Local Detailed Balance : A Microscopic Derivation

Thermal contact is the archetype of non-equilibrium processes driven by constant non-equilibrium constraints when the latter are enforced by reservoirs exchanging conserved microscopic quantities. At a mesoscopic scale only the energies of the macroscopic bodies are accessible together with the configurations of the contact system. We consider a class of models where the contact system, as well as macroscopic bodies, have a finite number of possible configurations. The global system with only discrete degrees of freedom has no microscopic Hamiltonian dynamics, but it is shown that, if the microscopic dynamics is assumed to be deterministic and ergodic and to conserve energy according to some specific pattern, and if the mesoscopic evolution of the global system is approximated by a Markov process as closely as possible, then the mesoscopic transition rates obey three constraints. In the limit where macroscopic bodies can be considered as reservoirs at thermodynamic equilibrium (but with different intensive parameters) the mesoscopic transition rates turn into transition rates for the contact system and the third constraint becomes local detailed balance ; the latter is generically expressed in terms of the microscopic exchange entropy variation, namely the opposite of the variation of the thermodynamic entropy of the reservoir involved in a given microscopic jump of the contact system configuration. For a finite-time evolution after contact has been switched on we derive a fluctuation relation for the joint probability of the heat amounts received from the various reservoirs. The generalization to systems exchanging energy, volume and matter with several reservoirs, with a possible conservative external force acting on the contact system, is given explicitly.Comment: 26 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1302.453

Kernel Inverse Regression for spatial random fields

In this paper, we propose a dimension reduction model for spatially dependent variables. Namely, we investigate an extension of the \emph{inverse regression} method under strong mixing condition. This method is based on estimation of the matrix of covariance of the expectation of the explanatory given the dependent variable, called the \emph{inverse regression}. Then, we study, under strong mixing condition, the weak and strong consistency of this estimate, using a kernel estimate of the \emph{inverse regression}. We provide the asymptotic behaviour of this estimate. A spatial predictor based on this dimension reduction approach is also proposed. This latter appears as an alternative to the spatial non-parametric predictor

Quelles place pour les incitations dans la gestion du personnel enseignant ?

En matière d'éducation, les systèmes publics ont représenté pendant longtemps le modèle standard et incontesté de régulation, aussi bien pour les économies de marché que pour les économies planifiées. Mais, depuis une vingtaine d'années, ils sont confrontés à des chocs internes et externes tant qualitatifs que quantitatifs : performances internes jugées souvent faibles (Hanuschek, E. A. and Kimko, D. D., 2000), en butte au phénomène des décrocheurs (Blaug, M., 2001), performances externes mises en question par l'existence de pénuries et de surplus ou interpellées par le problème de la suréducation ou du déclassement (Giret, J.-F. and Lemistre, P., 2004). Mis par ailleurs en concurrence, dans des contextes économiques difficiles, avec d'autres besoins sociaux, notamment ceux de la protection sociale, les systèmes éducatifs publics font l'objet de nombreuses critiques et sont confrontés aux turbulences des réformesenseignant; gestion du personnel enseignant;incitations;systèmes éducatifs;efficacité;équité

Decomposition of Gini and the generalized entropy inequality measures

In this article we provide an overview of the Gini decomposition and the generalized entropy inequality measures, a free access to their computation, an application on French wages, and a different way than Dagum to demonstrate that the Gini index is a more convenient measure than those issued from entropy: Theil, Hirschman-Herfindahl and Bourguignon.

Hydrogen radical additions to unsaturated hydrocarbons and the reverse β-scission reactions: modeling of activation energies and pre-exponential factors

The group additivity method for Arrhenius parameters is applied to. hydrogen-addition to alkenes and alkynes and the reverse beta-scission reactions, an important famliy of reactions in thermal processes based on radical chemistry. A consistent set of group additive values for 33 groups is derived to calculate the activation energy and pre-exponential factor for a broad range of hydrogen addition reactions. Thee;group additive values are determined from CBS-QB3 ab-initio-calculated rate coefficients. A mean factor of deviation of only two between CBS-QB3 and experimental rate coefficients for seven reactions in the range 300-1000 K is found. Tunneling. coefficients for these reactions were found to be significant;below 400 K and a correlation accounting for tunneling is presented. Application of the obtained group additive values to predict the kinetics for a set of 11 additions and beta-scissions yields rate coefficients within a factor of 3.5 of the CBS-QB3 results except for two beta-scissions with severe steric effects. The mean factor of deviation with respect to experimental rate coefficients of 2.0 shows that the group additive method with tunneling corrections can accurately predict the kinetics and is at least as accurate as the most commonly used density functional methods. The constructed group additive model can hence be applied to predict the kinetics of hydrogen radical additions for a broad range of unsaturated compounds

On the monodromies of a polynomial map from C2 to C

AbstractLet f:C2→C be a polynomial function. It is well known that there exists a finite set A⊂C such that the restriction of f to C2−f−1(A) is a differentiable fibration onto C−A. Following Broughton in (Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 40 (1983) 167) we call the smallest of such A's the set of atypical values of f and write it Af. Let F be a generic fiber of f. The main goal of this article is to describe the monodromy on H1(F,Z) around an atypical value a∈Af. For that purpose we define and study a monodromic filtration on the homology with coefficients in Z:0⊂M−1⊂M0⊂M1⊂M2=H1(F,Z). The term M−1 is added to allow for the boundary of F. We introduce a compact model L̂a for the smooth part of the reduced curve associated to the affine fiber f−1(a). One important result of this article is theorem (8.12) which shows how H1(L̂a,Z) gives (via the transfer homomorphism) a precise description of the invariant cycles in H1(F,Z)