Scaled-oscillation and regularity

We give sufficient conditions for Sobolev and Lipschitz functions in terms of their lower scaled-oscillation. The sharpness of these conditions is shown by examples. Our examples also show that a Stepanov-type differentiability theorem does not hold under the boundedness assumption of the lower scaled-oscillation.

     

Spectral operators generated by damped hyperbolic equations

We announce a series of results on the spectral analysis for a class of nonselfadjoint opeators, which are the dynamics generators for the systems governed by hyperbolic equations containing dissipative terms. Two such equations are considered: the equation of nonhomogeneous damped string and the 3-dimensional damped wave equation with spacially nonhomogeneous spherically symmetric coefficients. Nonselfadjoint boundary conditions are imposed at the ends of a finite interval or on a sphere centered at the origin respectively. Our main result is the fact the aforementioned operators are spectral in the sense of N. Dunford. The result follows from the fact that the systems of root vectors of the above operators form Riesz bases in the corresponding energy spaces. We also give asymptotics of the spectra and state the Riesz basis property results for the nonselfadjoint operator pencils associated with these operators.     

Locally Adaptive Wavelet Empirical Bayes Estimation of a Location Parameter

The traditional empirical Bayes (EB) model is considered with the parameter being a location parameter, in the situation when the Bayes estimator has a finite degree of smoothness and, possibly, jump discontinuities at several points. A nonlinear wavelet EB estimator based on wavelets with bounded supports is constructed, and it is shown that a finite number of jump discontinuities in the Bayes estimator do not affect the rate of convergence of the prior risk of the EB estimator to zero. It is also demonstrated that the estimator adjusts to the degree of smoothness of the Bayes estimator, locally, so that outside the neighborhoods of the points of discontinuities, the posterior risk has a high rate of convergence to zero. Hence, the technique suggested in the paper provides estimators which are significantly superior in several respects to those constructed earlier.     

Atomic layer deposition in nanometer-level replication of cellulosic substances and preparation of photocatalytic TiO2/cellulose composites

TiO2 replicas of filter paper with nanometer-level accuracy were prepared by atomic layer deposition of thin conformal TiO2 coating, followed by a removal of the paper by air-anneal at 450 degrees C. Photocatalytic anatase TiO2/cellulose composites were also made by leaving the paper intact. The TiO2 films were deposited from Ti(OMe)4 and H2O at 150-250 degrees C. The photocatalytic activity of the TiO2/cellulose composite was verified by photocatalytic reduction of Ag(I) from an aqueous solution to Ag nanoparticles on the TiO2 surface. The TiO2/cellulose composites are mechanically more stable than the free-standing TiO2 replicas and are therefore potentially suitable as lightweight, high surface area photocatalysts.     

In situ enzymatic digestion of oligopeptides on a direct insertion probe tip combined with fast atom bombardment and tandem mass spectrometry

The applicability of an approach to establish the sequence of oligopeptides involving on-probe-tip enzymatic fragmentation and subsequent direct fast atom bombardment (FAB) mass spectrometry (MS) and FAB-MS/MS of the subpeptide mixture was tested using two model peptides consisting of 19 and 25 amino acid residues. The method was found to be both time and sample sparing and flexible enough to use even subsequent digests, if necessary, with enzymes of different specificity. It provided in both cases complete information, not only for the sequence of enzymic fragments but also for their order in the original oligopeptide. Consequently, this approach to the sequence analysis of oligopeptides can be a method of choice when the FAB-MS/MS technique itself is unsuitable for obtaining detailed structural information. The method seems to be applicable to enzymically digestible peptides with an upper mass limit of about 3500.     

Mass spectrometric studies on azidomorphine derivatives

The mass spectrometric behaviour of nine azidomorphine derivatives have been studied. These compounds proved to have surprisingly specific and selective fragmentation under electron-impact. For 6-deoxy-6-azido-dihydro-isomorphine derivatives (I to V) the main decomposition pathway involves the loss of an N₂ molecule followed by a very rapid and selective fragmentation process. On the other hand, the molecular ions of 6-deoxy-8-azido-pseudomorphine derivatives (VI to VIII) and 6-deoxy-6-azido-14-hydroxy-isocodein (IX) primarily decompose by loss of the N₃ radical. This is due to the allylic effect of the double bond in ring C, corresponding to the chemical behaviour of these compounds.     

First chemical study of anaspidean Syphonota geographica: structure of degraded sterols aplykurodinone-1 and -2

Two unprecedented degraded sterols, aplykurodinone-1 (1) and -2 (2), have been isolated from the skin of the marine anaspidean Syphonota geographica, collected along the coasts of Greece. The structures and the relative stereochemistry were established by spectroscopic analysis and confirmed by chemical correlation with related known compounds.     

Toward fully synthetic carbohydrate-based HIV antigen design: on the critical role of bivalency

Synthetic gp120331-335 glycopeptide fragments carrying hybrid and high-mannose type N-linked glycans were evaluated for binding to broadly neutralizing antibody 2G12 using surface plasmon resonance technology. None of the hybrid-type constructs demonstrated binding to 2G12. In the high-mannose series, the "Cys dimer" construct, presenting two undecasaccharide glycans, showed significantly higher binding than the Cys-protected monomer. The binding of the dimeric structure was further investigated in competition with recombinant gp120. The data suggest that gp120 and its designed synthetic epitope construct bind to the same site on 2G12.     

Peptide backbone folding induced by the C(alpha)-tetrasubstituted cyclic alpha-amino acids 4-amino-1,2-dithiolane-4-carboxylic acid (Adt) and 1-aminocyclopentane-1-carboxylic acid (Ac5c). A joint computational and experimental study

The conformational study of a new group of synthetic peptides containing 4-amino-1,2-dithiolane-4-carboxylic acid (Adt), a cysteine-related achiral residue, has been carried out through a joint application of computational and experimental methodologies. Molecular Dynamics simulations clearly suggest the tendency of this molecule to adopt a gamma-turn conformation in vacuum and help in analyzing the complex and crucial conformational behaviour of the dithiolane ring which appears to preferentially adopt a C(S)-like structure. Electronic structure calculations carried out in solution using the Density Functional Theory also indicate the preservation of the gamma-like folding in apolar solvents and the helix-like one in more polar solvents. A comparison with the achiral 1-aminocycloalkane-1-carboxylic acid (Ac5c) has been carried out using the same computational tools. NMR and IR data on dipeptide derivatives containing the Adt or Ac5c residue show that in chloroform solution all the models prefer a gamma-turn structure, centered at the cyclic residue, stabilized by an intramolecular H-bond, whereas in a more polar solvent, i.e. dimethyl sulfoxide, this folding is not maintained. The experimental conformational studies, extended to N-Boc protected tripeptides, clearly indicate the remarkable tendency of both the five-membered C(alpha)-tetrasubstituted cyclic amino acids Adt and Ac5c to induce the gamma-turn structure also in models able to adopt the beta-bend conformation.