Anti-neuraminidase activity of chemical constituents of Balanophora involucrata

Balanophora involucrata J. D. Hooker has been known to possess potential anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activities; however, its antiviral activity has not been evaluated so far. In order to find new neuraminidase inhibitors (NAIs), the neuraminidase (NA) inhibition activity of different B. involucrata extracts was evaluated. In this study, an in vitro NA inhibition assay was performed to identify which extract of B. involucrata exhibits (maximal) inhibitory activity against NA. Ultra high performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight–tandem mass spectroscopy (MS/MS) and molecular docking techniques were used to identify the specific compounds responsible for the anti-influenza activity of the extract, and to explore the potential natural NAIs. The ethyl acetate extract of B. involucrata exhibited significant inhibitory activity against NA with 50% inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) value of 159.5 μg/mL. Twenty compounds were identified according to the MS/MS spectra; among them two compounds (quercitrin and phloridzin) showed obvious inhibitory activity against NA, with IC₅₀ of 311.76 and 347.32 μmol/L, respectively. This study suggested that B. involucrata can be a potential natural source of NAIs and may be useful in the fight against ferocious influenza viruses.     

Gravitational wave imprint of new symmetry breaking

It is believed that there are more fundamental gauge symmetries beyond those described by the Standard Model of particle physics. The scales of these new gauge symmetries are usually too high to be reachable by particle colliders. Considering that the phase transition (PT) relating to the spontaneous breaking of new gauge symmetries to the electroweak symmetry might be strongly first order, we propose considering the stochastic gravitational waves (GW) arising from this phase transition as an indirect way of detecting these new fundamental gauge symmetries. As an illustration, we explore the possibility of detecting the stochastic GW generated from the PT of \begin{document}$ {\bf{B}}-{\bf{L}}$\end{document} in the space-based interferometer detectors. Our study demonstrates that the GW energy spectrum is reachable by the LISA, Tianqin, Taiji, BBO, and DECIGO experiments only for the case where the spontaneous breaking of \begin{document}$ {\bf{B}}-{\bf{L}}$\end{document} is triggered by at least two electroweak singlet scalars.     

Organic–Inorganic Hybrid Gold Halide Perovskites: Structural Diversity through Cation Size

Crystal structures of a series of organic–inorganic hybrid gold iodide perovskites, formulated as A₂[Au^II₂][Au^IIII₄] [A=methylammonium (MA) ( 1 ) and formamidinium (FA) ( 2 )], A′₂[I₃]_1−x[Au^II₂]_x[Au^IIII₄] [A′=imidazolium (IMD) ( 3 ), guanidinium (GUA) ( 4 ), dimethylammonium (DMA) ( 5 ), pyridinium (PY) ( 6 ), and piperizinium (PIP) ( 7 )], systematically changed depending on the cation size. In addition, triiodide (I₃⁻) ions were partly incorporated into the AuI₂⁻ sites of 3 – 7 , whereas they were not incorporated into those of 1 and 2 . Such a difference comes from the size of the organic cation. Optical absorption spectra showed characteristic intervalence charge-transfer bands from Au^I to Au^III species, and the optical band gap increased as the size of the cation became larger.     

General Formation of Macro-/Mesoporous Nanoshells from Interfacial Assembly of Irregular Mesostructured Nanounits

Mesoporous core–shell nanostructures with controllable ultra-large open channels in their nanoshells are of great interest. However, soft template-directed cooperative assembly to mesoporous nanoshells with highly accessible pores larger than 30 nm, or even above 50 nm into macroporous range, remains a significant challenge. Herein we report a general approach for precisely tailored coating of hierarchically macro-/mesoporous polymer and carbon shells, possessing highly accessible radial channels with extremely wide pore size distribution from ca. 10 nm to ca. 200 nm, on diverse functional materials. This strategy creates opportunities to tailor the interfacial assembly of irregular mesostructured nanounits on core materials and generate various core–shell nanomaterials with controllable pore architectures. The obtained Fe,N-doped macro-/mesoporous carbon nanoshells show enhanced electrochemical performance for the oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline condition.     

