Taveuniamides: new chlorinated toxins from a mixed assemblage of marine cyanobacteria

Brine shrimp toxicity guided fractionation of the extracts from two mixed Fijian collections of the cyanobacteria Lyngbya majuscula and Schizothrix sp. led to the isolation of eleven novel chlorinated lipids. All of these metabolites show an intriguing constellation of unsaturation (olefinic and acetylenic bonds) and chlorination at the two termini of a 15-carbon chain. The central carbon atom of the chain (C-8) is substituted in each case with an N-acetate function. Taveuniamides A-E have an adjacent carbomethoxy group at C-9 to form a protected β-amino acid while taveuniamides F-K have a methylene group at this position. A standard assortment of 2D NMR techniques in concert with mass spectrometry and other analytical techniques were used to define the structures of these novel metabolites. Taveuniamides F, G and K were the most potent brine shrimp toxins with LD₅₀s between 1.7-1.9 μg/mL.     

The six semifield planes associated with a semifield flock

In 1965 Knuth (J. Algebra 2 (1965) 182) noticed that a finite semifield was determined by a 3-cube array (a_ijk) and that any permutation of the indices would give another semifield. In this article we explain the geometrical significance of these permutations. It is known that a pair of functions (f,g) where f and g are functions from GF(q) to GF(q) with the property that f and g are linear over some subfield and g(x)²+4xf(x) is a non-square for all x∈GF(q)∗, q odd, give rise to certain semifields, one of which is commutative of rank 2 over its middle nucleus, one of which arises from a semifield flock of the quadratic cone, and another that comes from a translation ovoid of Q(4,q). We show that there are in fact six non-isotopic semifields that can be constructed from such a pair of functions, which will give rise to six non-isomorphic semifield planes, unless (f,g) are of linear type or of Dickson-Kantor-Knuth type. These six semifields fall into two sets of three semifields related by Knuth operations.     

Mother-to-child transmission of HIV: a simulation-based approach for the evaluation of intervention strategies

Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV is the most significant source of HIV infection in children below the age of 15 years. In 2000 alone, about 600 000 new infections occurred, the vast majority from mothers living in developing countries who were not aware of their HIV-positive status. To date, at least 4.3 million children have died from AIDS. In this paper, we discuss the development of an operational model that can be used to evaluate intervention options for the prevention of MTCT of HIV. The problem was approached by defining suitable pregnancy risk groups, prevention options and the required model outputs to evaluate different intervention strategies. The method chosen to approach the problem was a discrete-event, three-phase simulation, built in Visual Basic, with a stochastic semi-Markov structure. The developed model takes individual pregnant women through each stage of their pregnancy, labour and birth. Different intervention strategies may be modelled at any time, including short-course antiretroviral drugs and cessation of breastfeeding. The model is demonstrated with data from Botswana, which has one of the highest HIV-infection rates in the world.     

The Computable Dimension of I-Trees of Infinite Height

We study computable trees with distinguished initial subtree (briefly, I-trees). It is proved that all I-trees of infinite height are computably categorical, and moreover, they all have effectively infinite computable dimension.     

Effect of the Structure of Oxypropylated Hydroxyl-Containing Molecules on Glycolysis of Foamed Polyurethane

The activity of a polyether derived from ethylene and propylene oxides (Laprol 5003) and of N,N,N',N'-tetra(hydroxypropyl)ethylenediamine (Lapramol 294) in glycolytic degradation of elastic foamed polyurethane was studied.     

Representing the mean residual life in terms of the failure rate

In survival or reliability studies, the mean residual life or life expectancy is an important characteristic of the model. Whereas the failure rate can be expressed quite simply in terms of the mean residual life and its derivative, the inverse problem—namely that of expressing the mean residual life in terms of the failure rate—typically involves an integral of a complicated expression. In this paper, we obtain simple expressions for the mean residual life in terms of the failure rate for certain classes of distributions which subsume many of the standard cases. Several results in the literature can be obtained using our approach. Additionally, we develop an expansion for the mean residual life in terms of Gaussian probability functions for a broad class of ultimately increasing failure rate distributions. Some examples are provided to illustrate the procedure.     

TGF-β1 induction of the adenine nucleotide translocator 1 in astrocytes occurs through Smads and Sp1 transcription factors

Background  

The adenine nucleotide translocator 1 (Ant1) is an inner mitochondrial membrane protein involved with energy mobilization during oxidative phosphorylation. We recently showed that rodent Ant1 is upregulated by transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) in reactive astrocytes following CNS injury. In the present study, we describe the molecular mechanisms by which TGF-β1 regulates Ant1 gene expression in cultured primary rodent astrocytes.     

Ion-interaction chromatography of several metallocyanide complexes stabilized by adding cyanide in a neutral mobile phase.

Standard solutions (at 10(-5) M levels) of Cu(I)- and Fe(II)-cyanide complexes were stabilized for at least 5 h using 0.5 mM cyanide solution (around pH 9) as a medium. Complexes of Cu(I)- and Fe(III)-cyanide also could be stabilized without any dissociation by adding 1 mM cyanide to an acetonitrile-water (18:82, v/v) mobile phase (pH 7.0) containing 10 mM tetra-n-propylammonium salt (TPA). Under the optimal conditions, the six complexes of Cu(I)-, Ag(I)-, Ni(II)-, Fe(II)-, Fe(III)- and Au(I)-cyanides were resolved from their mixtures within about 45 min, with well-shaped chromatographic peaks.