Review of: Peter K. LaGoy, Risk Assessment: Principles and Applications for Hazardous Waste and Related Sites (Noyes Publications 1994)

Review of the book: Peter K. LaGoy, Risk Assessment: Principles and Applications for Hazardous Waste and Related Sites (Noyes Publications 1994). Appendices, figures, index, notes, preface, references, tables. LC 94-2510; ISBN 0-8155-1349-6. [260 pp. Cloth $48.00. 120 Mill Road, Park Ridge NJ 07656.

Systematic composition of distributed objects: Processes and sessions

We consider a system with the infrastructure for the creation and interconnection of large numbers of distributed persistent objects. This system is exemplified by the Internet: potentially, every appliance and document on the Internet has both persistent state and the ability to interact with large numbers of other appliances and documents on the Internet. This paper elucidates the characteristics of such a system, and proposes the compositional requirements of its corresponding infrastructure. We explore the problems of specifying, composing, reasoning about and implementing applications in such a system. A specific concern of our research is developing the infrastructure to support structuring distributed applications by using sequential, choice and parallel composition, in the anarchic environment where application compositions may be unforeseeable and interactions may be unknown prior to actually occurring. The structuring concepts discussed are relevant to a wide range of distributed applications; our implementation is illustrated with collaborative Java processes interacting over the Internet, but the methodology provided can be applied independent of specific platforms

Semileptonic Lambda_b decay to excited Lambda_c baryons at order Lambda_{QCD}/m_Q

Exclusive semileptonic Lambda_b decays to excited charmed Lambda_c baryons are investigated at order Lambda_{QCD}/m_Q in the heavy quark effective theory. The differential decay rates are analyzed for the J^\pi=1/2^- Lambda_c(2593) and the J^\pi=3/2^- \Lambda_c(2625). They receive 1/m_{c,b} corrections at zero recoil that are determined by mass splittings and the leading order Isgur-Wise function. With some assumptions, we find that the branching fraction for Lambda_b decays to these states is 2.5-3.3%. The decay rate to the helicity \pm 3/2 states, which vanishes for m_Q \to \infty, remains small at order Lambda_{QCD}/m_Q since 1/m_c corrections do not contribute. Matrix elements of weak currents between a Lambda_b and other excited Lambda_c states are analyzed at zero-recoil to order Lambda_{QCD}/m_Q. Applications to baryonic heavy quark sum-rules are explored.Comment: 27 pages, 1 fig., minor changes, version to appear in Phys.Rev.

Regioselective reactions of 3,4-pyridynes enabled by the aryne distortion model.

The pyridine heterocycle continues to play a vital role in the development of human medicines. More than 100 currently marketed drugs contain this privileged unit, which remains highly sought after synthetically. We report an efficient means to access di- and trisubstituted pyridines in an efficient and highly controlled manner using transient 3,4-pyridyne intermediates. Previous efforts to employ 3,4-pyridynes for the construction of substituted pyridines were hampered by a lack of regiocontrol or the inability to later manipulate an adjacent directing group. The strategy relies on the use of proximal halide or sulfamate substituents to perturb pyridyne distortion, which in turn governs regioselectivities in nucleophilic addition and cycloaddition reactions. After trapping of the pyridynes generated in situ, the neighbouring directing groups may be removed or exploited using versatile metal-catalysed cross-coupling reactions. This methodology now renders 3,4-pyridynes as useful synthetic building blocks for the creation of highly decorated derivatives of the medicinally privileged pyridine heterocycle

Radiation reaction at 3.5 post-Newtonian order in effective field theory

We derive the radiation reaction forces on a compact binary inspiral through 3.5 order in the post-Newtonian expansion using the effective field theory approach. We utilize a recent formulation of Hamilton’s variational principle that rigorously extends the usual Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms to dissipative systems, including the inspiral of a compact binary from the emission of gravitational waves. We find agreement with previous results, which thus provides a non-trivial confirmation of the extended variational principle. The results from this work nearly complete the equations of motion for the generic inspiral of a compact binary with spinning constituents through 3.5 post-Newtonian order, as derived entirely with effective field theory, with only the spin-orbit corrections to the potential at 3.5 post-Newtonian remaining