Model storage,exchange and integration

The field of Computational Systems Neurobiology is maturing quickly. If one wants it to fulfil its central role in the new Integrative Neurobiology, the reuse of quantitative models needs to be facilitated. The community has to develop standards and guidelines in order to maximise the diffusion of its scientific production, but also to render it more trustworthy. In the recent years, various projects tackled the problems of the syntax and semantics of quantitative models. More recently the international initiative BioModels.net launched three projects: (1) MIRIAM is a standard to curate and annotate models, in order to facilitate their reuse. (2) The Systems Biology Ontology is a set of controlled vocabularies aimed to be used in conjunction with models, in order to characterise their components. (3) BioModels Database is a resource that allows biologists to store, search and retrieve published mathematical models of biological interests. We expect that those resources, together with the use of formal languages such as SBML, will support the fruitful exchange and reuse of quantitative models.     

Complexity and approximation results for the connected vertex cover problem in graphs and hypergraphs

We study a variation of the vertex cover problem where it is required that the graph induced by the vertex cover is connected. We prove that this problem is polynomial in chordal graphs, has a PTAS in planar graphs, is APX-hard in bipartite graphs and is 5/3-approximable in any class of graphs where the vertex cover problem is polynomial (in particular in bipartite graphs). Finally, dealing with hypergraphs, we study the complexity and the approximability of two natural generalizations.     

Rotation spectrum and infrared fundamental bands of 123SbD3. Determination of molecular geometry and ab initio calculations of spectroscopic parameters

The high resolution infrared spectrum of ¹²³SbD₃ has been recorded in the 20–350?cm^?1 range and in the regions of the ν₁, ν₃ and ν₂, ν₄ fundamental bands centred at 1350 and 600?cm^?1, respectively. Splitting of the K′′?=?3, 6 lines have been observed both in the rotation and ro-vibration spectra. A large number of ‘perturbation allowed‘ transitions with selection rules Δ(k??l) =?±?3,?±?6, and?±?9 have been identified in all fundamental bands. Accurate ground state molecular parameters have been determined by means of a simultaneous fit of the rotational transitions and about 12?000 ground state combination differences from the infrared bands. The A and B reductions of the rotational Hamiltonian provided almost equivalent results. The molecular parameters of the ν _i ?=?1 (i?=?1???4) states were obtained as a result of the simultaneous analysis of the ν₁ (A₁)/ν₃ (E) stretching and of the ν₂ (A₁)/ν₄ (E) bending dyads. In fact, the corresponding excited states are affected by strong perturbations due to rovibrational interactions of Coriolis and k-type that have been treated explicitly in the model adopted for the analysis. Improved effective ground state and equilibrium geometries were determined for the molecule and compared to those of ¹²³SbH₃. Ab initio calculations at the coupled cluster CCSD(T) level with an energy-consistent large-core pseudopotential and large basis sets were carried out to determine the equilibrium structure, the anharmonic force field, and the associated spectroscopic constants of ¹²³SbH₃ and ¹²³SbD₃. The theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental data.     

Mouvement des dislocations et plasticité à haute température des oxydes binaires et ternaires

Nous présentons une revue sur la déformation plastique à haute température mettant en jeu le déplacement des dislocations dans les oxydes. Les liaisons chimiques et les structures cristallines sont plus complexes que dans les métaux; aussi, les dislocations ne sont pas encore bien décrites ni dans les oxydes binaires (NiO, Cu₂O …) ni dans les oxydes ternaires (MgAl₂O₄…).

Ces composés, me?me purs, contiennent de grandes quantités de défauts ponctuels pouvant provoquer des écarts à la stoechiométrie; une bonne connaissance des concentrations et de la mobilité de défauts est indispensable pour expliquer les propriétés plastiques.

Les essais mécaniques habituels sont la flexion et surtout la compression; ils présentent de nombreux inconvénients, en particulier ils conduisent à une déformation hétérogène des éprouvettes.

Le but de ces tests est d'établir la loi qui relie la vitesse de déformation aux autres paramètres (contrainte, température …). Une grande quantité de résultats existe et est rassemblée aussi bien pour la déformation à vitesse constante que pour le fluage.

Les modèles habituels décrivant la déformation plastique devraient être modifiés pour tenir compte des complications introduites dans les processus élémentaires comme la structure de coeur des dislocations et leur montée, la diffusion dans un composé ….

La connaissance de la microstructure issue de la déformation plastique est nécessaire pour identifier le mécanisme déterminant la vitesse de déformation. Outre les techniques traditionnelles (optique, attaque chimique …), la microscopie électronique en transmission est utilisée; elle a permis de découvrir que les dislocations sont dissociées par montée dans les structures spinelles, phénomène qui pourrait se rencontrer dans d'autres oxydes.     

