Translocation of DNA molecules through nanopores with salt gradients: the role of osmotic flow

Recent experiments of translocation of double-stranded DNA through nanopores [M. Wanunu et al., Nature Nanotech. 5, 160 (2009)] reveal that the DNA capture rate can be significantly influenced by a salt gradient across the pore. We show that osmotic flow combined with electrophoretic effects can quantitatively explain the experimental data on the salt-gradient dependence of the capture rate.     

Generalized complex structures and Lie brackets

We remark that the equations underlying the notion of generalized complex structure have simple geometric meaning when passing to Lie algebroids/groupoids.     

Dense Energetic Nitraminofurazanes

3,3′‐Diamino‐4,4′‐bifurazane ( 1 ), 3,3′‐diaminoazo‐4,4′‐furazane ( 2 ), and 3,3′‐diaminoazoxy‐4,4′‐furazane ( 3 ) were nitrated in 100 % HNO₃ to give corresponding 3,3′‐dinitramino‐4,4′‐bifurazane ( 4 ), 3,3′‐dinitramino‐4,4′‐azofurazane ( 5 ) and 3,3′‐dinitramino‐4,4′‐azoxyfurazane ( 6 ), respectively. The neutral compounds show very imposing explosive performance but possess lower thermal stability and higher sensitivity than hexogen (RDX). More than 40 nitrogen‐rich compounds and metal salts were prepared. Most compounds were characterized by low‐temperature X‐ray diffraction, all of them by infrared and Raman spectroscopy, multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Calculated energetic performances using the EXPLO5 code based on calculated (CBS‐4M) heats of formation and X‐ray densities support the high energetic performances of the nitraminofurazanes as energetic materials. The sensitivities towards impact, friction, and electrostatic discharge were also explored. Additionally the general toxicity of the anions against vibrio fischeri, representative for an aquatic microorganism, was determined.     

Palladium-catalyzed C-S coupling: access to thioethers, benzo[b]thiophenes, and thieno[3,2-b]thiophenes

The first C-S bond formation/cross-coupling/cyclization domino reaction using thiourea as a cheap and easy to handle dihydrosulfide surrogate has been developed. Structurally important biarylthioether, benzo[b]thiophenes, and thieno[3,2-b]thiophene scaffolds are provided in high yield.     

A characterization of elementary abelian 2-groups

In this note we give a characterization of elementary abelian 2-groups in terms of their maximal sum-free subsets.     

The normal subgroup structure of ZM-groups

The main goal of this note is to determine and to count the normal subgroups of a ZM-group. We also indicate some necessary and sufficient conditions such that the normal subgroups of a ZM-group form a chain.     

Analysis of a Simplified Model of Rigid Structure Floating in a Viscous Fluid

Journal of Nonlinear Science - We study the interaction of surface water waves with a floating solid constraint to move only in the vertical direction. The first novelty we bring in is that we...     

A new branching strategy for time constrained routing problems with application to backhauling

In this paper, we explore a new branching strategy for branch-and-bound approaches based on column generation for the vehicle routing problems with time windows. This strategy involves branching on resource variables (time or capacity) rather than on network flow variables. We also examine criteria for selecting network nodes for branching. To test the effectiveness of the branching strategy, we conduct computational experiments on time window constrained vehicle routing problems where backhauling is permitted only after all the shipments to clients have been made. The branching method proved very effective. In cases where time was the more binding constraint, time-based branching succeeded in decreasing the number of nodes explored by two thirds and the total computation time by more than half when compared to flow-based branching. The computational results also show that the overall algorithm was successful in optimally solving problems with up to 100 customers. It produced an average cost decrease of almost 7% when backhauling was permitted as compared to the cost involved when the client and the distributor routes were distinct.