Lagrange Inversion and Schur Functions

Macdonald defined an involution on symmetric functions by considering the Lagrange inverse of the generating function of the complete homogeneous symmetric functions. The main result we prove in this note is that the images of skew Schur functions under this involution are either Schur positive or Schur negative symmetric functions. The proof relies on the combinatorics of Lagrange inversion. We also present a q-analogue of this result, which is related to the q-Lagrange inversion formula of Andrews, Garsia, and Gessel, as well as the operator of Bergeron and Garsia.     

On the Collision between two PNG Droplets

In this article we study the interface generated by the collision between two crystals growing layer by layer on a one-dimensional substrate through random decomposition of particles. We relate this interface with the notion of β-path in an equivalent directed polymer model and, by using asymptotics results from J. Baik and E. Rains, J. Stat. Phys., 100:523–541 (2000). and some hydrodynamic tools introduced by E. Cator and P. Groeneboom, Ann. Probab., 33:879–903 (2005), we derive a law of large numbers for such a path and obtain some bounds for its fluctuations. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 60C05, 60K35     

Oligo p-Phenylenevinylene Derivatives as Electron Transfer Matrices for UV-MALDI

Phenylenevinylene oligomers (PVs) have outstanding photophysical characteristics for applications in the growing field of organic electronics. Yet, PVs are also versatile molecules, the optical and physicochemical properties of which can be tuned by manipulation of their structure. We report the synthesis, photophysical, and MS characterization of eight PV derivatives with potential value as electron transfer (ET) matrices for UV-MALDI. UV-vis analysis show the presence of strong characteristic absorption bands in the UV region and molar absorptivities at 355 nm similar or higher than those of traditional proton (CHCA) and ET (DCTB) MALDI matrices. Most of the PVs exhibit non-radiative quantum yields (φ) above 0.5, indicating favorable thermal decay. Ionization potential values (IP) for PVs, calculated by the Electron Propagator Theory (EPT), range from 6.88 to 7.96 eV, making these oligomers good candidates as matrices for ET ionization. LDI analysis of PVs shows only the presence of radical cations (M^+.) in positive ion mode and absence of clusters, adducts, or protonated species; in addition, M^+. threshold energies for PVs are lower than for DCTB. We also tested the performance of four selected PVs as ET MALDI matrices for analytes ranging from porphyrins and phthalocyanines to polyaromatic compounds. Two of the four PVs show S/N enhancement of 1961% to 304% in comparison to LDI, and laser energy thresholds from 0.17 μJ to 0.47 μJ compared to 0.58 μJ for DCTB. The use of PV matrices also results in lower LODs (low fmol range) whereas LDI LODs range from pmol to nmol.

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The first example of a recursive function which is not primitive recursive

The first example of a recursive function which is not primitive recursive is usually attributed to W. Ackermann. The authors of the present paper show that such an example can also be found in a paper by G. Sudan, published concomitantly with Ackermann's paper.