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Effects of Surface Roughness on the Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 over Cu
We have investigated the role of surface roughening on the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) over Cu. The activity and product selectivity of Cu surfaces roughened by plasma pretreatment in Ar, O2, or N2 were compared with that of electrochemically polished Cu samples. Differences in total and product current densities, the ratio of current densities for HER (the hydrogen evolution reaction) to CO2RR, and the ratio of current densities for C2+ to C1 products depend on the electrochemically active surface and are nearly independent of plasma composition. Theoretical analysis of an electropolished and roughened Cu surface reveals a higher fraction of undercoordinated Cu sites on the roughened surface, sites that bind CO preferentially. Roughened surfaces also contain square sites similar to those on a Cu(100) surface but with neighboring step sites, which adsorb OC-COH, a precursor to C2+ products. These findings explain the increases in the formation of oxygenates and hydrocarbons relative to CO and the ratio of oxygenates to hydrocarbons observed with increasing surface roughness
Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Carbon Fixation by Moso Bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) in Subtropical China
To study the temporal and spatial dynamics of carbon fixation by Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) in subtropical China, carbon fixation of leaves within the canopy of P. pubescens was measured with a LI-6400 portable photosynthesis system. The results showed that the capability of carbon fixation of P. pubescens leaves had obvious temporal and spatial dynamic variations. It was revealed that there were two peak periods and two low periods in the season variation of carbon fixation capability. Data also revealed that the capability of carbon fixation by five-year-old P. pubescens was more than that of one-year-old and three-year-old. Daily and seasonal carbon fixation showed a negative correlation with the CO2 concentration. The temporal and spatial dynamics of carbon fixation by P. pubescens described above provided a scientific basis for development of technologies in bamboo timber production
Design of a pulse power supply unit for micro-ECM
Electrochemical micro-machining (μECM) requires a particular pulse power supply unit (PSU) to be developed in order to achieve desired machining performance. This paper summarises the development of a pulse PSU meeting the requirements of μECM. The pulse power supply provides tens of nanosecond pulse duration, positive and negative bias voltages and a polarity switching functionality. It fulfils the needs for tool preparation with reversed pulsed ECM on the machine. Moreover, the PSU is equipped with an ultrafast overcurrent protection which prevents the tool electrode from being damaged in case of short circuits. The developed pulse PSU was used to fabricate micro-tools out of 170 μm WC-Co alloy shafts via micro-electrochemical turning and drill deep holes via μECM in a disk made of 18NiCr6. The electrolyte used for both processes was a mixture of sulphuric acid and NaNO3 aqueous solutions.The research reported in this paper is supported by the European Commission within the project “Minimizing Defects in Micro-Manufacturing Applications (MIDEMMA)” (FP7-2011-NMP-ICT-FoF-285614
Simvastatin inhibits TLR8 signaling in primary human monocytes and spontaneous TNF production from rheumatoid synovial membrane cultures
Simvastatin has been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects that are independent of its serum cholesterol lowering action, but the mechanisms by which these anti-inflammatory effects are mediated have not been elucidated. To explore the mechanism involved, the effect of simvastatin on Toll-like receptor (TLR) signalling in primary human monocytes was investigated. A short pre-treatment with simvastatin dose-dependently inhibited the production of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF) in response to TLR8 (but not TLRs 2, 4, or 5) activation. Statins are known inhibitors of the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway, but intriguingly TLR8 inhibition could not be reversed by addition of mevalonate or geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate; downstream products of cholesterol biosynthesis. TLR8 signalling was examined in HEK 293 cells stably expressing TLR8, where simvastatin inhibited IKKα/β phosphorylation and subsequent NF-κB activation without affecting the pathway to AP-1. Since simvastatin has been reported to have anti-inflammatory effects in RA patients and TLR8 signalling contributes to TNF production in human RA synovial tissue in culture, simvastatin was tested in these cultures. Simvastatin significantly inhibited the spontaneous release of TNF in this model which was not reversed by mevalonate. Together, these results demonstrate a hitherto unrecognized mechanism of simvastatin inhibition of TLR8 signalling that may in part explain its beneficial anti-inflammatory effects
Super-resolution far-field ghost imaging via compressive sampling
Much more image details can be resolved by improving the system's imaging
resolution and enhancing the resolution beyond the system's Rayleigh
diffraction limit is generally called super-resolution. By combining the sparse
prior property of images with the ghost imaging method, we demonstrated
experimentally that super-resolution imaging can be nonlocally achieved in the
far field even without looking at the object. Physical explanation of
super-resolution ghost imaging via compressive sampling and its potential
applications are also discussed.Comment: 4pages,4figure
Identification of disease-causing genes using microarray data mining and gene ontology
Background: One of the best and most accurate methods for identifying disease-causing genes is monitoring gene expression values in different samples using microarray technology. One of the shortcomings of microarray data is that they provide a small quantity of samples with respect to the number of genes. This problem reduces the classification accuracy of the methods, so gene selection is essential to improve the predictive accuracy and to identify potential marker genes for a disease. Among numerous existing methods for gene selection, support vector machine-based recursive feature elimination (SVMRFE) has become one of the leading methods, but its performance can be reduced because of the small sample size, noisy data and the fact that the method does not remove redundant genes.
