Optical modes in wavelength-sized organic microcavity structures

We show the impact of lateral structuring on the optical properties of organic thin films in microcavities. The active material tris-(8-hydroxy quinoline) aluminium (Alq₃) was deposited using shadow mask evaporation, resulting in various micron sized shapes. A simplified box model is employed to describe the steady state electric field distribution in these mesa cavities. The complex mode structure measured in transmission and photoluminescence is confirmed by a transfer matrix calculation and a Fourier transform of the internal electric field distribution.     

An additive Schwarz preconditioner for the FETI method

Summary.  A new additive Schwarz preconditioner for the Finite Element Tearing and Interconnecting (FETI) method is analyzed in this paper. This preconditioner has the unique feature that the coefficient matrix of its ``coarse grid' problem is mesh independent. For a model second order heterogeneous elliptic boundary value problem in two dimensions, the condition number of the preconditioned system is shown to be bounded by C[1+ln(H/h)]², where h is the mesh size, H is the typical diameter of the subdomains, and the constant C is independent of h, H, the number of subdomains and the coefficients of the boundary value problem. Received May 8, 2000 / Revised version received January 2, 2002 / Published online July 18, 2002 Mathematics Subject Classification (1991): 65N55, 65N30     

Solid-phase synthesis of dysidiolide-derived protein phosphatase inhibitors

Biologically active natural products can be regarded as evolutionary selected and biologically validated starting points in structural space for the development of compound libraries. For libraries designed and synthesized around a given natural product, a higher hit rate and the identification of biologically relevant hits can be expected, justifying a probably higher investment in the development of the corresponding syntheses. This approach requires the development of complex multistep reaction sequences on the solid phase. Employing the protein phosphatase Cdc25 inhibitor dysidiolide as an example, we demonstrate that this goal can be achieved successfully. The reaction sequences developed led to dysidiolide analogues in overall 8-12 linear steps with the longest sequence on the solid support amounting to up to 11 sequential transformations. The desired products were obtained in overall yields ranging from 6% to 27% and in multimilligram amounts starting from 100 mg of resin. The transformations applied include a variety of very different reaction types widely used in organic synthesis (i.e., an asymmetric cycloaddition employing a removable chiral auxiliary, different organometallic transformations, olefination reactions, different oxidation reactions, acidic hydrolyses, and a nucleophilic substitution). Biological investigation of the eight dysidiolide analogues synthesized showed that they inhibit Cdc25C in the low micromolar range with the IC(50) value varying by a factor of 20 and that they display considerable and differing biological activities in cytotoxicity assays employing different cancer cell lines.     

LC-APCI-MS-MS methodology for determination of glybenclamide in human plasma

A liquid chromatographic/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometric method (LC-APCI-MS-MS) for the determination of glybenclamide in human plasma is described. Glypizide, an analogue of glybenclamide, was used as internal standard. The analyte was extracted from plasma with diethyl ether/dichloromethane (70:30 v/v). The chromatography uses C₁₈ and 0.01 mol L^–1 acetic acid/acetonitrile (20:80 v/v) as stationary and mobile phase, respectively. Quantitation was preformed by using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) of the precursor ion (m/z 494.2368.8) and the related product ion (m/z 446.0347.3) using the internal standard method. The analytical curve was linear in the range 1–300 ng mL^–1, and for a 400-L sample of human plasma, the limit of determination of the method was 1 ng mL^–1. The coefficients of variation of the method for intra-assay (within-run precision) and inter-assay (between-run precision) were less than 10%. The method was shown to be suitable for pharmacokinetic studies.An erratum to this article can be found at