The combination effect of L-arginine and NaCl on bitterness suppression of amino acid solutions

The purpose of the present study was to quantify the degree of suppression of the bitterness of two amino acids (L-isoleucine (L-Ile), and L-phenylalanine (L-Phe)) which could be achieved by the addition of various test chemicals, and to examine the mechanism of this bitterness suppression. The test chemicals used were two sweeteners (sucrose, aspartame), NaCl, various acidic (L-aspartic acid, L-glutamic acid), or basic (L-histidine, L-lysine and L-arginine) amino acids, tannic acid and phosphatidic acid. The combination of L-arginine (L-Arg) and NaCl together was the most effective in reducing the bitterness of 100 mM L-Ile and L-Phe solutions in human gustatory sensation tests. Even in bitterness of 0.1 mM quinine solution, L-Arg was also successful in reducing the bitterness. This bitterness-suppression effect was specific to L-Arg and not to the other basic amino acids. No comparable taste-masking effect was observed for the acidic amino acids. The artificial taste sensor failed to predict completely the bitterness-suppressing effect of L-Arg. It seems likely that the bitterness-suppressing effect of L-Arg is mediated not only by binding at the receptor site, but also elsewhere in the process of bitterness perception, such as a direct effect on the sodium channel. It is conjectured that the guanidinium group of L-Arg may interact with sodium channels in taste bud membranes.     

Non-explosion of diffusion processes on manifolds with time-dependent metric

We study the problem of non-explosion of diffusion processes on a manifold with time-dependent Riemannian metric. In particular we obtain that Brownian motion cannot explode in finite time if the metric evolves under backwards Ricci flow. Our result makes it possible to remove the assumption of non-explosion in the pathwise contraction result established by Arnaudon et?al. (arXiv:0904.2762, to appear in Sém. Prob.). As an important tool which is of independent interest we derive an It? formula for the distance from a fixed reference point, generalising a result of Kendall (Ann. Prob. 15:1491?C1500, 1987).     

Evaluation of aryl oxalates for chemiluminescence detection in high-performance liquid chromatography

The chemiluminescence reaction between an aryl oxalate, hydrogen peroxide and a fluorescent compound is well known for use in h.p.l.c. post-column reactors. Here, several aryl oxalates are evaluated for this purpose in terms of intensity, rate of chemiluminescence decay, solubility in different solvents, and stability in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. Five oxalates are selected for different pH ranges of column eluates: bis(pentafluorophenyl) oxalate for pH < 2, bis(2,4-dinitrophenyl) oxalate for pH 2–4, bis(2-nitrophenyl) oxalate for pH 4–6, bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate for pH 6–8, and bis(2,4,5-trichlorophenyl-6-pentyloxycarbonyl) oxalate for pH > 8.     

Symmetric Versus Non-Symmetric Spin Models for Link Invariants

We study spin models as introduced in [20]. Such a spin model can be defined as a square matrix satisfying certain equations, and can be used to compute an associated link invariant. The link invariant associated with a symmetric spin model depends only trivially on link orientation. This property also holds for quasi-symmetric spin models, which are obtained from symmetric spin models by certain gauge transformations preserving the associated link invariant. Using a recent result of [16] which asserts that every spin model belongs to some Bose-Mesner algebra with duality, we show that the transposition of a spin model can be realized by a permutation of rows. We call the order of this permutation the index of the spin model. We show that spin models of odd index are quasi-symmetric. Next, we give a general form for spin models of index 2 which implies that they are associated with a certain class of symmetric spin models. The symmetric Hadamard spin models of [21] belong to this class and this leads to the introduction of non-symmetric Hadamard spin models. These spin models give the first known example where the associated link invariant depends non-trivially on link orientation. We show that a non-symmetric Hadamard spin model belongs to a certain triply regular Bose-Mesner algebra of dimension 5 with duality, and we use this to give an explicit formula for the associated link invariant involving the Jones polynomial.     

Dislocations in silicon observed by high-voltage,high-resolution electron microscopy

Dislocations in deformed silicon crystals have been studied by high-resolution electron microscopy with the axial illumination along the [110] direction using a 1 MV electron microscope. Extended 60 dislocations, Z-shape faulted dipoles and stacking fault tetrahedra were observed in atomic level. The results demonstrated the potentiality of highvoltage, high-resolution electron microscopy for the study of atomic configurations of structural defects.     

Chemical modification of hydroxyl groups of poly(vinyl alcohol) by a glycosidation reaction

A new procedure for chemical modification of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) was established by a glycosidation reaction of hydroxyl groups in PVA with triacetylated sugar oxazoline 1 . ¹H and ¹³C NMR analyses indicated that triacetylated N‐acetyl‐D‐glucosamine (GlcNAc) was introduced onto a PVA backbone selectively via a β‐O‐glycoside linkage. Deacetylation of triacetylated GlcNAc‐substituted PVA 2 resulted in GlcNAc‐substituted PVA 3 in good yield. These modified PVAs 2 and 3 exhibited solubilities and thermal properties different from the original PVA.     

Novel results obtained by freezing berry pseudorotation of phosphoranes (10‐P‐5)

By freezing Berry pseudorotation of spirophosphoranes with recourse to the rigidity of the Martin bidentate ligand, we successfully prepared configurationally stable enantiomeric pairs of optically active phosphoranes, and could isolate “anti‐apicophilic” C‐apical O‐equatorial (O‐cis) phosphoranes. The effect of σ*_{P O} orbital of the O‐cis phosphorane was investigated both experimentally and theoretically. O‐cis phosphoranes were revealed to be much more electrophilic at the phosphorus atom than O‐trans isomers by experimental studies. The acidity of the α‐proton of an O‐cis benzylphosphorane was found to be higher than that of the corresponding O‐trans isomer. By the reaction of the α‐carbanion of an O‐cis benzylphosphorane with PhCHO, we succeeded in the first isolation and full structural characterization of a 12‐P‐6 phosphate bearing an oxaphosphetane ring, the intermediate in the Wittig type reaction using a 10‐P‐5 phosphorane. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 13:390–396, 2002; Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/hc.10072