Spectroscopic and structural evidence for the hydrogen bond nature of CC---H…C=C contacts in ethynyl steroids

Structural and IR-spectroscopic evidence is given that directed contacts from terminal alkynes to C=C double bonds possess the essential characteristics of weak hydrogen bonds. The contacts are directed at the center of the π-bond rather than at one of the individual C-atoms. The contact distances from H to the center of the C=C bond are typically 2.8 Å, with the shortest distances being 2.5 Å. The interaction is of pronounced long-range nature and can be detected in the infrared spectrum even with a long H…π distance of almost 3.0 Å. The sample used is mainly composed of ethynyl steroids belonging to the progestine family.     

Aging, rejuvenation and memory phenomena in spin glasses

In this paper, we review several important features of the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of spin glasses. Starting with the simplest experiments, we discuss the scaling laws used to describe the isothermal aging observed in spin glasses after a quench down to the low-temperature phase. We report in particular new results on the sub-aging behaviour of spin glasses. We then discuss the rejuvenation and memory effects observed when a spin glass is submitted to temperature variations during aging, from the point of view of both energy landscape pictures and real-space pictures. We highlight the fact that both approaches point out the necessity of hierarchical processes involved in aging. Finally, we report an investigation of the effect of small temperature variations on aging in spin glass samples with various anisotropies which indicates that this hierarchy depends on the spin anisotropy.     

Large deviations of sojourn times in processor sharing queues

This paper presents a large deviation analysis of the steady-state sojourn time distribution in the GI/G/1 PS queue. Logarithmic estimates are obtained under the assumption of the service time distribution having a light tail, thus supplementing recent results for the heavy-tailed setting. Our proof gives insight into the way a large sojourn time occurs, enabling the construction of an (asymptotically efficient) importance sampling algorithm. Finally our results for PS are compared to a number of other service disciplines, such as FCFS, LCFS, and SRPT. 2000 mathematics subject classification: 60K25.