Recursive definition for elements of reality

Elements of reality are defined as in the work of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. It is further assumed that the sum or product of twocommuting elements of reality also is an element of reality. An algebra contradiction ensues.Dedicated to Sir Karl Popper, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.     

Molecular Hybridization Strategy on the Design,Synthesis, and Structural Characterization of Ferrocene-N-acyl Hydrazones as Immunomodulatory Agents

Immunomodulatory agents are widely used for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases, but the range of side effects of the available drugs makes necessary the search for new immunomodulatory drugs. Here, we investigated the immunomodulatory activity of new ferrocenyl-N-acyl hydrazones derivatives (SintMed(141–156). The evaluated N-acyl hydrazones did not show cytotoxicity at the tested concentrations, presenting CC₅₀ values greater than 50 µM. In addition, all ferrocenyl-N-acyl hydrazones modulated nitrite production in immortalized macrophages, showing inhibition values between 14.4% and 74.2%. By presenting a better activity profile, the ferrocenyl-N-acyl hydrazones SintMed149 and SintMed150 also had their cytotoxicity and anti-inflammatory effect evaluated in cultures of peritoneal macrophages. The molecules were not cytotoxic at any of the concentrations tested in peritoneal macrophages and were able to significantly reduce (p < 0.05) the production of nitrite, TNF-α, and IL-1β. Interestingly, both molecules significantly reduced the production of IL-2 and IFN-γ in cultured splenocytes activated with concanavalin A. Moreover, SintMed150 did not show signs of acute toxicity in animals treated with 50 or 100 mg/kg. Finally, we observed that ferrocenyl-N-acyl hydrazone SintMed150 at 100 mg/kg reduced the migration of neutrophils (44.6%) in an acute peritonitis model and increased animal survival by 20% in an LPS-induced endotoxic shock model. These findings suggest that such compounds have therapeutic potential to be used to treat diseases of inflammatory origin.     

Irradiated UAmO2 transmutation discs analyses: from dissolution to isotopic analyses

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - This paper details the different steps for the isotopic determination of UAmO2 discs from analytical irradiation. MARIOS and DIAMINO irradiations...     

Non-Toxic Dimeric Peptides Derived from the Bothropstoxin-I Are Potent SARS-CoV-2 and Papain-like Protease Inhibitors

The COVID-19 outbreak has rapidly spread on a global scale, affecting the economy and public health systems throughout the world. In recent years, peptide-based therapeutics have been widely studied and developed to treat infectious diseases, including viral infections. Herein, the antiviral effects of the lysine linked dimer des-Cys¹¹, Lys¹²,Lys¹³-(pBthTX-I)₂K ((pBthTX-I)₂K)) and derivatives against SARS-CoV-2 are reported. The lead peptide (pBthTX-I)₂K and derivatives showed attractive inhibitory activities against SARS-CoV-2 (EC₅₀ = 28–65 µM) and mostly low cytotoxic effect (CC₅₀ > 100 µM). To shed light on the mechanism of action underlying the peptides’ antiviral activity, the Main Protease (M^pro) and Papain-Like protease (PL^pro) inhibitory activities of the peptides were assessed. The synthetic peptides showed PL^pro inhibition potencies (IC₅₀s = 1.0–3.5 µM) and binding affinities (K_d = 0.9–7 µM) at the low micromolar range but poor inhibitory activity against M^pro (IC₅₀ > 10 µM). The modeled binding mode of a representative peptide of the series indicated that the compound blocked the entry of the PL^pro substrate toward the protease catalytic cleft. Our findings indicated that non-toxic dimeric peptides derived from the Bothropstoxin-I have attractive cellular and enzymatic inhibitory activities, thereby suggesting that they are promising prototypes for the discovery and development of new drugs against SARS-CoV-2 infection.     

hcp‐Co Nanowires Grown on Metallic Foams as Catalysts for Fischer–Tropsch Synthesis

The Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is a structure‐sensitive exothermic reaction that enables catalytic transformation of syngas to high quality liquid fuels. Now, monolithic cobalt‐based heterogeneous catalysts were elaborated through a wet chemistry approach that allows control over nanocrystal shape and crystallographic phase, while at the same time enables heat management. Copper and nickel foams have been employed as supports for the epitaxial growth of hcp‐Co nanowires directly from a solution containing a coordination compound of cobalt and stabilizing ligands. The Co/Cu_foam catalyst was tested for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis in a fixed‐bed reactor, showing stability and significantly superior activity and selectivity towards C5+ compared to a Co/SiO₂‐Al₂O₃ reference catalyst under the same conditions.     

