Cloning of the Orange Light‐Producing Luciferase from Photinus scintillans—A New Proposal on how Bioluminescence Color is Determined

Unlike the enchanting yellow‐green flashes of light produced on warm summer evenings by Photinus pyralis, the most common firefly species in North America, the orange lights of Photinus scintillans are infrequently observed. These Photinus species, and likely all bioluminescent beetles, use the same substrates beetle luciferin, ATP and oxygen to produce light. It is the structure of the particular luciferase enzyme that is the key to determining the color of the emitted light. We report here the molecular cloning of the P. scintillans luc gene and the expression and characterization of the corresponding novel recombinant luciferase enzyme. A comparison of the amino acid sequence with that of the highly similar P. pyralis enzyme and subsequent mutagenesis studies revealed that the single conservative amino acid change tyrosine to phenylalanine at position 255 accounted for the entire emission color difference. Additional mutagenesis and crystallographic studies were performed on a H‐bond network, which includes the position 255 residue and five other stringently conserved beetle luciferase residues, that is proximal to the substrate/emitter binding site. The results are interpreted in the context of a speculative proposal that this network is key to the understanding of bioluminescence color determination.     

Anticancer activities of manganese-based photoactivatable CO-releasing complexes (PhotoCORMs) with benzimidazole derivative ligands

Carbon monoxide is an important signaling molecule which is produced by heme oxygenase-1. CO shows antiproliferative activity against cancer cells; hence, activation of HO-1 is a significant inhibition strategy against tumor formation and survival of cancer cells. In this work, manganese-based CO-releasing molecules (CORMs) were designed and synthesized to inhibit breast cancer cell proliferation. Human invasive ductal breast cancer cells (MCF-7) were treated with the synthesized CORMs to investigate the effect of the complexes on breast cancer survival under UV light. In vitro experiments indicated that the complexes inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, and further, the antiproliferative effects were increased under UV light. Thus, these novel CORMs may provide a drug template for the treatment of invasive ductal breast cancer.     

An algorithm for the determination of graphs associated to fold maps between closed surfaces

The aim of this paper is to introduce a computational tool that checks theoretical conditions in order to determine whether a weighted graph, as a topological invariant of stable maps, can be associated to stable maps without cusps (ie, fold maps) from closed surfaces to the projective plan.     

Fe—C—Cr—Mn亚稳奥氏体铸铁磨损表层的TEM观察

用透射电镜观察了 Fe- C- Cr- Mn亚稳奥氏体基铸铁在 80 0 #Si C砂纸上经往复摩擦磨损试验后磨损表层的微观结构 .结果表明 :摩擦表层奥氏体基体的微观组织结构不均匀 ,有位错区、层错区、滑移区和ε-马氏体区 ;此外 ,还观察到了大量的奥氏体变体 ,沿其 [1 31 ]晶带轴旋转 2 5.35°可与基体 [1 1 2 ]晶带轴重合 ;在碳化物颗粒附近只观察到奥氏体变体和层错 .     

Multi-location transshipment problem with capacitated production

We consider coordination among stocking locations through replenishment strategies that explicitly take into account lateral transshipments, i.e., transfer of a product among locations at the same echelon level. Our basic contribution is the incorporation of supply capacity into the traditional transshipment model. Our goal is to analyze the impact on system behavior and on stocking locations’ performance of the fact that the supplier may fail to fulfill all the replenishment orders. We therefore formulate the capacitated supply scenario as a network flow problem embedded in a stochastic optimization problem, which is solved through a sample average approximation method. We find that, depending on the production capacity, system behavior can vary drastically. Moreover, in a production-inventory system, we find evidence that either capacity flexibility (i.e., extra production) or transshipment flexibility (i.e., pooling) is required to maintain a desired level of service.     

A landing theorem for periodic dynamic rays for transcendental entire maps with bounded post-singular set

In this article, we present a landing theorem for periodic dynamic rays for transcendental entire maps which have bounded post-singular sets, by using standard hyperbolic geometry results.     

Characterization of Co-evaporated Cu-Ag-In-Se Thin Films

In this study, annealing effect on the structural, electrical, and optical characteristics of the quaternary Cu-Ag-In-Se (CAIS) thin films was investigated. These samples were deposited by co-evaporation of the Cu, Ag, In₂Se₃, and Se sources at the substrate temperature of 300 °C. The structural properties of the thin films were analyzed by means of X-ray diffraction, and the results indicated that all of the films were in the polycrystalline structure with the preferred orientation along (112) direction. From the optical measurements, the band gap values were found to vary between 1.38 and 1.45 eV with annealing processes. The temperature-dependent electrical conductivity of the samples was measured in the temperature range of 90–400 K. The films gained degenerate behavior with increasing annealing temperature. The carrier conduction mechanism was determined at high- and low-temperature regions by comparing thermionic emission and hopping parameters. Photoconductivity of the as-grown film showed that there was an increase in conductivity with increasing illumination intensity. From this measurement, the variation of photocurrent as a function of illumination intensity was determined.     

双程放大实验中自激振荡的抑制

 通过对国内首次采用离轴式构型的高功率固体激光器双程放大实验中自激振荡的实验,分析了自激振荡产生的原因,在不需增加隔离器的情况下得到了抑制自激振荡的方法,从而为解决多程放大实验中的自激振荡问题提供了具体的指导方法。     

Thermal entanglement in the mixed three-spin XXZ Heisenberg model on a triangular cell

We numerically investigate the thermal entanglements of spins （1/2, 1） and spins （1/2, 1/2） in the three-mixed （1/2, 1, 1/2） anisotropic Heisenberg XXZ spin system on a simple triangular cell under an inhomogeneous magnetic field. We show that the external magnetic field induces strong plateau formation in the pairwise thermal entanglement for fixed parame-ters of the Hamiltonian in the cases of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions. We also .observe an unexpected critical point at finite temperature in the thermal entanglement of spins （1/2, 1） for the antiferromagnetic case, while the entanglement of spins （1/2, 1） in the ferromagnetic case and the entanglement of spins （1/2, 1/2） in both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic cases almost decay exponentially to zero with increasing temperature. The critical point in the en-tanglement of spins （1/2, 1） in the antiferromagnetic case may be a signature of the quantum phase transition at finite temperature.