Highly efficient oligosaccharide synthesis on water-soluble polymeric primers by recombinant glycosyltransferases immobilised on solid supports

Recombinant beta-1,4-galactosyltranferase (beta 1,4-GalT) and alpha-2,6-sialytransferase (alpha 2,6-SiaT) immobilised covalently with activated Sepharose beads were employed for the practical synthesis of a trisaccharide derivative, Neu-5Ac alpha(2-->6)Gal beta(1-->4)GlcNAc beta-O-(CH2)6-NH2, on a water-soluble primer having GlcNAc residues through a alpha-chymotrypsin-sensitive linker.     

A rate of convergence for the set compound estimation in a family of certain retracted distributions

Summary This paper is concerned with the set compound squared-error loss estimation problem. Here, the author obtains Lévy consistent estimate of the empiric distributionG _n of the parameters θ₁,...,θ_n for a more general family of retracted distributions on the interval [θ, θ+1) than the uniform on [θ, θ+1) as in R. Fox (1970,Ann. Math. Statist.,41, 1845–1852; 1978,Ann. Statist.,6, 846–853) and exhibits a decision procedure based on with a convergence rateO((n ⁻¹ logn)^1/4) for the mofified regret uniformly in (θ₁, θ₂, ..., θ_n ∈ Ωⁿ with bounded Ω. The author also gives a counterexample to the convergence of the modified regret for Ω=(−∞, ∞). This is part of the author's Ph. D. Thesis at Michigan State University.     

Determination of nivalenol and deoxynivalenol by liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure photoionization mass spectrometry

Fusarium species, a plant pathogenic fungus of wheat and other cereals, produces toxic metabolites such as nivalenol (NIV) and deoxynivalenol (DON). Control of contamination by these toxins is very difficult, and a continuous survey of the occurrence is necessary for these toxins. Thus, the accurate and convenient determination of the cereals contaminated with these toxins is important for the supply of safe foods. A selective analytical method based on high‐performance liquid chromatography, combined with atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) mass spectrometry, has been developed for simultaneous determination of NIV and DON. The parameters investigated for the optimization of APPI were the ion source parameters fragmentor voltage, capillary voltage, and vaporizer temperature, and also mobile phase composition and flow rate. Furthermore, chemical noise and signal suppression of analyte signals due to sample matrix interference were investigated for APPI. The results indicated that APPI provides lower matrix effect and the correlation coefficient of NIV and DON in the range 0.2–100 ng · mL^?1 was above 0.999. Recoveries of NIV and DON in wheat ranged from 86 to 107% and limits of detection of NIV and DON were 0.20 ng · g^?1 and 0.39 ng · g^?1, respectively. In addition, the proposed method was applied for the analysis of naturally contaminated wheat samples. APPI was found to offer lower matrix effect and was a convenient technique for routine analysis of NIV and DON residues in wheat at trace levels. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new $N^{}$ resonance as a hadronic molecular state

We report our recent work on a hadronic molecule state of the KKN system with I =1/2 and jR = 1/2＋. We assume that the A（1405） resonance and the scalar mesons, f0（980）, ao（980）, are reproduced as quasi-bound states of KN and KK, respectively. Performing non-relativistic three-body calculations with a variational method for this system, we find a quasibound state of the KIlN system around 1910 MeV below the three-body breakup threshold. This state corresponds to a new baryon resonance of N＊ with JP ： 1/2＋. We find also that this resonance has the cluster structure of the two-body bound states keeping their properties as in the isolated two-particle systems. We also briefly discuss another hadronic molecular state composed by two K and one N, which corresponds to a resonance.     

Perceptual discrimination of very high frequency components in wide frequency range musical sound

Subjective evaluation tests on perceptual discrimination between musical sounds with and without very high frequency (above 20 kHz) components were conducted. To make a precise evaluation, the test system was designed to exclude any influence from very high frequency components in the audible frequency range. Moreover, a newly developed very wide frequency range microphone was used to record various sound stimuli that contained enough components in the very high frequency range. Tests showed that the subjects could discriminate between musical sounds with and without very high frequency components. This paper describes these subjective evaluations in terms of reproducing such very high frequency components in musical sound.     

