Kinetics of proton transfer in a green fluorescent protein: A laser-induced pH jump study

The sub-millisecond protonation dynamics of the chromophore in S65T mutant form of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) was tracked after a rapid pH jump following laser-induced proton release from the caged photolabile compoundo-nitrobenzaldehyde. Following a jump in pH from 8 to 5 (which is achieved within 2 μs), the fluorescence of S65T GFP decreased as a single exponential with a time constant of ∼90 μs. This decay is interpreted as the conversion of the deprotonated fluorescent GFP chromophore to a protonated non-fluorescent species. The protonation kinetics showed dependence on the bulk viscosity of the solvent, and therefore implicates bulk solvent-controlled protein dynamics in the protonation process. The protonation is proposed to be a sequential process involving two steps: (a) proton transfer from solvent to the chromophore, and (b) internal structural rearrangements to stabilize a protonated chromophore. The possible implications of these observations to protein dynamics in general is discussed     

Design and Fabrication of Composite Smart Structures with High Electric and Mechanical Performances for Future Mobile Communication

In this paper, we have developed a load-bearing outer skin for antennas, which is termed a composite smart structure (CSS). The CSS is a multilayer composite sandwich structure in which antenna layers are inserted. A direct-feed stacked patch antenna is considered. A design procedure including the structure design, material selection, and design of antenna elements in order to obtain high electric and mechanical performances is presented. An optimized honeycomb thickness is selected for efficient radiation and impedance characteristics. High gain conditions can be obtained by placing the outer facesheet in the resonance position, which is at about a half wavelength distance from the ground plane. The measured electrical performances show that the CSS has a great bandwidth (over 10%) and a higher gain than an antenna without a facesheet and has excellent mechanical performances, owing to the composite laminates and honeycomb cores. The CSS concept can be extended to give a useful guide for manufacturers of structural body panels and for antenna designers.     

Improved bounds for some nonstandard problems in generalized heat conduction

We consider the Maxwell-Cattaneo system of equations for generalized heat conduction where the temperature and heat flux satisfy a nonstandard auxiliary condition which prescribes a combination of their values initially and at a later time. We obtain L₂ bounds for the temperature and heat flux by means of Lagrange identities. These bounds extend the range of validity for the parameter in the nonstandard condition under a constraint on the coefficients in the differential equations.     

Sur les grands quotients partiels du développement en fraction continue

In this paper we obtain some metrics results about large partial quotients in the continued fraction expansion.     

Global Solution of Optimization Problems with Parameter-Embedded Linear Dynamic Systems

This paper develops a theory for the global solution of nonconvex optimization problems with parameter-embedded linear dynamic systems. A quite general problem formulation is introduced and a solution is shown to exists. A convexity theory for integrals is then developed to construct convex relaxations for utilization in a branch-and-bound framework to calculate a global minimum. Interval analysis is employed to generate bounds on the state variables implied by the bounds on the embedded parameters. These bounds, along with basic integration theory, are used to prove convergence of the branch-and-bound algorithm to the global minimum of the optimization problem. The implementation of the algorithm is then considered and several numerical case studies are examined thoroughly     

Maximizing revenue in the airline industry under one-way pricing

The paper describes a methodology that has been implemented in a major British airline to find the optimal price to charge for airline tickets under one-way pricing. An analytical model has been developed to describe the buying behaviour of customers for flights over the selling period. Using this model and a standard analytical method for constrained optimization, we can find an expression for the optimal price structure for a flight. The expected number of bookings made on each day of the selling period and in each fare class given these prices can then be easily calculated. A simulation model is used to find the confidence ranges on the numbers of bookings and these ranges can be used to regulate the sale of tickets. A procedure to update the price structure based on the remaining capacity has also been developed.     

Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis transitions of partially and fully substituted cellulose fatty esters

The main transitions of cellulose fatty esters with different degrees of substitution (DSs) were investigated with dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. Two distinct main relaxations were observed in partially substituted cellulose esters (PSCEs). They were attributed to the glass‐transition temperature and to the chain local motion of the aliphatic substituents. The temperatures of both transitions decreased when DS or the number of carbon atoms (n) of the acyl substituent increased. Conversely, all the transitions of fully substituted cellulose esters occurred within a narrow temperature range, and they did not vary significantly with n. This phenomenon was explained by the formation of a crystalline phase of the fatty substituents. The presence of few residual OH groups in PSCEs was responsible for a large increase in the storage bending modulus, and it eliminated the effect of n on damping. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 281–288, 2003     

Properties of the Central Points in Linear Programming Problems

In this paper we list several useful properties of central points in linear programming problems. We study the logarithmic barrier function, the analytic center and the central path, relating the proximity measures and scaled Euclidean distances defined for the primal and primal–dual problems. We study the Newton centering steps, and show how large the short steps used in path following algorithms can actually be, and what variation can be ensured for the barrier function in each iteration of such methods. We relate the primal and primal–dual Newton centering steps and propose a primal-only path following algorithm for linear programming.     

Duality Principles in Frame Theory

Duality principles in Gabor theory such as the Ron–Shen duality principle and the Wexler–Raz biorthogonality relations play a fundamental role for analyzing Gabor systems. In this article we present a general approach to derive duality principles in abstract frame theory. For each sequence in a separable Hilbert space we define a corresponding sequence dependent only on two orthonormal bases. Then we characterize exactly properties of the first sequence in terms of the associated one, which yields duality relations for the abstract frame setting. In the last part we apply our results to Gabor systems.