Biased tug-of-war, the biased infinity Laplacian, and comparison with exponential cones

We prove that if ${U\subset \mathbb {R}^n}$ is an open domain whose closure ${\overline U}$ is compact in the path metric, and F is a Lipschitz function on ?U, then for each ${\beta \in \mathbb {R}}$ there exists a unique viscosity solution to the β-biased infinity Laplacian equation $$\beta |\nabla u| + \Delta_\infty u=0$$ on U that extends F, where ${\Delta_\infty u= |\nabla u|^{-2} \sum_{i,j} u_{x_i}u_{x_ix_j} u_{x_j}}$ . In the proof, we extend the tug-of-war ideas of Peres, Schramm, Sheffield and Wilson, and define the β-biased ${\epsilon}$ -game as follows. The starting position is ${x_0 \in U}$ . At the kth step the two players toss a suitably biased coin (in our key example, player I wins with odds of ${\exp(\beta\epsilon)}$ to 1), and the winner chooses x _k with ${d(x_k,x_{k-1}) < \epsilon}$ . The game ends when ${x_k \in \partial U}$ , and player II pays the amount F(x _k ) to player I. We prove that the value ${u^{\epsilon}(x_0)}$ of this game exists, and that ${\|u^\epsilon - u\|_\infty \to 0}$ as ${\epsilon \to 0}$ , where u is the unique extension of F to ${\overline{U}}$ that satisfies comparison with β-exponential cones. Comparison with exponential cones is a notion that we introduce here, and generalizing a theorem of Crandall, Evans and Gariepy regarding comparison with linear cones, we show that a continuous function satisfies comparison with β-exponential cones if and only if it is a viscosity solution to the β-biased infinity Laplacian equation.     

Strong Spherical Asymptotics for Rotor-Router Aggregation and the Divisible Sandpile

The rotor-router model is a deterministic analogue of random walk. It can be used to define a deterministic growth model analogous to internal DLA. We prove that the asymptotic shape of this model is a Euclidean ball, in a sense which is stronger than our earlier work (Levine and Peres, Indiana Univ Math J 57(1):431–450, 2008). For the shape consisting of sites, where ω _d is the volume of the unit ball in , we show that the inradius of the set of occupied sites is at least r − O(logr), while the outradius is at most r + O(r ^α ) for any α > 1 − 1/d. For a related model, the divisible sandpile, we show that the domain of occupied sites is a Euclidean ball with error in the radius a constant independent of the total mass. For the classical abelian sandpile model in two dimensions, with n = πr ² particles, we show that the inradius is at least , and the outradius is at most . This improves on bounds of Le Borgne and Rossin. Similar bounds apply in higher dimensions, improving on bounds of Fey and Redig. Yuval Peres is partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0605166.     

New Coins From Old: Computing With Unknown Bias

Suppose that we are given a function f : (0, 1)→(0,1) and, for some unknown p∈(0, 1), a sequence of independent tosses of a p-coin (i.e., a coin with probability p of “heads”). For which functions f is it possible to simulate an f(p)-coin? This question was raised by S. Asmussen and J. Propp. A simple simulation scheme for the constant function f(p)≡1/2 was described by von Neumann (1951); this scheme can be easily implemented using a finite automaton. We prove that in general, an f(p)-coin can be simulated by a finite automaton for all p ∈ (0, 1), if and only if f is a rational function over ℚ. We also show that if an f(p)-coin can be simulated by a pushdown automaton, then f is an algebraic function over ℚ; however, pushdown automata can simulate f(p)-coins for certain nonrational functions such as . These results complement the work of Keane and O’Brien (1994), who determined the functions f for which an f(p)-coin can be simulated when there are no computational restrictions on the simulation scheme. * Supported by a Miller Fellowship. † Supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-0104073 and by a Miller Professorship. ‡ This work is supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.