Purification and characterization of an extracellular α-l-arabinofuranosidase from Fusarium oxysporum

An α-l-arabinofuranosidase from Fusarium oxysporum F3 was purified to homogeneity by a two-step ion exchange intercalated by a gel filtration chromatography. The enzyme had a molecular mass of 66 kDa and was optimally active at pH 6.0 and 60°C. It hydrolyzed aryl α-l-arabinofuranosides and cleaved arabinosyl side chains from arabinoxylan and arabinan. There was a marked synergistic effect between the α-l-arabinofuranosidase and an endo-(1 →4)-β-d-xylanase produced by F. oxysporum in the extensive hydrolysis of arabinoxylan.     

Long-range order in a simple model of interacting fermions

We consider a model of spinless fermions on a lattice, interacting through a nearest neighbor repulsion. In the half-filled band case and for dimensionsd 2, we rigorously prove that there is long-range order in some domain of the parameters=(k _B T)^–1 andt/U, wheret is the hopping amplitude of the particles,U the strength of their repulsion, and the inverse temperature. Our technique is based on the usual Peierls argument of classical statistical mechanics but fails for the groundstate. We discuss the specific difficulties introduced by the Fermi statistics.Work supported in part by U.S. NSF grant PHY 90-19433-A02.     

Some Isoperimetric Inequalities in Electrochemistry and Hele Shaw Flows

Isoperimetric inequalities are applied to a moving-boundaryproblem for doubly-connected domains. This problem occurs forexample in electrochemistry, in which case the domains in questionare the electrolyte of an electrolytic cell. The two electrodessurrounding the electrolyte are assumed to grow or dissolve,at different rates in general, by electrochemical reaction.We obtain optimal estimates showing, for example, that the leastchange in volume of each electrode always occurs in sphericalsymmetry.     

Ground states and flux configurations of the two-dimensional Falicov-Kimball model

The Falicov-Kimball model is a lattice model of itinerant spinless fermions (electrons) interacting by an on-site potential with classical particles (ions). We continue the investigations of the crystalline ground states that appear for various filling of electrons and ions for large coupling. We investigate the model for square as well as triangular lattices. New ground states are found and the effects of a magnetic flux on the structure of the phase diagram are studied. The flux phase problem where one has to find the optimal flux configurations and the nuclei configurations is also solved in some cases. Finally we consider a model where the fermions are replaced by hard-core bosons. This model also has crystalline ground states. Therefore their existence does not require the Pauli principle, but only the on-site hard-core constraint for the itinerant particles.