Dimeric Manganese-Catalyzed Hydroarylation and Hydroalkenylation of Unsaturated Amides

An unprecedented Mn(I)-catalyzed selective hydroarylation and hydroalkenylation of unsaturated amides with commercially available organic boronic acids is reported. Alkenyl boronic acids have been successfully employed for the first time in Mn(I)-catalyzed carbon–carbon bond formation. A wide array of β-alkenylated amide products can be obtained in moderate to good yields, which offers practical access to five- and six-membered lactams. This protocol has predictable regio- and chemoselectivity, excellent functional group compatibility and ease of operation in air, representing a significant step-forward towards manganese-catalyzed C−C coupling.     

Multi-stable quantum droplets in optical lattices

Nonlinear Dynamics - We address the nonlinear dynamics of binary Bose-Einstein condensates with mutually symmetric spinor components trapped in an optical lattice. The interaction between the...     

A novel LC–MS/MS method for the determination of ziritaxestat in rat plasma and its pharmacokinetic study

Ziritaxestat is a first-in-class autotoxin inhibitor. The purpose of this study was to develop a liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometric (LC–MS/MS) method for the determination of ziritaxestat in rat plasma. The plasma sample was deproteinated using acetonitrile and then separated on an Acquity BEH C₁₈ column with water containing 0.1% formic acid and acetonitrile as mobile phase, which was delivered at 0.4 ml/min. Ziritaxestat and the internal standard (crizotinib) were quantitatively monitored with precursor-to-product transitions of m/z 589.3 > 262.2 and m/z 450.1 > 260.2, respectively. The total running time was 2.5 min. The method showed excellent linearity over the concentration range 0.5–2000 ng/ml, with correlation coefficient >0.9987. The extraction recovery was >82.09% and the matrix effect was not significant. Inter- and intra-day precisions (RSD) were <11.20% and accuracies were in the range of −8.50–7.45%. Ziritaxestat was demonstrated to be stable in rat plasma under the tested conditions. The validated LC–MS/MS method was successfully applied to study the pharmacokinetic profiles of ziritaxestat in rat plasma after intravenous and oral administration. Pharmacokinetic results demonstrated that ziritaxestat displayed a short half-life (~3 h) and low bioavailability (20.52%).     

On translation lengths of Anosov maps on the curve graph of the torus

Geometriae Dedicata - We show that an Anosov map has a geodesic axis on the curve graph of the torus. The direct corollary of our result is the stable translation length of an Anosov map on the...     

Small‐Sized High‐Power PIN Diode Switch with Defected Ground Structure for Wireless Broadband Internet

This letter presents a small‐sized, high‐power single‐pole double‐throw (SPDT) switch with defected ground structure (DGS) for wireless broadband Internet application. To reduce the circuit size by using a slow‐wave characteristic, the DGS is used for the quarter‐wave (°/4) transmission line of the switch. To secure a high degree of isolation, the switch with DGS is composed of shunt‐connected PIN diodes. It shows an insertion loss of 0.8 dB, an isolation of 50 dB or more, and power capability of at least 50 W at 2.3 GHz. The switch shows very similar performance to the conventional shunt‐type switch, but the circuit size is reduced by about 50% simply with the use of DGS patterns.     

A Least Squares Approach to Escalator Algorithms for Adaptive Filtering

In this paper, we introduce an escalator (ESC) algorithm based on the least squares (LS) criterion. The proposed algorithm is relatively insensitive to the eigenvalue spread ratio (ESR) of an input signal and has a faster convergence speed than the conventional ESC algorithms. This algorithm exploits the fast adaptation ability of least squares methods and the orthogonalization property of the ESC structure. From the simulation results, the proposed algorithm shows superior convergence performance.     

An MPEG‐4 Compliant Interactive Multimedia Streaming Platform Using Overlay Networks

This paper presents a multimedia streaming platform for efficiently transmitting MPEG‐4 content over IP networks. The platform includes an MPEG‐4 compliant streaming server and client, supporting object‐based representation of multimedia scenes, interactivity, and advanced encoding profiles defined by the ISO standard. For scalability purposes, we employ an application‐layer multicast scheme for media transmission using overlay networks. The overlay network, governed by the central entity of the network distribution manager, is dynamically deployed according to a set of pre‐defined criteria. The overlay network supports both broadcast delivery and video‐on‐demand content. The multimedia streaming platform is standards‐compliant and utilizes widespread multimedia protocols such as MPEG‐4, real‐time transport protocol, real‐time transport control protocol, and real‐time streaming protocol. The design of the overlay network was architected with the goal of transparency to both the streaming server and the client. As a result, many commercial implementations that use industry‐standard protocols can be plugged into the architecture relatively painlessly and can enjoy the benefits of the platform.     

Analysis of Distributed DDQ for QoS Router

In a packet switching network, congestion is unavoidable and affects the quality of real‐time traffic with such problems as delay and packet loss. Packet fair queuing (PFQ) algorithms are well‐known solutions for quality‐of‐service (QoS) guarantee by packet scheduling. Our approach is different from previous algorithms in that it uses hardware time achieved by sampling a counter triggered by a periodic clock signal. This clock signal can be provided to all the modules of a routing system to get synchronization. In this architecture, a variant of the PFQ algorithm, called digitized delay queuing (DDQ), can be distributed on many line interface modules. We derive the delay bounds in a single processor system and in a distributed architecture. The definition of traffic contribution improves the simplicity of the mathematical models. The effect of different time between modules in a distributed architecture is the key idea for understanding the delay behavior of a routing system. The number of bins required for the DDQ algorithm is also derived to make the system configuration clear. The analytical models developed in this paper form the basis of improvement and application to a combined input and output queuing (CIOQ) router architecture for a higher speed QoS network.     

Measurements of small-scale fading and path loss for long range RF tags

RF modulated backscatter (RFMB), also known as modulated radar cross section or sigma modulation, is a RF transmission technique useful for short-range, low-data-rate applications, such as nonstop toll collection, electronic shelf tags, freight container identification and chassis identification in automobile manufacturing, that are constrained to have extremely low power requirements. The small-scale fading observed on the backscattered signal has deeper fades than the signal from a traditional one-way link of the same range in the same environment because the fading on the backscattered signal is the product of the fading on the off-board-generated carrier times the fading on the reflected signal. This paper considers the continuous wave (CW) type of RFMB, in which the interrogator transmitter and receiver antennas are different. This two-way link also doubles the path loss exponent of the one-way link. This paper presents the cumulative distribution functions for the measured small-scale fading and the measured path loss for short ranges in an indoor environment at 2.4 GHz over this type of link.     

Optically preamplified receiver performance due to VSB filtering for 40-Gb/s optical signals modulated with various formats

Optically preamplified receiver performance according to the vestigial sideband (VSB) filtering has been numerically investigated for 40-Gb/s optical signals modulated with nonreturn-to-zero, duobinary nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ), return-to-zero (RZ), carrier-suppressed RZ, and duobinary carrier-suppressed RZ formats. The VSB filtering enables the spectral widths of NRZ, duobinary NRZ, and RZ signals to be reduced without severe power penalties at the receiver. On the other hand, carrier-suppressed RZ and duobinary carrier-suppressed RZ signals have no large advantages over VSB filtering because of the characteristics of their signals. Our results suggest that RZ signals are the most suitable modulation format for VSB filtering, without considering the filter loss, because of the tolerance of the intersymbol interference and a large spectral width. However, duobinary NRZ signals are the most suitable modulation format for VSB filtering, considering the filter loss, because of their narrow spectral width.