Antifungal cyclopentenediones from Piper coruscans

Coruscanones A and B, two new antifungal cyclopentenedione derivatives, have been isolated from Piper coruscans and their structures elucidated by spectroscopic and chemical methods. Coruscanone A exhibits significant antifungal activity against Candida albicans and its azole-resistant strains and may serve as a template for a new class of antifungal agents.     

Reducing power by optimizing the necessary precision/range offloating-point arithmetic

Low-power systems often find the power cost of floating-point (FP) hardware prohibitively expensive. This paper explores ways of reducing FP power consumption by minimizing the bitwidth representation of FP data. Analysis of several FP programs that manipulate low-resolution human sensory data shows that these programs suffer no loss of accuracy even with a significant reduction in bitwidth. Most FP programs in our benchmark suite maintain the same output even when the mantissa bitwidth is reduced by half. This FP bitwidth reduction can deliver a significant power saving through the use of a variable bitwidth FP unit. Our results show that up to 66% reduction in multiplier energy/operation can be achieved in the FP unit by this bitwidth reduction technique without sacrificing any program accuracy     

Electrocatalysis at polycrystalline silver in base: an example of the complexity of surface active state behaviour

Four low-level redox responses, attributed to the involvement of four different types of active surface state (or site) transitions, were observed within the double layer region in the case of polycrystalline silver electrodes in base; there is now independent evidence for such premonolayer behaviour in data reported by other authors. The potentials for each of these transitions were correlated with the onset/termination potentials of different electrocatalytic processes, usually for oxidations or reductions but in some cases for both types. The data obtained are in good agreement with the IHOAM model of electrocatalysis which was outlined earlier for the other Group 11 metals, gold and copper. Electronic Publication     

On the Ramsey Number of Sparse 3-Graphs

We consider a hypergraph generalization of a conjecture of Burr and Erd?s concerning the Ramsey number of graphs with bounded degree. It was shown by Chvátal, Rödl, Trotter, and Szemerédi [The Ramsey number of a graph with bounded maximum degree, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 34 (1983), no. 3, 239–243] that the Ramsey number R(G) of a graph G of bounded maximum degree is linear in |V(G)|. We derive the analogous result for 3-uniform hypergraphs.     

The local electronic structure of alpha-Li3N

New theoretical and experimental investigations of the occupied and unoccupied local electronic densities of states (DOS) are reported for alpha-Li(3)N. Band-structure and density-functional theory calculations confirm the absence of covalent bonding character. However, real-space full-multiple-scattering (RSFMS) calculations of the occupied local DOS find less extreme nominal valences than have previously been proposed. Nonresonant inelastic x-ray scattering, RSFMS calculations, and calculations based on the Bethe-Salpeter equation are used to characterize the unoccupied electronic final states local to both the Li and N sites. There is a good agreement between experiment and theory. Throughout the Li 1s near-edge region, both experiment and theory find strong similarities in the s-and p-type components of the unoccupied local final DOS projected onto an orbital angular momentum basis (l-DOS). An unexpected, significant correspondence exists between the near-edge spectra for the Li 1s and N 1s initial states. We argue that both spectra are sampling essentially the same final DOS due to the combination of long core-hole lifetimes, long photoelectron lifetimes, and the fact that orbital angular momentum is the same for all relevant initial states. Such considerations may be generally applicable for low atomic number compounds.     

The letter “s” (and the sQGP)

Data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over the last five years have led many to conclude that the medium created is not the expected quark–gluon plasma (QGP), but rather a strongly coupled or strongly interacting quark–gluon plasma (sQGP). We explore the meaning of this possible paradigm shift and the experimental and theoretical arguments that are associated with it. In this proceedings we detail only a small subset of the relevant issues as discussed at the Hot Quarks 2006 Workshop. PACS 25.75.-q; 25.75.Nq