A new norsesquiterpenoid from Russula delica Fr

Russulanorol (1), a new norsesquiterpenoid with a novel carbon skeleton, was isolated from the fruiting bodies of Russula delica FR. (Russulaceae) together with three known sesquiterpenoids. The structure of 1 was elucidated on the basis of spectral data and chemical transformation. Compound 1 is an equilibrium mixture of two stereoisomers (1a, b) on the C-11 acetal carbon.     

First-principles study of the (0 0 1) surface of cubic SrZrO3

Density functional calculations have been used to investigate the (0 0 1) surface of cubic SrZrO₃ with both SrO and ZrO₂ termination. Surface structure and electronic structure have been obtained. The SrO surface is found to be similar to its counterpart in SrTiO₃, while there are marked differences between the ZrO₂ and TiO₂ terminations in SrZrO₃ and SrTiO₃, respectively, concerning surface relaxation and rumpling. For the ZrO₂-terminated surface of SrZrO₃, the covalency of the interaction between the outmost Zr and the O beneath is enhanced as a result of their bond contraction. The band gap reduction and the presence of the surface states are also discussed in relation with the behavior of the electrostatic potential.     

Review Article: Fructooligosaccharides Enzymatic Preparation and Biofunctions

I. INTRODUCTION

Recently the study of oligosaccharides has been extensively pursued in Japan after the findings of the remarkable biofunctions and usefulness of fructooligosac-charides for human health, improving the intestinal microflora and importance in livestock nutrition.     

Boundedness of Product Type Pseudodifferential Operators on Spaces of Besov Type

In this paper we consider pseudodifferential operators associated with symbols satisfying estimates of product type, and give some sufficient conditions for the operators to be bounded on BESOV spaces and on TRIEBEL —LIZORKIN spaces of product type corresponding to the above estimates. In the proof we use the characterization of these spaces by approximation by entire functions.     

Analysis of effective service time with age dependent interruptions and its application to optimal rollback policy for database management

A stochastic model is developed describing a service system subject to inhomogeneous Poisson interruptions with age dependent interruption periods. By studying the probabilistic flow of the underlying multivariate Markov process, the Laplace transform of the effective service time is explicitly obtained. For general renewal interruptions, only the expected effective service time is derived. As an application, an optimal checkpoint policy is examined for database management. It is shown that an optimal policy maximizing the ergodic availability of the database is to implement a checkpoint as soon as the cumulative uptime of the database reaches a prespecified constantk ^*. A computational procedure is then developed for findingk ^* and numerical results are exhibited.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ECS-8600992 and by the IBM Program of Support for Education in the Management of Information Systems.     

Optimal threshold analysis of segmentation methods for identifying target customers

In CRM (Customer Relationship Management), the importance of a segmentation method for identifying good customers has been increasing. For evaluation of different segmentation methods, Accuracy often plays a key role. This indicator, however, cannot distinguish two types of errors. The purpose of this paper is to overcome this pitfall by introducing two different indicators: Recall and Precision. Assuming that a promotion is addressed exclusively to the selected target customers, the financial effectiveness of the underlying segmentation method is expressed as a function of Recall and Precision. An optimization problem is then formulated so as to maximize the financial measure by finding the optimal threshold level in terms of the severeness for estimating the target set. By introducing a functional form which represents correctness and mistakes about the target set, the unique optimal solution is derived explicitly. The proposed approach is validated by using real customer purchase data.     

Effect of molecular weight distribution on the structure and mechanical properties of ultradrawn,ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene cast from solution. II. Drawability and mechanical properties

The effect of molecular weight distribution (MWD) on the ultradrawability and mechanical properties of solution-cast films of ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE) has been investigated using tensile and dynamic mechanical measurements. The MWD has a marked effect on ultradrawability and thus on the ultimate mechanical properties such as the tensile modulus. It is proposed that UHMW-PE with a narrow MWD(N-PE) attains the ultimate structure at a lower draw ratio than UHMW-PE with a broad MWD(B-PE) because of the existence in the latter of less fully extended intercrystalline tie chains. It is found that, at the same drawing temperature (100°C), N-PE shows a higher modulus than B-PE at draw ratios up to 150 x, which is assumed to be the ultimate value for N-PE.     

A successive quadratic programming algorithm with global and superlinear convergence properties

This paper presents a successive quadratic programming algorithm for solving general nonlinear programming problems. In order to avoid the Maratos effect, direction-finding subproblems are derived by modifying the second-order approximations to both objective and constraint functions of the problem. We prove that the algorithm possesses global and superlinear convergence properties.This work was supported in part by a Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Japan.