Stability conditions in families

Publications mathématiques de l'IHÉS - We develop a theory of Bridgeland stability conditions and moduli spaces of semistable objects for a family of varieties. Our approach is based...     

Freeze–Thaw-Promoted Fabrication of Clean and Hierarchically Structured Noble-Metal Aerogels for Electrocatalysis and Photoelectrocatalysis

Noble-metal aerogels (NMAs) have drawn increasing attention because of their self-supported conductive networks, high surface areas, and numerous optically/catalytically active sites, enabling their impressive performance in diverse fields. However, the fabrication methods suffer from tedious procedures, long preparation times, unavoidable impurities, and uncontrolled multiscale structures, discouraging their developments. By utilizing the self-healing properties of noble-metal aggregates, the freezing-promoted salting-out behavior, and the ice-templating effect, a freeze–thaw method is crafted that is capable of preparing various hierarchically structured noble-metal gels within one day without extra additives. In light of their cleanliness, the multi-scale structures, and combined catalytic/optical properties, the electrocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic performance of NMAs are demonstrated, which surpasses that of commercial noble-metal catalysts.     

Predicting 19F NMR Chemical Shifts: A Combined Computational and Experimental Study of a Trypanosomal Oxidoreductase–Inhibitor Complex

The absence of fluorine from most biomolecules renders it an excellent probe for NMR spectroscopy to monitor inhibitor–protein interactions. However, predicting the binding mode of a fluorinated ligand from a chemical shift (or vice versa) has been challenging due to the high electron density of the fluorine atom. Nonetheless, reliable ¹⁹F chemical-shift predictions to deduce ligand-binding modes hold great potential for in silico drug design. Herein, we present a systematic QM/MM study to predict the ¹⁹F NMR chemical shifts of a covalently bound fluorinated inhibitor to the essential oxidoreductase tryparedoxin (Tpx) from African trypanosomes, the causative agent of African sleeping sickness. We include many protein–inhibitor conformations as well as monomeric and dimeric inhibitor–protein complexes, thus rendering it the largest computational study on chemical shifts of ¹⁹F nuclei in a biological context to date. Our predicted shifts agree well with those obtained experimentally and pave the way for future work in this area.     

On variational inequalities over polyhedral sets

Mathematical Programming - The results on regularity behavior of solutions to variational inequalities over polyhedral sets proved in a series of papers by Robinson, Ralph and Dontchev-Rockafellar...     

Catalyst-Free Arylation of Tertiary Phosphines with Diaryliodonium Salts Enabled by Visible Light

The visible-light-induced arylation of tertiary phosphines with aryl(mesityl)iodonium triflates to produce the quaternary phosphonium salts occurs under mild, metal, and catalyst-free conditions. Photo-excited EDA complexes between diaryliodonium salts and phosphines supposedly enable this transformation, which is difficult to achieve through the traditional ground-state reactions. Demonstrating high functional group tolerance, broad scope, and complete selectivity of the aryl group transfer, the method is particularly compatible with sterically congested phosphines, which are challenging under metal-based catalytic methods.     

Modeling of the glycine tripeptide cyclization in the Ser65Gly/Tyr66Gly mutant of green fluorescent protein

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Phosphorylation of pyridoxal azomethines. Synthesis of phosphorus containing azomethines and furopyridines

New O-phosphorylated pyridoxal derivatives have been synthesized through the reaction of azomethines with Р^V acid chlorides. 2-Chloro-2-thioxo-5,5-dimethyl-1,3,2-dioxaphosphinanes and diethylchlorothiophosphate have been employed as phosphorylating agents. Regardless of the nature of the phosphorylating agent, the reaction is regioselective at phenolic hydroxyl group. The structure of final products is determined by the nature of the substituent at the nitrogen atom. If R is alkyl or cycloalkyl group, the products of the reaction represent phosphorylated pyridoxal imines, whereas phosphorylated furopyridines are formed in the case R is aryl substituent.     

Fluorescent core-shell polymer particles containing luminophore dyes: synthesis and optical response to acetone

Monodisperse dye-containing crosslinked particles are promising for application in novel optical chemical sensors due to their intrinsic sensitivity. However, preparation of these particles in aqueous media still remains a challenge, since luminophores inhibit radical processes or else cannot embed into polymer chains because of difference in monomer reactivity ratios. In this work, novel dye-containing monodisperse crosslinked particles were prepared and characterized. In order to obtain dye-containing monodisperse crosslinked particles, we studied seed copolymerization of styrene in the presence of divinylbenzene. The influence of nature and concentration of the used comonomers and co-solvents on shape, size distributions and surface characteristics of the particles formed was investigated. Shapes and diameters of the particles were analyzed by DLS, TEM and SEM. The data of SEM and optical spectroscopy studies demonstrated that the synthesized particles were able to self-assemble into thin-film three-dimensional ordered structures. Finally, the structures under study are promising for development of sensor devices with optical response to acetone.     

On a borderline between the NP-hard and polynomial-time solvable cases of the flow shop with job-dependent storage requirements

The paper is concerned with the two-machine flow shop, where each job requires an additional resource (referred to as storage space) from the start of its first operation till the end of its second operation. The storage requirement of a job is determined by the processing time of its first operation. At any point in time, the total consumption of this additional resource cannot exceed a given limit (referred to as the storage capacity). The goal is to minimise the makespan, i.e. to minimise the time needed for the completion of all jobs. This problem is NP-hard in the strong sense. The paper analyses how the parameter - a lower bound on the storage capacity specified in terms of the processing times, affects the computational complexity.