Higher topological cyclic homology and the Segal conjecture for tori

We investigate higher topological cyclic homology as an approach to studying chromatic phenomena in homotopy theory. Higher topological cyclic homology is constructed from the fixed points of a version of topological Hochschild homology based on the n-dimensional torus, and we propose it as a computationally tractable cousin of n-fold iterated algebraic K-theory.The fixed points of toral topological Hochschild homology are related to one another by restriction and Frobenius operators. We introduce two additional families of operators on fixed points, the Verschiebung, indexed on self-isogenies of the n-torus, and the differentials, indexed on n-vectors. We give a detailed analysis of the relations among the restriction, Frobenius, Verschiebung, and differentials, producing a higher analog of the structure Hesselholt and Madsen described for 1-dimensional topological cyclic homology.We calculate two important pieces of higher topological cyclic homology, namely topological restriction homology and topological Frobenius homology, for the sphere spectrum. The latter computation allows us to establish the Segal conjecture for the torus, which is to say to completely compute the cohomotopy type of the classifying space of the torus.     

Integrated decision support for assessing chemical liabilities

Chemical liabilities, such as adverse effects and toxicity, have a major impact on today's drug discovery process. In silico prediction of chemical liabilities is an important approach which can reduce costs and animal testing by complementing or replacing in vitro and in vivo liability models. There is a lack of integrated, extensible decision support systems for chemical liability assessment which run quickly and have easily interpretable results. Here we present a method which integrates similarity searches, structural alerts, and QSAR models which all are available from the Bioclipse workbench. Emphasis has been placed on interpretation of results, and substructures which are important for predictions are highlighted in the original chemical structures. This allows for interactively changing chemical structures with instant visual feedback and can be used for hypothesis testing of single chemical structures as well as compound collections. The system has a clear separation between methods and data, and the extensible architecture enables straightforward extension via addition of more plugins (such as new data sets and computational models). We demonstrate our method on three important safety end points: mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) activation. Bioclipse and the decision support implementation are free, open source, and available from http://www.bioclipse.net/decision-support .     

New filtering for the cumulative constraint in the context of non-overlapping rectangles

This article describes new filtering methods for the cumulative constraint. The first method introduces the so called longest closed hole and longest open hole problems. For these two problems it first provides bounds and exact methods and then shows how to use them in the context of the non-overlapping constraint. The second method introduces balancing knapsack constraints which relate the total height of the tasks that end at a specific time-point with the total height of the tasks that start at the same time-point. Experiments on tight rectangle packing problems show that these methods drastically reduce both the time and the number of backtracks for finding all solutions as well as for finding the first solution. For example, we found without backtracking all solutions to 65 perfect square instances of order 22?C25 and sizes ranging from 192×192 to 661×661.     

Symmetry of [N-X-N]+ halogen bonds in solution

The first investigation of halogen bond symmetry is presented. In contrast to related hydrogen bonds, the iodous halogen bond is symmetric in solution and in the crystal. The bromous analogue is symmetric in solution, but shows asymmetry in the solid state. NMR results are in agreement with DFT predictions.     

Electron microscopy of phase and structural transformations in soft magnetic nanocrystalline Fe-Zr-N films

The effect of deposition conditions (film thickness) on the structure of soft magnetic Fe_80–78Zr₁₀N_10–12 films formed by reactive magnetron deposition on a heat-resistant glass substrate has been investigated by analytical transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution electron microscopy, and diffraction analysis. The processes of evolution of the phase and structural state of films and the film-substrate interface upon annealing in the temperature range of 200–650°C have been analyzed taking into account the thermodynamic, kinetic, and structural factors and the specific features of the nanocrystalline state.     

Alternating Projections on Nontangential Manifolds

We consider sequences $(B_{k})_{k=0}^{\infty}$ of points obtained by projecting a given point B=B ₀ back and forth between two manifolds $\mathcal{M}_{1}$ and $\mathcal{M}_{2}$ , and give conditions guaranteeing that the sequence converges to a limit $B_{\infty}\in\mathcal{M}_{1}\cap\mathcal{M}_{2}$ . Our motivation is the study of algorithms based on finding the limit of such sequences, which have proved useful in a number of areas. The intersection is typically a set with desirable properties but for which there is no efficient method for finding the closest point B _opt in $\mathcal{M}_{1}\cap\mathcal{M}_{2}$ . Under appropriate conditions, we prove not only that the sequence of alternating projections converges, but that the limit point is fairly close to B _opt , in a manner relative to the distance ∥B ₀?B _opt ∥, thereby significantly improving earlier results in the field.     

Covalent coupling of unsaturated compounds to thiol agrarose using γ-Radiation

Unsaturated compounds can be attached to thiol polymers by means of ?-radiation. By this method several agarose conjugates have been synthesized from thiol agarose gel and different ligand derivatives (testosterone, estradiol, 3-octenoic acid, and hexa-2,4-dienoic acid). The amount of fixed ligand is about 60-120 μmol/g of dried conjugate. The method described is a valuable complement to the currently available procedures for the preparation of adsorbents for affinity chromatography.     

Band structures and proton-neutron interactions in Ta

Six rotational bands in the odd-odd nucleus ¹⁷⁴Ta have been populated with the ¹⁶⁰Gd(¹⁹F,5n) reaction. High-spin states were identified using the NORDBALL array. Both signatures of the doubly decoupled π1/2⁻ [541] ν1/2⁻ [521] band and semi-decoupled π1/2⁻ [541] ν7/2⁻ [633] band are observed, in addition to the high-K couplings of the π9/2⁻ [514] ν7/2⁺ [633], π9/2⁻ [514] ν5/2⁻ [512], π7/2⁺ [404] ν7/2⁺ [633], and π5/2⁺ [402] ν5/2⁻ [512] configurations. The signature splitting of the π1/2⁻ [541] ν7/2⁺ [633] band is inverted from the expected splitting, and this is interpreted as being due to a residual proton-neutron interaction. It is shown empirically that this interaction, together with deformation changes, can account for the increased crossing frequency associated with the alignment of i_13/2 neutrons in the π1/2⁻ [541] bands of odd-Z nuclei.