Copper and iron interactions with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. A study by fast-atom bombardment tandem mass spectrometry

Fast atom bombardment, combined with high-energy collision-induced tandem mass spectrometry, has been used to investigate gas-phase metal-ion interactions with captopril, enalaprilat and lisinopril, all angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.Suggestions for the location of metal-binding sites are presented. For captopril, metal binding occurs most likely at both the sulphur and the nitrogen atom. For enalaprilat and lisinopril, binding preferably occurs at the amine nitrogen. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Photon channelling in foams

Experiments by Gittings, Bandyopadhyay and Durian (Europhys. Lett. 65, 414 (2004)) demonstrate that light possesses a higher probability to propagate in the liquid phase of a foam due to total reflection. The authors term this observation photon channelling which we investigate in this article theoretically. We first derive a central relation in the work of Gitting et al. without any free parameters. It links the photon's path-length fraction f in the liquid phase to the liquid fraction ɛ. We then construct two-dimensional Voronoi foams, replace the cell edges by channels to represent the liquid films and simulate photon paths according to the laws of ray optics using transmission and reflection coefficients from Fresnel's formulas. In an exact honeycomb foam, the photons show superdiffusive behavior. It becomes diffusive as soon as disorder is introduced into the foams. The dependence of the diffusion constant on channel width and refractive index is explained by a one-dimensional random-walk model. It contains a photon channelling state that is crucial for the understanding of the numerical results. At the end, we shortly comment on the observation that photon channelling only occurs in a finite range of ɛ.     

Existence of Polyhedral Embeddings of Graphs

It is proved that the decision problem about the existence of an embedding of face-width 3 of a given graph is NP-complete. A similar result is proved for some related decision problems. This solves a problem raised by Neil Robertson. Received July 6, 1998 RID="*" ID="*" Supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Slovenia, Research Project J1–0502–0101–98.     

Topographical distance matrices for porous arrays

The topographical Wiener index is calculated for two-dimensional graphs describing porous arrays, including bee honeycomb. For tiling in the plane, we model hexagonal, triangular, and square arrays and compare with topological formulas for the Wiener index derived from the distance matrix. The normalized Wiener indices of C₄, T₁₃, and O(4), for hexagonal, triangular, and square arrays are 0.993, 0.995, and 0.985, respectively, indicating that the arrays have smaller bond lengths near the center of the array, since these contribute more to the Wiener index. The normalized Perron root (the first eigenvalue, λ ₁), calculated from distance/distance matrices describes an order parameter, f = l₁/n{\phi=\lambda_1/n} , where f = 1{\phi= 1} for a linear graph and n is the order of the matrix. This parameter correlates with the convexity of the tessellations. The distributions of the normalized distances for nearest neighbor coordinates are determined from the porous arrays. The distributions range from normal to skewed to multimodal depending on the array. These results introduce some new calculations for 2D graphs of porous arrays.     

Planar Digraphs of Digirth Five Are 2‐Colorable

Neumann‐Lara (1985) and ?krekovski conjectured that every planar digraph with digirth at least three is 2‐colorable, meaning that the vertices can be 2‐colored without creating any monochromatic directed cycles. We prove a relaxed version of this conjecture: every planar digraph of digirth at least five is 2‐colorable. The result also holds in the setting of list colorings.     

High precision delta(17)O isotope measurements of oxygen from silicates and other oxides: method and applications

The use of infrared laser-assisted fluorination to release oxygen from milligram quantities of silicates or other oxide mineral grains is a well-established technique. However, relatively few studies have reported the optimisation of this procedure for oxygen-17 isotope measurements. We describe here details of an analytical system using infrared (10 μm) laser-assisted fluorination, in conjunction with a dual inlet mass spectrometer of high resolving power ( approximately 250) to provide (17)O and (18)O oxygen isotope measurements from 0.5-2 mg of silicates or other oxide mineral grains. Respective precisions (1) of typically 0.08 and 0.04 per thousand are obtained for the complete analytical procedure. Departures from the mass-dependent oxygen isotope fractionation line are quantified by Delta(17)O; our precision (1) of such measurements on individual samples is shown to be +/-0.024 per thousand. In turn, this permits the offset between parallel, mass-dependent fractionation lines to be characterised to substantially greater precision than has been possible hitherto. Application of this system to investigate the (17)O versus (18)O relationship for numerous terrestrial whole-rock and mineral samples, of diverse geological origins and age, indicates that the complete data set may be described by a single, mass-dependent fractionation line of slope 0.5244+/- 0.00038 (standard error). Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.