Characterization of Iron Phthalocyanine as the Cathode Active Material for Lithium-Ion Batteries

The developed thermodynamic functions for the determination of Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, and entropy of formation of solid lithium-iron phthalocyanine (LixFePc) from solid lithium and iron phthalocyanine as a function of x, defined as g-moles of the intercalated lithium per g-mole of iron phthalocyanine, at a fixed set of temperature and pressure conditions are presented. In addition, a proposed expression for the evaluation of lithium diffusion coefficient in solid iron phthalocyanine as a function of both x and temperature, and the experimental results from the ongoing research/development work on the lithium/iron phthalocyanine cells are included

A new interaction potential for swarming models

We consider a self-propelled particle system which has been used to describe certain types of collective motion of animals, such as fish schools and bird flocks. Interactions between particles are specified by means of a pairwise potential, repulsive at short ranges and attractive at longer ranges. The exponentially decaying Morse potential is a typical choice, and is known to reproduce certain types of collective motion observed in nature, particularly aligned flocks and rotating mills. We introduce a class of interaction potentials, that we call Quasi-Morse, for which flock and rotating mills states are also observed numerically, however in that case the corresponding macroscopic equations allow for explicit solutions in terms of special functions, with coefficients that can be obtained numerically without solving the particle evolution. We compare thus obtained solutions with long-time dynamics of the particle systems and find a close agreement for several types of flock and mill solutions.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure

Landspotting: Social gaming to collect vast amounts of data for satellite validation

At present there is no single satellite-derived global land cover product that is accurate enough to provide reliable estimates of forest or cropland area to determine, e.g., how much additional land is available to grow biofuels or to tackle problems of food security. The Landspotting Project aims to improve the quality of this land cover information by vastly increasing the amount of in-situ validation data available for calibration and validation of satellite-derived land cover. The Geo-Wiki (Geo-Wiki.org) system currently allows users to compare three satellite derived land cover products and validate them using Google Earth. However, there is presently no incentive for anyone to provide this data so the amount of validation through Geo-Wiki has been limited. However, recent competitions have proven that incentive driven campaigns can rapidly create large amounts of input. The LandSpotting Project is taking a truly innovative approach through the development of the Landspotting game. The game engages users whilst simultaneously collecting a large amount of in-situ land cover information. The development of the game is informed by the current raft of successful social gaming that is available on the internet and as mobile applications, many of which are geo-spatial in nature. Games that are integrated within a social networking site such as Facebook illustrate the power to reach and continually engage a large number of individuals. The number of active Facebook users is estimated to be greater than 400 million, where 100 million are accessing Facebook from mobile devices. The Landspotting Game has similar game mechanics as the famous strategy game "Civilization" (i.e. build, harvest, research, war, diplomacy, etc.). When a player wishes to make a settlement, they must first classify the land cover over the area they wish to settle. As the game is played on the earth surface with Google Maps, we are able to record and store this land cover/land use classification geographically. Every player can play the game for free (i.e. a massive multiplayer online game). Furthermore, it is a social game on Facebook (e.g. invite friends, send friends messages, purchase gifts, help friends, post messages onto the wall, etc). The game is played in a web browser, therefore it runs everywhere (where Flash is supported) without requiring the user to install anything additional. At the same time, the Geo-Wiki system will be modified to use the acquired in-situ validation information to create new outputs: a hybrid land cover map, which takes the best information from each individual product to create a single integrated version; a database of validation points that will be freely available to the land cover user community; and a facility that allows users to create a specific targeted validation area, which will then be provided to the crowdsourcing community for validation. These outputs will turn Geo-Wiki into a valuable system for earth system scientists

An iron-oxygen intermediate formed during the catalytic cycle of cysteine dioxygenase

Cysteine dioxygenase is a key enzyme in the breakdown of cysteine, but its mechanism remains controversial. A combination of spectroscopic and computational studies provides the first evidence of a short-lived intermediate in the catalytic cycle. The intermediate decays within 20 ms and has absorption maxima at 500 and 640 nm

