Recent Observations

In this paper I will discuss the new observations that have been released in the year prior to this meeting September 2002 to September 2003. I will discuss these results in time order. 

The Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI) is a very small interferometric array that operates at 26-36 GHz and the South Pole. After measuring the angular power spectrum of the anisotropy (Halverson et al., 2002) the instrument was converted into a polarization sensitive interferometer which detected the E mode polarization at 5.5a by looking at a small patch of sky for most of a year of integration time (Kovac et ah, 2002). The level agreed well with the solid predictions for adiabatic primordial perturbations. Since the measured quantity was the EE autocorrelation, the 5.5a corresponds to a 9% accuracy in the polarization amplitude. 

The TE cross-correlation was also seen, but with only 50% accuracy. As expected, the B modes were not seen. 

ACBAR is a bolometric camera array mounted on the VIPER 2 meter diameter telescope at the South Pole. It operates at several frequencies on both sides of the peak of the spectrum of the CMB, and thus can be used to make a sensitive test for the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. However, the data released to date are only at one frequency. ACBAR was able to measure the CMB angular power spectrum up to l 2000 (Kuo et al., 2002), but the size of the surveyed regions was so small that ACBAR s l resolution was too limited to provide much information about tvk. ACBAR was able with its high observing frequency to show that the excess at l 2000 seen by CBI (Mason et al., 2003) is not a primary CMB anisotropy. It could be due to point sources, or it could 

The WMAP satellite, launched on 30 June 2001, released it first year results on 11 Feb 2003. Simultaneously the mission was renamed the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe to honor the late David T. Wilkinson who was a key member of both the COBE and the WMAP teams until his death in September 

---

Piscicides. The two piscicides, antimycin and rotenone, are both used in ponds to control nuisance fish. Antimycin is used selectively to remove scaled fishes from catfish ponds, and rotenone is used as a general fish toxicant (9,10). Recent observations by catfish farmers indicate that antimycin at low concentrations also acts as a therapeutant against external parasites. 

Although there has been a warming trend over the past 100 years, it is not necessarily due to the greenhouse effect. The concern of the scientific community about accelerating changes in the next 40 to 50 years is based not only on the recent observations of temperature compared with past observations, but also on the physical principles related to the greenhouse effect. 

The earliest information dealing with this phenomenon dates back to 600 B.c. It was found that a piece of amber after it had been rubbed was able to attract small fibers. More recent observations are from the 17th century, when William Gilbert noticed that amber, sulfur, and other dielectrics charged by friction could attract smoke. Similar observations were made by Boyle (1675) and Otto von Guericke (1672). Francis Hauksbee (1709) reported that he had discovered a phenomenon which is now called ionic wind or electric wind. Ionic wind and the glow from the corona discharge was discussed by Isaac Newton (1718). 

A model for the allosteric behavior of hemoglobin is based on recent observations that oxygen is accessible only to the heme groups of the a-chains when hemoglobin is in the T conformational state. Perutz has pointed out that the heme environment of /3-chains in the T state is virtually inaccessible because of steric hindrance by amino acid residues in the E helix. This hindrance dis-... 

The rearrangement of l-methyl-2-arainopyrimidine to 2-methyl-aminopyrimidine with alkali has been recently observed in amino-quinazolines. The following rearrangement proceeded in high yields when R was Me, Et, Pr , Ph, and p-MeOC6H4 ... 

Methylation of 4-methylthioquinazoline occurs on N-1 since the product is the same as that obtained by methylation of 1-methyl-4(l/f)quinazolinthione. Further evidence was presented by hydrolysis with excess alkali to o-methylaminobenzoic acid. When only one equivalent of alkali was used o-methylaminobenzonitrile was formed (see Scheme 3). A similar 2,3-cleavage has also been recently observed with 6-nitro-4-methylmercaptoquinazoline. ... 

The easy cleavage by reduction of the N—C bond in isocyanides, which was recently observed by I. Ugi and F. Bodesheim [Chem. Ber. 94, 1167 (1961)], stimulated this experiment. 

