Policies for biodefense revisited: The prioritized vaccination process for smallpox

Handling bioterror events that involve contagious agents is a major concern for authorities and a cause for debate among policymakers about the best response policy. At the core of this debate stands the question which of the two post-event policies to adopt: mass vaccination or trace (also called ring or targeted) vaccination. We present a new dynamic epidemic-intervention model that captures key features of the situation and generalizes some previous assumptions regarding the probability distributions of inter-temporal parameters. It is shown that a mixture of mass and trace vaccination policies—the prioritized vaccination policy—is more effective than either of the two aforementioned policies.     

Quasiparticle bandstructures of covalent semiconductors and their surfaces

The exchange-correlation self-energies and quasiparticle shifts are calculated for band states of covalent materials (diamond, silicon) and their (001) 2×1 surface in order to solve the bulk and surface band-gap problem of the LDA. The screening properties are described by a model dielectric function taking into account the spatial nonlocality in the surface case assuming specular electron reflection. The wave functions are expanded in terms of localized orbitals. The quasiparticle bandstructures obtained are in reasonable agreement with experimental results.     

Spectres infrarouges et raman du complexe solide MgBr22Et2O: Changement de phase et isomérie de rotation des molécules d'éther coordonnées

Infrared and Raman spectra of solid magnesium bromide dietherate MgBr₂2Et₂O have been studied at different temperatures between 300 and 90 °K in the 4000 to 30 cm^? range. Infrared spectra of this compound at various pressures up to 10 kbar have also been investigated. The MgBr₂2Et₂O crystal has two phases and there is a reversible transition between them. This phase transition concerns primarily the conformational change of (C₂Hg₅)₂O molecules and much less the arrangement of the ligands around the central magnesium atom. At room temperature or low pressure the GG conformation appears to be predominant while at low temperature or high pressure there is only TG (or TT) conformation of ether molecules. The enthalpy difference and transition temperature between the phases have been determined calorimetrically. An assignment of the spectra of both phases is given. The analysis of intramolecular vibrations gives information about the relative contribution of conformational change and coordination effect to the frequency shifts of (C₂H₅)₂O vibrations. The assignment of magnesium-ligand vibrations on the other hand allows us to estimate the Mg-Br and Mg-O force constants.     

Coarse-grained rigid blob model for soft matter simulations

We have developed a coarse-grained multiscale molecular simulation method for soft matter systems that directly incorporates stereochemical information. We divide the material into disjoint groups of atoms or particles that move as separate rigid bodies; we call these groups "rigid blobs," hence the name coarse-grained rigid blob model. The method is enabled by the construction of transferable interblob potentials that approximate the net intermolecular interactions, as obtained from ab initio electronic structure calculations, other all-atom empirical potentials, experimental data, or any combination of the above. We utilize a multipolar expansion to obtain the interblob potential-energy functions. The series, which contains controllable approximations that allow us to estimate the errors, approaches the original intermolecular potential as the number of terms increases. Using a novel numerical algorithm, we can calculate the interblob potentials very efficiently in terms of a few interaction moment tensors. This reduces the labor well beyond what is required in standard molecular-dynamics calculations and allows large-scale simulations for temporal scales commensurate with characteristic times of nano- and mesoscale systems. A detailed derivation of the formulas is presented, followed by illustrative applications to several systems showing that the method can effectively capture realistic microscopic details and can easily extend to large-scale simulations.     

A convenient and general synthesis of 2-amino-1,3,4-thiadiazoles. Dehydration of acylthiosemicarbazides with methanesulfonic acid

2-Amino-5-alkyl and 2-amino-5-aryl-1,3,4-thiadiazoles were prepared by the dehydration of 2-acylthiosemicarbazides with molar equivalents of methanesulfonic acid in refluxing toluene. The synthesis appears to be general.     

An alternative multipolar expansion for intermolecular potential functions

We have derived a new multipolar expansion for intermolecular potential-energy functions with applications in molecular physics, theoretical chemistry, and mathematical physics. The new formulation employs a separation of radial and angular terms with a simple index structure that leads to computational efficiency and ease of physical interpretation. For the case of the Coulomb interaction, we compare the present formulation with two conventional multipole expansions: the Cartesian tensor and the irreducible spherical tensor expansions. The new formalism leads to efficient numerical algorithms that are useful for general applications beyond intermolecular potentials. In addition to the electrostatic Coulomb interaction, we illustrate the formalism with applications to special function theory and a bipolar expansion involved in potential theory.     

Second-order superintegrable quantum systems

A classical (or quantum) superintegrable system on an n-dimensional Riemannian manifold is an integrable Hamiltonian system with potential that admits 2n ? 1 functionally independent constants of the motion that are polynomial in the momenta, the maximum number possible. If these constants of the motion are all quadratic, then the system is second-order superintegrable, the most tractable case and the one we study here. Such systems have remarkable properties: multi-integrability and separability, a quadratic algebra of symmetries whose representation theory yields spectral information about the Schrödinger operator, and deep connections with expansion formulas relating classes of special functions. For n = 2 and for conformally flat spaces when n = 3, we have worked out the structure of the classical systems and shown that the quadratic algebra always closes at order 6. Here, we describe the quantum analogs of these results. We show that, for nondegenerate potentials, each classical system has a unique quantum extension.