We study a construction of the Mathieu group M12 using a game reminiscent of Loyd’s “15-puzzle”. The elements of M12 are realized as permutations on 12 of the 13 points of the finite projective plane of order 3. There is a natural extension to a “pseudogroup” M13 acting on all 13 points, which exhibits a limited form of sextuple transitivity. Another corollary of the construction is a metric, a...

A heuristic improvement technique referred to as multi-dimensional heuristics is presented. Instead of only applying the heuristic between two states X 1 and X 2 , when a distance esti­ mate of X 1 X 2 is needed, this technique uses a reference state R and applies the heuristic func­ tion to {X 1 ,R) and (X' 2 ,R) and compares the resulting values. If two states are close to each other, then th...

Interleukin-15 (IL-15) is generally considered to be a regulator of T cell homeostasis because it works with other common gamma-chain cytokines like IL-2 and IL-7 to control the maintenance of naive and memory T cell populations. However, recent reports highlight new roles for IL-15 during the primary immune responses that involve promoting the survival of antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells. These...

Five new pimarane diterpenoids 1-5 were synthesized using ent-8(14)-pimarene-15R,16-diol as starting material. The structures were elucidated by means of extensive NMR and MS analysis. The antifouling activity against larval settlement of the barnacle Balanus albicostatus were evaluated using capsaicin as a positive control. Compounds 1-3 and 5 showed more potent antifouling activity than capsa...

abstract introduction: the city of sardasht, located in north western part of iran was the ‎target of a chemical invasion in 1988.many studies have shown the veteran’s ‎adverse condition of physical and medical health which can affect the quality of ‎their lives .so far, few studies have been devoted to the iranian chemical ‎veteran’s quality of life .this research was studying the chemical vet...