High-temperature protonic motion and low-temperature lattice deformation in one-dimensional hydrogen-bonded molecular chain in tetramethylpyrazine–chloranilic acid (1:1)

Recent theoretical advances have identified several computational algorithms that can be implemented utilizing quantum information processing (QIP), which gives an exponential speedup over the corresponding (known) algorithms on conventional computers. QIP makes use of the counter-intuitive properties of quantum mechanics, such as entanglement and the superposition principle. Unfortunately it has so far been impossible to build a practical QIP system that outperforms conventional computers. Atomic ions confined in an array of interconnected traps represent a potentially scalable approach to QIP. All basic requirements have been experimentally demonstrated in one and two qubit experiments. The remaining task is to scale the system to many qubits while minimizing and correcting errors in the system. While this requires extremely challenging technological improvements, no fundamental roadblocks are currently foreseen.     

High-Quality Protein Crystal Growth of Mouse Lipocalin-Type Prostaglandin D Synthase in Microgravity

Lipocalin-type prostaglandin (PG) D synthase (L-PGDS) catalyzes the isomerization of PGH(2) to PGD(2) and is involved in the regulation of pain and of nonrapid eye movement sleep and the differentiation of male genital organs and adipocytes, etc. L-PGDS is secreted into various body fluids and binds various lipophilic compounds with high affinities, acting also as an extracellular transporter. Mouse L-PGDS with a C65A mutation was previously crystallized with citrate or malonate as a precipitant, and the X-ray crystallographic structure was determined at 2.0 ? resolution. To obtain high-quality crystals, we tried, unsuccessfully, to crystallize the C65A mutant in microgravity under the same conditions used in the previous study. After further purifying the protein and changing the precipitant to polyethylene glycol (PEG) 8000, high-quality crystals were grown in microgravity. The precipitant solution was 40% (w/v) PEG 8000, 100 mM sodium chloride, and 100 mM HEPES-NaOH (pH 7.0). Crystals grew on board the International Space Station for 11 weeks in 2007, yielding single crystals of the wild-type L-PGDS and the C65A mutant, both of which diffracted at around 1.0 ? resolution. The crystal quality was markedly improved through the use of a high-viscosity precipitant solution in microgravity, in combination with the use of a highly purified protein.     

Formation of formal compounds in reaction of dimethyl phenols with formaldehyde

Formaldehyde was reacted with both 2,4-dimethylphenol(2,4-xyenol) and 2,6-dimethylphenol(2,6-xylenol), which are model compounds of monofunctional phenols, and the reaction products were subjected to HLC analysis to elucidate details of the formation process and bonding manner of a formal group, which can greatly affect the performance of phenol–formaldehyde resins. As a result, formal compounds of dimethylphenols were successfully separated by HLC. It was further found, as a result of tracing the reactions by HLC, that the formation of a formal group occurs at either position of the ortho and para positions, and that methylol compounds were formed following formation of the formal compounds. Furthermore, as a result of NMR analysis as well as consideration of solvation on the basis of the relative elution volumes of the nonacetylated and acetylated reaction products it was found that the formal group was added to the phenol nuclei.     

Curvature integrals under the Ricci flow on surfaces

In this paper, we consider the behavior of the total absolute and the total curvature under the Ricci flow on complete surfaces with bounded curvature. It is shown that they are monotone non-increasing and constant in time, respectively, if they exist and are finite at the initial time. As a related result, we prove that the asymptotic volume ratio is constant under the Ricci flow with non-negative Ricci curvature, at the end of the paper.      

Source-synchronization and timing vernier techniques for 1.2-GB/sSLDRAM interface

This paper describes a validation system for an SLDRAM interface. The SLDRAM system utilizes two techniques to achieve a high data-transfer rate with a conventional module mounting style. The first technique is a source-synchronization scheme. Since the chip that transmits data also supplies the data clock, the clock and data are completely synchronous. The second is the timing vernier technique. A wait time for output data is programmable in each SLDRAM. Therefore, the time at which data arrive at the controller from any SLDRAM can be set by the controller with a 200-ps step size. The validation chip is designed to emulate these operations. The chip is fabricated using a 0.35-μm CMOS process technology and packaged in a conventional 0.65-mm pitch thin small out-line package, mounted on a single-chip module, and put into an eight-module system. A stub series terminated logic (SSTL)-like interface is adopted for high-speed signals. From system-level measurements, the data eye width of 600 ps is obtained at a data rate of 600 Mbps. Errorless data transmission is observed in both read and write operations in a bit-error rate testing. The validation system has successfully demonstrated a data-transmission rate of 1.2 GB/s (600 Mbit/s/pin) using source-synchronization and timing vernier techniques at the supply voltage of 2.5 V     

Growth of GaN single crystals with extremely low dislocation density by two-step dislocation reduction

We have discovered a mechanism which can significantly reduce the dislocation density during the growth of GaN single crystals in the Na flux method. The significant reduction of the dislocation density occurs in the later stage of LPE growth, rather than solely at the seed-LPE interface for which we have already reported evidence indicating the presence of bundling dislocations. The two-step dislocation reduction is the key in achieving extremely low dislocation density using this method.     

A new glycosylation method part 3: study of microwave effects at low temperatures to control reaction pathways and reduce byproducts

The efficiency of microwave irradiation at low temperature for glycosylations is described. Although oligosaccharide synthesis usually requires reactive donors for glycosylations, which have leaving groups on the anomer positions, i.e., trichloroacetoimidates, halogenates, thioalkyl glycosides, etc., the suitable donors in our microwave supported synthesis of Lewis X oligosaccharide were very stable acetate derivatives. Regarding glycosylation with a fucosyl acetate donor and a glucosamine acceptor, microwave irradiation with simultaneous cooling improved yields. Moreover, further synthesis to Lewis X derivatives was achieved only with microwave irradiation at low temperatures. Without microwave irradiation, we could only obtain byproducts and none of the designed product at any reaction temperature.