Diacylglycerolipids isolated from a thermophile cyanobacterium from the Euganean hot springs

The Phormidium sp. ETS-05 thermophile blue-green alga is one of the most typical and widespread species of cyanobacteria of the thermal muds of the Euganean hot springs, the therapeutic properties of which have been known since ancient times. The polar diacylglycerolipids of this cyanobacterium consists of monogalactosyldiacylglycerol, digalactosyldiacylglycerol, sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol. We have isolated and purified these four diacylglycerolipids from ETS-05, and then analysed them for their quantitative and structural features and fatty acid contents. The monogalactosyldiacylglycerol and digalactosyldiacylglycerol show a marked presence of polyunsaturated fatty acids, of which C18 : 4 is the most common. We propose that these glycoglycerolipids can be used as markers for monitoring the thermal mud colonisation process.     

A computational glimpse at the Leibniz and Frege hierarchies

In this paper we consider, from a computational point of view, the problem of classifying logics within the Leibniz and Frege hierarchies typical of abstract algebraic logic. The main result states that, for logics presented syntactically, this problem is in general undecidable. More precisely, we show that there is no algorithm that classifies the logic of a finite consistent Hilbert calculus in the Leibniz and in the Frege hierarchies.     

Dimensions and singular traces for spectral triples, with applications to fractals

Given a spectral triple , the functionals on of the form a?τ_ω(a|D|^−α) are studied, where τ_ω is a singular trace, and ω is a generalised limit. When τ_ω is the Dixmier trace, the unique exponent d giving rise possibly to a non-trivial functional is called Hausdorff dimension, and the corresponding functional the (d-dimensional) Hausdorff functional.It is shown that the Hausdorff dimension d coincides with the abscissa of convergence of the zeta function of |D|⁻¹, and that the set of α's for which there exists a singular trace τ_ω giving rise to a non trivial functional is an interval containing d. Moreover, the endpoints of such traceability interval have a dimensional interpretation. The functionals corresponding to points in the traceability interval are called Hausdorff-Besicovitch functionals.These definitions are tested on fractals in , by computing the mentioned quantities and showing in many cases their correspondence with classical objects. In particular, for self-similar fractals the traceability interval consists only of the Hausdorff dimension, and the corresponding Hausdorff-Besicovitch functional gives rise to the Hausdorff measure. More generally, for any limit fractal, the described functionals do not depend on the generalized limit ω.     

Angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of randomly oriented 3-hydroxytetrahydrofuran enantiomers.

Circular dichroism in the angular distribution of valence photoelectrons emitted from randomly oriented 3-hydroxytetrahydrofuran enantiomers (ThS and ThR) has been observed in gas-phase experiments using circularly polarized vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light. The measured dichroism for both ThS and ThR, acquired at the single magic angle theta=234.73 degrees and at photon energies of 22, 19, 16, and 14 eV, points to an asymmetric forward-backward scattering of the photoelectrons from their highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO) HOMO-1 and HOMO-2, of up to 5%, depending on the photon energy. The asymmetry reverses on exchange of either the helicity of the radiation or the configuration of Th. The photoionization dichroic D parameters of ThS and ThR have been measured and their values discussed in the light of LCAO B-spline density functional theory (DFT) predictions. While an acceptable agreement is found between the dichroic parameter measured and calculated at the highest photon energy for the HOMO and HOMO-2 orbitals of Th, a significant discrepancy is observed for the HOMO-1 state which is attributed to the floppiness of Th, in particular to the comparatively large sensitivity of the size and shape of its HOMO-1 on nuclear vibrational motion.     

Hydroxo sulfate complexes of iron (III) in solution

The ternary Fe (III)-OH(-)-SO4(2-) complexes have been investigated at 25 degrees C in 3 M NaClO4 by potentiometric titration with glass electrode. The metal and sulfate concentrations ranged from 2.5 x 10(-3) to 0.03 M and from 5.10(-3) to 0.060 M, respectively. [H+] was decreased from 0.05 M to incipient precipitation of basic sulfate which occured at log[H+] between -2.3 and -2.5 depending on the concentration of the metal. For the interpretation of the data stability constants of HSO4(-), of binary hydroxo complexes (FeOH2+, Fe(OH)2+, Fe2(OH)2(4+), Fe3(OH)4(5+), Fe3(OH)5(4+)) and of sulfate complexes (FeSO4+, FeHSO4(2+), Fe(SO4)2-) were assumed from independent sources. The data are consistent with the presence of FeOHSO4, log beta 1-11 = -0.49 +/- 0.03. Equilibrium constants are defined as beta pqr for pFe3+ +qH+ +rSO4(2-) [symbol: see text] FepHq(SO4)r3p+q-2r. No substantial better fit could be found by adding a second mixed complex. Only a slightly smaller agreement factor resulted introducing as minor ternary complex Fe3(OH)6(SO4)3(3-) with log beta 3-63 = -5.8 +/- 0.5. Its evidence, however, cannot be considered conclusive.     

New functionalized, differently fluorinated building-blocks via Michael addition to γ-fluoro-α-nitroalkenes

The Michael addition of ketone-derived enamines, metalated methylene active compounds and N-methyl pyrroles to γ-fluoro-α-nitroalkenes provided in moderate to good isolated yields the corresponding β-fluoroalkyl nitro compounds, which represent new interesting, highly functionalized building blocks in organofluorine chemistry.     

Heat conduction in multi-temperature mixtures of fluids: the role of the average temperature

The theory of mixture of fluids in which each constituent has its own temperature is more realistic than the models in which all the components have a common temperature and it is necessary in several physical situations, such as plasma physics. Nevertheless, from the theoretical point of view, the main problem regards the measurement of the temperature of each constituent. In this Letter we consider the simple case of the one-dimensional steady heat conduction between two walls and we adopt the concept of average temperature recently proposed by Ruggeri and co-workers such that the whole internal energy of the mixture depends only on the average temperature. Assuming that the two walls have given temperatures, we can first verify that the temperature behavior is different from the linear one predicted in the mixture theories with a single temperature. Moreover, we can also prove that, for a mixture of n constituents, the measure of the average temperature at 2(n−1) points allows to know the temperature behavior of each constituent everywhere.     

Classification of spontaneous EEG signals in migraine

We set up a classification system able to detect patients affected by migraine without aura, through the analysis of their spontaneous EEG patterns. First, the signals are characterized by means of wavelet-based features, than a supervised neural network is used to classify the multichannel data. For the feature extraction, scale-dependent and scale-independent methods are considered with a variety of wavelet functions. Both the approaches provide very high and almost comparable classification performances. A complete separation of the two groups is obtained when the data are plotted in the plane spanned by two suitable neural outputs.