A short synthesis of koniamborine, a naturally occurring pyrano[3,2-b]indole

An expedient synthesis of the alkaloid koniamborine, the only to date isolated naturally occurring pyrano[3,2-b]indole is presented. The key pyrano[3,2-b]indole forming step is a palladium-catalyzed reductive N-heteroannulation of 2-(4-methoxy-2-nitrophenyl)-(4H)-pyrane-4-one.     

Dendritic cells: In the forefront of immunopathogenesis and vaccine development – A review

Dendritic cellls (DCs) comprise an essential component of the immune system. These cells, as antigen presenting cells (APCs) to na?ve T cells, are crucial in the initiation of antigen specific immune responses. In the past years, several DC subsets have been identified in different organs which exert different effects in order to elicit adaptive immune responses. Thus, identification of such DC subsets has led to a better understanding of their distribution and function in the body. In this review, several key properties of the immunobiology, immunopathogenesis and vaccine strategies using DCs will be discussed.     

Pulsed-Field-Gradient Measurements of Time-Dependent Gas Diffusion

Pulsed-field-gradient NMR techniques are demonstrated for measurements of time-dependent gas diffusion. The standard PGSE technique and variants, applied to a free gas mixture of thermally polarized xenon and O₂, are found to provide a reproducible measure of the xenon diffusion coefficient (5.71 × 10⁻⁶m²s⁻¹for 1 atm of pure xenon), in excellent agreement with previous, non-NMR measurements. The utility of pulsed-field-gradient NMR techniques is demonstrated by the first measurement of time-dependent (i.e., restricted) gas diffusion inside a porous medium (a random pack of glass beads), with results that agree well with theory. Two modified NMR pulse sequences derived from the PGSE technique (named the Pulsed Gradient Echo, or PGE, and the Pulsed Gradient Multiple Spin Echo, or PGMSE) are also applied to measurements of time dependent diffusion of laser polarized xenon gas, with results in good agreement with previous measurements on thermally polarized gas. The PGMSE technique is found to be superior to the PGE method, and to standard PGSE techniques and variants, for efficiently measuring laser polarized noble gas diffusion over a wide range of diffusion times.     

The location of median paths on grid graphs

In this paper we consider the location of a path shaped facility on a grid graph. In the literature this problem was extensively studied on particular classes of graphs as trees or series-parallel graphs. We consider here the problem of finding a path which minimizes the sum of the (shortest) distances from it to the other vertices of the grid, where the path is also subject to an additional constraint that takes the form either of the length of the path or of the cardinality. We study the complexity of these problems and we find two polynomial time algorithms for two special cases, with time complexity of O(n) and O(nℓ) respectively, where n is the number of vertices of the grid and ℓ is the cardinality of the path to be located. The literature about locating dimensional facilities distinguishes between the location of extensive facilities in continuous spaces and network facility location. We will show that the problems presented here have a close connection with continuous dimensional facility problems, so that the procedures provided can also be useful for solving some open problems of dimensional facilities location in the continuous case.     

A search for fractional electric charge in sea water

The magnetic levitation technique has been used to test for fractional electric charge in sea water, using steel balls coated with sea water residue by evaporation. The objective was to reach concentration levels below 1 g^?1 which might result from cosmic ray interactions. Four stages of increasing sensitivity are reported: (1) residue from direct evaporation of unprocessed sea water, (2) residue from sea water samples enriched by ion exchangen, (3) residue reduced by high temperature evaporation, and (4) hypothetical enrichment by dilution and separation of soluble residue. Stages 1–3 are based on the generally accepted preferential retention of fractional charge during evaporation, but stage 4 limits are subject to uncertainties in the enrichment process. No evidence for fractional charge was found in a total of about 130 samples tested in these four stages. Samples containing positive and negative ions were tested separately, and concentration limits are reported for each of the stages. Levels in the region 0.01–0.1g^?1 were reached in stage 3, and 0.001 g^?1 in stage 4.     

Do the Experimental Violations of Bell Inequalities Require a Non-Local Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics？

Since the data show that Bell inequalities are violated experimentally, we must conclude that any hidden variable theory （which correctly predicts experimental data ） will be non-local. But, to conclude that the experimental violations of Bell inequalities show quantum mechanics to be non-local is unjustified. Specifically, the key assumptions required to obtain a Bell inequality are （ 1 ） locality and （2） the assignment of meaningful （ non- negative） probabilities to seemingly physical correlations （Bell expresses these correlations via ＂ hidden variables＂ ）. Since the Bell inequality is violated by experiment, at least one of these assumptions is wrong. The widespread conclusion that locality must be relinquished is valid only if we retain the previously mentioned correlations （ ＂hidden variables＂ ）. We will demonstrate that the latter are not physical observables - they are not elements of physical reality.     

An improved linearization strategy for zero-one quadratic programming problems

We present a new linearized model for the zero-one quadratic programming problem, whose size is linear in terms of the number of variables in the original nonlinear problem. Our derivation yields three alternative reformulations, each varying in model size and tightness. We show that our models are at least as tight as the one recently proposed in [7], and examine the theoretical relationship of our models to a standard linearization of the zero-one quadratic programming problem. Finally, we demonstrate the efficacy of solving each of these models on a set of randomly generated test instances.