The nitrite anion: the key intermediate in alkyl nitrates degradative mechanism.

Alkyl nitrates, _in vivo_, are metabolized to yield nitric oxide, and thiol groups are considered necessary cofactors. This statement is based on studies that underline how these species potentiate hemodynamic responsiveness to nitrates in patients with ischemic heart disease. However, the role of thiols might be mediated by the formation of corresponding S-nitrosothiols, and a redox process is responsible for the nitrates' degradation: an enzyme, probably the cytochrome P450, is involved _in vivo_. Here, we report evidence that, in vitro, no reaction between thiols and alkyl nitrates takes place, but that stronger reducing agents, such as iron (II) derivatives, are necessary: alkoxy radicals and the nitrite anion are the reaction intermediates. The latter, in slightly acidic conditions, for instance mimicking ischemic conditions, is shown to nitrosilate thiols to the corresponding S-nitrosothiols: the real NO suppliers. Therefore, the direct release of NO from nitrates is excluded. Finally, the in vivo role of thiols on depletion and tolerance is also accounted for

AN OVERVIEW OF NATIONAL TRENDS AND POLICY DIRECTIONS

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Causality of fluid dynamics for high-energy nuclear collisions

Dissipative relativistic fluid dynamics is not always causal and can favor superluminal signal propagation under certain circumstances. On the other hand, high-energy nuclear collisions have a microscopic description in terms of QCD and are expected to follow the causality principle of special relativity. We discuss under which conditions the fluid evolutions for a radial expansion are hyperbolic and how the properties of the solutions are encoded in the associated characteristic curves. The expansion dynamics is causal in relativistic sense if the characteristic velocities are smaller than the speed of light. We obtain a concrete inequality from this constraint and discuss how it can be violated for certain initial conditions. We argue that causality poses a bound to the applicability of relativistic fluid dynamics. }Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures; Added references, corrected typos, added discussion as section 2, results unchange

On the location of two blow up points on an annulus for the mean field equation

We consider the mean field equation on two-dimensional annular domains, and prove that if $P$ and $Q$ are two blow up points of a blowing-up solution sequence of the equation, then we must have $P=-Q$.Comment: To appear in CRA

On the Green function of the annulus

Using the Gegenbauer polynomials and the zonal harmonics functions we give some representation formula of the Green function in the annulus. We apply this result to prove some uniqueness results for some nonlinear elliptic problems