Luminescence Properties of Undoped Langasite Crystals

Physics of the Solid State - The optical and luminescence properties of La3Ga5SiO14 lanthanum–gallium silicate crystals grown in atmospheres of argon and argon with the addition of oxygen are...     

A model for transition to the mesomorphic state in poly(methyl methacrylate)

The structural instability of a polymer crystal may be due to the involvement of various lattice vibrations in nonlinear resonance. The condition of this involvement is the prevalence of intramode anharmonicity over intermode interaction. A model of phase transitions in polymers of the PMMA type was constructed. Below transition points, coherent states of orientational vibrations of heavy side pendants are formed. The thermodynamic characteristics of these states were found. The structural instability of the polymer lattice is a second-order phase transition.     

Yuriĭ Andreevich Osip’yan (February 15, 1931–September 10, 2008)

Crystallography Reports -     

On Nummelin splitting for continuous time Harris recurrent Markov processes and application to kernel estimation for multi-dimensional diffusions

We introduce a sequence of stopping times that allow us to study an analogue of a life-cycle decomposition for a continuous time Markov process, which is an extension of the well-known splitting technique of Nummelin to the continuous time case. As a consequence, we are able to give deterministic equivalents of additive functionals of the process and to state a generalisation of Chen’s inequality. We apply our results to the problem of non-parametric kernel estimation of the drift of multi-dimensional recurrent, but not necessarily ergodic, diffusion processes.     

Synthesis,crystal structures,and properties of 5-(het)aryl-3-cyano-1-ethyl-2(1<Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis>)-pyrazinones

A simple method for the synthesis of 5-(het)aryl-3-cyano-1-ethyl-2(1H)-pyrazinones was proposed. The method is based on the hydrolysis of the corresponding 2,3-dicyanopyrazinium salts. The spectral properties of pyrazinones were studied and their crystallographic investigation was carried out. The possibility of introduction of 5-(het)aryl-3-cyano-1-ethyl-2(1H)-pyrazinones into the [2+4] cycloaddition under the microwave activation conditions was shown.     

Maximum likelihood estimator consistency for a ballistic random walk in a parametric random environment

We consider a one dimensional ballistic random walk evolving in an i.i.d. parametric random environment. We provide a maximum likelihood estimation procedure of the parameters based on a single observation of the path till the time it reaches a distant site, and prove that the estimator is consistent as the distant site tends to infinity. Our main tool consists in using the link between random walks and branching processes in random environments and explicitly characterising the limiting distribution of the process that arises. We also explore the numerical performance of our estimation procedure.     

Comprehensive Evaluation of Late Season Peach Varieties (Prunus persica L.): Fruit Nutritional Quality and Phytochemicals

Peaches are one of the most preferred seasonal fruits, and a reliable source of nutrients. They possess biologically active substances that largely differ among varieties. Hence, revealing the potential of several late season peaches is of present interest. Three commonly consumed varieties (“Flat Queen”; “Evmolpiya”; “Morsiani 90”) were studied in terms of nutritive and phytochemical content, as well as antioxidant activity with the use of reliable spectrophotometric and High Performance Liquid Chromatographic (HPLC) methods. An analysis of the soil was also made. The phytochemical data were subjected to principal component analysis in order to evaluate their relationship. The “Morsiani 90” variety had the highest minerals concentration (2349.03 mg/kg fw), total carbohydrates (16.21 g/100 g fw), and α-tocopherol (395.75 µg/100 g fresh weight (fw)). Similar amounts of TDF (approx. 3 g/100 g fw) were reported for all three varieties. “Flat Queen’s” peel extract was the richest in monomeric anthocyanins (2279.33 µg cyanidin-3-glucoside (C3GE)/100 g fw). The “Morsiani 90” variety extracts had the highest antioxidant potential, defined by 2,2-diphenil-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and cupric ion-reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC) assays.     

A method for determination of dimethyl benzoylphenyl urea (BPU) in human plasma by using LC/UV

Dimethyl benzoylphenyl urea (BPU) inhibited tubulin polymerization, caused microtubule depolymerization in vitro and demonstrated activity against solid tumors. BPU is being tested in phase I clinical trials. A rapid and specific method using LC/UV has been developed for quantitation of BPU in human heparin-containing plasma to perform pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies. BPU is extracted from plasma into acetonitrile:n-butyl-chloride using paclitaxel as the internal standard and separated on a Waters Symmetry C18 (3.9 x 150 mm, 5 microm) column with acetonitrile-water mobile phase (70:30, v/v) using isocratic flow at 1 mL/min for a run time of 5 min. Ultraviolet detection was utilized and performed at 225 nm for BPU and paclitaxel. The retention times were 1.9 min for paclitaxel and 4.1 min for BPU. Calibration curves were generated over the range of 0.01-10 microg/mL with coefficient of determination of > 0.99. The values for within-day and between-day precision were < or = 17.0% at the LLOQ and < or = 7.4% at the low, medium and high quality controls; accuracy was +/- 5.4%. Following administration of BPU 320 mg as a weekly oral dose to a patient with advanced solid tumor malignancies, the maximum plasma concentration was 2 micro g/mL and concentrations were quantifiable up to 168 h after administration. The lower limit of quantitation of 0.01 microg/mL allows for successful measurement of plasma concentrations in patients.     

Study of the temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity in strontium-barium niobate crystals with different dopants

The electrical characteristics of single crystals of strontium-barium niobate solid solutions have been studied. The temperature dependences of the electrical conductivity were obtained for different SBN compositions, nominally pure SBN:61 and SBN:75 and SBN doped with rare earth and transition-metal impurities. The influence of the chemical composition of a solid solution, thermal treatment conditions, dopant concentration, and electrode type on the specific features of the electrical conductivity of single crystals in the temperature range 20–450°C is shown.