Study of the charge-exchange reactions\pi ^ - p \to (\pi ^0 ,\eta ,\eta \prime )n at 63 GeV

Muon electron pairs were detected in an Al multiplate spark chamber, exposed to a neutrino beam from the CERN PS. The leptons were not accompanied by other particles, except occasionally by protons. The background came mainly from muon associated π⁰ production, with one decay gamma lost. It was determined empirically, together with the small contribution from υ _e reactions. For electron energies above 2 GeV the background is 5.7±1.5 events, whereas 18 (μe)-candidates have been observed. Hence the effect is established, with a rate of about 10^?4 as compared to the muonic reactions above 3 GeV. Charm creation as the origin of this (μe)-production process is excluded; heavy neutral lepton production does not fit the kinematics observed. Instead the events are compatible with the two-body decay of an object with variable invariant mass of order 1 GeV, possibly resulting from axion interactions.     

Unsteady axisymmetric stagnation flow on a circular cylinder

Unsteady, axisymmetric stagnation flow about a circular cylinderis examined when the far-field flow is a periodic function oftime with a fixed time average and an oscillatory part of prescribedamplitude and frequency. Solutions are computed for arbitraryvalues of the Reynolds number, quantifying the effects of surfacecurvature, and a frequency parameter based on the period ofthe far-field flow. It is found that solutions remain regularand periodic provided that the far-field amplitude lies belowa critical value. Above this value, solutions terminate in afinite-time singularity. The blow-up time is delayed by increasingthe curvature of the surface. These results are corroboratedby asymptotic predictions valid in the limits of small and largeamplitude and frequency. For large Reynolds number, the problemreduces to the two-dimensional stagnation-point flow againsta plane wall studied by previous authors.     

Conformationally gated electron transfer in iso-1-cytochrome c: engineering the rate of a conformational switch

An engineered form of iso-1-cytochrome c with lysine 73 mutated to histidine is shown to increase by nearly 500-fold the rate of a conformational gate that modulates the rate of electron transfer into this protein. This result demonstrates the potential of protein engineering to provide electron transfer gates with tailored properties. The pH dependence of the rate of the conformational electron transfer gate correlates well with the pH dependence of the conformational change from a His 73-ligated heme to a Met 80-ligated heme, determined independently by pH jump methods, allowing unambiguous assignment of the conformational electron transfer gating step. The rate of the electron transfer gate is also modulated by a cis to trans proline isomerization, indicating that both amino acid sequence and the nature of the heme ligand provide avenues for rational design of electron transfer gates which open at different rates.     

Electron transfer through a prenucleated bimetalated alanine-based peptide helix

We have synthesized a 22 residue alanine-based peptide with a tris(bipyridyl)ruthenium(II) amino acid near the middle of the peptide which can act as a photoinducible electron donor. Two histidines spaced i, i + 4 near the C-terminus of the peptide were then cross-linked with a tetraammineruthenium(III) moiety to prenucleate the helix and provide an electron acceptor site. Introduction of the cross-link enhances the average helix content from 67% to 84% at 0 degrees C, as judged by circular dichroism spectroscopy. The temperature dependence of the mean molar residue ellipticity at 222 nm, [THETAV;](222), for the bimetalated peptide was fit to a modified Lifson-Roig helix-coil model to permit extraction of the population of helical conformation at each residue separating the electron donor and acceptor. On average, the residues between the donor and acceptor are 92% helical. Photoinduced electron transfer with a driving force of -1.0 eV and an estimated reorganization energy of 0.82 eV was measured by fluorescence quenching methods in H(2)O and D(2)O, yielding rate constants, k(ET), of 7 +/- 3 x 10(6) s(-)(1) and 5 +/- 1 x 10(6) s(-)(1) at 0 degrees C. Calculation of the electronic coupling matrix element, H(ab), with the Marcus equation yields a value of 0.19 +/- 0.4 cm(-)(1). Analysis in terms of the pathway model for electronic coupling indicates that this magnitude of H(ab) is consistent with the participation of hydrogen bonds in electronic coupling for an isolated alpha-helix.     

The smoothing of electronic speckle pattern interferometric images

A simple method of smoothing electronic speckle pattern interferometric images is demonstrated. A new image is created from the original by assuming that the speckles can be modelled as multiplicative noise, and replacing each pixel by the variance of grey level intensities taken over a rectangular window. Results from several window sizes are presented. The amount of smoothing is estimated by inspection of the amount of noise left following the application of a fringe minima detection algorithm to the smoothed image.