Abstract: Disclosed are protein kinase inhibitors, compositions comprising such inhibitors, and methods of use thereof. More particularly, disclosed are inhibitors of Aurora A (Aurora-2) protein kinase. Also disclosed are methods of treating diseases associated with protein kinases, especially diseases associated with Aurora-2, such as cancer.

Abstract: A multistage optical amplifier is disclosed with programmable gain for operation in an automatic gain control mode that has a low noise figure or an optimal or near optimal noise figure. The programmable-gain optical amplifier has several amplifying stages separated by variable optical attenuators (VOAs) and may have mid-stage access devices (MSA) such as dispersion compensating fiber or optical add/drop modules. A method of selecting attenuation values for the VOAs for realizing low noise figure for various values of the overall optical gain is also disclosed. The loss among the amplifier stages is distributed and predetermined attenuation values for the VOAs are selected so as to minimize the overall noise figure of the multistage amplifier. The predetermined attenuation levels are determined during the amplifier calibration process taking into consideration the pump power limits, nonlinearity limits in the dispersion compensating fiber and the required overall optical amplifier gain.