Trans-floating-point arithmetic removes nine quadrillion redundancies from 64-bit IEEE 754 floating-point arithmetic

IEEE 754 floating-point arithmetic is widely used in modern, general-purpose computers. It is based on real arithmetic and is made total by adding both a positive and a negative infinity, a negative zero, and many Not-a-Number (NaN) states. Transreal arithmetic is total. It also has a positive and a negative infinity but no negative zero, and it has a single, unordered number, nullity. Modifying the IEEE arithmetic so that it uses transreal arithmetic has a number of advantages. It removes one redundant binade from IEEE floating-point objects, doubling the numerical precision of the arithmetic. It removes eight redundant, relational,floating-point operations and removes the redundant total order operation. It replaces the non-reflexive, floating-point, equality operator with a reflexive equality operator and it indicates that some of the exceptions may be removed as redundant { subject to issues of backward compatibility and transient future compatibility as programmers migrate to the transreal paradigm.

Trans/national dis/connections: silenced networks and strained belongings with reference to Albinia Catherine MacKay and Una Marson

This paper seeks to examine the particular operations of gender and cultural politics that both shaped and restrained possible 'networked' interactions between Jamaican women and their British 'motherlands' during the first forty years of the twentieth century. Paying particular attention to the poetry of Albinia Catherine MacKay (a Scots Creole) and the political journalism of Una Marson (a black Jamaica), I shall seek to examine why both writers speak in and of voices out of place. MacKay's poems work against the critical pull of transnational modernism to reveal aesthetic and cultural isolation through a model of strained belonging in relation to both her Jamaica home and an ancestral Scotland. A small number of poems from her 1912 collection that are dedicated to the historical struggle between the English and Scots for the rule of Scotland and cultural self-determination, some of which are written in a Scottish idiom, may help us to read the complex cultural negotiations that silently inform the seemingly in commensurability of location and locution revealed in these works. In contrast, Marson's journalism, although less known even than her creative writings, is both politically and intellectually radical in its arguments concerning the mutual articulation of race and gender empowerment. However, Marson remains aware of her inability to articulate these convictions with force in a British context and thereby of the way in which speaking out of place also silences her.

1H-13C HSQC NMR spectroscopy for estimating procyanidin/prodelphinidin and cis/trans-flavan-3-ol ratios of condensed tannin samples: correlation with thiolysis

Studies with a diverse array of 22 purified condensed tannin (CT) samples from nine plant species demonstrated that procyanidin/prodelphinidin (PC/PD) and cis/trans-flavan-3-ol ratios can be appraised by 1H-13C HSQC NMR spectroscopy. The method was developed from samples containing 44 to ~100% CT, PC/PD ratios ranging from 0/100 to 99/1, and cis/trans ratios from 58/42 to 95/5 as determined by thiolysis with benzyl mercaptan. Integration of cross-peak contours of H/C-6' signals from PC and of H/C-2',6' signals from PD yielded nuclei adjusted estimates that were highly correlated with PC/PD ratios obtained by thiolysis (R2 = 0.99). Cis/trans-flavan-3-ol ratios, obtained by integration of the respective H/C-4 cross-peak contours, were also related to determinations made by thiolysis (R2 = 0.89). Overall, 1H-13C HSQC NMR spectroscopy appears to be a viable alternative to thiolysis for estimating PC/PD and cis/trans ratios of CT, if precautions are taken to avoid integration of cross-peak contours of contaminants.

Anthelmintic activity of trans-cinnamaldehyde and A- and B-type proanthocyanidins derived from cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum)

Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties, but effects on parasitic worms of the intestine have not been investigated. Here, extracts of cinnamon bark were shown to have potent in vitro anthelmintic properties against the swine nematode Ascaris suum. Analysis of the extract revealed high concentrations of proanthocyanidins (PAC) and trans-cinnamaldehyde (CA). The PAC were subjected to thiolysis and HPLC-MS analysis which demonstrated that they were exclusively procyanidins, had a mean degree of polymerization of 5.2 and 21% of their inter-flavan-3-ol links were A-type linkages. Purification of the PAC revealed that whilst they had activity against A. suum, most of the potency of the extract derived from CA. Trichuris suis and Oesophagostomum dentatum larvae were similarly susceptible to CA. To test whether CA could reduce A. suum infection in pigs in vivo, CA was administered daily in the diet or as a targeted, encapsulated dose. However, infection was not significantly reduced. It is proposed that the rapid absorption or metabolism of CA in vivo may prevent it from being present in sufficient concentrations in situ to exert efficacy. Therefore, further work should focus on whether formulation of CA can enhance its activity against internal parasites.