Palladium-catalyzed Mizoroki-Heck reactions in water using thermoresponsive polymer micelles

Palladium-catalyzed Mizoroki-Heck reactions were carried out in water using thermoresponsive polymer micelles. The micelles were generated from thermoresponsive block copolymers consisting of a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) segment and a hydrophilic segment such as nonionic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) (2) and anionic poly(sodium p-styrenesulfonate) (PSSNa) (9). These copolymers exhibited lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior at ca. 40–50?°C and showed thermal stimuli-induced formation and dissociation of micelles. The copolymers formed micelles in aqueous solution at higher temperature, where catalytic reactions proceeded. At lower temperature, the micelles dissociated to form a clear solution, enabling efficient extraction of the products from aqueous reaction mixture. In the presence of these copolymers, palladium complexes catalyzed the coupling reactions between aryl iodides and alkene compounds inside the hydrophobic micelle cores in water under relatively milder conditions. Extraction of the products from the aqueous solution of 2 or 9 was found to be efficient enough in comparison with conventional surfactants.     

From C-glycosides to pyranopyrans: an approach to thyrsiferol using titanium(III)-promoted redox couplings

An approach to the pyranopyran ring system that is found in many natural products, including thyrsiferol, is described. The route entails the assembly of an alpha,beta-unsaturated ketone (11) from geraniol and dihydropyran (23) from acetyl acetaldehyde dimethyl acetal (19) and their titanium(III)-promoted coupling to afford a respectable 60% yield of keto alcohol 26. The sigma-bond formed in this process corresponds to the pro-C(9)-C(10) bond of thyrsiferol (4). Attempts to invert the stereochemistry at the pro-C(11) center were thwarted by the congestion imparted by the presence of the vicinal TBS-ether. Consequently, cyclization of the coupling adduct under conditions developed by Olah and Prakash and co-workers led to the cis-fused pyranopyran 27. X-ray analysis of this crystalline material confirmed each of the stereochemical assignments. After much effort, it was determined that the hydroxyl group at C(12) could be removed by treating the derived methyl xanthate with a tri-n-butylphosphine-borane complex under radical-forming conditions. The reaction sequence worked well, despite the hindered working environment and the presence of a potentially labile C-Br bond.     

Phytogrowth-inhibitory and antimicrobial activities of 3,4'-dihydroxy-alpha,beta-diethylstilbene, the isomer of diethylstilbestrol

3,4'-Dihydroxy-alpha,beta-diethylstilbene (I), like diethylstilbestrol (II), showed phytogrowth-inhibitory and antimicrobial activities. First, compound I showed strong growth-inhibitory activity against the roots of two kinds of plants. The inhibitory activity of I was almost equal to that of sodium 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetate used as a positive control. The phytogrowth-inhibitory activity of I was much higher than that of II. Next, unlike II, I had broad antifungal spectrum against phathogenic fungi. Compound I showed antifungal activity against six kinds of Fusarium oxysporum sp. This compound also had antibacterial activity against pathogenic and plant-pathogenic bacteria. These antibacterial activities of I were as high as those of II, the isomer of I. It should be emphasized that by shifting one of the phenolic hydroxyl groups of II to meta-position, phytogrowth-inhibitory activity was largely increased, while antimicrobial activity was unchanged.     

Algorithms for finding a Kth best valued assignment

We consider a new problem, the Kth best valued assignment problem. Given a bipartite graph G and a cost vector w on its edge set, this is the problem of finding a perfect matching M_k in G such that there exist perfect matchings M₁,…,M_K−1 satisfying w(M₁) < < w(M_K−1) < w(M_K), and w(M_K) < w(M) for all perfect matchings M with w(M) ≠ w(M₁),…,w(M_K). Here w(M) denotes the sum of costs of edges in M. In this paper, we propose two algorithms for solving this problem and verify the efficiency of our algorithms by our preliminary computational experiments.