spectral gaps and we determine an upper bound on the integrated spectral density in this range. Finally, we get estimates of the edges of spectral bands and thus of the widths of spectral bands and spectral gaps which are stated for values of the semiclassical parameter in fixed intervals.     

Une preuve alternative de l'existence d'un équilibre de Nash dans les jeux discontinus

This Note presents a theorem of the existence of the Nash equilibrium for discontinuous games in a topological vector space. We will use an assumption of better reply secure which is stronger then that of Reny. If the payoff function is upper semi-continuous, the two assumptions coincide. Our proof is simple, independent and based on a version of Fan–Browder theorem of existence of maximal element due to Deguire and Lassonde, which is extended to the non-Hausdorf case. To cite this article: J.-M. Bonnisseau et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 347 (2009).     

Effect of disorder on two-dimensional wetting

For the problem of the 2D wetting transition near a 1D random wall, we show by a renormalization calculation that the effect of disorder is marginally relevant. It is therefore expected that the nature of the wetting transition and the location of the critical point are modified by any amount of disorder. This is supported by numerical simulations based on transfer matrix calculations. We investigate also the problem of wetting near a random wall on hierarchical lattices and find similar results.     

A simple technique for the pyrosol process and deposition of tin oxide films

A very simple and low-cost device for the deposition of thin films by the pyrosol process has been designed Doped and undoped transparent conducting SnO₂ films have been prepared on glass substrates The films obtained were nonstoichiometric but homogeneous and polycrystalline in nature It is found that an activation energy of about 0 2 eV is associated with the film growth process The logarithm of the film thickness varies approximately linearly with the deposition time, and the sheet resistance shows a size effect below a thickness of about 0 3 micro m Doping increases the conductivity but at the cost of transparency The best compromise between transparency and conductivity was obtained at a substrate temperature of about 380°C and with 1 6 mole percent of Sb or 13 mole percent of F as dopants in the as-deposited condition The figure of ment of these films is compared to those of films obtained earlier by the spray pyrolysis method F doping produces better results than Sb doping.     

Mass spectrometric study of randomly methylated beta-cyclodextrins using ionspray, atmospheric pressure chemical ionization and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization

Mixtures of methylated beta-cyclodextrins were characterized using three different methods of mass spectrometry: ionspray, atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI). Each of these methods allows a fast and simple determination of the degree of substitution, and can provide evidence for differences in the methylation of batches which have very similar global degrees of substitution. The three methods are in good qualitative agreement, but there are systematic differences in the quantitative results for the percentages of the various methylated molecules present in a batch. This is attributed to ionization yields which increase with the number of methyl groups, with different slopes for the different methods.