β-Methyl-2-amino-2,3-didesoxyribofuranoside,a Novel Building Block for Backbone Modified Antisense Oligonucleotides

Summary. A synthesis of the amino sugar 2-amino-2,3-didesoxyribose is described. Starting from D-glucosamine, -methylfuranoside was obtained in eight steps in 20% yield. This carbohydrate is a novel building block for nucleosides and for backbone modified antisense oligonucleotides with 2–5 amide linkages.     

Blow-up of solutions to a degenerate parabolic equation not in divergence form

We study nonglobal positive solutions to the Dirichlet problem for u_t=u^p(Δu+u) in bounded domains, where 0<p<2. It is proved that the set of points at which u blows up has positive measure and the blow-up rate is exactly . If either the space dimension is one or p<1, the ω-limit set of consists of continuous functions solving . In one space dimension it is shown that actually as t→T, where w coincides with an element of a one-parameter family of functions inside each component of its positivity set; furthermore, we study the size of the components of {w>0} with the result that this size is uniquely determined by Ω in the case p<1, while for p>1, the positivity set can have the maximum possible size for certain initial data, but it may also be arbitrarily close to the minimal length π.     

Temperature sensitivity and noise of an HTSC Josephson detector on a sapphire bicrystal substrate at 77 K

In YBa₂Cu₃O_{7 − x} films grown on sapphire bicrystal substrates, the Josephson junctions are prepared based on artificial grain boundaries formed by the turn of the crystal lattices about the [100] axis. The films are deposited by the laser ablation method on the buffer CeO₂ layer. The critical film temperature reaches 88.5 K with a transition width of 1.5 K. Junctions from 2 to 3-μ m wide are integrated into the planar log-periodic antennas and their characteristics are measured at 77 K. The characteristic voltage I _c R _n reaches 570 μV. With exposure to external radiation at a frequency of 113 GHz, the Shapiro steps were observed on the current-voltage characteristic. The temperature sensitivity of this detector placed in a quasi-optical receiving unit is measured. At the modulation of the input radiation temperature 77 K/300 K, a response of more than 200 nV is observed at the detector output. At the modulation frequency, intrinsic noise is about 1 nV/Hz^1/2, which corresponds to a temperature resolution of 1 K. Original Russian Text ? M. Tarasov, E. Stepantsov, A. Kalabukhov, M. Kupriyanov, D. Winkler, 2007, published in Pis’ma v Zhurnal éksperimental’noĭ i Teoreticheskoĭ Fiziki, 2007, Vol. 86, No. 11, pp. 828–831.     

Energy-filtered XPEEM with NanoESCA using synchrotron and laboratory X-ray sources: Principles and first demonstrated results

The importance of energy filtering in PEEM-based imaging methods has been shown in recent years with the availability of powerful instruments. A new instrument, the NanoESCA, combines a fully electrostatic PEEM column and an aberration corrected double hemispherical analyser as energy filter. This paper reports on recently demonstrated XPEEM results using the first commercially available NanoESCA instrument operated with both synchrotron soft X-rays and monochromatic laboratory Al Kα radiation. The implementation of elemental and bonding-state specific imaging is shown with both excitation sources. The presently achieved (but not yet ultimate) lateral resolutions on energy filtered core-level images are 150 nm with a large synchrotron spot and below 1 μm with a focused laboratory source. To date this is the unique example of laboratory XPEEM core-level imaging.     

Bond-length fluctuations in transition-metal oxoperovskites

Bond-length fluctuations in transition-metal oxoperovskites may give rise to two-phase fluctuations in what appears to be a single phase to a diffraction experiment. Orbital disorder at Jahn-Teller ions results in bond-length fluctuations that give 3D-ferromagnetic, vibronic Mn(III)-O-Mn(III) superexchange interactions and allow disproportionation into Mn(IV) and Mn(II) in LaMnO₃; where orbitally ordered and disordered phases coexist, an external magnetic field stabilizes the orbitally disordered, ferromagnetic phase relative to the orbitally ordered, antiferromagnetic phase. Spin-lattice interactions in the paramagnetic phase of charge-transfer compounds give bond-length fluctuations arising from the semicovalent component of the superexchange interactions. At the crossover from localized to itinerant electronic behavior, the coexistence of two-phase fluctuations has been demonstrated in both the single-valent RNiO₃ family (R=rare-earth, A=alkaline-earth) and the mixed-valent R_0.5A_0.5MnO₃ perovskites. “Bad-metal” behavior is found to be associated with bond-length fluctuations.     

All organic host-guest crystals based on a dumb-bell-shaped conjugated host for light harvesting through resonant energy transfer

Together we glow: Fully organic host-guest crystals with two dyes inserted in their parallel nanochannels display broad emission in the visible range thanks to resonant energy transfer. The conjugated host crystal provides light harvesting in the UV region.     

Core molecular orbital contribution to N2O isomerization as studied using theoretical electron momentum spectroscopy

Core molecular orbital contribution to the electronic structure of N2O isomers has been studied using quantum mechanical density functional theory combined with a plane wave impulse approximation method. Momentum distributions of wave functions for inner shell molecular orbitals of the linear NNO, cyclic and linear NON isomers of N2O are calculated through the (e, 2e) differential cross sections in momentum space. This is possible because this momentum distribution is directly proportional to the modulus squared of the momentum space wave function for the molecular orbital in question. While the momentum distributions of the NNO and cyclic N2O isomers demonstrate strong atomic orbital characteristics in their core space, the outer core molecular orbitals of the linear NON isomer exhibit configuration interactions between them and the valence molecular orbitals. It is suggested that the frozen core approximation breaks down in the prediction of the electronic structure of such an isomer. Core molecular orbital contributions to the electronic structure can alter the order of total energies of the isomers and lead to incorrect conclusions of the stability among the isomers. As a result, full electron calculations should be employed in the study of N2O isomerization.     

Zur Natur der Aluminiumsilicatniederschläge aus Na2H2SiO4-und AlCl3-Lösungen bei neutraler Reaktion

On addition, at neutral reaction, of increasing amounts of AlCl₃ solutions to 0.005 m Na-silicate solutions, in which the silicate anions are monomeric, amorphous, almost Na⁺-free precipitates are formed being at first characterised by a higher atomic Al:Si ratio than the total Al:Si mixing ratio. With increasing Al:Si addition, the Al:Si ratio of the precipitates increases until — at a 3:1 ratio in both the liquid and the solid phase — a definite, “saturated” compound, {[(OH)₂AlO]₃SiOH · aq}, is formed. In this compound the silicate anions are monomeric and not condensable at room temperature. This is valid, too, for precipitates from Al:Si > 3 which contain, besides the “saturated” compound, free Al hydroxide. The first-mentioned precipitates with Al:Si < 3, however, contain polymeric Si units which easily condense to more high-polymeric silicate anions.