Kinetics of proton transfer in a green fluorescent protein: A laser-induced pH jump study

The sub-millisecond protonation dynamics of the chromophore in S65T mutant form of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) was tracked after a rapid pH jump following laser-induced proton release from the caged photolabile compoundo-nitrobenzaldehyde. Following a jump in pH from 8 to 5 (which is achieved within 2 μs), the fluorescence of S65T GFP decreased as a single exponential with a time constant of ∼90 μs. This decay is interpreted as the conversion of the deprotonated fluorescent GFP chromophore to a protonated non-fluorescent species. The protonation kinetics showed dependence on the bulk viscosity of the solvent, and therefore implicates bulk solvent-controlled protein dynamics in the protonation process. The protonation is proposed to be a sequential process involving two steps: (a) proton transfer from solvent to the chromophore, and (b) internal structural rearrangements to stabilize a protonated chromophore. The possible implications of these observations to protein dynamics in general is discussed     

Dynamic Model of R&D,Spillovers, and Efficiency of Bertrand and Cournot Equilibria

Using an infinite-horizon two-player differential game, we derive and compare Bertrand and Cournot equilibria for a differentiated duopoly engaging in the process of R&D competition. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, Bertrand competition is more efficient if either R&D productivity is low or products are very different. Second, Cournot competition is more efficient provided that R&D productivity is high, products are close substitutes, and spillovers are not close to zero. This last result is different from what has been obtained in the literature. Hence, this shows that considering a dynamic model and more general investment costs does have an impact on the efficiency results.     

Exploring Little Higgs models with ATLAS at the LHC-

The European Physical Journal C - We discuss possible searches for the new particles predicted by Little Higgs Models at the LHC. By using a simulation of the ATLAS detector, we demonstrate how the...     

Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis transitions of partially and fully substituted cellulose fatty esters

The main transitions of cellulose fatty esters with different degrees of substitution (DSs) were investigated with dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. Two distinct main relaxations were observed in partially substituted cellulose esters (PSCEs). They were attributed to the glass‐transition temperature and to the chain local motion of the aliphatic substituents. The temperatures of both transitions decreased when DS or the number of carbon atoms (n) of the acyl substituent increased. Conversely, all the transitions of fully substituted cellulose esters occurred within a narrow temperature range, and they did not vary significantly with n. This phenomenon was explained by the formation of a crystalline phase of the fatty substituents. The presence of few residual OH groups in PSCEs was responsible for a large increase in the storage bending modulus, and it eliminated the effect of n on damping. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 281–288, 2003     

Dimethylamino-substituted 7H-Benzo[de]pyrazolo[5,1-a]isoquinolin-7-ones and Their Behavior under Vilsmeier-Haack Conditions

The behavior of dimethylamino-substituted 7H-benzo[de]pyrazolo[5,1-a]isoquinoline-7-ones, synthesized for the first time, under conditions of the Vilsmeier-Haack reaction. It has been shown that, on heating with POCl₃ and DMF, they are converted by electrophilic substitution at the position ortho to the dimethylamino group, followed by cyclization of the iminium adduct to a quinazolinium salt. When an acetyl group is present, the Arnold reaction, leading to the formation of a chloroaryl, accompanies the heterocyclization. The rates and proportion of the reaction products depend on the position of the dimethyl groups relative to the pyrazole ring.     

A Multidimensional Branch-and-Prune Method for Interval Global Optimization

In this paper a new multidimensional extension of the recently developed one-dimensional enclosure method called kite is given for interval global optimization. A more sophisticated version of the pruning technique based on the kite method is introduced. By the new componentwise approach all the one-dimensional theoretical results and procedures can be used in the higher-dimensional case. The possibilities in the implementation of the new algorithm together with numerical results on 40 standard test problems are presented.     

Optimally Stable Multivariate Bases

We show that the tensor product B-spline basis and the triangular Bernstein basis are in some sense best conditioned among all nonnegative bases for the spaces of tensor product splines and multivariate polynomials, respectively. We also introduce some new condition numbers which are analogs of component-wise condition numbers for linear systems introduced by Skeel.     

Duality Principles in Frame Theory

Duality principles in Gabor theory such as the Ron–Shen duality principle and the Wexler–Raz biorthogonality relations play a fundamental role for analyzing Gabor systems. In this article we present a general approach to derive duality principles in abstract frame theory. For each sequence in a separable Hilbert space we define a corresponding sequence dependent only on two orthonormal bases. Then we characterize exactly properties of the first sequence in terms of the associated one, which yields duality relations for the abstract frame setting. In the last part we apply our results to Gabor systems.     

Computation of the Morse Spectrum

The Morse spectrum is a limit set of Lyapunov exponents of periodic pseudo-trajectories. This notion is especially important in the case where a dynamical system has infinitely many periodic trajectories of large period. A method for estimating the Morse spectrum was suggested by the first author in J. Math. Anal. Appl., 252 (2000). This method is based on ideas of symbolic dynamics which reduces the study of a dynamical system to the study of a certain graph, called a symbolic image. Within the framework of this method, the computation of the Morse spectrum is connected with searching simple closed paths and extracting contours with suitable characteristics. However, under iterations of the symbolic image, the number of such paths sharply increases, which leads to huge expenses of memory and time. We suggest an algorithm for constructing contours with the maximal and minimal mean values. This algorithm is based on a special version of the simplex method. Numerical tests are also described. Bibliography: 13 titles. Illustrations: 3 figures.