Synthesis,and Antimycobacterial and Cytotoxic Evaluation of Certain Fluoroquinolone Derivatives

Certain 1‐ethyl‐ and 1‐aryl‐6‐fluoro‐1,4‐dihydroquinol‐4‐one derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for antimycobacterial and cytotoxic activities. Preliminary results indicated that, for 1‐aryl‐6‐fluoroquinolones, both 7‐(piperazin‐1‐yl)‐ and 7‐(4‐methylpiperazin‐1‐yl) derivatives, 9b and 11a , are able to completely inhibit the growth of M. tuberculosis at a concentration of 6.25 μg/ml, while the 7‐[4‐(2‐oxo‐2‐phenylethyl)piperazin‐1‐yl] derivative 13 exhibits only 31% growth inhibition at the same concentration. For 1‐ethyl‐6‐fluoroquinolones, both 7‐[4‐(2‐oxopropyl)piperazin‐1‐yl]‐ and 7‐[4‐(2‐oxo‐2‐phenylethyl)piperazin‐1‐yl]‐derivatives, 2a and 2b , respectively, show complete inhibition, while their 2‐iminoethyl and substituted phenyl counterparts 3a and 2c are less active. In addition, the 6,8‐difluoro derivative was a more‐favorable inhibitor than its 6‐fluoro counterpart ( 2b vs. 2d ). These results deserve full attention especially because 2a, 2b, 9b , and 11a are non‐cytotoxic at a concentration of 100 μM . Furthermore, compound 9b proved to be a potent anti‐TB agent with selective index (SI)>40 and an EC₉₀ value of 5.75 μg/ml.     

Ultrasonic investigation of amorphous carbon in various frequencies at low temperatures from 2.1 to 300 K

Using pulse echo overlap measurement, the elastic behavior of amorphous carbon has been studied at ambient and low temperatures. The smaller ratio B/G of the bulk modulus to shear modulus and smaller Poisson's ratio σ at room temperature indicate that there is an intrinsic stiffening of transverse acoustic phonons in the amorphous carbon. The acoustic velocity and attenuation for longitudinal modes have been measured between 2.1 and 300 K at three frequencies of 7, 21 and 35 MHz, respectively. Their frequency and temperature dependence are observed. The elastic constant C₁₁ increases with decreasing temperature and show enhanced stiffening at low temperatures. In the 130-220 K region, the abnormal change and effect of longitudinal velocity and attenuation with temperature and frequency, and a phase transition associated with structure relaxations are discussed.     

Optimal volume-corrected laplace-metropolis method

The article provides a refinement for the volume-corrected Laplace-Metropolis estimator of the marginal likelihood of DiCiccioet al. The correction volume of probability α in DiCiccioet al. is fixed and suggested to take the value α=0.05. In this article α is selected based on an asymptotic analysis to minimize the mean square relative error (MSRE). This optimal choice of α is shown to be invariant under linear transformations. The invariance property leads to easy implementation for multivariate problems. An implementation procedure is provided for practical use. A simulation study and a real data example are presented.     

Another approach to the heat flow for Plateau problem

For the minimal surfaces in Rⁿ with Plateau boundary condition and establish the global existence and uniqueness of the flow as well as the continuous dependence of the initial datum.     

用于光学神经网络硬件系统误差纠正的虚拟神经网络

提出了一种用于修正光学神经网络硬件系统误差的虚拟神经网络模型，光学实验结果表明该网络能够有效地消除硬件系统误差对实验结果的影响。     

Behaviors of the positive temperature coefficient of resistance of poly(styrene‐co‐n‐butylacrylate) filled with Ni‐plated core‐shell polymeric particles

Conductive composite films of poly(styrene‐co‐n‐butylacrylate) copolymers filled with low‐density, Ni‐plated core‐shell polymeric particles were prepared and their behaviors of positive temperature coefficient of resistance (PTCR) were investigated. When the conductive fillers in the composite film were loaded beyond the critical volume, 10 up to 25 vol %, composite films exhibited a unique electrical resistant transition behavior, which the electrical resistance rapidly increased by several orders of magnitude at the critical temperature. The PTCR transition temperature, in general, occurred before the glass transition temperature of polymer matrix. Further increased the conductive filler loading to 30 vol %, the overpacked conduction paths were formed in the entire composite and the PTCR effects became blurred. While the composite film treated with thermal cycle several times from room temperature up to 120 °C, the electrical resistivity increased accompanied with the shift of the PTCR transition to lower temperature. The reason might have been caused by the formed interfacial cracks within the composite film. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 45: 322–329, 2007     

Chemical Speciation of Amphoteric Ions on Semi‐Dry Scrubber Residue and Bag‐House Ash from MSWI

Two series of size‐fractionated combusted residues, a bag‐house ash and a scrubber residue, from a municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) were prepared and extracted by means of sequential chemical extraction (SCE) procedures proposed by Tessier. Concentrations of water‐soluble phase, exchangeable phase, carbonated phase, Fe/Mn oxide phase, organic matter phase, and residual phase bound amphoteric metals (Pb and Zn) were obtained, and have been compared with those of single batch extraction of toxic characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP). In each size fraction of baghouse ash or scrubber residue, lead or zinc shows a common phenomena that the TCLP value is always lower than the content of the water‐soluble fraction. For lead, baghouse ash has a significant size‐dependent distribution on the water‐soluble phase to perform a size‐dependent test of lead in the TCLP test. The zinc TCLP data having less size dependence might be due to that neither the baghouse ash nor the scrubber residue has a size‐dependent distribution on the water‐soluble zinc phase.     

On the sensitivity of the LU factorization

This paper gives sensitivity analyses by two approaches forL andU in the factorizationA=LU for general perturbations inA which are sufficiently small in norm. By the matrix-vector equation approach, we derive the condition numbers for theL andU factors. By the matrix equation approach we derive corresponding condition estimates. We show how partial pivoting and complete pivoting affect the sensitivity of the LU factorization. The material presented here is a part of the first author's PhD thesis under the supervision of the second author. This research was supported by NSERC of Canada Grant OGP0009236.     

Stability and convergence of modified Ishikawa iterative sequences with errors in Banach spaces

Summary Some stability and convergence theorems of the modified Ishikawa iterative sequences with errors for asymptotically nonexpansive mapping in the intermediate sense and asymptotically pseudo contractive and uniformly Lipschitzian mappings in Banach spaces are obtained.     

Perfect information two-person zero-sum markov games with imprecise transition probabilities

Based on an extension of the controlled Markov set-chain model by Kurano et al. (in J Appl Prob 35:293–302, 1998) into competitive two-player game setting, we provide a model of perfect information two-person zero-sum Markov games with imprecise transition probabilities. We define an equilibrium value for the games formulated with the model in terms of a partial order and then establish the existence of an equilibrium policy pair that achieves the equilibrium value. We further analyze finite-approximation error bounds obtained from a value iteration-type algorithm and discuss some applications of the model.