Probabilistic error bounds on constraint violation for empirical-analytical Lagrangian models of motion

Nonlinear Dynamics - In contrast to many systems studied in the field of classical mechanics, models of animal motion are often distinguished in that they are both highly uncertain and evolve in a...     

A new ent-labdane eiterpenoid lactone from Andrographis paniculata

A new ent-labdane diterpenoid lactone with a new natural product was isolated from Andrographis paniculata. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectral evidences including 2D NMR.     

Secondary metabolites produced by fungi derived from a microbial mat encountered in an iron-rich natural spring

A collection of fungal isolates was obtained from a complex microbial mat, which occupied an iron-rich freshwater spring that feeds into Clear Creek, Golden, Colorado, USA. Two of the fungal isolates, a Glomeromycete (possibly Entrophospora sp.) and a Dothideomycete (possibly Phaeosphaeria sp.), were investigated for bioactive secondary metabolites. In total, six new compounds consisting of clearanols A-E (5, 6, 10-12) and disulochrin (7) were purified and their structures were determined. Disulochrin exhibited modest antibacterial activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, whereas clearanol C showed weak inhibitory activity against Candida albicans biofilm formation.     

A note on quasi-newton formulae for sparse second derivative matrices

In order to apply quasi-Newton methods to solve unconstrained minimization calculations when the number of variables is very large, it is usually necessary to make use of any sparsity in the second derivative matrix of the objective function. Therefore, it is important to extend to the sparse case the updating formulae that occur in variable metric algorithms to revise the estimate of the second derivative matrix. Suitable extensions suggest themselves when the updating formulae are derived by variational methods [1, 3]. The purpose of the present paper is to give a new proof of a theorem of Dennis and Schnabel [1], that shows the effect of sparsity on updating formulae for second derivative estimates.     

Auger evidence of bonding in uranium-titanium alloys

Titanium Auger electron spectra undergo radical changes similar to oxidation in forming the U₂Ti intermetallic compound, whereas uranium spectra are relatively unmodified. These results indicate that Ti is an electron donor species in U₂Ti compound formation.     

Quantitative single point imaging with compressed sensing

A novel approach with respect to single point imaging (SPI), compressed sensing, is presented here that is shown to significantly reduce the loss of accuracy of reconstructed images from under-sampled acquisition data. SPI complements compressed sensing extremely well as it allows unconstrained selection of sampling trajectories. Dynamic processes featuring short NMR signal can thus be more rapidly imaged, in our case the absorption of moisture by a cereal-based wafer material, with minimal loss of image quantification. The absolute moisture content distribution is recovered via a series of images acquired with variable phase encoding times allowing extrapolation to time zero for each image pixel and the effective removal of contrast.     

Fast evaluation of polyharmonic splines in three dimensions

M. J. D. Powell ^{This paper concerns the fast evaluation of radial basis functions.It describes the mathematics of hierarchical and fast multipolemethods for fast evaluation of splines of the form where is a positive integer andp is a low-degree polynomial. Splines s of this form are polyharmonicsplines in 3 and have been found to be very useful for providingsolutions to scattered data interpolation problems in 3. Asit is now well known, hierarchical methods reduce the incrementalcost of a single extra evaluation from O(N) to O(log N) operationsand reduce the cost of a matrix–vector product (evaluationof s at all the centres) from O(N2) to O(N log N) operations.We give appropriate far- and near-field expansions, togetherwith error estimates, uniqueness theorems and translation formulae.A hierarchical code based on these formulae is detailed andsome numerical results are given.}     

Self-injection length in La0.7Ca0.3MnO3-YBa2Cu3O7-δ ferromagnet-superconductor multilayer thin films

We have carried out extensive studies on the self-injection problem in barrierless heterojunctions between La_0.7Ca_0.3MnO₃ (LCMO) and YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ (YBCO) thin films. The heterojunctions were formed in situ by sequentially growing LCMO and YBCO films on 〈100〉 LaAlO₃ (LAO) substrate using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) system. YBCO micro-bridges with 64 μm width were patterned both on the LAO (control) and LCMO side of the substrate. Critical current, I _c, was measured at 77 K on both the control side as well as the LCMO side for different YBCO film thickness. It was observed that while the control side showed a J _c of ∼ 2 × 10⁶ A/cm², the LCMO side showed about half the value for the same thickness (1800 ?). The difference in J _c indicates that a certain thickness of YBCO has become ‘effectively’ normal due to self-injection. From the measurement of J _c at two different thicknesses (1800 ? and 1500 ?) of YBCO films both on the LAO as well as the LCMO side, the value of self-injection length (at 77 K) was estimated to be ∼ 900 ?. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first time that self-injection length has been quantified. A control experiment carried out with LaNiO₃ deposited by PLD on YBCO did not show any evidence of self-injection.     

Networks, Fields and Organizations: Micro-Dynamics, Scale and Cohesive Embeddings

Social action is situated in fields that are simultaneously composed of interpersonal ties and relations among organizations, which are both usefully characterized as social networks. We introduce a novel approach to distinguishing different network macro-structures in terms of cohesive subsets and their overlaps. We develop a vocabulary that relates different forms of network cohesion to field properties as opposed to organizational constraints on ties and structures. We illustrate differences in probabilistic attachment processes in network evolution that link on the one hand to organizational constraints versus field properties and to cohesive network topologies on the other. This allows us to identify a set of important new micro-macro linkages between local behavior in networks and global network properties. The analytic strategy thus puts in place a methodology for Predictive Social Cohesion theory to be developed and tested in the context of informal and formal organizations and organizational fields. We also show how organizations and fields combine at different scales of cohesive depth and cohesive breadth. Operational measures and results are illustrated for three organizational examples, and analysis of these cases suggests that different structures of cohesive subsets and overlaps may be predictive in organizational contexts and similarly for the larger fields in which they are embedded. Useful predictions may also be based on feedback from level of cohesion in the larger field back to organizations, conditioned on the level of multiconnectivity to the field.