Light Modulates Electric Phenomena in Hornet Cuticle¶

In the cuticle of live social hornets, such as Vespa orientalis (Hymenoptera, Vespinae), endogenous electric effects are encountered, i.e. voltages of 100–200 mV under illumination and currents amounting to several microamperes on its subjection to darkness—clearly a process of charging and discharging. Of the various wavelengths of sunlight, UV was found to be the most contributory to the active cuticular voltage generation. Throughout the warm season of the yearthe–the active period in colonies of social hornets and wasps—colony members exit from the dark nest during the daytime and fly to the field under the hot sun for various foraging purposes, ultimately returning to the nest. Thus, each hornet, be it queen, worker or drone, probably undergoes daily cyclical process of electric charge and discharge in the exterior part of their integument, cuticle, which lasts up to 30–40 min. Such photoelectric phenomenon was detected in both live, ether‐anaesthetized hornets and dead hornets, albeit in the latter the electric values recorded were lower. The present study addresses the possible impact of the phenomenon on vespan daily life and also compares it with a parallel occurrence in electric fish.     

Making Use of Incomplete Observations for Regression in Bivariate Normal Model

Two estimates of the regression coefficient in bivariate normal distribution are considered: the usual one based on a sample and a new one making use of additional observations of one of the variables. They are compared with respect to variance. The same is done for two regression lines. The conclusion is that the additional observations are worth using only when the sample is very small.     

Densitometric Determination of Embelin in Lysimachia punctata

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - Athin layer chromatographic method with densitometric UV detection at λ = 285 nm has been developed for quantification of...     

Medicinal Organometallic Chemistry: Designing Metal Arene Complexes as Anticancer Agents

The field of medicinal inorganic chemistry is rapidly advancing. In particular organometallic complexes have much potential as therapeutic and diagnostic agents. The carbon‐bound and other ligands allow the thermodynamic and kinetic reactivity of the metal ion to be controlled and also provide a scaffold for functionalization. The establishment of structure–activity relationships and elucidation of the speciation of complexes under conditions relevant to drug testing and formulation are crucial for the further development of promising medicinal applications of organometallic complexes. Specific examples involving the design of ruthenium and osmium arene complexes as anticancer agents are discussed.     

Acyclovir terminated thiophosphate dendrimers

An efficient synthesis of antiviral dendritic prodrug candidates, water-soluble, polyanionic conjugates of 1st and 2nd generation thiophosphate dendrimers with acyclovir, is described.     

Searching for new conditions for fermion N-representability

New elements of the dual cone of the set of fermion N-representable 2-density operators are proposed. So far, the explicit form of the corresponding necessary conditions for N-representability is obtained for N = 3. In this case the new condition is stronger than the known B- and C-conditions for 3-representability. The results provide evidence that in the spectral decomposition of the N-representable 2-density operator there exists an intrinsic relation between the eigenvalue and the corresponding eigenfunction.     

Thermal Analysis in Examination of Reduction of Blast Furnace Pellets

This paper presents applications of thermal analysis to observe the course of reduction of acidic pellets, metallurgical substances whose reducibility and strength are basic parameters of use in blast furnace processes. Both parameters depend on the mineral composition of the samples. The investigations included determination of the chemical and phase compositions of the initial samples and reduction products. Research was conducted on acidic pellets from Połtawa (Poland), applied in the T. Sendzimir Steelworks (Poland), in comparison with pellets from Brazil, Canada and Lebedyn (Russia). This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Asymptotic values of polynomial mappings of the real plane

Using algebraically constructible functions we give a generically effective method to detect asymptotic values of polynomial mappings with finite fibers defined on the real plane. By asymptotic variety we mean the set of points at which the polynomial mapping fails to be proper.