Wliich forces have dominated in the recently observed warming of the climate is still an open question. The last landmark report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) concludes ... 

Til tee successive tubule portions contribute to the ASDN the late portion of the distal convoluted tubule, the connecting tubule, and the collecting duct. The recent observation that collecting duct-specific inactivation of aENaC in the mouse kidney does not impair sodium and potassium balance, suggests that the more proximal nephron segments (late distal convoluted tubule, connecting tubule) are mainly important for-achieving sodium and potassium balance. 

In other cases the conformational changes are small, but in the sense of lengthening of the unit height in the chain conformation. This has been for instance, recently observed for s-PB. The transition from form I (s(2/l)2 helices) toward form II (s(5/3)2 helices (see Sect. 2.2) occurs under tensile stress and involves only... 

Non-isothermal measurements of the temperatures of dehydrations and decompositions of some 25 oxalates in oxygen or in nitrogen atmospheres have been reported by Dollimore and Griffiths [39]. Shkarin et al. [606] conclude, from the similarities they found in the kinetics of dehydration of Ni, Mn, Co, Fe, Mg, Ca and Th hydrated oxalates (first-order reactions and all values of E 100 kJ mole-1), that the mechanisms of reactions of the seven salts are probably identical. We believe, however, that this conclusion is premature when considered with reference to more recent observations for NiC204 2 H20 (see below [129]) where kinetic characteristics are shown to be sensitive to prevailing conditions. The dehydration of MnC204 2 H20 [607] has been found to obey the contracting volume... 

Recent observations of fluorescence in NpF6 and PuF6 (46) are consistent with the energy-level scheme proposed. However, comparison of the calculated level structure with high-resolution spectra of PuFg (44) confirms that much of the observed structure is vibronic in character, built on electronic transitions that are forbidden by the inversion symmetry at the Pu site. 

Recent observations (14, 15) indicate that ethyl ions react with ethane via... 

Our group has recently observed (ref. 10) that often synthesis time of zeolites can be substantially shortened when microwave radiation is applied instead of conventional heating. Table 3 gives some examples. Also a narrow crystal size distribution is obtained in this way. The crystallization temperature is rapidly (1 min) reached by microwave heating, this may be a factor in homogeneous and essentially simultaneous nucleation. 

In this review we will focus on the unsymmetrization of the orbital phase environment in the vicinity of reacting n systems, and its effect on facial selectivities. This idea can be applied to many kinds of recently observed facial selectivities, such as those involving ketones [10-21], olefins [22-31], dienes [32-46] and others [47-49]. 

Control of N-nitroso compounds as carcinogenic agents so far has rested on agents that can block their formation. It is the intent of this paper to briefly review some of the studies which have been performed on the use of blocking agents to prevent N-nitroso compound formation and describe some recent observations on the mechanism by which these agents function. 

We have discussed here, very briefly, some recent observations of small particle surfaces and how these relate to geometrical catalytic effects. These demonstrate the general conclusion that high resolution imaging can provide a direct, structural link between bulk LEED analysis and small particle surfaces. Apart from applications to conventional surface science, where the sensitivity of the technique to surface inhomogenieties has already yielded results, there should be many useful applications in catalysis. A useful approach would be to combine the experimental data with surface thermodynamic and morphological analyses as we have attempted herein. There seems no fundamental reason why results comparable to those described cannot be obtained from commercial catalyst systems. 

More recent observations have revealed that the 3.3 xmemission is often aeeompanied by a feature at 3.4 t.m (2940 cm- ) which is, in fact, part of a rich structure in the 3.3-3.6 p.m region as shown for example in Figure 2. The whole structure, including three newly discovered features at 3.46, 3.51, and 3.56 pm (2890, 2850 and 2805 cm- ), was first observed by DeMuizon et al. [28] in two IRAS sources who mentioned also the presence of possible satellites at shorter wavelengths. In the "hot band hypothesis", some of these lines should originate from transitions between upper vibrational levels in PAH molecules[ll]. 

---