A simple model of biological evolution of community food webs is introduced. This modelis based on the niche model, which is known to generate model food webs that are verysimilar to empirical food webs. The networks evolve by speciation and extinction.Co-extinctions due to the loss of all prey species are found to play a major role indetermining the longterm shape of the food webs. The central aim is to design the modelsuch that the characteristic parameters of the niche model food webs remain in realisticintervals. When the mutation rule is chosen accordingly, it is found that food webs with acomplex, biologically meaningful structure emerge and that the statistics of extinctionevents agrees well with that observed in the paleontological data.

The structural and magnetic properties of nano-sized particles of transition metals (Co and Ni) implanted into amorphous SiO2 are investigated. The SiO2 substrates used were as grown on a silicon (100) wafer under wet O2 atmosphere. The metals were implanted as singly charged atoms energized to 30 or 160 keV. Transmission Electron microscopy (TEM) observations and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) show that M+ implantation results in the formation of metallic nanoparticles at the vicinity of the surface whereas oxide particles (< 1 nm) are formed in a deeper region. After thermal treatment under hydrogen, TEM evidences the disappearance of the oxide region and an increase in the size of the metallic particle. XAS shows that cobalt and nickel are entirely in the metallic form and saturation magnetization becomes close to the theoretical value.

Copper and sol-gel processed cordierite were cosintered in oxidizing atmosphere using an eutectic bonding technique. Firing at low and high heating rates leads to interfaces which present different macroscopic properties. These interfaces were therefore investigated on a microscopic scale by SEM, XPS and STEM analyses. Copper diffusion as well as strong chemical and structural modifications were observed in the interface region. Although these interfaces have good adhesion properties, there was no evidence for the formation of some interfacial copper compound.

YBa2Cu3O7−x has been synthesized by two chemical ways, one from oxalate coprecipitation, the other one from metalloorganic decomposition. Superconducting properties of the resulting samples have been checked by means of resistivity and magnetic measurements. Low temperature specific heat data allow to propose an explanation to the residual linear term.