变系数非线性方程的Jacobi椭圆函数展开解

把Jacobi椭圆函数展开法扩展并应用到求解变系数的非线性演化方程,比较方便地得到新的解析解 关键词： Jacobi椭圆函数 变系数非线性方程 类椭圆余弦波解 类孤子解     

Coupled intervals in the discrete calculus of variations: necessity and sufficiency

In this work we study nonnegativity and positivity of a discrete quadratic functional with separately varying endpoints. We introduce a notion of an interval coupled with 0, and hence, extend the notion of conjugate interval to 0 from the case of fixed to variable endpoint(s). We show that the nonnegativity of the discrete quadratic functional is equivalent to each of the following conditions: The nonexistence of intervals coupled with 0, the existence of a solution to Riccati matrix equation and its boundary conditions. Natural strengthening of each of these conditions yields a characterization of the positivity of the discrete quadratic functional. Since the quadratic functional under consideration could be a second variation of a discrete calculus of variations problem with varying endpoints, we apply our results to obtain necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for such problems. This paper generalizes our recent work in [R. Hilscher, V. Zeidan, Comput. Math. Appl., to appear], where the right endpoint is fixed.     

中国股市长记忆的修正R/S分析

本文在比较各种长记忆检验方法优缺点的基础上,采用修正的R/S分析检验我国沪深两股市日收益和日绝对收益序列的长记忆性。结果表明在0.05的显著水平下,两股市的日收益序列均无长记忆,但深圳成指日收益序列的记忆长度比上证综指日收益序列的记忆长度长;以日绝对收益序列为代表的波动序列具有较强的长记忆性。     

A Modified Quasi-Newton Method for Structured Optimization with Partial Information on the Hessian

This paper develops a modified quasi-Newton method for structured unconstrained optimization with partial information on the Hessian, based on a better approximation to the Hessian in current search direction. The new approximation is decided by both function values and gradients at the last two iterations unlike the original one which only uses the gradients at the last two iterations. The modified method owns local and superlinear convergence. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method is encouraging comparing with the methods proposed in [4] for structured unconstrained optimization Presented at the 6th International Conference on Optimization: Techniques and Applications, Ballarat, Australia, December 9–11, 2004     

Singularity conjecture and constructions of Jacobi forms

This paper verifies the singularity conjecture for Jacobi forms with higher degree in some typical cases, and gives constructions for the Jacobi cusp forms whose Fourier coefficients can be expressed by some kind of Rankin-typeL-series.     

一致Banach空间中非扩张映象的弱收敛定理

设犈是一致凸Ｂａｎａｃｈ空间，满足Ｏｐｉａｌ条件或具有Ｆｒｅｃｈｅｔ可微范数，犆是犈的非空闭凸子集，且犜：犆→犆是非扩张映象．又设对任何初始数据狓１ ∈犆，序列｛狓狀｝由下列修改了的Ｉｓｈｉｋａｗａ迭代程序生成：狓狀＋１ ＝狋狀犜狀（狊狀犜狀狓狀＋ （１－狊狀）狓狀）＋ （１－狋狀）狓狀，　狀≥１， （Ｉ）其中，数列｛狋狀｝与｛狊狀｝满足下列条件（ｉ）和（ｉｉ）之一：（ｉ）狋狀∈ ［犪，犫］且狊狀∈ ［０，犫］；（ｉｉ）狋狀∈ ［犪，１］且狊狀∈ ［犪，犫］，这里，常数犪，犫满足０＜犪≤犫＜１．作者证明了，犜有不动点的充要条件是，｛狓狀｝ 弱收敛且｛‖狓狀－犜狓狀‖｝收敛到０．而且，由此即知，若犜有不动点，则｛狓狀｝弱收敛到犜的一个不动点．