HPLC of cephalosporins and their oxa-derivatives

Summary The presence of the oxygen atom in place of the sulfur atom has significant impact on the polarity of the -lactam derivative. This has been illustrated by direct comparison of HPLC data of 4 different cephalosporin derivatives and their oxa analogues.Acknowledgment. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of Drs Yuji Sendo, Toshiro Konoike, Masayuki Murakami and Mitsuru Yoshioka of Shionogi Research Laboratories, Shionogi and Co., Ltd, Fukushima-ku, Osaka, 553, Japan, who synthesized the oxa--lactams and made them available for this study.     

Predation: Prey plumage adaptation against falcon attack

Several plumage types are found in feral pigeons (Columba livia), but one type imparts a clear survival advantage during attacks by the swiftest of all predators--the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). Here we use quantitative field observations and experiments to demonstrate both the selective nature of the falcon's choice of prey and the effect of plumage coloration on the survival of feral pigeons. This plumage colour is an independently heritable trait that is likely to be an antipredator adaptation against high-speed attacks in open air space.     

Photon blockade in an optical cavity with one trapped atom

At low temperatures, sufficiently small metallic and semiconductor devices exhibit the 'Coulomb blockade' effect, in which charge transport through the device occurs on an electron-by-electron basis. For example, a single electron on a metallic island can block the flow of another electron if the charging energy of the island greatly exceeds the thermal energy. The analogous effect of 'photon blockade' has been proposed for the transport of light through an optical system; this involves photon-photon interactions in a nonlinear optical cavity. Here we report observations of photon blockade for the light transmitted by an optical cavity containing one trapped atom, in the regime of strong atom-cavity coupling. Excitation of the atom-cavity system by a first photon blocks the transmission of a second photon, thereby converting an incident poissonian stream of photons into a sub-poissonian, anti-bunched stream. This is confirmed by measurements of the photon statistics of the transmitted field. Our observations of photon blockade represent an advance over traditional nonlinear optics and laser physics, into a regime with dynamical processes involving atoms and photons taken one-by-one.     

Topological restriction of SNARE-dependent membrane fusion

To fuse transport vesicles with target membranes, proteins of the SNARE (soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptors) complex must be located on both the vesicle (v-SNARE) and the target membrane (t-SNARE). In yeast, four integral membrane proteins, Sed5, Bos1, Sec22 and Bet1 (refs 2-6), each probably contribute a single helix to form the SNARE complex that is needed for transport from endoplasmic reticulum to Golgi. This generates a four-helix bundle, which ultimately mediates the actual fusion event. Here we explore how the anchoring arrangement of the four helices affects their ability to mediate fusion. We reconstituted two populations of phospholipid bilayer vesicles, with the individual SNARE proteins distributed in all possible combinations between them. Of the eight non-redundant permutations of four subunits distributed over two vesicle populations, only one results in membrane fusion. Fusion only occurs when the v-SNARE Bet1 is on one membrane and the syntaxin heavy chain Sed5 and its two light chains, Bos1 and Sec22, are on the other membrane where they form a functional t-SNARE. Thus, each SNARE protein is topologically restricted by design to function either as a v-SNARE or as part of a t-SNARE complex.     

性能分析和网格计算

随着信息技术的迅速发展，计算机领域需要持续地在性能理论、方法和工具上取得进步。性能科学和技术的发展包括性能建模、评价、测量、分析、检测、解释、优化和预测。传统的计算机性能分析局限在特定的并行处理机上，但随着网格的流行，高性能计算必须从单个并行机向大规模网络计算发展。本书正是填补了网格计算方面性能分析的空白，提供了对于网格共享资源的理论分析方法。本书综合了近年来在Dagstuhl Workshop上关于网格性能分析和分布式计算方面的论文，给读者展示了网格性能分析的模型、工具和应用。