Osteochondromas of the spine.

Osteochondromas are common developmental benign bone lesions, which rarely involve the spine. In a narrow space, such as the spinal canal, they may potentially lead to serious complications. Moreover, because this condition is fairly rare in the spine, it may be confused with other entities. The objective of this review is to describe the typical imaging findings of this rare, but occasionally significant condition of the spine.

The computational and experimental investigations of photophysical and spectroscopic properties of BF2 dipyrromethene complexes.

The electronic excited states of BF2 dipyrromethene (2BrDPM, DPMI, DPMII, PM567 and 4PhDPM) complexes were investigated using the extended multi-configuration quasi-degenerate at the second order of perturbation theory (XMCQDPT2) and the second-order approximate coupled-cluster (CC2) methods. The excitation energies calculated by CC2 are significantly overestimated by 0.42-0.59 eV because of the substantial contributions of double excitation levels to excited states (>10%). However, the calculated XMCQDPT2 excitation energies agree well with experimental ones within the accuracy 0.11-0.20eV. The very low lasing efficiency (7.8-8.4%) of 4PhDPM compound was explained by the T1→T4 and T1→T5 reabsorptions at XMCQDPT2 level of theory. The molecular photonics of pyrromethenes are studied using a combination of the first-principle and semi-empirical calculations. The main mechanism for the deactivation of the energy of the first singlet excited electronic state is the radiative electronic transition for DPMI, DPMII, PM567 and 4PhDPM compounds. Also, the main mechanism for the quenching of fluorescence in considered complexes (except DPMII compound) is the internal conversion. The processes of the internal conversion and intersystem crossing compete with each other in DPMII compound. The measured and calculated fluorescence quantum yields agree well for all considered molecules.

Yeast mutants that produce a novel type of ascus containing asci instead of spores.

Tetraploid yeast cells lacking BFR1 or overexpressing an essential gene BBP1 produce a novel type of ascus that contains asci instead of spores. We show here that the asci within an ascus likely arise because a/alpha spores undergo a second round of meiosis. Cells depleted of Bbp1p or lacking Bfr1p are defective in a number of processes such as nuclear segregation, bud formation, cytokinesis and nuclear spindle formation. Furthermore, deletion of BFR1 or overexpression of BBP1 leads to an increase in cell ploidy, indicating that Bfr1p and Bbp1p play roles in both the mitotic cell cycle and meiosis. Bfr1p and Bbp1p interact with each other in a two hybrid assay, further suggesting that they might form a complex important for cell cycle coordination.