Ultrathin oxide films and interfaces for electronics and spintronics

Oxides have become a key ingredient for new concepts of electronic devices. To a large extent, this is due to the profusion of new physics and novel functionalities arising from ultrathin oxide films and at oxide interfaces. We present here a perspective on selected topics within this vast field and focus on two main issues. The first part of this review is dedicated to the use of ultrathin films of insulating oxides as barriers for tunnel junctions. In addition to dielectric non-magnetic epitaxial barriers, which can produce tunneling magnetoresistances in excess of a few hundred percent, we pay special attention to the possibility of exploiting the multifunctional character of some oxides in order to realize ‘active’ tunnel barriers. In these, the conductance across the barrier is not only controlled by the bias voltage and/or the electrodes magnetic state, but also depends on the barrier ferroic state. Some examples include spin-filtering effects using ferro- and ferrimagnetic oxides, and the possibility of realizing hysteretic, multi-state junctions using ferroelectric barriers. The second part of this review is devoted to novel states appearing at oxide interfaces. Often completely different from those of the corresponding bulk materials, they bring about novel functionalities to be exploited in spintronics and electronics architectures. We review the main mechanisms responsible for these new properties (such as magnetic coupling, charge transfer and proximity effects) and summarize some of the most paradigmatic phenomena. These include the formation of high-mobility two-dimensional electron gases at the interface between insulators, the emergence of superconductivity (or ferromagnetism) at the interface between non-superconducting (or non-ferromagnetic) materials, the observation of magnetoelectric effects at magnetic/ferroelectric interfaces or the effects of the interplay and competing interactions at all-oxide ferromagnetic/superconducting interfaces. Finally, we link up the two reviewed research fields and emphasize that the tunneling geometry is particularly suited to probe novel interface effects at oxide barrier/electrode interfaces. We close by giving some directions toward tunneling devices exploiting novel oxide interfacial phenomena.     

Electrochromic Variation of the Infrared Emissivity in Tungsten Oxide Compounds

The so-called plastic technology first developed for the Li-based batteries leads to a new flexible infrared modulator. Orthorhombic monohydrated tungsten oxide (o-WO³ · H₂O) is used as the active insertion element in the LiCoO₂/o-WO³ · H₂O system. To prevent its degradation under air moisture, the device is protected with hermetic plastic and a window. Measurements of the reflectivity values indicate a very good contrast between the bleached and colored states for the first insertion (about 50% contrast in the 2.5–15 μm range), but the contrast between the inserted and de-inserted states is only about 30%. Optical properties follow quite well Drude mechanism.     

Multidimensional weighted Opial inequalities

In this article we produce Opial-type weighted multidimensional inequalities over balls and arbitrary smooth bounded domains. The inequalities are sharp. The functions under consideration vanish on the boundary.     

Monotone corrections for generic cell-centered finite volume approximations of anisotropic diffusion equations

We present a nonlinear technique to correct a general finite volume scheme for anisotropic diffusion problems, which provides a discrete maximum principle. We point out general properties satisfied by many finite volume schemes and prove the proposed corrections also preserve these properties. We then study two specific corrections proving, under numerical assumptions, that the corresponding approximate solutions converge to the continuous one as the size of the mesh tends to zero. Finally we present numerical results showing that these corrections suppress local minima produced by the original finite volume scheme.     

Moderate deviations for martingale differences and applications to φ -mixing sequences

For a R d -valued sequence of martingale differences { m k } k S 1 , we obtain a moderate deviation principle for the sequence of partial sums { Z n ( t ) 1 ~ k =1 [ nt ] m k / b n , t ] [0,1]}, in the space of càdlàg functions equipped with the Skorohod topology, under the following conditions: a Chen-Ledoux type condition, an exponential convergence in probability of the associated quadratic variation process of the martingale, and a condition of "Lindeberg" type. For the small jumps of Z n (·), we apply the general result of Puhalskii [Puhalskii, A. (1994). "Large deviations of semimartingales via convergence of the predictable characteristics". Stoch. Stoch. Rep. , 49 , pp. 27-85]. Following the method of Ledoux [Ledoux, M. (1992). "Sur les déviations modérées des sommes de variables aléatoires vectorielles indépendantes de même loi". Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré , 28 , pp. 267-280] and Arcones [Arcones, A. (1999). "The large deviation principle for stochastic processes", Submitted for publication], we prove that the large jumps part of Z n (·) is negligible in the sense of the moderate deviations. One can regard our result as an extension to martingale differences, of the beautiful characterization of moderate deviations for i.i.d.r.v. case due to Chen [Chen, X. (1991). "The moderate deviations of independent vectors in Banach space". Chin. J. Appl. Probab. Stat. , 7 , pp. 124-32] and Ledoux [Ledoux, M. (1992). "Sur les déviations modérées des sommes de variables aléatoires vectorielles indépendantes de même loi". Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré , 28 , pp. 267-280]. Using the Gordin [Gordin, M.I. (1969). "The central limit theorem for stationary processes". Soviet Math. Dokl. , 10 , pp. 1174-1176] decomposition, the martingale result is applied to prove the moderate deviation principle for a wide class of stationary { -mixing sequences of random variables.