Queuing for an infinite bus line and aging branching process

We study a queueing system with Poisson arrivals on a bus line indexed by integers. The buses move at constant speed to the right and the time of service per customer getting on the bus is fixed. The customers arriving at station i wait for a bus if this latter is less than d\_i stations before, where d\_i is non-decreasing. We determine the asymptotic behavior of a single bus and when two buses eventually coalesce almost surely by coupling arguments. Three regimes appear, two of which leading to a.s. coalescing of the buses.The approach relies on a connection with aged structured branching processes with immigration and varying environment. We need to prove a Kesten Stigum type theorem, i.e. the a.s. convergence of the successive size of the branching process normalized by its mean. The technics developed combines a spine approach for multitype branching process in varying environment and geometric ergodicity along the spine to control the increments of the normalized process

Two snap-stabilizing point-to-point communication protocols in message-switched networks

A snap-stabilizing protocol, starting from any configuration, always behaves according to its specification. In this paper, we present a snap-stabilizing protocol to solve the message forwarding problem in a message-switched network. In this problem, we must manage resources of the system to deliver messages to any processor of the network. In this purpose, we use information given by a routing algorithm. By the context of stabilization (in particular, the system starts in an arbitrary configuration), this information can be corrupted. So, the existence of a snap-stabilizing protocol for the message forwarding problem implies that we can ask the system to begin forwarding messages even if routing information are initially corrupted. In this paper, we propose two snap-stabilizing algorithms (in the state model) for the following specification of the problem: - Any message can be generated in a finite time. - Any emitted message is delivered to its destination once and only once in a finite time. This implies that our protocol can deliver any emitted message regardless of the state of routing tables in the initial configuration. These two algorithms are based on the previous work of [MS78]. Each algorithm needs a particular method to be transform into a snap-stabilizing one but both of them do not introduce a significant overcost in memory or in time with respect to algorithms of [MS78]

3D model of hydrogen atmospheric escape from HD209458b and HD189733b: radiative blow-out and stellar wind interactions

Transit observations in Ly-alpha of HD209458b and HD189733b revealed signatures of neutral hydrogen escaping the planets. We present a 3D particle model of the dynamics of the escaping atoms, and calculate theoretical Ly-alpha absorption line profiles, which can be directly compared with the absorption observed in the blue wing of the line. For HD209458b the observed velocities of the escaping atoms up to -130km/s are naturally explained by radiation-pressure acceleration. The observations are well-fitted with an ionizing flux of about 3-4 times solar and a hydrogen escape rate in the range 10^9-10^11g/s, in agreement with theoretical predictions. For HD189733b absorption by neutral hydrogen was observed in 2011 in the velocity range -230 to -140km/s. These velocities are higher than for HD209458b and require an additional acceleration mechanism for the escaping hydrogen atoms, which could be interactions with stellar wind protons. We constrain the stellar wind (temperature ~3x10^4K, velocity 200+-20km/s and density in the range 10^3-10^7/cm3) as well as the escape rate (4x10^8-10^11g/s) and ionizing flux (6-23 times solar). We also reveal the existence of an 'escape-limited' saturation regime in which most of the escaping gas interacts with the stellar protons. In this regime, which occurs at proton densities above ~3x10^5/cm3, the amplitude of the absorption signature is limited by the escape rate and does not depend on the wind density. The non-detection of escaping hydrogen in earlier observations in 2010 can be explained by the suppression of the stellar wind at that time, or an escape rate of about an order of magnitude lower than in 2011. For both planets, best-fit simulations show that the escaping atmosphere has the shape of a cometary tail.Comment: 21 pages, 26 figures, accepted for publication in A&

A capacitive humidity sensor using cross-linked cellulose acetate butyrate

This paper reports on the fabrication of a new capacitive humidity sensor having good characteristics and being robust enough to be considered as a component in industrial processes.This sensor is manufactured using a mixture of three cellulose acetate butyrates cross-linked by a melamine formaldehyde resin as sensing material. Details of the fabrication process and sensor characteristics such as linearity, sensitivity, hysteresis, response time, maximum operating temperature or physical and chemical stresses influence are included

Interbank Offered Rate: Effects of the financial crisis on the information content of the fixing

With the onset of the financial turmoil in August 2007, pricing references on the money market interest rates have been shocked. The segment of unsecured deposit transactions, which represent the cornerstone of capital markets, and is used as basis for the setting of money market benchmark essential to the indexing of trillions of derivative contracts and loans, has been particularly damaged by the surge in counterparty risk. The lack of confidence between traders and the growing fear of counterparty’s bankruptcies have led progressively to a drying out of the unsecured market turnover. After a relative improvement in early 2008, market activity in the unsecured market has again dried up with the reinforcement of the financial crisis following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Although there are good reasons to think that the market activity in the cash unsecured segment of the money market has remained distorted, in particular for maturities beyond the very short-term, the OIS-LIBOR spreads have been declining extremely steadily since January 2009, both in major currencies and at various maturities, seemingly pointing to a normalization of the money market. On the basis of a simple econometric supported by statistical evidence applied to the euro area date, this paper analyses whether recent developments in the unsecured interest rates actually support a diagnosis of renewed market activity, and of normalization of the unsecured market.LIBOR, EURIBOR, secured segment, fixings, market distortions, financial crisis.

Radiative braking in the extended exosphere of GJ436b

The recent detection of a giant exosphere surrounding the warm Neptune GJ436 b has shed new light on the evaporation of close-in planets, revealing that moderately irradiated, low-mass exoplanets could make exceptional targets for studying this mechanism and its impact on the exoplanet population. Three HST/STIS observations were performed in the Lyman-$\alpha$ line of GJ436 at different epochs, showing repeatable transits with large depths and extended durations. Here, we study the role played by stellar radiation pressure on the structure of the exosphere and its transmission spectrum. We found that the neutral hydrogen atoms in the exosphere of GJ436 b are not swept away by radiation pressure as shown to be the case for evaporating hot Jupiters. Instead, the low radiation pressure from the M-dwarf host star only brakes the gravitational fall of the escaping hydrogen toward the star and allows its dispersion within a large volume around the planet, yielding radial velocities up to about -120 km s$^{-1}$ that match the observations. We performed numerical simulations with the EVaporating Exoplanets code (EVE) to study the influence of the escape rate, the planetary wind velocity, and the stellar photoionization. While these parameters are instrumental in shaping the exosphere and yield simulation results in general agreement with the observations, the spectra observed at the different epochs show specific, time-variable features that require additional physics.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Environment effects on effective magnetic exchange integrals and local spectroscopy of extended strongly correlated systems

The present work analyzes the importance of the different components of the environment effects on the local spectroscopy of extended strongly correlated systems. It has been found that the usual formal charge definition of the charge transfer and Madelung potential are far too crude for an accurate determination of the local excitation energies in embedded fragment calculations. A criterion for the validation of the embedding against the infinite system density of states has been proposed.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

Measurement of spectral functions of ultracold atoms in disordered potentials

We report on the measurement of the spectral functions of noninteracting ultracold atoms in a three-dimensional disordered potential resulting from an optical speckle field. Varying the disorder strength by 2 orders of magnitude, we observe the crossover from the "quantum" perturbative regime of low disorder to the "classical" regime at higher disorder strength, and find an excellent agreement with numerical simulations. The method relies on the use of state-dependent disorder and the controlled transfer of atoms to create well-defined energy states. This opens new avenues for experimental investigations of three-dimensional Anderson localization