Dynamics of Bacteriorhodopsin in the Dark-Adapted State from Solution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

To achieve efficient proton pumping in the light-driven proton pump bacteriorhodopsin (bR), the protein must be tightly coupled to the retinal to rapidly convert retinal isomerization into protein structural rearrangements. Methyl group dynamics of bR embedded in lipid nanodiscs were determined in the dark-adapted state, and were found to be mostly well ordered at the cytosolic side. Methyl groups in the M145A mutant of bR, which displays only 10 % residual proton pumping activity, are less well ordered, suggesting a link between side-chain dynamics on the cytosolic side of the bR cavity and proton pumping activity. In addition, slow conformational exchange, attributed to low frequency motions of aromatic rings, was indirectly observed for residues on the extracellular side of the bR cavity. This may be related to reorganization of the water network. These observations provide a detailed picture of previously undescribed equilibrium dynamics on different time scales for ground-state bR.     

Transport in two dimensional electronic micro-emulsions

In two dimensional electron systems with Coulomb or dipolar interactions, a direct transition, whether first or second order, from a liquid to a crystalline state is forbidden. As a result, between these phases there must be other (micro-emulsion) phases which can be viewed as a meso-scale mixture of the liquid and crystalline phases. We investigate the transport properties of these new electronic phases and present arguments that they are responsible for the various transport anomalies that have been seen in experiments on the strongly correlated 2DEG in high mobility semiconductor devices with low electron densities.     

Preface

Set-Valued and Variational Analysis -     

The large scale topology and algebraic K-theory of arithmetic groups

New compactifications of symmetric spaces of noncompact type X are constructed using the asymptotic geometry of the Borel–Serre enlargement. The controlled K-theory associated to these compactifications is used to prove the integral Novikov conjecture for arithmetic groups.     

The Asymptotics of Spectral Gaps of a 1D Dirac Operator with Cosine Potential

Letters in Mathematical Physics -     

The effect of olefinic terminal chains on the mesomorphic properties of 4,4'-disubstituted diphenyldiacetylenes

New diphenyldiacetylenes of the type with A, B = H and/or F; m = 0, 1; n = 1-4; and X = C n H 2n + 1 , F, CF 3 or CN were synthesized and their mesomorphic properties determined by hot stage polarizing microscopy and DSC. When m = 0, all of these compounds showed only a nematic phase except when X = CF 3 when both nematic and smectic A phases were seen. Both clearing and melting temperatures were higher than those reported for substitution with the corresponding alkyl chains but the much larger increase in clearing temperatures produced considerably wider nematic phases. Eutectic mixtures of a few of these olefins yielded nematic materials also having much wider temperature ranges and higher clearing temperatures than the eutectic mixtures of the alkyl compounds, while retaining their high birefringence and low viscosities. Such materials are of interest for beam-steering devices.

Four of the diacetylenes with m = 1 ( A, B = H) were also prepared ( X = C 6 H 13 , F, n = 2, 3). When X was C 6 H 13 ( n = 2), the nematic range was smaller in the 2- than in the 1-olefin but wider than in the alkyl series. When X = F, either no nematic phase or a monotropic one was observed, whereas the 1-olefins gave a much wider nematic phase. Both transition temperatures were lower than those for the corresponding 1-olefin and alkyl analogues. The compound with X = C 6 H 13 and n = 2 had a melting temperature below room temperature.     

Discrete duality finite volume schemes for Leray−Lions−type elliptic problems on general 2D meshes

Discrete duality finite volume schemes on general meshes, introduced by Hermeline and Domelevo and Omnès for the Laplace equation, are proposed for nonlinear diffusion problems in 2D with nonhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. This approach allows the discretization of non linear fluxes in such a way that the discrete operator inherits the key properties of the continuous one. Furthermore, it is well adapted to very general meshes including the case of nonconformal locally refined meshes. We show that the approximate solution exists and is unique, which is not obvious since the scheme is nonlinear. We prove that, for general W^?1,p′(Ω) source term and W^1‐(1/p),p(?Ω) boundary data, the approximate solution and its discrete gradient converge strongly towards the exact solution and its gradient, respectively, in appropriate Lebesgue spaces. Finally, error estimates are given in the case where the solution is assumed to be in W^2,p(Ω). Numerical examples are given, including those on locally refined meshes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2007     

Recycling in telomerization of butadiene with D‐xylose: Pd(TPPTS)n‐KF/Al2O3 as an active catalyst

A palladium‐TPPTS catalyst heterogenized on KF/alumina has been shown to be effective and recyclable for the selective formation of monooctadienylxylopyranosides via the telomerization of butadiene with D ‐xylose. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.