Energy systems

Electronic excitation transfer dynamics in photosynthetic systems, including the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex, are often modeled using the interaction picture of three two-level systems, also known as the 3-site system. Among the two possible configurations, uphill and downhill, a recent publication reported an intriguing correlation between population dynamics and the intersite coupling. Specifically, the uphill configuration has been shown to have a pronounced dependence on perturbations in the intersite coupling, whereas the downhill configuration displays negligible dependence...

The complex interplay between malignant cells and the cellular and molecular components of the tumor stroma is a key aspect of cancer growth and development. These tumor-host interactions are often affected by soluble bioactive molecules such as proteoglycans. Decorin, an archetypical small leucine-rich proteoglycan primarily expressed by stromal cells, affects cancer growth in its soluble form by interacting with several receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK). Overall, decorin leads to a context-dependent and protracted cessation of oncogenic RTK activity by attenuating their ability to drive a prosurvival program and to sustain a proangiogenic network...

Many living and artificial systems show similar emergent behavior and collective motions on different scales, starting from swarms of bacteria to synthetic active particles, herds of mammals, and crowds of people. What all these systems often have in common is that new collective properties like flocking emerge from interactions between individual self-propelled or driven units. Such systems are naturally out-of-equilibrium and propel at the expense of consumed energy. Mimicking nature by making self-propelled or externally driven particles and studying their individual and collective motility may allow for deeper understanding of physical underpinnings behind collective motion of large groups of interacting objects or beings...

INTRODUCTION: Burns are tissue traumas caused by energy transfer and occur with a variable inflammatory response. The consequences of burns represent a public health problem worldwide. Inhalation injury (II) is a severity factor when associated with burn, leading to a worse prognosis. Its treatment is complex and often involves invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). The primary purpose of this study will be to assess the evidence regarding the frequency and mortality of II in burn patients...

Passive thermal management with zero-energy consumption and high compactness has drawn increasing attention. Here, we present a protocol to develop a hygroscopic salt-loaded heat sink with a moisture-permeable membrane encapsulation technique for electronics cooling. We describe steps for preparing lithium bromide solution and heat sink with anti-corrosion graphene coating. We then detail procedures for preparing the hygroscopic salt-loaded membrane-encapsulated heat sinks (HSMHSs). The produced low-cost HSMHS exhibits remarkably high thermal management performance without the risks of leakage and corrosion...

Human activity recognition has played a crucial role in healthcare information systems due to the fast adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of thing (IoT). Most of the existing methods are still limited by computational energy, transmission latency, and computing speed. To address these challenges, we develop an efficient human activity recognition in-memory computing architecture for healthcare monitoring. Specifically, a mechanism-oriented model of Ag/a-Carbon/Ag memristor is designed, serving as the core circuit component of the proposed in-memory computing system...

ConspectusIn the ever-increasing renewable-energy demand scenario, developing new photovoltaic technologies is important, even in the presence of established terawatt-scale silicon technology. Emerging photovoltaic technologies play a crucial role in diversifying material flows while expanding the photovoltaic product portfolio, thus enhancing security and competitiveness within the solar industry. They also serve as a valuable backup for silicon photovoltaic, providing resilience to the overall energy infrastructure...

The development of single-system materials that exhibit both multi-color room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) and thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) with tunable afterglow colors and channels is challenging. In this study, we developed four metal-free carbon dots (CDs) through structural tailoring and achieved panchromatic high-brightness RTP via strong chemical encapsulation in urea. The maximum lifetime and quantum yield reached 2141 ms and 56.55%, respectively. Moreover, CDs-IV@urea, prepared via core-shell interaction engineering, exhibited a dual afterglow of red RTP at 622 nm and green TADF...

Self-sustained motions are widespread in biological systems by harvesting energy from surrounding environments, which inspire scientists to develop autonomous soft robots. However, most-existing soft robots require dynamic heterogeneous stimuli or complex fabrication with different components. Recently, control of topological geometry has been promising to afford soft robots with physical intelligence and thus life-like motions. Reported here are a series of closed twisted ribbon robots, which exhibit self-sustained flipping and rotation under constant light irradiation...

Protein allostery is commonly observed in vitro. But how protein allostery behaves in cells is unknown. In this work, a protein monomer-dimer equilibrium system was built with the allosteric effect on the binding characterized using NMR spectroscopy through mutations away from the dimer interface. A chemical shift linear fitting method was developed that enabled us to accurately determine the dissociation constant. A total of 28 allosteric mutations were prepared and grouped to negative allosteric, nonallosteric, and positive allosteric modulators...

A charge detector has been constructed and mounted inside the vacuum housing of a commercial mass spectrometer (Micromass-Waters Quattro I, Waters Corp., Manchester, UK). The in-house built single-pass charge detector is composed of a designed, complete electronics system that includes a low-noise charge amplifier. Communication to the data acquisition system was enabled, and analog and digital filters were devised, followed by their tuning and programming. Data treatment scripts for data analysis and plotting were automated, and the assembled system was calibrated and tested...

