Self-starting harmonic mode-locked Tm-Bi co-doped germanate fiber laser with carbon nanotube-based saturable absorber

We report a ring cavity passively harmonic mode-locked fiber laser using a newly developed thuliumbismuth co-doped fiber(TBF) as a gain medium in conjunction with a carbon nanotube(CNT)-based saturable absorber.The TBF laser generates a third harmonic mode-locked soliton pulse train with a high repetition rate of 50 MHz and a pulse duration of 1.86 ps.The laser operates at 1 901.6 nm with an average power of 6.6 mW,corresponding to a pulse energy of 0.132 nJ,at a 1 552 nm pump power of 723.3 mW.     

Black Hole Fluctuations and Backreaction in Stochastic Gravity

We present a framework for analyzing black hole backreaction from the point of view of quantum open systems using influence functional formalism. We focus on the model of a black hole described by a radially perturbed quasi-static metric and Hawking radiation by a conformally coupled massless quantum scalar field. It is shown that the closed-time-path (CTP) effective action yields a non-local dissipation term as well as a stochastic noise term in the equation of motion, the Einstein–Langevin equation. Once the thermal Green's function in a Schwarzschild background becomes available to the required accuracy, the strategy described here can be applied to obtain concrete results on backreaction. We also present an alternative derivation of the CTP effective action in terms of the Bogolyubov coefficients, thus making a connection with the interpretation of the noise term as measuring the difference in particle production in alternative histories.     

Insight into the structural requirements of pyrimidine-based phosphodiesterase 10A (PDE10A) inhibitors by multiple validated 3D QSAR approaches

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder of thinking and behaviour (0.3?0.7% of the population is affected). The over-expression of phosphodiesterase 10A (PDE10A) enzyme may be a potential target for schizophrenia and Huntington’s disease. Because 3D QSAR analysis is one of the most frequently used modelling techniques, in the present study, five different 3D QSAR tools, namely CoMFA, CoMSIA, kNN-MFA, Open3DQSAR and topomer CoMFA methods, were used on a dataset of pyrimidine-based PDE10A inhibitors. All developed models were validated internally and externally. The non-commercial Open3DQSAR produced the best statistical results amongst 3D QSAR tools. The structural interpretations obtained from different methods were thoroughly analysed and were justified on the basis of information obtained from the crystal structure. Information from one method was mostly validated by the results of other methods and vice versa. In the current work, the use of multiple tools in the same analysis revealed more complete information about the structural requirements of these compounds. On the basis of the observations of the 3D QSAR studies, 12 new compounds were designed for better PDE10A inhibitory activity. The current investigation may help in further designing new PDE10A inhibitors with promising activity.     

Assessing the Capability of Chemical Ameliorants to Reduce the Bioavailability of Heavy Metals in Bulk Fly Ash Contaminated Soil

In-situ rehabilitation of fly ash at dumping sites has rarely been addressed for crop production due to growth-related constraints, largely of heavy metal (HM) contamination in soils and crops. Current communication deals with a novel approach to identify a suitable management option for rejuvenating the contaminated soils. In this background, a 60-days incubation experiment was conducted with different fly ash-soil mixtures (50 + 50%, A1; 75 + 25%, A2; 100 + 0%, A3) along with four ameliorants, namely, lime (T1), sodium sulphide (T2), di-ammonium phosphate (T3), and humic acid (T4) at 30 ± 2 °C to assess the ability of different fly ash-soil-ameliorant mixtures in reducing bio-availability of HMs. Diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA)-extractable bio-available HM contents for lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), and chromium (Cr) and their respective ratios to total HM contents under the influence of different treatments were estimated at 0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 days of incubation. Further, the eco-toxicological impact of different treatments on soil microbial properties was studied after 60 days of experimentation. A1T1 significantly recorded the lowest bio-availability of HMs (~49–233% lower) followed by A2T1 (~35–133%) among the treatments. The principal component analysis also confirmed the superiority of A1T1 and A2T1 in this regard. Further, A1T1 achieved low contamination factor and ecological risk with substantial microbial biomass carbon load and dehydrogenase activity. Thus, liming to fly ash-soil mixture at 50:50 may be considered as the best management option for ameliorating metal toxicity. This technology may guide thermal power plants to provide the necessary package of practices for the stakeholders to revive their contaminated lands for better environmental sustainability.     

Propagation of waves in a multicomponent plasma having charged dust particles

Propagation of both low and high frequency waves in a plasma consisting of electrons, ions, positrons and charged dust particles have been theoretically studied. The characteristics of dust acoustic wave propagating through the plasma has been analysed and the dispersion relation deduced is a generalization of that obtained by previous authors. It is found that nonlinear localization of high frequency electromagnetic field in such a plasma generates magnetic field. This magnetic field is seen to depend on the temperatures of electrons and positrons and also on their equilibrium density ratio. It is suggested that the present model would be applicable to find the magnetic field generation in space plasma.     

A mixed-entropic uncertainty relation

We highlight the advantages of using simultaneously the Shannon and Fisher information measures in providing a useful form of the uncertainty relation for the position-momentum case. It does not require any Fourier transformation. The sensitivity is also noteworthy.     

Interaction of glutathione S-transferase with hypericin: A photophysical study

The photophysics of hypericin have been studied in its complex with two different isoforms, A1-1 and P1-1, of the protein glutathione S-transferase (GST). One molecule of hypericin binds to each of the two GST subunits. Comparisons are made with our previous results for the hypericin/human serum albumin complex (Photochem. Photobiol. 1999, 69, 633-645). Hypericin binds with high affinity to the GSTs: 0.65 microM for the A1-1 isoform and 0.51 microM for the P1-1 isoform (Biochemistry 2004, 43, 12761-12769). The photophysics and activity of hypericin are strongly modulated by the binding protein. Intramolecular hydrogen-atom transfer is suppressed in both cases. Most importantly, while there is significant singlet oxygen generation from hypericin bound to GST A1-1, binding to GST P1-1 suppresses singlet oxygen generation to almost negligible levels. The data are rationalized in terms of a simple model in which the hypericin photophysics depends entirely upon the decay of the triplet state by two competing processes, quenching by oxygen to yield singlet oxygen and ionization, the latter of these two are proposed to be modulated by A1-1 and P1-1.     

Thermodynamics of a Charged Particle in a Noncommutative Plane in a Background Magnetic Field

Landau system in noncommutative space has been considered. To take into account the issue of gauge invariance in noncommutative space, we incorporate the Seiberg-Witten map in our analysis. Generalised Bopp-shift transformation is then used to map the noncommutative system to its commutative equivalent system. In particular we have computed the partition function of the system and from this we obtained the susceptibility of the Landau system and found that the result gets modified by the spatial noncommutative parameter θ. We also investigate the de Hass–van Alphen effect in noncommutative space and observe that the oscillation of the magnetization and the susceptibility gets noncommutative corrections. Interestingly, the susceptibility in the noncommutative scenario is non-zero in the range of the magnetic field greater than the threshold value which is in contrast to its commutative counterpart. The results obtained are valid upto all orders in the noncommutative parameter θ.     

Molecular alteration in drug susceptibility against subtype B and C-SA HIV-1 proteases: MD study

Structural Chemistry - HIV-1 protease (HIV PR) is one of the most promising targets for anti-HIV drug discovery. Extensive anti-HIV drug discovery research was focused on HIV-1 subtype B protease...