Solid-phase microextraction for bioconcentration studies according to OECD TG 305

An important aim of the European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use is the identification of (very) persistent, (very) bioaccumulative, and toxic substances. In other regulatory chemical safety assessments (pharmaceuticals, biocides, pesticides), the identification of such (very) persistent, (very) bioaccumulative, and toxic substances is of increasing importance. Solid-phase microextraction is especially capable of extracting total water concentrations as well as the freely dissolved fraction of analytes in the water phase, which is available for bioconcentration in fish. However, although already well established in environmental analyses to determine and quantify analytes mainly in aqueous matrices, solid-phase microextraction is still a rather unusual method in regulatory ecotoxicological research. Here, the potential benefits and drawbacks of solid-phase microextraction are discussed as an analytical routine approach for aquatic bioconcentration studies according to OECD TG 305, with a special focus on the testing of hydrophobic organic compounds characterized by log KOW > 5

La responsabilisation capacitante : un nouveau paradigme pour refonder l'Etat-providence? Application au secteur des soins de santé

La solidarité est souvent présentée comme incompatible avec la responsabilité individuelle qui est essentiellement comprise comme l’application de sanctions et récompenses inspirées par la méritocratie. Nous développons un concept, la responsabilisation capacitante, qui est de nature à réconcilier la solidarité et les exigences de responsabilité individuelle en évitant toutefois les écueils de la méritocratie. Nous montrons que la pratique du care peut susciter la (re)découverte de la liberté ontologique des patients qui peuvent ainsi devenir responsables et ‘capables’ de leur santé et de leurs soins. Cette responsabilisation ne se limite pas à l’individu, elle le porte vers une responsabilité politique qui lui permet de faire et d’assumer des choix collectifs

Transportation-information inequalities for Markov processes (II) : relations with other functional inequalities

We continue our investigation on the transportation-information inequalities $W_pI$ for a symmetric markov process, introduced and studied in \cite{GLWY}. We prove that $W_pI$ implies the usual transportation inequalities $W_pH$, then the corresponding concentration inequalities for the invariant measure $\mu$. We give also a direct proof that the spectral gap in the space of Lipschitz functions for a diffusion process implies $W_1I$ (a result due to \cite{GLWY}) and a Cheeger type's isoperimetric inequality. Finally we exhibit relations between transportation-information inequalities and a family of functional inequalities (such as $\Phi$-log Sobolev or $\Phi$-Sobolev)

A simulated annealing algorithm for router nodes placement problem in Wireless Mesh Networks

Mesh router nodes placement is a central problem in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). An efficient placement of mesh router nodes is indispensable for achieving network performance in terms of both network connectivity and user coverage. Unfortunately the problem is computationally hard to solve to optimality even for small deployment areas and a small number of mesh router nodes. As WMNs are becoming an important networking infrastructure for providing cost-efficient broadband wireless connectivity, researchers are paying attention to the resolution of the mesh router placement problem through heuristic approaches in order to achieve near optimal, yet high quality solutions in reasonable time. In this work we propose and evaluate a simulated annealing (SA) approach to placement of mesh router nodes in WMNs. The optimization model uses two maximization objectives, namely, the size of the giant component in the network and user coverage. Both objectives are important to deployment of WMNs; the former is crucial to achieve network connectivity while the later is an indicator of the QoS in WMNs. The SA approach distinguishes for its simplicity yet its policy of neighborhood exploration allows to reach promising areas of the solution space where quality solutions could be found. We have experimentally evaluated the SA algorithm through a benchmark of generated instances, varying from small to large size, and capturing different characteristics of WMNs such as topological placements of mesh clients. The experimental results showed the efficiency of the annealing approach for the placement of mesh router nodes in WMNs.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Polyakov loop potential at finite density

The Polyakov loop potential serves to distinguish between the confined hadronic and the deconfined quark-gluon plasma phases of QCD. For Nf=2+1 quark flavors with physical masses we determine the Polyakov loop potential at finite temperature and density and extract the location of the deconfinement transition. We find a cross-over at small values of the chemical potential running into a critical end-point at mu/T > 1.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figure

Critical Point and Deconfinement from Dyson-Schwinger Equations

We employ the Dyson-Schwinger equations for quark and gluon propagators in order to study QCD with 2+1 flavours at finite temperature and density. In a suitable truncation for these equations, we determine the position of the critical end-point as well as the deconfinement temperature at all chemical potentials. For the latter, the Polyakov-loop potential is obtained from the QCD propagators. This is possible for the first time at finite chemical potential, with implications for effective models.Comment: Proceedings for the 8th International Workshop on Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement (CPOD 2013). 5 pages, 5 figure