Nectrianolins A,B, and C,new metabolites produced by endophytic fungus Nectria pseudotrichia 120-1NP

Two sesquiterpene-epoxycyclohexenone conjugates, nectrianolins A (1) and B (2), together with a sesquiterpene, nectrianolin C (3), were isolated from the brown rice culture of Nectria pseudotrichia 120-1NP, an endophytic fungus isolated from Gliricidia sepium. Their structures were determined on the basis of 1D-/2D-NMR spectroscopy and HRESIMS data analyses in combination with chemical means. Nectrianolins A–C (1–3) exhibited cytotoxic activity against both HL60 and HeLa cells.     

Development of a Sensitive Bioluminogenic Probe for Imaging Highly Reactive Oxygen Species in Living Rats

A sensitive bioluminogenic probe for highly reactive oxygen species (hROS), SO₃H‐APL, was developed based on the concept of dual control of bioluminescence emission by means of bioluminescent enzyme‐induced electron transfer (BioLeT) and modulation of cell‐membrane permeability. This probe enables non‐invasive visualization of physiologically relevant amounts of hROS generated deep inside the body of living rats for the first time. It is expected to serve as a practical analytical tool for investigating a wide range of biological functions of hROS in vivo. The design concept should be applicable to other in vivo bioluminogenic probes.     

Photon‐Quantitative 6π‐Electrocyclization of a Diarylbenzo[b]thiophene in Polar Medium

The high reactivity of 6π‐electrocyclization in polar solvents has remained one of the important challenges for diarylethenes because of the emergence of a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) state at the excited state in such polar media, which usually quenches the photocyclization reaction. Herein we report on the preparation and highly efficient photocyclization of 2,3‐diarylbenzo[b]thiophenes with nonsymmetric side‐aryl units in a polar solvent. While the dithiazolylbenzo[b]thiophene showed a suppressed quantum yield of 6π‐electrocyclization of 54 % in methanol, the replacement of a thiazole unit with a thiophene ring led to a photon‐quantitative 6π‐cyclization reaction. The nonsymmetrical modification into the side‐aryl units was considered to enhance the CH/π interactions between side‐aryl units to support a photoreactive conformation in methanol. The stabilization of the photochromic reactive conformation is expected to suppress the formation of the TICT state at the excited state, leading to highly efficient photoreactivity.     

An application of the Kantorovich theoremto nonlinear finite element analysis

Summary. Finite element solutions of strongly nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems are considered. In this paper, using the Kantorovich theorem, we show that, if the Fréchet derivative of the nonlinear operator defined by the boundary value problem is an isomorphism at an exact solution, then there exists a locally unique finite element solution near the exact solution. Moreover, several a priori error estimates are obtained. Received March 2, 1998 / Published online September 7, 1999     

Consideration for Affects of an XOR in a Random Number Generator Using Ring Oscillators

A cloud service to offer entropy has been paid much attention to. As one of the entropy sources, a physical random number generator is used as a true random number generator, relying on its irreproducibility. This paper focuses on a physical random number generator using a field-programmable gate array as an entropy source by employing ring oscillator circuits as a representative true random number generator. This paper investigates the effects of an XOR gate in the oscillation circuit by observing the output signal period. It aims to reveal the relationship between inputs and the output through the XOR gate in the target generator. The authors conduct two experiments to consider the relevance. It is confirmed that combining two ring oscillators with an XOR gate increases the complexity of the output cycle. In addition, verification using state transitions showed that the probability of the state transitions was evenly distributed by increasing the number of ring oscillator circuits.     

Effect of impingement angle on the outcome of single water drop impact onto a plane water surface

Experiments of single water drop impact onto a plane water surface were carried out to investigate the effect of impingement angle on the total mass of secondary drops produced during the collision. When the impingement angle (the angle between the velocity vector of primary drop and the normal vector to water surface) was less than 50°, an increase in the impingement angle led to a remarkable increase in the total mass of secondary drops; this could be attributed to a significant increase in the secondary drop size. However, no secondary drop was observed within the experimental ranges tested when the impingement angle exceeded 70°.     

On the robust thermodynamical structures against arbitrary entropy form and energy mean value

We discuss how the thermodynamical Legendre transform structure can be retained not only for the arbitrary entropic form but also for the arbitrary form of the energy constraints by following the discussion of Plastino and Plastino. The thermodynamic relation between the expectation values and the conjugate Lagrange multipliers are seen to be universal. Furthermore, Gibbs' fundamental equation is shown to be unaffected by the choice of the entropy and the definition of the mean values due to the robustness of the Legendre transform structure. Received 28 April 2000 and Received in final form 29 July 2000