Meeting infinitely many cells of a partition once

We investigate several versions of a cardinal characteristic defined by Frankiewicz. Vojtáš showed , and Blass showed . We show that all the versions coincide and that is greater than or equal to the splitting number. We prove the consistency of and of . Received: 2 October 1996 / Revised version: 22 May 1997     

Diffusing particles with electrostatic repulsion

Summary. We study a diffusion model of an interacting particles system with general drift and diffusion coefficients, and electrostatic inter-particles repulsion. More precisely, the finite particle system is shown to be well defined thanks to recent results on multivalued stochastic differential equations (see [2]), and then we consider the behaviour of this system when the number of particles goes to infinity (through the empirical measure process). In the particular case of affine drift and constant diffusion coefficient, we prove that a limiting measure-valued process exists and is the unique solution of a deterministic PDE. Our treatment of the convergence problem (as ) is partly similar to that of T. Chan [3] and L.C.G. Rogers - Z. Shi [5], except we consider here a more general case allowing collisions between particles, which leads to a second-order limiting PDE. Received: 5 August 1996 / In revised form: 17 October 1996     

A note on minimization problems and multistep methods

Summary. We use the qualitative properties of the solution flow of the gradient equation to compute a local minimum of a real-valued function . Under the regularity assumption of all equilibria we show a convergence result for bounded trajectories of a consistent, strictly stable linear multistep method applied to the gradient equation. Moreover, we compare the asymptotic features of the numerical and the exact solutions as done by Humphries, Stuart (1994) and Schropp (1995) for one-step methods. In the case of -stable formulae this leads to an efficient solver for stiff minimization problems. Received July 10, 1995 / Revised version received June 27, 1996     

Berezin transform on¶compact Hermitian symmetric spaces

Let X=G ^* be a compact Hermitian symmetric space. We study the Berezin transform on L ²(X) and calculate its spectrum under the decomposition of L ²(X) into the irreducible representations of G ^*. As applications we find the expansion of powers of the canonical polynomial (Bergman reproducing kernel for the canonical line bundle) in terms of the spherical polynomials on X, and we find the irreducible decomposition of tensor products of Bergman spaces on X. Received: 10 September 1996 / Revised version: 10 September 1997     

Vibrational spectrum of uridine obtained by means of nonresonant-background-free CARS spectroscopy

Received: 18 June 1996/Revised version: 3 January 1997     

A compact shock-assisted free-piston driver for impulse facilities

A free-piston driver that employs entropy-raising shock processes with diaphragm rupture has been constructed, which promises significant theoretical advantages over isentropic compression. Results from a range of conditions with helium and argon driver gases are reported. Significant performance gains were achieved in some test cases. Heat losses are shown to have a strong effect on driver processes. Measurements compare well with predictions from a quasi-one-dimensional numerical code. Received 7 September 1996 / Accepted 5 October 1996     

Thermal diffusivity measurements in porous ceramics by photothermal methods

Received: 16 September 1996/Accepted: 6 January 1997