OLBVH: octree linear bounding volume hierarchy for volumetric meshes

We present a novel bounding volume hierarchy for GPU-accelerated direct volume rendering (DVR) as well as volumetric mesh slicing and inside-outside intersection testing. Our novel octree-based data structure is laid out linearly in memory using space filling Morton curves. As our new data structure results in tightly fitting bounding volumes, boundary markers can be associated with nodes in the hierarchy. These markers can be used to speed up all three use cases that we examine. In addition, our data structure is memory-efficient, reducing memory consumption by up to 75%. Tree depth and memory consumption can be controlled using a parameterized heuristic during construction. This allows for significantly shorter construction times compared to the state of the art. For GPU-accelerated DVR, we achieve performance gain of 8.4×–13×. For 3D printing, we present an efficient conservative slicing method that results in a 3×–25× speedup when using our data structure. Furthermore, we improve volumetric mesh intersection testing speed by 5×–52×

Survey Evidence on Conditional Norm Enforcement

We discuss survey evidence on individuals' willingness to sanction norm violations - such as evading taxes, drunk driving, fare dodging, or skiving o work - by expressing disapproval or social exclusion. Our data suggest that people condition their sanctioning behavior on their belief about the frequency of norm violations. The more commonly a norm violation is believed to occur, the lower the individuals' inclination to punish it. Based on an instrumental variable approach, we demonstrate that this pattern reflects a causal relationship

Identification of BPIFA1/SPLUNC1 as an epithelium-derived smooth muscle relaxing factor

Asthma is a chronic airway disease characterized by inflammation, mucus hypersecretion and abnormal airway smooth muscle (ASM) contraction. Bacterial permeability family member A1, BPIFA1, is a secreted innate defence protein. Here we show that BPIFA1 levels are reduced in sputum samples from asthmatic patients and that BPIFA1 is secreted basolaterally from healthy, but not asthmatic human bronchial epithelial cultures (HBECs), where it suppresses ASM contractility by binding to and inhibiting the Ca2+ influx channel Orai1. We have localized this effect to a specific, C-terminal α-helical region of BPIFA1. Furthermore, tracheas from Bpifa1−/− mice are hypercontractile, and this phenotype is reversed by the addition of recombinant BPIFA1. Our data suggest that BPIFA1 deficiency in asthmatic airways promotes Orai1 hyperactivity, increased ASM contraction and airway hyperresponsiveness. Strategies that target Orai1 or the BPIFA1 deficiency in asthma may lead to novel therapies to treat this disease

Spectral fingerprints or spectral tilt? Evidence for distinct oscillatory signatures of memory formation

Decreases in low-frequency power (2-30 Hz) alongside high-frequency power increases (>40 Hz) have been demonstrated to predict successful memory formation. Parsimoniously, this change in the frequency spectrum can be explained by one factor, a change in the tilt of the power spectrum (from steep to flat) indicating engaged brain regions. A competing view is that the change in the power spectrum contains several distinct brain oscillatory fingerprints, each serving different computations. Here, we contrast these two theories in a parallel magnetoencephalography (MEG)-intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) study in which healthy participants and epilepsy patients, respectively, studied either familiar verbal material or unfamiliar faces. We investigated whether modulations in specific frequency bands can be dissociated in time and space and by experimental manipulation. Both MEG and iEEG data show that decreases in alpha/beta power specifically predicted the encoding of words but not faces, whereas increases in gamma power and decreases in theta power predicted memory formation irrespective of material. Critically, these different oscillatory signatures of memory encoding were evident in different brain regions. Moreover, high-frequency gamma power increases occurred significantly earlier compared to low-frequency theta power decreases. These results show that simple "spectral tilt" cannot explain common oscillatory changes and demonstrate that brain oscillations in different frequency bands serve different functions for memory encoding

Spurious correlations in simultaneous EEG-fMRI driven by in-scanner movement

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI provides an increasingly attractive research tool to investigate cognitive processes with high temporal and spatial resolution. However, artifacts in EEG data introduced by the MR-scanner still remain a major obstacle. This study employing commonly used artifact correction steps shows that head motion, one overlooked major source of artifacts in EEG-fMRI data, can cause plausible EEG effects and EEG-BOLD correlations. Specifically, low frequency EEG