Near-Ultraviolet Circular Dichroism and Two-Dimensional Spectroscopy of Polypeptides

A fully quantitative theory of the relationship between protein conformation and optical spectroscopy would facilitate deeper insights into biophysical and simulation studies of protein dynamics and folding. In contrast to intense bands in the far-ultraviolet, near-UV bands are much weaker and have been challenging to compute theoretically. We report some advances in the accuracy of calculations in the near-UV, which were realised through the consideration of the vibrational structure of the electronic transitions of aromatic side chains.     

Three-dimensional Schwarzschild spacetimes

In the following we find all of the three-dimensional flat spacetimes which are static and rotationally symmetric.     

A search technique for global optimization in a chaotic environment

We describe a new algorithm which uses the trajectories of a discrete dynamical system to sample the domain of an unconstrained objective function in search of global minima. The algorithm is unusually adept at avoiding nonoptimal local minima and successfully converging to a global minimum. Trajectories generated by the algorithm for objective functions with many local minima exhibit chaotic behavior, in the sense that they are extremely sensitive to changes in initial conditions and system parameters. In this context, chaos seems to have a beneficial effect: failure to converge to a global minimum from a given initial point can often be rectified by making arbitrarily small changes in the system parameters.     

Irregularities of distribution with respect to strips

Summary A lower bound is established for the strip discrepancy of a broad class of point distributions. The bound implies unbounded strip discrepancy for equally weighted point distributions under favorable conditions. The methods of proof use notions from integral geometry.     

Buckling of a stiff thin film on a compliant substrate in large deformation

A finite-deformation theory is developed to study the mechanics of thin buckled films on compliant substrates. Perturbation analysis is performed for this highly nonlinear system to obtain the analytical solution. The results agree well with experiments and finite element analysis in wavelength and amplitude. In particular, it is found that the wavelength depends on the strain. Based on the accurate wavelength and amplitude, the membrane and peak strains in thin films, and stretchability and compressibility of the system are also obtained analytically.     

A Tin(IV) Porphyrin with Two Axial Organometallic NCN‐Pincer Platinum Units

A tin(IV) porphyrin was combined with two axial NCN‐pincer platinum(II) fragments by utilizing the oxophilicity of the apical positions on the tin atom and the acidic nature of the NCN‐pincer platinum derived benzoic acid. The solid‐state structure determined by X‐ray crystallography revealed some close contacts between the pincer complexes and the meso‐p‐tolyl subsitutents of the porphyrin. It was shown by ¹H NMR spectroscopy that these close contacts were not present in solution and that this compound can potentially act as a novel building block for supramolecular architectures.