An approach to the synthesis of furanoheliangolides through Diels-Alder reactions

The core structure of the natural sesquiterpene lactones furanoheliangolides, an 11-oxabicyclo[6.2.1]undecane system, was synthesized through a pathway involving two Diels-Alder reactions.     

Nonlinear age-dependent diffusive equations: A bifurcation approach

The main goal of this paper is the study of the existence and uniqueness of positive solutions of some nonlinear age-dependent diffusive models, arising from dynamic populations. We use a bifurcation method, for which it has been necessary to study in detail the linear and eigenvalue problems associated to the nonlinear problem in an appropriate space.     

Surface tension in field theory at finite temperature: Semiclassical fermionic plus bosonic contributions

We compute, within the one loop approximation, the temperature dependent surface tension for a model involving a scalar field coupled to a fermionic field. The fermionic and bosonic contributions have been computed in this approximation by evaluating explicitly the determinants in the presence of a domain wall.     

Tetracyclic Thioxanthene Derivatives: Studies on Fluorescence and Antitumor Activity

Thioxanthones are bioisosteres of the naturally occurring xanthones. They have been described for multiple activities, including antitumor. As such, the synthesis of a library of thioxanthones was pursued, but unexpectedly, four tetracyclic thioxanthenes with a quinazoline–chromene scaffold were obtained. These compounds were studied for their human tumor cell growth inhibition activity, in the cell lines A375-C5, MCF-7 and NCI-H460. Photophysical studies were also performed. Two of the compounds displayed GI₅₀ values below 10 µM for the three tested cell lines, and structure–activity relationship studies were established. Three compounds presented similar wavelengths of absorption and emission, characteristic of dyes with a push-pull character. The structures of two compounds were elucidated by X-ray crystallography. Two tetracyclic thioxanthenes emerged as hit compounds. One of the two compounds accumulated intracellularly as a bright fluorescent dye in the green channel, as analyzed by both fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry, making it a promising theranostic cancer drug candidate.     

A hybrid heuristic for a multi-objective real-life car sequencing problem with painting and assembly line constraints

We address a multi-objective version of the car sequencing problem, which consists in sequencing a given set of cars to be produced in a single day, minimizing the number of violations of assembly constraints and the number of paint color changes in the production line. We propose a set of heuristics for approximately solving this problem, based on the paradigms of the VNS and ILS metaheuristics, to which further intensification and diversification strategies have been added. Computational results on real-life test instances are reported. The work presented in this paper obtained the second prize in the ROADEF challenge 2005 sponsored by Renault.     

Consecutive customer losses in oscillating GIX/M//n systems with state dependent services rates

We address the probability that k or more Consecutive Customer Losses take place during a busy period of a queue, the so-called k-CCL probability, for oscillating GI ^X /M//n systems with state dependent services rates, also denoted as GI ^X /M(m)−M(m)//n systems, in which the service rates oscillate between two forms according to the evolution of the number of customers in the system. We derive an efficient algorithm to compute k-CCL probabilities in these systems starting with an arbitrary number of customers in the system that involves solving a linear system of equations. The results derived are illustrated for specific sets of parameters.     

Consecutive customer losses in regular and oscillating <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis><Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">X</Emphasis></Superscript>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>/1/<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis> systems

We derive fast recursions to compute the probability that k or more consecutive customer losses take place during a busy period of a queue, the so called k-CCL probability, for regular and oscillating M ^X /G/1/n systems.