What explains the invading success of the aquatic mud snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum (Hydrobiidae, Mollusca)?

The spread of non-native species is one of the most harmful and least reversible disturbances in ecosystems. Species have to overcome several filters to become a pest (transport, establishment, spread and impact). Few studies have checked the traits that confer ability to overcome these steps in the same species. The aim of the present study is to review the available information on the life-history and ecological traits of the mud snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum Gray (Hydrobiidae, Mollusca), native from New Zealand, in order to explain its invasive success at different aquatic ecosystems around the world. A wide tolerance range to physico-chemical factors has been found to be a key trait for successful transport. A high competitive ability at early stages of succession can explains its establishment success in human-altered ecosystems. A high reproduction rate, high capacity for active and passive dispersal, and the escape from native predators and parasites explains its spread success. The high reproduction and the ability to monopolize invertebrate secondary production explain its high impact in the invaded ecosystems. However, further research is needed to understand how other factors, such as population density or the degree of human perturbation can modify the invasive success of this aquatic snai

Copper(I)-Phosphinite Complexes in Click Cycloadditions: Three-Component Reactions and Preparation of 5-Iodotriazoles

© 2016 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.The remarkable activity displayed by copper(I)–phosphinite complexes of general formula [CuBr(L)] in two challenging cycloadditions is reported: a) the one-pot azidonation/cycloaddition of boronic acids, NaN3, and terminal alkynes; b) the cycloaddition of azides and iodoalkynes. These air-stable catalysts led to very good results in both cases and the expected triazoles could be isolated in pure form under ‘Click-suitable’ conditions

Transport in random quantum dot superlattices

We present a novel model to calculate single-electron states in random quantum dot superlattices made of wide-gap semiconductors. The source of disorder comes from the random arrangement of the quantum dots (configurational disorder) as well as spatial inhomogeneities of their shape (morphological disorder). Both types of disorder break translational symmetry and prevent the formation of minibands, as occurs in regimented arrays of quantum dots. The model correctly describes channel mixing and broadening of allowed energy bands due to elastic scattering by disorder

Coherent carrier dynamics in semiconductor superlattices

We investigate the coherent dynamics of carriers in semiconductor superlattices driven by ac-dc electric fields. We solve numerically the time-dependent effective-mass equation for the envelope function. We find that carriers undergo Rabi oscillations when the driving frequency is close to the separation between minibands.Comment: REVTEX (6 pages) and 3 figures (PostScript). Accepted in Physics Letters

Emergence of massless Dirac fermions in graphene's Hofstadter butterfly at switches of the quantum Hall phase connectivity

The fractal spectrum of magnetic minibands (Hofstadter butterfly), induced by the moir\'e super- lattice of graphene on an hexagonal crystal substrate, is known to exhibit gapped Dirac cones. We show that the gap can be closed by slightly misaligning the substrate, producing a hierarchy of conical singularities (Dirac points) in the band structure at rational values Phi = (p/q)(h/e) of the magnetic flux per supercell. Each Dirac point signals a switch of the topological quantum number in the connected component of the quantum Hall phase diagram. Model calculations reveal the scale invariant conductivity sigma = 2qe^2 / pi h and Klein tunneling associated with massless Dirac fermions at these connectivity switches.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures + appendix (3 pages, 1 figure

Andreev reflection from a topological superconductor with chiral symmetry

It was pointed out by Tewari and Sau that chiral symmetry (H -> -H if e h) of the Hamiltonian of electron-hole (e-h) excitations in an N-mode superconducting wire is associated with a topological quantum number Q\in\mathbb{Z} (symmetry class BDI). Here we show that Q=Tr(r_{he}) equals the trace of the matrix of Andreev reflection amplitudes, providing a link with the electrical conductance G. We derive G=(2e^2/h)|Q| for |Q|=N,N-1, and more generally provide a Q-dependent upper and lower bound on G. We calculate the probability distribution P(G) for chaotic scattering, in the circular ensemble of random-matrix theory, to obtain the Q-dependence of weak localization and mesoscopic conductance fluctuations. We investigate the effects of chiral symmetry breaking by spin-orbit coupling of the transverse momentum (causing a class BDI-to-D crossover), in a model of a disordered semiconductor nanowire with induced superconductivity. For wire widths less than the spin-orbit coupling length, the conductance as a function of chemical potential can show a sequence of 2e^2/h steps - insensitive to disorder.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Corrected typo (missing square root) in equations A13 and A1

Quantitative Structure-Property Relationships for Predicting the Retention Indices of Fragrances on Stationary Phases of Different Polarity

El objetivo de este trabajo fue el desarrollo de relaciones cuantitativas estructura–propiedad predictivas para el modelado de índices de retención (I) de fragancias, medidas en tres fases estacionarias de diferente polaridad: DB–225MS, HP5–MS y HP–1. Se ha prestado particular atención al curado de los datos experimentales. Posteriormente, se usó el método de subconjuntos balanceados (BSM) para dividir cada base de datos en grupos de calibración, validación y predicción. Los modelos se construyeron a partir de 1819 descriptores moleculares independientes de la conformación, los cuales fueron analizados mediante el método de reemplazo (RM) para la selección de los mismos, con la finalidad de obtener los mejores modelos. Para la fase estacionaria DB–225MS se obtuvo un modelo basado en cuatro descriptores, mientras que para las columnas HP5–MS y HP–1 se propusieron modelos con tres descriptores. Los modelos fueron validados mediante validación cruzada de dejar–uno–fuera y dejar–varios–fuera, así como otros criterios de validación. Adicionalmente, con la finalidad de cumplir los principios propuestos por la Organization for Economic Co–operation and Development (OECD), la capacidad predictiva de los modelos se evaluó mediante la predicción de los índices de retención del grupo externo de predicción, el dominio de aplicabilidad fue apropiadamente definido y se realizó una interpretación de cada descriptor molecular involucrado.The purpose of this work was to develop predictive quantitative structure–property relationships for modeling the retention indices (I) of fragrances measured in three stationary phases of different polarities: DB–225MS, HP5–MS and HP–1. Attention was paid to the curation of the experimental data. Subsequently, the Balanced Subsets method (BSM) was used to split each dataset into training, validation and test sets. Models were established by using 1819 conformation–independent molecular descriptors which were analyzed by the replacement method (RM) variable subset selection in order to obtain the optimal models. A four–descriptor model was obtained for the DB–225MS stationary phase while a three–parametric model was proposed for both the HP5–MS and HP–1 columns. Models were validated by means of the leave–one–out and leave–many–out cross–validation procedures, as well as other validation criteria. Moreover, in order to accomplish the principles proposed by the Organization for Economic Co–operation and Development (OECD), the model’s predictive ability was measured by predicting retention indices of the external test set. The applicability domain was properly defined and the interpretation of each of the molecular descriptors used in this study was provided.Fil: Rojas Villa, Cristian Xavier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas; ArgentinaFil: Duchowicz, Pablo Román. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas; ArgentinaFil: Tripaldi, P.. Universidad de Azuay; EcuadorFil: Pis Diez, Reinaldo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Centro de Química Inorgánica "Dr. Pedro J. Aymonino"; Argentin