Positron lifetimes in solid and liquid mercury

Consistent and plausible values for positron lifetimed in solid and liquid mercury are obtained with both conventional sandwich and amalgam source-sample arrangements.     

Nucleosides and nucleotides part 24 Investigation of ribo- and deoxyribonucleosides and -nucleotides by fast- atom-bombardment mass spectrometry

The fast-atom-bombardment mass spectra (FAB-MS) of a series of ribo- and deoxyribonucleosides and -nucleotides were examined in both positive-ion and negative-ion modes. Behaviour of cytosine analogs having unnatural bases (2(1H)-pyrimidone, 2(1H)-pyridinone, and 4-amino-2(1H)-pyridinone) was similar to that of compounds having naturally occurring bases. Nucleotides protected by dimethoxytrityl and p-chlorophenyl groups were also investigated using this technique. Use of negative-ion mode reduces interference from positive counter-ions (e.g., Na⁺) and allows rapid sequence determination of simple di- and trinucleotides.     

Development of a flow injection method for monitoring cell membrane damage of wine lactic acid bacteria

A flow injection analysis (FIA) system was developed for the determination of phosphate efflux from wine lactic acid bacteria (Oenococus oeni and Lactobacillus hilgardii) as an indication of cell membrane damage. The system allowed the direct injection of the cell suspension, avoiding the filtration step, with minimum sample treatment and minimized reagent consumption. The developed system is characterized by a linear concentration zone between 3.23 × 10⁻⁵ and 4.84 × 10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹ PO₄ ³⁻ and repeatability better than 2.9%. Bacterial suspensions were exposed to a chemical stress with phenolic acids and injected in the FIA system at regular intervals. The extracellular concentration of phosphate was measured spectrophotometrically. The experimental results obtained indicate that hydroxycinnamic acids (p-coumaric, ferulic and caffeic) induced faster phosphate leakage rates than hydroxybenzoic acids (vanillic and p-hydroxybenzoic) in both strains tested, which could be related to their higher lipophilic character.     

Synthesis of Cyclopropyl‐Substituted Furans by Brønsted Acid Promoted Cascade Reactions

Chloroacetic acid promotes an efficient and diastereoselective intramolecular cascade reaction of electron‐deficient ynenones to deliver products featuring a 2,3,5‐trisubstituted furan bearing a fused cyclopropyl substituent at the 5‐position. Synthetically relevant polycyclic building blocks featuring rings of various sizes and heteroatoms have been synthesized in high yield using this mild acid‐catalyzed reaction.     

An efficient analyse phase for element problems

The analyse phase of a sparse direct solver for symmetrically structured linear systems of equations is used to determine the sparsity pattern of the matrix factor. This allows the subsequent numerical factorisation and solve phases to be executed efficiently. Many direct solvers require the system matrix to be in assembled form. For problems arising from finite element applications, assembling and then using the system matrix can be costly in terms of both time and memory. This paper describes and implements a variant of the work of Gilbert, Ng and Peyton for matrices in elemental form. The proposed variant works with an equivalent matrix that avoids explicitly assembling the system matrix and exploits supervariables. Numerical experiments using problems from practical applications are used to demonstrate the significant advantages of working directly with the elemental form. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.