High-performance liquid chromatographic method for quantitating plasma levels of amiloride and its analogues.

An assay for amiloride was devised for efficient use with the wide variety of analogues available. Amiloride was extracted from 1-ml plasma samples by elution from a C8 preparative column with 6% acetonitrile-45% methanol-5.4% acetic acid, adjusted to pH 4.0 with trimethylamine. Samples were lyophilized, resuspended in 50% methanol, filtered through 0.22-microns Spin-X cartridges, applied to a reversed-phase C18 column, and eluted in a 0-50% acetonitrile gradient in 0.4% acetic acid, pH 4.5 (1.2 ml/min). Detection by ultraviolet absorbance at 360 nm was linear from 1 to 1000 ng. Versatility of the method was demonstrated with the analogues benzamil, 6-hydro-, 6-iodo-, 5-hexamethylene-, and 5-chlorobenzyl-2',4'-dimethylbenzyl-amiloride.     

A numerical study of an unsteady laminar flow in a doubly constricted 3D vessel

Unsteady flow dynamics in doubly constricted 3D vessels have been investigated under pulsatile flow conditions for a full cycle of period T. The coupled non‐linear partial differential equations governing the mass and momentum of a viscous incompressible fluid has been numerically analyzed by a time accurate Finite Volume Scheme in an implicit Euler time marching setting. Roe's flux difference splitting of non‐linear terms and the pseudo‐compressibility technique employed in the current numerical scheme makes it robust both in space and time. Computational experiments are carried out to assess the influence of Reynolds' number and the spacing between two mild constrictions on the pressure drop across the constrictions. The study reveals that the pressure drop across a series of mild constrictions can get physiologically critical and is also found to be sensitive both to the spacing between the constrictions and the oscillatory nature of the inflow profile. The flow separation zone on the downstream constriction is seen to detach from the diverging wall of the constriction leading to vortex shedding with 3D features earlier than that on the wall in the spacing between the two constrictions. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Connection machine simulation of ultrasonic wave propagation in materials III: The three-dimensional case

A formalism for the simulation by parallel processing of the propagation of ultrasonic pulses of arbitrary shape (i.e. not restricted to continuous waves) in complex media is presented. Recursive relationships yielding the time evolution of the displacement field are derived for both homogeneous and heterogeneous materials. In the latter case, formulas for cross-points at the intersection of up to eight different materials are obtained. A few examples of numerical results obtained with the proposed method are shown to demonstrate its applicability and efficiency. The problem of visualization of the results is also briefly discussed.     

Monitoring of electromagnetic fields in the environment. II. Fluctuations in the parameters of atmospheric electricity

The problems of determining and investigating the informative parameters of atmospheric electricity are discussed. It is shown that short-period variations in atmospheric electricity are ecologically significant. An automated system for monitoring atmospheric electricity and a method of processing the results of measurements are described. V. D. Kuznetsov Siberian Physicotechnical Institute, Tomsk State University. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 5, pp. 88–98, May, 1998.     

Structure of the crystal solvate of the dipyridinium salt of 2,2′-bis[1,3-bis(dicyanomethylene)indane] with acetonitrile

L. Ya. Karpov Physical Chemical Research Institute. Translated from Zhurnal Strukturnoi Khimii, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 141–144, May–June, 1991.     

On the correspondence between rotational bands in the mass regionsA ≃ 100 andA ≃ 150

A refined technique is presented to project rotational bands observed in the well studiedZ≧60 rare-earth region into the region of stable ground-state deformation atA ～-100 with corresponding neutron numbers ofN ≧60. With this procedure, estimates of properties of so far unknown nuclei in the A～-100 region can be obtained. As an illustration, isotopes aroundN=64 are discussed within this projection method and within the frame-work of the recent quartet model.     

Possible evidence for a narrow isovectorB=2 resonance below pion production threshold

Some evidence is presented for a narrow peak at 1969±2 MeV (FWHM=9±2 MeV) in the missing mass spectrum of the³He(p, d) reaction, with 3 standard deviations. The nature of this state, the mass of which is below the NN threshold, is discussed in connection with structures found in other experiments.     

The critical probability for random Voronoi percolation in the plane is 1/2

We study percolation in the following random environment: let Z be a Poisson process of constant intensity on ℝ², and form the Voronoi tessellation of ℝ² with respect to Z. Colour each Voronoi cell black with probability p, independently of the other cells. We show that the critical probability is 1/2. More precisely, if p>1/2 then the union of the black cells contains an infinite component with probability 1, while if p<1/2 then the distribution of the size of the component of black cells containing a given point decays exponentially. These results are analogous to Kesten's results for bond percolation in ℤ². The result corresponding to Harris' Theorem for bond percolation in ℤ² is known: Zvavitch noted that one of the many proofs of this result can easily be adapted to the random Voronoi setting. For Kesten's results, none of the existing proofs seems to adapt. The methods used here also give a new and very simple proof of Kesten's Theorem for ℤ²; we hope they will be applicable in other contexts as well. Research supported in part by NSF grant ITR 0225610 and DARPA grant F33615-01-C-1900 Research partially undertaken during a visit to the Forschungsinstitut für Mathematik, ETH Zürich, Switzerland     

PIXE analysis of the Mn-doped content in Ga1-xMnxN film grown by LP-MOVPE

Summary Department of Technical Physics, School of Physics, Peking Unive