New sesquiterpenoids from the New Zealand liverwort Chiloscyphus subporosus

A new aromadendrane-type sesquiterpenoid, 4(15)-aromadendren-12,5alpha-olide and an aromadendrane-guaianolide dimer have been isolated from the New Zealand liverwort Chiloscyphus subporosus. Their structures were established by extensive NMR techniques and X-ray crystallographic analysis.     

Computation of multiple eigenvalues of infinite tridiagonal matrices

In this paper, it is first given as a necessary and sufficient condition that infinite matrices of a certain type have double eigenvalues. The computation of such double eigenvalues is enabled by the Newton method of two variables. The three-term recurrence relations obtained from its eigenvalue problem (EVP) subsume the well-known relations of (A) the zeros of ; (B) the zeros of ; (C) the EVP of the Mathieu differential equation; and (D) the EVP of the spheroidal wave equation. The results of experiments are shown for the three cases (A)-(C) for the computation of their ``double pairs'.

     

Dispersion and Confinement Loss Control in Modified Hexagonal Photonic Crystal Fibers

This paper presents a novel technique for the control of chromatic dispersion and confinement loss in hexagonal photonic crystal fibers (H-PCFs). It is demonstrated that it is possible to obtain very low chromatic dispersion of 0 ± 0:38 ps/(nm·km) in the wavelength range of 1.41 to 1.66 μm and confinement loss of less than 0.0001 dB/km from a six ring modified H-PCF (MH-PCF). The higher order dispersion at 1.55 μm is about −0.001 ps/(nm²-km).     

High-Quality Protein Crystal Growth of Mouse Lipocalin-Type Prostaglandin D Synthase in Microgravity

Lipocalin-type prostaglandin (PG) D synthase (L-PGDS) catalyzes the isomerization of PGH(2) to PGD(2) and is involved in the regulation of pain and of nonrapid eye movement sleep and the differentiation of male genital organs and adipocytes, etc. L-PGDS is secreted into various body fluids and binds various lipophilic compounds with high affinities, acting also as an extracellular transporter. Mouse L-PGDS with a C65A mutation was previously crystallized with citrate or malonate as a precipitant, and the X-ray crystallographic structure was determined at 2.0 ? resolution. To obtain high-quality crystals, we tried, unsuccessfully, to crystallize the C65A mutant in microgravity under the same conditions used in the previous study. After further purifying the protein and changing the precipitant to polyethylene glycol (PEG) 8000, high-quality crystals were grown in microgravity. The precipitant solution was 40% (w/v) PEG 8000, 100 mM sodium chloride, and 100 mM HEPES-NaOH (pH 7.0). Crystals grew on board the International Space Station for 11 weeks in 2007, yielding single crystals of the wild-type L-PGDS and the C65A mutant, both of which diffracted at around 1.0 ? resolution. The crystal quality was markedly improved through the use of a high-viscosity precipitant solution in microgravity, in combination with the use of a highly purified protein.     

Synthesis of [60]fullerene-containing [2]rotaxanes using axle molecules bearing donor moiety

[2]Rotaxanes, consisting of a fullerene derivative bearing an electron-donating 1,5-dialkoxynaphthalene moiety and a macrocycle containing electron-deficient naphthalenetetracarboxylic diimide moieties, were first successfully synthesized and characterized.     

The Chemical Constituents of the Liverwort Mylia Nuda

Two diterpenoids, (+)-labda-7,14-dien-13-ol and (+)-manoyl oxide, and one bis(bibenzyl) compound, isomarchantin C, were isolated as the major components from the Taiwanese liverwort Mylia nuda. The spectral evidence is discussed in this paper. In addition, several monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes were also identified by GC/MS.     

One-loop induced topological term in QED3

We consider the 2+1 dimensional massive QED and discuss the induced topological term in the one-loop level by using the higher derivative regularization. We show that the higher derivative regularization, which manifestly preserves the parity invariance when the fermion mass vanishes, automatically leads to a nonvanishing topological term in low energies. Although this higher derivative regularization formally violates the local gauge invariance, we propose a systematic way to recover the gauge invariance by adding local counter terms dictated by Ward-Takahashi identities. In practical applications, this regularization is interesting in connection with the discussion of the dynamical origin of the quantum Hall effect.