Five Novel Taccalonolides from the Roots of the Vietnamese Plant Tacca paxiana

Chemical investigation of the roots of the Vietnamese plant Tacca paxiana resulted in the isolation of five new steroidal compounds, taccalonolide R ( 6 ), S ( 7 ), T ( 8 ), U ( 9 ), and V ( 10 ). Their structures were established on the basis of NMR and mass‐spectral data. In addition, the five known taccalonolides A ( 1 ), B ( 2 ), E ( 3 ), K ( 4 ), and N ( 5 ) were also isolated and identified.     

Controlling the water content of never dried and reswollen bacterial cellulose by the addition of water-soluble polymers to the culture medium

For the modification of medically useful biomaterials from bacterially synthesized cellulose, fleeces of Acetobacter xylinum have been produced in the presence of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0% (m/v) carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), methylcellulose (MC), and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), respectively, in the Hestrin-Schramm culture medium. The incorporation of the water-soluble polymers into cellulose and their influence on the structure, crystal modifications, and material properties are described. With IR and solid-state ¹³C NMR spectroscopy of the fleeces, the presence of the cellulose ethers and an increase in the amorphous parts of the cellulose modifications (NMR results) have been detected. The incorporation is represented by a higher product yield, too. As demonstrated by scanning electron microscopy, a porelike cellulose network structure forms in the presence of CMC and MC. This modified structure increases the water retention ability (expressed as the water content), the ion absorption capacity, and the remaining nitrogen-containing residues from the culture medium or bacteria cells. The water content of bacterial cellulose (BC) in the never dried state and the freeze-dried, reswollen state can be controlled by the CMC concentration in the culture solution. The freeze-dried, reswollen BC-CMC (2.0%) contains 96% water after centrifugation, whereas standard BC has only 73%. About 98% water is included in a BC-MC composite in the wet state, and about 93% is included in the reswollen state synthesized in the presence of 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0% MC. These biomaterial composites can be stored in the dried state and reswollen before use, reaching a higher water absorption than pure, never dried BC. The copper ion capacity of BC-CMC composites increases proportionally with the added amount of CMC. BC-CMC (0.5%) can absorb 3 times more copper ions than original BC. In the case of 0.5 and 1.0% PVA additions to the culture solution, this polymer cannot be detected in the cellulose fleeces after they are washed. Nevertheless the presence of PVA in the culture medium effects a decreased product yield, a retention of nitrogen-containing residues in the material during purification, a reduced water absorption ability, and a slightly higher copper ion capacity in comparison with original BC. The water content of freeze-dried, reswollen BC-PVA (0.5%) is only 62%. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 463–470, 2004     

Expressive equivalence of least and inflationary fixed-point logic

We study the relationship between least and inflationary fixed-point logic. In 1986, Gurevich and Shelah proved that in the restriction to finite structures, the two logics have the same expressive power. On infinite structures however, the question whether there is a formula in IFP not equivalent to any LFP-formula was left open.

In this paper, we answer the question negatively, i.e. we show that the two logics are equally expressive on arbitrary structures. We give a syntactic translation of IFP-formulae to LFP-formulae such that the two formulae are equivalent on all structures.

As a consequence of the proof we establish a close correspondence between the LFP-alternation hierarchy and the IFP-nesting depth hierarchy. We also show that the alternation hierarchy for IFP collapses to the first level, i.e. the complement of any inflationary fixed point is itself an inflationary fixed point.     

Correlated polarization propagator calculations of static polarizabilities

We present a systematic comparison of the correlation contribution at the level of the second-order polarization propagator approximation (SOPPA ) and MP 2 to the static dipole polarizability of (1) Be, BeH^?, BH, CH⁺, MgH^?, AIH, SiH⁺, and GeH⁺; (2) BH₃, CH₄, NH₃, H₂O, HF, BF, and F₂; and (3) N₂, CO, CN^?, HCN, C₂H₂, and HCHO . Fairly extended basis sets were used in the calculations. We find that the agreement with experimental values is improved in SOPPA and MP .2 over the results at the SCF level. The signs and magnitudes of the correlation contribution in SOPPA are similar to those obtained in analytical derivative MP 2 calculations. However, it is not possible to say, in general, which method gives the largest correlation contribution or the best agreement with experiment, nor is it possible to make a priori prediction of the sign of the correlation contribution. For the first group of molecules, which have a quasi-degenerate ground state, additional CCDPPA and CCSDPPA calculations were performed and compared with polarizabilities obtained as analytical/numerical derivatives of the CCD and CCSD energies. The CCSDPPA results were found to be in better agreement with other calculations than were the SOPPA results, demonstrating the necessity of using methods based on infinite-order perturbation theory for these systems. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A mixed‐FEM formulation for nonlinear incompressible elasticity in the plane

