9-[(2-Hy­droxy­benzyl­idene)amino]-11-(2-hy­droxy­phen­yl)-10,13-diphenyl-8-oxa-12-azoniatricyclo­[7.3.1.02,7]trideca-2(7),3,5-triene acetate ethanol disolvate

The title compound, C36H31N2O3 +,C2H3O2 −·2C2H5OH, the product of a domino condensation of dibenzyl ketone with salicylic aldehyde and ammonium acetate, crystallized as the ethanol disolvate. The cation of the salt comprises a fused tricyclic system containing three six-membered rings (piperidine, dihydro-2H-pyran and benzene). The piperidine ring has the usual chair conformation, while the dihydro­pyran ring adopts a slightly distorted sofa conformation. In the crystal, there are six (one intra- and five inter­molecular) independent hydrogen-bonding inter­actions: the inter­molecular hydrogen bonds link the cations and anions and ethanol solvent mol­ecules into ribbons along [001]. The ribbons are stacked along the a axis

Bi-HKT and bi-Kaehler supersymmetric sigma models

We study CKT (or bi-HKT) N = 4 supersymmetric quantum mechanical sigma models. They are characterized by the usual and the mirror sectors displaying each HKT geometry. When the metric involves isometries, a Hamiltonian reduction is possible. The most natural such reduction with respect to a half of bosonic target space coordinates produces an N = 4 model, related to the twisted Kaehler model due to Gates, Hull and Rocek, but including certain extra F-terms in the superfield action.Comment: 31 pages, minor corrections in the published versio

Kuga-Satake construction and cohomology of hyperkähler manifolds

Let M be a simple hyperkähler manifold. Kuga-Satake construction gives an embedding of into the second cohomology of a torus, compatible with the Hodge structure. We construct a torus T and an embedding of the graded cohomology space for some l, which is compatible with the Hodge structures and the Poincaré pairing. Moreover, this embedding is compatible with an action of the Lie algebra generated by all Lefschetz -triples on M

Weak adhesion between deposited rough films:Relation to dispersion forces

Although the contact theory between rough surfaces is designed for adhesion energies ≳100mJ/m2, microsystems are controlled by much weaker adhesion ≲100μJ/m2, which is critical for their operation. The weakest adhesion is related to the omnipresent fluctuation-induced dispersion forces. We develop a theory for such a weak adhesion emphasizing that the adhesion energy as a function of the average distance separating the bodies is almost entirely defined by the dispersion interaction. This dependence can be evaluated using the Lifshitz theory, but the effects of contact interaction or plastic deformations give only small contribution to the adhesion. Such a behavior is explained by a specific roughness of the deposited thin films used in microtechnologies. The films deposited on cold substrates have a much larger number of high asperities than is predicted by the Gaussian distribution and the contact occurs over a few asperities with heights much larger than the root-mean-square roughness. Finally, we discuss application of the effect for more precise determination of the distance upon contact, which is crucial for precise measurements of the dispersion forces especially at short separations in the range 5<h<50nm

(2E,25E)-11,14,17,33,36,39,42-Hepta­oxa­penta­cyclo­[41.4.0.05,10.018,23.027,32]hepta­tetra­conta-1(43),2,5(10),6,8,18,20,22,25,27,29,31,44,46-tetra­decaene-4,24-dione

The title compound, C40H40O9, is a product of the double crotonic condensation of bis­(2-acetyl­phen­oxy)-3-oxapentane with bis­(2-formyl­phen­oxy)-3,6-dioxaoctane. The title macromolecule includes the 31-crown-7-ether skeletal unit and adopts a saddle-like conformation. The two ethyl­ene fragments have E configurations. The volume of the inter­nal cavity of the macrocycle is approximately 125 Å3. In the crystal, the mol­ecules are arranged at van der Waals distances

End invasion of peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) with mixed-base composition into linear DNA duplexes

Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a synthetic DNA mimic with valuable properties and a rapidly growing scope of applications. With the exception of recently introduced pseudocomplementary PNAs, binding of common PNA oligomers to target sites located inside linear double-stranded DNAs (dsDNAs) is essentially restricted to homopurine–homopyrimidine sequence motifs, which significantly hampers some of the PNA applications. Here, we suggest an approach to bypass this limitation of common PNAs. We demonstrate that PNA with mixed composition of ordinary nucleobases is capable of sequence-specific targeting of complementary dsDNA sites if they are located at the very termini of DNA duplex. We then show that such targeting makes it possible to perform capturing of designated dsDNA fragments via the DNA-bound biotinylated PNA as well as to signal the presence of a specific dsDNA sequence, in the case a PNA beacon is employed. We also examine the PNA–DNA conjugate and prove that it can initiate the primer-extension reaction starting from the duplex DNA termini when a DNA polymerase with the strand-displacement ability is used. We thus conclude that recognition of duplex DNA by mixed-base PNAs via the end invasion has a promising potential for site-specific and sequence-unrestricted DNA manipulation and detection.National Institutes of Health (CA74175, GM059173); Boston University (PIF and SPRING awards

End invasion of peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) with mixed-base composition into linear DNA duplexes

Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a synthetic DNA mimic with valuable properties and a rapidly growing scope of applications. With the exception of recently introduced pseudocomplementary PNAs, binding of common PNA oligomers to target sites located inside linear double-stranded DNAs (dsDNAs) is essentially restricted to homopurine–homopyrimidine sequence motifs, which significantly hampers some of the PNA applications. Here, we suggest an approach to bypass this limitation of common PNAs. We demonstrate that PNA with mixed composition of ordinary nucleobases is capable of sequence-specific targeting of complementary dsDNA sites if they are located at the very termini of DNA duplex. We then show that such targeting makes it possible to perform capturing of designated dsDNA fragments via the DNA-bound biotinylated PNA as well as to signal the presence of a specific dsDNA sequence, in the case a PNA beacon is employed. We also examine the PNA–DNA conjugate and prove that it can initiate the primer-extension reaction starting from the duplex DNA termini when a DNA polymerase with the strand-displacement ability is used. We thus conclude that recognition of duplex DNA by mixed-base PNAs via the end invasion has a promising potential for site-specific and sequence-unrestricted DNA manipulation and detection.National Institutes of Health (CA74175, GM059173); Boston University (PIF and SPRING awards

Soft X-Ray Sources at the Centers of the Elliptical Galaxies NGC 4472 and NGC 4649

Analysis of recent Chandra observations of the elliptical galaxies NGC 4472 and NGC 4649 has revealed faint soft X-ray sources at their centers. The sources are located to within 1'' of the optical centers of the galaxies. They are most likely associated with the central supermassive black holes. Interest in these and several other similar objects stems from the unusually low luminosity of the supermassive black holes embedded in dense interstellar medium. Our Chandra sources have very soft spectra. They are detectable only below ~0.6 keV and have luminosities in the 0.2-2.5 keV energy band of ~ 6 * 10^{37} erg/s and ~1.7 * 10^{38} erg/s in NGC 4649 and NGC 4472, respectively.Comment: Shortened version of the paper published in Astronomy Letter

Enhanced electrical properties of ferroelectric thin films by ultraviolet radiation

Published versio

Dimethyl 2-[23-oxo-22,24-diphenyl-8,11,14-trioxa-25-aza­tetra­cyclo­[19.3.1.02,7.015,20]penta­cosa-2,4,6,15(20),16,18-hexaen-25-yl]but-2-enedioate

The title compound, C39H37NO8, is a product of the Michael addition of the cyclic secondary amine subunit of aza-14-crown-4 ether to dimethyl acetyl­enedicarboxyl­ate. The piperidinone ring exhibits a distorted chair conformation and the dimethyl acetyl­enedicarboxyl­ate fragment has a cis configuration with a dihedral angle of 56.61 (5)° between the two carboxyl­ate groups. The crystal packing is stabilized by the weak C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds