Spatial Concentration Profiles for the Catalytic Partial Oxidation of Jet Fuel Surrogates in a Rh/Al₂O₃ Coated Monolith

The catalytic partial oxidation (CPOX) of several hydrocarbon mixtures, containing n-dodecane (DD), 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene (TMB), and benzothiophene (BT) as a sulfur compound was studied over a Rh/Al2O3 honeycomb catalyst. The in-situ sampling technique SpaciPro was used in this study to investigate the complex reaction system which consisted of total and partial oxidation, steam reforming, and the water gas shift reaction. The mixtures of 83 vol % DD, 17 vol % TMB with and without addition of the sulfur compound BT, as well as the pure hydrocarbons were studied at a molar C/O-ratio of 0.75. The spatially resolved concentration and temperature profiles inside a central channel of the catalyst revealed three reaction zones: an oxidation zone, an oxy-reforming zone, and a reforming zone. Hydrogen formation starts in the oxy-reforming zone, not directly at the catalyst inlet, contrary to methane CPOX on Rh. In the reforming zone, in which steam reforming is the predominant reaction, even small amounts of sulfur (10 mg S in 1 kg fuel) block active sites

PTB-XL+, a comprehensive electrocardiographic feature dataset

Machine learning (ML) methods for the analysis of electrocardiography (ECG) data are gaining importance, substantially supported by the release of large public datasets. However, these current datasets miss important derived descriptors such as ECG features that have been devised in the past hundred years and still form the basis of most automatic ECG analysis algorithms and are critical for cardiologists’ decision processes. ECG features are available from sophisticated commercial software but are not accessible to the general public. To alleviate this issue, we add ECG features from two leading commercial algorithms and an open-source implementation supplemented by a set of automatic diagnostic statements from a commercial ECG analysis software in preprocessed format. This allows the comparison of ML models trained on clinically versus automatically generated label sets. We provide an extensive technical validation of features and diagnostic statements for ML applications. We believe this release crucially enhances the usability of the PTB-XL dataset as a reference dataset for ML methods in the context of ECG data

Fluoride Chemistry in Tin Halide Perovskites

Tin is the frontrunner for substituting toxic lead in perovskite solar cells. However, tin suffers the detrimental oxidation of SnII to SnIV. Most of reported strategies employ SnF2 in the perovskite precursor solution to prevent SnIV formation. Nevertheless, the working mechanism of this additive remains debated. To further elucidate it, we investigate the fluoride chemistry in tin halide perovskites by complementary analytical tools. NMR analysis of the precursor solution discloses a strong preferential affinity of fluoride anions for SnIV over SnII, selectively complexing it as SnF4. Hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy on films shows the lower tendency of SnF4 than SnI4 to get included in the perovskite structure, hence preventing the inclusion of SnIV in the film. Finally, small-angle X-ray scattering reveals the strong influence of fluoride on the colloidal chemistry of precursor dispersions, directly affecting perovskite crystallization

Origin of Interface Limitation in Zn(O,S)/CuInS2‑Based Solar Cells

Copper indium disulfide CuInS2 grown under Cu rich conditions exhibits high optical quality but suffers predominantly from charge carrier interface recombination, resulting in poor solar cell performance. An unfavorable cliff like conduction band alignment at the buffer CuInS2 interface could be a possible cause of enhanced interface recombination in the device. In this work, we exploit direct and inverse photoelectron spectroscopy together with electrical characterization to investigate the cause of interface recombination in chemical bath deposited Zn O,S co evaporated CuInS2 based devices. Temperature dependent current voltage analyses indeed reveal an activation energy of the dominant charge carrier recombination path, considerably smaller than the absorber bulk band gap, confirming the dominant recombination channel to be present at the Zn O,S CuInS2 interface. However, photoelectron spectroscopy measurements indicate a small 0.1 eV spike like conduction band offset at the Zn O,S CuInS2 interface, excluding an unfavorable energy level alignment to be the prominent cause for strong interface recombination. The observed band bending upon interface formation also suggests Fermi level pinning not to be the main reason, leaving near interface defects as recently observed in Cu rich CuInSe2 as the likely reason for the performance limiting interface recombinatio

BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey. XX. Molecular Gas in Nearby Hard-X-Ray-selected AGN Galaxies

We present the host-galaxy molecular gas properties of a sample of 213 nearby (0.01 10.5) tend to have more molecular gas and higher gas fractions than inactive galaxies matched in stellar mass. When matched in star formation, we find AGN galaxies show no difference from inactive galaxies, with no evidence that AGN feedback affects the molecular gas. The higher molecular gas content is related to AGN galaxies hosting a population of gas-rich early types with an order of magnitude more molecular gas and a smaller fraction of quenched, passive galaxies (~5% versus 49%) compared to inactive galaxies. The likelihood of a given galaxy hosting an AGN (L_(bol) > 10⁴⁴ erg s⁻¹ ) increases by ~10–100 between a molecular gas mass of 10^(8.7) M_⊙ and 10^(10.2) M_⊙. AGN galaxies with a higher Eddington ratio (log(L/L_(Edd)) > −1.3) tend to have higher molecular gas masses and gas fractions. The log(N_H/ cm⁻² ) > 23.4) of AGN galaxies with higher column densities are associated with lower depletion timescales and may prefer hosts with more gas centrally concentrated in the bulge that may be more prone to quenching than galaxy-wide molecular gas. The significant average link of host-galaxy molecular gas supply to supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth may naturally lead to the general correlations found between SMBHs and their host galaxies, such as the correlations between SMBH mass and bulge properties, and the redshift evolution of star formation and SMBH growth

UM-DFKI Maltese speech translation

For the 2023 IWSLT Maltese Speech Translation Task, UM-DFKI jointly presents a cascade solution which achieves 0.6 BLEU. While this is the first time that a Maltese speech translation task has been released by IWSLT, this paper explores previous solutions for other speech translation tasks, focusing primarily on low-resource scenarios. Moreover, we present our method of fine-tuning XLS-R models for Maltese ASR using a collection of multi-lingual speech corpora as well as the fine-tuning of the mBART model for Maltese to English machine translation.peer-reviewe

Fluoridchemie in Zinn‐Halogenid‐Perowskiten

Zinn ist der Top-Favorit für den Ersatz von giftigem Blei in Perowskit-Solarzellen. Allerdings kommt es dabei verstärkt zu der unerwünschten Oxidation von SnII zu SnIV. Die herkömmlichen Verfahren verwenden SnF2 in der Perowskit-Vorläuferlösung, um die Bildung von SnIV zu verhindern. Dennoch bleibt der Wirkmechanismus des Additivs unklar. Um diesen eingehender zu erläutern, untersuchen wir die Fluoridchemie in Zinn-Halogenid-Perowskiten mit einander ergänzenden Analyseverfahren. NMR-Spektroskopie der Vorläuferlösung offenbart eine stark bevorzugte Affinität der Fluoridanionen für SnIV gegenüber SnII, wodurch dieses selektiv als SnF4 komplexiert wird. Harte Röntgenphotoelektronenspektroskopie an Dünnschichten zeigt die geringere Bereitschaft von SnF4 gegenüber SnI4, in die Perowskit-Struktur eingebaut zu werden und verhindert somit den Einschluss von SnIV in der Dünnschicht. Abschließend offenbart Röntgen-Kleinwinkelstreuung den starken Einfluss vom Fluorid auf die kolloidale Chemie der Vorläuferlösungen, der sich direkt auf die darauffolgende Kristallisation auswirkt.European Research Council (ERC)Peer Reviewe

The Vinculin-ΔIn20/21 Mouse: Characteristics of a Constitutive, Actin-Binding Deficient Splice Variant of Vinculin

BACKGROUND: The cytoskeletal adaptor protein vinculin plays a fundamental role in cell contact regulation and affects central aspects of cell motility, which are essential to both embryonal development and tissue homeostasis. Functional regulation of this evolutionarily conserved and ubiquitously expressed protein is dominated by a high-affinity, autoinhibitory head-to-tail interaction that spatially restricts ligand interactions to cell adhesion sites and, furthermore, limits the residency time of vinculin at these sites. To date, no mutants of the vinculin protein have been characterized in animal models. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here, we investigate vinculin-DeltaEx20, a splice variant of the protein lacking the 68 amino acids encoded by exon 20 of the vinculin gene VCL. Vinculin-DeltaEx20 was found to be expressed alongside with wild type protein in a knock-in mouse model with a deletion of introns 20 and 21 (VCL-DeltaIn20/21 allele) and shows defective head-to-tail interaction. Homozygous VCL-DeltaIn20/21 embryos die around embryonal day E12.5 showing cranial neural tube defects and exencephaly. In mouse embryonic fibroblasts and upon ectopic expression, vinculin-DeltaEx20 reveals characteristics of constitutive head binding activity. Interestingly, the impact of vinculin-DeltaEx20 on cell contact induction and stabilization, a hallmark of the vinculin head domain, is only moderate, thus allowing invasion and motility of cells in three-dimensional collagen matrices. Lacking both F-actin interaction sites of the tail, the vinculin-DeltaEx20 variant unveils vinculin's dynamic binding to cell adhesions independent of a cytoskeletal association, and thus differs from head-to-tail binding deficient mutants such as vinculin-T12, in which activated F-actin binding locks the protein variant to cell contact sites. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Vinculin-DeltaEx20 is an active variant supporting adhesion site stabilization without an enhanced mechanical coupling. Its presence in a transgenic animal reveals the potential of splice variants in the vinculin gene to alter vinculin function in vivo. Correct control of vinculin is necessary for embryonic development

Systematisierung von Methoden partizipativer Forschung

Background!#!Participatory research methods are gaining interest. In applying these methods, there is often a lack of consideration for methodological issues. Furthermore, a unifying system for categorizing the various approaches does not exist.!##!Objectives!#!Based on a scoping review, a categorization of participatory research methods to promote health equity was undertaken.!##!Material and methods!#!Included in the review are 44 publications in German and English retrieved from various databases (PubMed, PsycInfo, SocIndex, Livivo, Cochrane, Fachportal Pädagogik). Additional publications were identified by hand searching and using the snowball method.!##!Results!#!The methods are categorized by research phase and type of format used. The principles of multidimensionality and phase integration are central to the proposed system of categorization, resulting in a primary distinction between the methods used to facilitate the participatory research process versus methods used for participatory data collection and analysis. The majority of methods identified are used for data collection or reflexive processes. There are gaps in the German literature regarding methods for cooperative decision making, participatory data analysis, and the application of research results.!##!Conclusion!#!The classification system provides an overview of available methods and the degree of participation they promote. The system draws attention to the spectrum of methods available, being useful for both teaching and research purposes

Democratic and emancipatory—participatory health research has a high potential

Peer Reviewe