Microfluidic platform for combinatorial synthesis in picolitre droplets

Contains fulltext : 93966.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)7 p

The Influence of Robot Traits and Evolutionary Dynamics on the Reality Gap

The elephant in the room for evolutionary robotics is the reality gap. In the history of the field, several studies investigated this phenomenon on fixed robot morphologies where only the controllers evolved. This paper addresses the reality gap in a wider context, in a system where both morphologies and controllers evolve. In this context the morphology of the robots becomes a variable with a currently unknown influence. To examine this influence, we construct a test suite of robots with various morphologies and evolve their controllers for an effective gait. Comparing the simulated and the real-world performance of evolved controllers sampled at different generations during the evolutionary process, we gain new insights into the factors that influence the reality gap

Pathogenicity of two recent Western Mediterranean West Nile virus isolates in a wild bird species indigenous to Southern Europe The red-legged partridge

West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging zoonotic pathogen whose geographic spread and incidence in humans, horses and birds has increased significantly in recent years. WNV has long been considered a mild pathogen causing self-limiting outbreaks. This notion has changed as WNV is causing large epidemics with a high impact on human and animal health. This has been particularly noteworthy since its introduction into North America in 1999. There, native bird species have been shown to be highly susceptible to WNV infection and disease with high mortalities. For this reason, the effect of WNV infection in North American bird species has been thoroughly studied by means of experimental inoculations in controlled trials. To a lesser extent, European wild birds have been shown to be affected clinically by WNV infection. Yet experimental studies on European wild bird species are lacking. The red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) is a gallinaceous bird indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula, widely distributed in South Western Europe. It plays a key role in the Mediterranean ecosystem and constitutes an economically important game species. As such it is raised intensively in outdoor facilities. In this work, red-legged partridges were experimentally infected with two recent WNV isolates from the Western Mediterranean area Morocco/2003 and Spain/2007. All inoculated birds became viremic and showed clinical disease, with mortality rates of 70% and 30%, respectively. These results show that Western Mediterranean WNV variants can be pathogenic for some European bird species, such as the red-legged partridge. © 2011 Sotelo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Green-emitting iridium(III) complexes containing sulfone-functionalized cyclometallating 2-phenylpyridine ligands

A series of [Ir(C^N)2(bpy)][PF6] complexes in which the cyclometallating ligands contain fluoro, sulfane or sulfone groups is reported. The conjugate acids of the C^N ligands in the complexes are 2-(4-fluorophenyl)pyridine (H1), 2-(4-methylsulfonylphenyl)pyridine (H3), 2-(4-tbutylsulfanylphenyl)pyridine (H4), 2-(4-tbutylsulfonylphenyl)pyridine (H5), 2-(4-ndodecylsulfanylphenyl)pyridine (H6), 2-(4-ndodecylsulfonylphenyl)pyridine (H7). The single crystal structures of H3 and H5 are described. [Ir(C^N)2(bpy)][PF6] with C^N = 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 were prepared from the appropriate [Ir2(C^N)4Cl2] dimer and bpy; the structure of [Ir2(3)4Cl2]·2CH2Cl2 was determined. [Ir(6)2(bpy)][PF6] was prepared by nucleophilic substitution starting from [Ir(1)2(bpy)][PF6]. The [Ir(C^N)2(bpy)][PF6] complexes have been characterized by NMR, IR, absorption and emission spectroscopic and mass spectrometric methods. The single crystal structures of enantiomerically pure Δ-[Ir(1)2(bpy)][PF6] and of rac-4{[Ir(1)2(bpy)][PF6]}·Et2O·2CH2Cl2 are described, and the differences in inter-cation packing in the structures compared. [Ir(1)2(bpy)][PF6], [Ir(4)2(bpy)][PF6] and [Ir(6)2(bpy)][PF6] (fluoro and sulfane substituents) are yellow emitters (λmaxem between 557 and 577 nm), and the room temperature solution emission spectra are broad. The sulfone derivatives [Ir(3)2(bpy)][PF6], [Ir(5)2(bpy)][PF6] and [Ir(7)2(bpy)][PF6] are green emitters and the emission spectra are structured (λmaxem = 493 and 523 to 525 nm). High photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) of 64–74% are observed for the sulfone complexes in degassed solutions. The emission lifetimes for the three complexes containing sulfone substituents are an order of magnitude longer (2.33 to 3.36 μs) than the remaining complexes (0.224 to 0.528 μs). Emission spectra of powdered solid samples have also been recorded; the broad emission bands have values of λmaxem in the range 532 to 558 nm, and PLQYs for the powdered compounds are substantially lower (≤23%) than in solution. Trends in the redox potentials for the [Ir(C^N)2(bpy)][PF6] complexes are in accord with the observed emission behaviour