Synthesis and biological evaluation of vancomycin dimers with potent activity against vancomycin-resistant bacteria: target-accelerated combinatorial synthesis

Based on the notion that dimerization and/or variation of amino acid 1 of vancomycin could potentially enhance biological activity, a series of synthetic and chemical biology studies were undertaken in order to discover potent antibacterial agents. Herein we describe two ligation methods (disulfide formation and olefin metathesis) for dimerizing vancomycin derivatives and applications of target-accelerated combinatorial synthesis (e.g. combinatorial synthesis in the presence of vancomycin's target Ac2-L-Lys-D-Ala-D-Ala) to generate libraries of vancomycin dimers. Screening of these compound libraries led to the identification of a number of highly potent antibiotics effective against vancomycin-suspectible, vancomycin-intermediate resistant and, most significantly, vancomycin-resistant bacteria.     

Stopping games with randomized strategies

We study stopping games in the setup of Neveu. We prove the existence of a uniform value (in a sense defined below), by allowing the players to use randomized strategies. In constrast with previous work, we make no comparison assumption on the payoff processes. Moreover, we prove that the value is the limit of discounted values, and we construct ε-optimal strategies. Received: 10 May 1999 / Revised version: 18 May 2000 / Published online: 15 February 2001     

A Characterization of Grand Canonical Gibbs Measures by Duality

We introduce Skorohod type integral operators that satisfy an integration by parts formula under Gibbs measures and obtain a characterization of grand canonical Gibbs measures by duality, without use of a differential structure on the underlying configuration space.     

Pseudo-geodesics on three-dimensional surfaces and pseudo-geodesic meshes

We present two numerical methods to approximate the shortest path or a geodesic between two points on a three-dimensional parametric surface. The first one consists of minimizing the path length, working in the parameter domain, where the approximation class is composed of Bézier curves. In the second approach, we consider Bézier surfaces and their control net. The numerical implementation is based on finding the shortest path on the successive control net subdivisions. The convergence property of the Bézier net to the surface gives an approximation of the required shortest path. These approximations, also called pseudo-geodesics, are then applied to the creation of pseudo-geodesic meshes. Experimental results are also provided.     

A coupled stress and energy failure model for crack initiation in arbitrarily shaped adhesive lap joints

In this work, crack initiation in adhesive lap joints of arbitrary joint configuration is studied by means of a finite fracture mechanics approach. The analysis is based on a general stress solution for adhesive joints combined with a coupled stress and energy criterion. The instantaneous formation of a crack of finite size is predicted if a stress and energy criterion are satisfied simultaneously. The closed-form analytical solution of the stress field allows for an efficient evaluation of the crack initiation load and corresponding finite crack length. A comparison to experimental results from literature and to numerical results obtained with a cohesive zone model approach shows a good agreement. (© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Onset of necking in electro-magnetically formed rings

The electromagnetic forming (EMF) process is an attractive manufacturing technique, which uses electromagnetic (Lorentz) body forces to fabricate metallic parts. One of the many advantages of EMF is the considerable ductility increase observed in several metals, with aluminum featuring prominently among them. The quantitative explanation of this phenomenon is the primary motivation of this work.To study the ductility increase due to EMF, an aluminum ring is placed outside a fixed coil, which is connected to a capacitor. Upon the capacitor's discharge, the time varying current in the coil induces a larger current in the ring specimen and the resulting Lorentz forces make it expand. The coupled coil-ring electromagnetic and thermomechanical problem is solved, using an experimentally obtained constitutive model for a particular aluminum alloy. Our results show that for realistic imperfections, the EMF ring starts necking at strains about six times larger than its static counterpart, as observed experimentally. This study establishes the importance of solving the fully coupled electromagnetic and thermomechanical problem and provides insight on how different constitutive parameters influence ductility in an EMF process.     

X-ray microtomography for studying localized deformation in fine-grained geomaterials under triaxial compressionUtilisation de la microtomographie rayon X pour l'étude de la localisation des déformations dans les géomatériaux argileux sous sollicitation axisymétrique.

This Note presents a few selected results of an experimental testing program carried out at the ESRF in Grenoble, France. X-ray microtomography (with a spatial resolution of 14 μm) has been used to evaluate the onset and evolution of shear banding in a fine-grained stiff soil under deviatoric loading. It allowed detailed observations of strain localization in a specimen during the test, including the presence of more than one shear zone and a varying degree of dilatancy and/or crack opening. To cite this article: G. Viggiani et al., C. R. Mecanique 332 (2004).     

On Sub-determinants and the Diameter of Polyhedra

We derive a new upper bound on the diameter of a polyhedron \(P = \{x {\in } {\mathbb {R}}^n :Ax\le b\}\) , where \(A \in {\mathbb {Z}}^{m\times n}\) . The bound is polynomial in \(n\) and the largest absolute value of a sub-determinant of \(A\) , denoted by \(\Delta \) . More precisely, we show that the diameter of \(P\) is bounded by \(O(\Delta ^2 n^4\log n\Delta )\) . If \(P\) is bounded, then we show that the diameter of \(P\) is at most \(O(\Delta ^2 n^{3.5}\log n\Delta )\) . For the special case in which \(A\) is a totally unimodular matrix, the bounds are \(O(n^4\log n)\) and \(O(n^{3.5}\log n)\) respectively. This improves over the previous best bound of \(O(m^{16}n^3(\log mn)^3)\) due to Dyer and Frieze (Math Program 64:1–16, 1994).