Performance guarantee for edf under overload

Earliest deadline first (edf) is a widely used algorithm for online deadline scheduling. It has been known for long that edf is optimal for scheduling an underloaded, single-processor system; recent results on the extra-resource analysis of edf further revealed that edf when using moderately faster processors can achieve optimal performance in the underloaded, multi-processor setting. This paper initiates the extra-resource analysis of edf for overloaded systems, showing that edf supplemented with a simple form of admission control can provide a similar performance guarantee in both the single and multi-processor settings.     

Energetics and mechanism of the decomposition of trifluoromethanol

The thermal instability of alpha-fluoroalcohols is generally attributed to a unimolecular 1,2-elimination of HF, but the barrier to intramolecular HF elimination from CF3OH is predicted to be 45.1 +/- 2 kcal/mol. The thermochemical parameters of trifluoromethanol were calculated using coupled-cluster theory (CCSD(T)) extrapolated to the complete basis set limit. High barriers of 42.9, 43.1, and 45.0 kcal/mol were predicted for the unimolecular decompositions of CH2FOH, CHF2OH, and CF3OH, respectively. These barriers are lowered substantially if cyclic H-bonded dimers of CF3OH with complexation energies of approximately 5 kcal/mol are involved. A six-membered ring dimer has an energy barrier of 28.7 kcal/mol and an eight-membered dimer has an energy barrier of 32.9 kcal/mol. Complexes of CF3OH with HF lead to strong H-bonded dimers, trimers and tetramers with complexation energies of approximately 6, 11, and 16 kcal/mol, respectively. The dimer, CH3OH:HF, and the trimers, CF3OH:2HF and (CH3OH)2:HF, have decomposition energy barriers of 26.7, 20.3, and 22.8 kcal/mol, respectively. The tetramer (CH3OH:HF)2 gives rise to elimination of two HF molecules with a barrier of 32.5 kcal/mol. Either CF3OH or HF can act as catalysts for HF-elimination via an H-transfer relay. Because HF is one of the decomposition products, the decomposition reactions become autocatalytic. If the energies due to complexation for the CF3OH-HF adducts are not dissipated, the effective barriers to HF elimination are lowered from approximately 20 to approximately 9 kcal/mol, which reconciles the computational results with the experimentally observed stabilities.     

Robust identification of binding hot spots using continuum electrostatics: application to hen egg-white lysozyme

Binding hot spots, protein regions with high binding affinity, can be identified by using X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy to screen libraries of small organic molecules that tend to cluster at such hot spots. FTMap, a direct computational analogue of the experimental screening approaches, uses 16 different probe molecules for global sampling of the surface of a target protein on a dense grid and evaluates the energy of interaction using an empirical energy function that includes a continuum electrostatic term. Energy evaluation is based on the fast Fourier transform correlation approach, which allows for the sampling of billions of probe positions. The grid sampling is followed by off-grid minimization that uses a more detailed energy expression with a continuum electrostatics term. FTMap identifies the hot spots as consensus clusters formed by overlapping clusters of several probes. The hot spots are ranked on the basis of the number of probe clusters, which predicts their binding propensity. We applied FTMap to nine structures of hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL), whose hot spots have been extensively studied by both experimental and computational methods. FTMap found the primary hot spot in site C of all nine structures, in spite of conformational differences. In addition, secondary hot spots in sites B and D that are known to be important for the binding of polysaccharide substrates were found. The predicted probe-protein interactions agree well with those seen in the complexes of HEWL with various ligands and also agree with an NMR-based study of HEWL in aqueous solutions of eight organic solvents. We argue that FTMap provides more complete information on the HEWL binding site than previous computational methods and yields fewer false-positive binding locations than the X-ray structures of HEWL from crystals soaked in organic solvents.     

High Magnetic Moments in Manganese‐Doped Silicon Clusters

We report on the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of manganese‐doped silicon clusters cations, Si_nMn⁺ with n=6–10, 12–14, and 16, using mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy in combination with density functional theory computations. This combined experimental and theoretical study allows several structures to be identified. All the exohedral Si_nMn⁺ (n=6–10) clusters are found to be substitutive derivatives of the bare Si_n+1⁺ cations, while the endohedral Si_nMn⁺ (n=12–14 and 16) clusters adopt fullerene‐like structures. The hybrid B3P86 functional is shown to be appropriate in predicting the ground electronic states of the clusters and in reproducing their infrared spectra. The clusters turn out to have high magnetic moments localized on Mn. In particular the Mn atoms in the exohedral Si_nMn⁺ (n=6–10) clusters have local magnetic moments of 4 μ_B or 6 μ_B and can be considered as magnetic copies of the silicon atoms. Opposed to other 3d transition‐metal dopants, the local magnetic moment of the Mn atom is not completely quenched when encapsulated in a silicon cage.     

Cyclodextrin-phosphane possessing a guest-tunable conformation for aqueous rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation

The inclusion of a guest inside the cavity of a new water-soluble cyclodextrin-phosphane allows controlling the natural conformation of this ligand leading to an inversion of the regioselectivity during aqueous hydroformylation reaction.     

Insights into the cooperativity between multiple interactions of dimethyl sulfoxide with carbon dioxide and water

Interactions of dimethyl sulfoxide with carbon dioxide and water molecules which induce 18 significantly stable complexes are thoroughly investigated. An addition of CO₂ or H₂O molecules into the DMSO⋯1CO₂ and DMSO⋯1H₂O systems leads to an increase in the stability of the resulting complexes, in which it is larger for a H₂O addition than a CO₂. The overall stabilization energy of the DMSO⋯1,2CO₂ is mainly contributed by the S=O⋯C Lewis acid–base interaction, whereas the O − H⋯O hydrogen bond plays a significant role in stabilizing complexes of DMSO⋯1,2H₂O and DMSO⋯1CO₂⋯1H₂O. Remarkably, the complexes of DMSO⋯2H₂O are found to be more stable than DMSO⋯1CO₂⋯1H₂O and DMSO⋯2CO₂. The level of the cooperativity of multiple interactions in ternary complexes tends to decrease in going from DMSO⋯2H₂O to DMSO⋯1CO₂⋯1H₂O and finally to DMSO⋯2CO₂. It is generally found that the red shift of the O − H bond involved in an O − H⋯O hydrogen bond increases while the blue shift of a C − H bond in a C − H⋯O hydrogen bond decreases when a cooperative effect occurs in ternary complexes as compared to those of the corresponding binary complexes. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Dislocation kink-pair energetics and pencil glide in body-centered-cubic crystals

When body-centered-cubic crystals undergo plastic deformation, the slip planes are often noncrystallographic. By performing atomistic simulation on the activation pathway of dislocation jumps in bcc iron, we show that the main reason for bcc crystals to exhibit this phenomenon is that one type of kink pair has significantly lower energy than all the other types on the same slip plane. Dislocation motion therefore cannot continue on the same slip plane, and the dislocation has to cross slip onto an intersecting slip plane after each atomic jump. Thus in the long run, the average slip plane would be zigzag and noncrystallographic.     

Structural identification of caged vanadium doped silicon clusters

The geometry of cationic silicon clusters doped with vanadium, Si(n)V(+) (n=12-16), is investigated by using infrared multiple photon dissociation of the corresponding rare gas complexes in combination with ab initio calculations. It is shown that the clusters are endohedral cages, and evidence is provided that Si(16)V(+) is a fluxional system with a symmetric Frank-Kasper geometry.     

Classes non ramifiées sur un espace classifiant

In this Note, we establish a general formula for the unramified cohomology of fields of linear invariants by finite groups. Such formulas are known in degree 2 and 3.