Electrocatalytic nitrogen fixation to ammonia (NH3 ), a precursor for fertilizer production and a promising energy carrier, has garnered widespread interest as an environment-friendly and sustainable alternative to the energy-intensive fossil-feedstock-dependent Haber-Bosch process. The large-scale deployment of this process is contingent on the identification of inexpensive, Earth-abundant systems that can operate efficiently, irrespective of the electrolyte pH for the selective production of NH3 . In this regard, we discuss the scalable synthesis of VO2 anchored on N-doped carbon (VO2@CN), and its applicability as a robust electrocatalyst for the nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR)...

The Python-based program, XMECP, is developed for realizing robust, efficient, and state-of-the-art minimum energy crossing point (MECP) optimization in multiscale complex systems. This article introduces the basic capabilities of the XMECP program by theoretically investigating the MECP mechanism of several example systems including (1) the photosensitization mechanism of benzophenone, (2) photoinduced proton-coupled electron transfer in the cytosine-guanine base pair in DNA, (3) the spin-flip process in oxygen activation catalyzed by an iron-containing 2-oxoglutarate-dependent oxygenase (Fe/2OGX), and (4) the photochemical pathway of flavoprotein adjusted by the intensity of an external electric field...

Four weeks before competition in the 2023 Marathon des Sables, a 6-stage, ~250 km running event in the Sahara Desert, we examined the effects of a 7-day intake of New Zealand blackcurrant extract (210 mg anthocyanins per day) on 1 h treadmill running-induced physiological and metabolic responses in the heat (~34 °C, relative humidity: ~30%) in non-acclimatized amateur female and male athletes (age: 23, 38 yrs, BMI: 24.2, 28.4 kg·m-2 , body fat%: 29.2, 18.8%, V˙O2max : 50.1, 52.1 mL·kg-1 ·min-1 )...

The aim of this study was to verify the accuracy of predicting oxygen consumption (O2 ) in predominantly aerobic activities based on net heart rate (netHR), sex, and body mass index (BMI) in active adults. NetHR is the value of the difference between the resting HR (HRrest ) and the average HR value obtained during a given session or period of physical activity. These activities must be continuous, submaximal, and of a stabilized intensity. The magnitude of the netHR depends mainly on the intensity of the exercise...

In this work, we developed two kinds of co-crystal assemblies systems, consisting of discrete mononuclear Yb3+ and Er3+ and mononuclear Yb3+ and Pr3+, which can achieve Er3+ and Pr3+ upconversion luminescence, respectively, by Yb3+ sensitization under 980 nm excitation. The structure and composition of two co-crystal assemblies were determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. By investigation of the series of two assemblies, respectively, it is found that the strongest upconversion luminescence is both obtained when the molar ratio of Yb3+ and Ln3+ (Ln = Er or Pr) is 1 : 1...

Chemotherapy of glioblastoma (GBM) has not yielded success due to inefficient blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration and poor glioma tissue accumulation. Aerobic glycolysis, as the main mode of energy supply for GBM, safeguards the rapid growth and proliferation of GBM while affecting the efficacy of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Therefore, to effectively inhibit aerobic glycolysis, increase drug delivery efficiency and improve drug sensitivity, we successfully designed and prepared a novel TMZ nanocapsule (ApoE-MT/siPKM2 NC) for the combined delivery of siPKM2 and TMZ...

Bacteria synchronize the expression of genes with related functions by organizing genes into operons so that they are cotranscribed together in a single polycistronic messenger RNA. However, some cellular processes may benefit if the simultaneous production of the operon proteins coincides with the inhibition of the expression of an antagonist gene. To coordinate such situations, bacteria have evolved noncontiguous operons (NcOs), a subtype of operons that contain one or more genes that are transcribed in the opposite direction to the other operon genes...

In this paper, the preparation of low-cost samples, for the calibration of an energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence system is presented. The entire procedure is proposed as an undergraduate or postgraduate student laboratory activity, which aims to familiarize students with the procedure of calibration of a spectroscopy-based analytical method through the XRF technique. Furthermore, the use of XRF for the determination of elemental concentrations in samples related to students' interests, was attempted.

Legundi Island, located in Lampung Bay, Indonesia, has high solar energy potential but still relies on Diesel Power Plants. This research aims to design a hybrid Solar Power Plant and Diesel Power plant system that is environmentally friendly and reliable. Analysis was conducted using the Homer software. •This research designs a hybrid Solar Power Plant system with a capacity of 170.2 kWp and a battery of 1,036 kWh, integrated with three existing Diesel Power Plants units with a capacity of 200 kW.•This system can generate electricity of 296,391 kWh/year with a renewable energy fraction reaching 79...