A generalized entropy functional was introduced in [T.-P. Liu, T. Yang, A new entropy functional for scalar conservation laws, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 52 (1999) 14271442] for the scalar hyperbolic conservation laws with convex flux function. This functional was crucially used in the functional approach to the L 1 stability study on the system of hyperbolic conservation laws when each characteristic field is either genuinely nonlinear or linearly degenerate. However, how to construct the generalized entropy functional for scalar conservation laws with general flux, and then how to apply the functional approach to the L 1 study on general systems are still open. In this paper, we construct a new nonlinear functional which gives some partial answer to this question and we expect the analysis will shed some light on the future investigation in this direction.

We consider the spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation without angular cutoff. We prove the existence and uniqueness of local classical solutions to the Cauchy problem, in the function space with Maxwellian type exponential decay with respect to the velocity variable. <b><i>To cite this article: R. Alexandre et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 347 (2009).</i></b>

In this paper, we discuss the waiting time phenomena for a class of non-Newtonian polytropic filtration equation with convection. According to the influence of the convection on the waiting time property, the convection is classified into three classes, that is, the strong convection, the mild convection and the weak convection. For different cases, the sufficient and necessary conditions on the initial data are given for the existence of waiting time respectively.

The ellipsoidal BGK model was introduced in\cite {Ho} to fit the correct Prandtl number in the Navier-Stokes approximation of the classical BGK model. In the paper we establish the global existence of mild solutions to the Cauchy problem on the model for a class of initial data allowed to have large oscillations. The proof is motivated by a recent study of the same topic on the Boltzmann equation in\cite {DHWY}.

In the paper, we study the three-dimensional Prandtl equations, and prove that if one component of the tangential velocity field satisfies the monotonicity assumption in the normal direction, then the system is locally well-posed in the Gevrey function space with Gevrey index in ] 1, 2]. The proof relies on some new cancellation mechanism in the system in addition to those observed in the two-dimensional setting.