Creation of a donor-acceptor pair for studying intraprotein electron transfer with the participation of amino-acid derivatives of fullerene C60

Efficient quenching of eosin phosphorescence by amino-acid derivatives of fullerene (AADFs) such as C₆₀-alanine and C₆₀-glycine in aqueous solutions indicates the possibility of transferring electrons from eosin to fullerene upon collisions or in the exciplex state. To investigate electron transfer in the protein structure, we studied the process of incorporation of C₆₀-alanine and C₆₀-glycine into the heme pocket of myoglobin by controlling Förster quenching. The dissociation constant for the protein-AADF complex was estimated.     

Quadratic distances for capacity and bi-capacity approximation and identification

The application of multi-attribute utility theory based on the Choquet integral requires the prior identification of a capacity if the utility scale is unipolar, or of a bi-capacity if the utility scale is bipolar. In order to implement a minimum distance principle for capacity or bi-capacity approximation or identification, quadratic distances between capacities and bi-capacities are studied. The proposed approach, consisting in solving a strictly convex quadratic program, has been implemented within the GNU R kappalab package for capacity and nonadditive integral manipulation. Its application is illustrated on two examples.      

Characterisation of the photocatalyst Pilkington Activ™: a reference film photocatalyst?

Pilkington Glass Activ™ represents a possible suitable successor to P25 TiO₂, especially as a benchmark photocatalyst film for comparing other photocatalyst or PSH self-cleaning films. Activ™ is a glass product with a clear, colourless, effectively invisible, photocatalytic coating of titania that also exhibits PSH. Although not as active as a film of P25 TiO₂, Activ™ vastly superior mechanical stability, very reproducible activity and widespread commercial availability makes it highly attractive as a reference photocatalytic film. The photocatalytic and photo-induced superhydrophilitic (PSH) properties of Activ™ are studied in some detail and the results reported. Thus, the kinetics of stearic acid destruction (a 10⁴ electron process) are zero order over the stearic acid range 4–129 monolayers and exhibit formal quantum efficiencies (FQE) of 0.7×10⁻⁵ and 10.2×10⁻⁵ molecules per photon when irradiated with light of 365±20 and 254 nm, respectively; the latter appears also to be the quantum yield for Activ™ at 254 nm. The kinetics of stearic acid destruction exhibit Langmuir–Hinshelwood-like saturation type kinetics as a function of oxygen partial pressure, with no destruction occurring in the absence of oxygen and the rate of destruction appearing the same in air and oxygen atmospheres. Further kinetic work revealed a Langmuir adsorption type constant for oxygen of 0.45±0.16 kPa⁻¹ and an activation energy of 19±1 kJ mol⁻¹. A study of the PSH properties of Activ™ reveals a high water contact angle (67°) before ultra-bandgap irradiation reduced to 0° after prolonged irradiation. The kinetics of PSH are similar to those reported by others for sol–gel films using a low level of UV light. The kinetics of contact angle recovery in the dark appear monophasic and different to the biphasic kinetics reported recently by others for sol–gel films [J. Phys. Chem. B 107 (2003) 1028]. Overall, Activ™ appears a very suitable reference material for semiconductor film photocatalysis.     

Self-consistent modelling of argon microwave discharge sustained by electromagnetic wave in dipole mode

Microwave discharges produced by travelling/standing electromagnetic waves have drawn considerable attention in recent years due to their wide application in microelectronic industry. Here are presented the axial distributions of the electrons and ions as well as those of excited atoms in an argon microwave discharge at a low gas pressure (400 mTorr) sustained by a 2.45 GHz travelling dipolar electromagnetic wave. The numerical calculations are based on a self-consistent kinetic-electrodynamic model and the results obtained are in a good agreement with the experimental data. The model yields also the magnitude of the wave power sustaining the discharge and the axial profiles of all electromagnetic-wave characteristics and the axial distribution of the neutral gas temperature.     

Scaling laws for the spatial distributions of the plasma parameters in the positive column of a dc oxygen discharge

Comprehensive self-consistent simulations of the positive column plasma of a dc oxygen discharge are performed with the help of commercial CFDRC software (), which enables one to carry out computations in an arbitrary 3D geometry using fluid equations for heavy components and a kinetic equation for electrons. The main scaling laws for the spatial distributions of charged particles are determined. These scaling laws are found to be quite different in the parameter ranges that are dominated by different physical processes. At low pressures, both the electrons and negative ions in the inner discharge region obey a Boltzmann distribution; as a result, a flat profile of the electron density and a parabolic profile of the ion density are established there. In the ion balance, transport processes prevail, so that ion heating in an electric field dramatically affects the spatial distribution of the charged particles. At elevated pressures, the volume processes prevail in the balance of negative ions and the profiles of the charged particle densities in the inner region turn out to be similar to each other.     

Synthesis of 5-azaadenine derivatives from N-(1,2,4-triazol-5-yl)amidines

A method is proposed for the synthesis of N-substituted 5-azaadenines. The condensation of N-(1,2,4-triazol-5-yl)amidines with trichloroacetonitrile gives trichloromethyl derivatives of 1,2,4-triazolo[1,5-a]-1,3,5-triazines, which are converted by the action of primary or secondary amines into N-alkylamino- or N,N-dialkylamino-1,2,4-triazolo-[1,5-a]-1,3,5-triazines (5-azaadenines).Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 1, pp. 241–243, January, 1991.     

The branching graphs of polyhexes: Some elementary theorems,conjectures and open questions

This paper presents a few novel results, and collects together what is known and conjectured about the branching graph of a polyhex.     

A novel approach based on recurrent neural networks applied to nonlinear systems optimization

This paper presents an efficient approach based on recurrent neural network for solving nonlinear optimization. More specifically, a modified Hopfield network is developed and its internal parameters are computed using the valid subspace technique. These parameters guarantee the convergence of the network to the equilibrium points that represent an optimal feasible solution. The main advantage of the developed network is that it treats optimization and constraint terms in different stages with no interference with each other. Moreover, the proposed approach does not require specification of penalty and weighting parameters for its initialization. A study of the modified Hopfield model is also developed to analyze its stability and convergence. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed neural network.     

Chelate synthesis of 1-alkyl-5-trifluoromethyI-1,6-naphthyridine-(1H)-4-ones

Translated fromIzvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 8, pp. 1510–1511, August, 1994.     

Climbing Mount Scalable: Physical Resource Requirements for a Scalable Quantum Computer

The primary resource for quantum computation is Hilbert-space dimension. Whereas Hilbert space itself is an abstract construction, the number of dimensions available to a system is a physical quantity that requires physical resources. Avoiding a demand for an exponential amount of these resources places a fundamental constraint on the systems that are suitable for scalable quantum computation. To be scalable, the effective number of degrees of freedom in the computer must grow nearly linearly with the number of qubits in an equivalent qubit-based quantum computer.