This article deals with an expanded mixed finite element formulation, based on the Hu‐Washizu principle, for a nonlinear incompressible material in the plane. We follow our related previous works and introduce both the stress and the strain tensors as further unknowns, which yields a two‐fold saddle point operator equation as the corresponding variational formulation. A slight generalization of the classical Babu?ka‐Brezzi's theory is applied to prove unique solvability of the continuous and discrete formulations, and to derive the corresponding a priori error analysis. An extension of the well‐known PEERS space is used to define an stable associated Galerkin scheme. Finally, we provide an a posteriori error analysis based on the classical Bank‐Weiser approach. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 18: 105–128, 2002     

Generic Transport Aft-body Drag Reduction using Active Flow Control

Active flow-separation control is an effective and efficient mean for drag reduction and unsteady load alleviation resulting from locally or massively separated flow. Such a situation occurs in configurations where the aerodynamic performance is of secondary importance to functionality. The performance of heavy transport helicopters and aeroplanes, having a large, and almost flat, aft loading ramp suffer from the poor aerodynamics of the aft body. Hence, a combined experimental and numerical investigation was undertaken on a generic transport aeroplane/helicopter configuration. The experimental study provided surface pressures, direct drag measurements, surface and smoke flow visualization. The baseline flow was numerically analyzed, using finite volume solutions of the RANS equations. The baseline flow around the model was insensitive to the Reynolds number in the range it was tested. The flow separating from the aft body was characterized by two main sources of drag and unsteadiness. The first is a separation bubble residing at the lower ramp corner and the second is a pair of vortex systems developing and separating from the sides of the ramp. As the model incidence is decreased, the pair of vortex systems also penetrates deeper towards the centerline of the ramp, decreasing the pressure and increasing the drag. As expected, the ramp lower corner bubble was highly receptive to periodic excitation introduced from four addressable piezo-fluidic actuators situated at the ramp lower corner. Total drag was reduced by 3–11%, depending on the model incidence. There are indications that the flow in the wake of the model is also significantly steadier when the bubble at the lower ramp corner is eliminated. The vortex system is tighter and steadier when the ramp-corner bubble is eliminated.     

Characteristics of Nd：GdVO4 Laser with Different Nd-Doping Concentrations

We report the properties of a compact diode-pumped continuous-wave Nd：GdV04 laser with a linear cavity and different Nd-doped laser crystals. In a 0.2at.% Nd-doped Nd：GdVO4 laser, 1.54 W output laser power is achieved at 912nm wavelength with a slope efficiency of 24.8% at an absorbed pump power of 9.4W. With 0.3at.% Nd-doping concentration, we can obtain the either single-wavelength emission at 1064nm or 912nm or the dual-wavelength emission at 1064nm and 912nm by controlling the incident pump power. From an incident pump power of 11.6 W, the 1064nm emission between ^4Fa/2 and ^4I11/2 is suppressed completely by the 912nm emission between ^4Fa/2 and ^4I9/2. We obtain 670 mW output of the 912nm single-wavelength laser emission with a slope efficiency of 5.5% by taking an incident pump power of 18.4 W. Using a Nd：GdV04 laser with 0.4at.% Nd-doping concentration, we obtain either the single-wavelength emission at 1064nm or the dual-wavelength emission at both 1064nm and 912nm by increasing the incident pump power. We observe a strong competition process in the dualavelength laser.     

Weighted Coorbit Spaces and Banach Frames on Homogeneous Spaces

This article is concerned with frame constructions on domains and manifolds. The starting point is a unitary group representation which is square integrable modulo a suitable subgroup and therefore gives rise to a generalized continuous wavelet transform. Then generalized coorbit spaces can be defined by collecting all functions for which this wavelet transform is contained in a weighted L_p-space. Moreover, we show that a judicious discretization of the representation leads to an atomic decomposition and to Banach frames for these coorbit spaces.