Methods: We propose a novel framework for gene selection which uses the advantageous features of conventional methods and addresses their weaknesses. In fact, we have combined the Fisher method and SVMRFE to utilize the advantages of a filtering method as well as an embedded method. Furthermore, we have added a redundancy reduction stage to address the weakness of the Fisher method and SVMRFE. In addition to gene expression values, the proposed method uses Gene Ontology which is a reliable source of information on genes. The use of Gene Ontology can compensate, in part, for the limitations of microarrays, such as having a small number of samples and erroneous measurement results.
Results: The proposed method has been applied to colon, Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) and prostate cancer datasets. The empirical results show that our method has improved classification performance in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. In addition, the study of the molecular function of selected genes strengthened the hypothesis that these genes are involved in the process of cancer growth.
Conclusions: The proposed method addresses the weakness of conventional methods by adding a redundancy reduction stage and utilizing Gene Ontology information. It predicts marker genes for colon, DLBCL and prostate cancer with a high accuracy. The predictions made in this study can serve as a list of candidates for subsequent wet-lab verification and might help in the search for a cure for cancers
In vivo testing of novel vaccine prototypes against Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae
Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (A. pleuropneumoniae) is a Gram-negative bacterium that represents the main cause of porcine pleuropneumonia in pigs, causing significant economic losses to the livestock industry worldwide. A. pleuropneumoniae, as the majority of Gram-negative bacteria, excrete vesicles from its outer membrane (OM), accordingly defined as outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). Thanks to their antigenic similarity to the OM, OMVs have emerged as a promising tool in vaccinology. In this study we describe the in vivo testing of several vaccine prototypes for the prevention of infection by all known A. pleuropneumoniae serotypes. Previously identified vaccine candidates, the recombinant proteins ApfA and VacJ, administered individually or in various combinations with the OMVs, were employed as vaccination strategies. Our data show that the addition of the OMVs in the vaccine formulations significantly increased the specific IgG titer against both ApfA and VacJ in the immunized animals, confirming the previously postulated potential of the OMVs as adjuvant. Unfortunately, the antibody response raised did not translate into an effective protection against A. pleuropneumoniae infection, as none of the immunized groups following challenge showed a significantly lower degree of lesions than the controls. Interestingly, quite the opposite was true, as the animals with the highest IgG titers were also the ones bearing the most extensive lesions in their lungs. These results shed new light on A. pleuropneumoniae pathogenicity, suggesting that antibody-mediated cytotoxicity from the host immune response may play a central role in the development of the lesions typically associated with A. pleuropneumoniae infections
Phonon-assisted radiofrequency absorption by gold nanoparticles resulting in hyperthermia
It is suggested that in gold nanoparticles (GNPs) of about 5 nm sizes used in
the radiofrequency (RF) hyperthermia, an absorption of the RF photon by the
Fermi electron occurs with involvement of the longitudinal acoustic vibrational
mode (LAVM), the dominating one in the distribution of vibrational density of
states (VDOS). This physical mechanism helps to explain two observed phenomena:
the size dependence of the heating rate (HR) in GNPs and reduced heat
production in aggregated GNPs. The argumentation proceeds within the
one-electron approximation, taking into account the discretenesses of energies
and momenta of both electrons and LAVMs. The heating of GNPs is thought to
consist of two consecutive processes: first, the Fermi electron absorbs
simultaneously the RF photon and the LAVM available in the GNP; hereafter the
excited electron gets relaxed within the GNP's boundary, exciting a LAVM with
the energy higher than that of the previously absorbed LAVM. GNPs containing
the Ta and/or Fe impurities are proposed for the RF hyperthermia as promising
heaters with enhanced HRs, and GNPs with rare-earth impurity atoms are also
brought into consideration. It is shown why the maximum HR values should be
expected in GNPs with about 5-7 nm size.Comment: proceedings at the NATO Advanced Research workshop FANEM-2015 (Minsk,
May 25-27, 2015). To be published in the final form in: "Fundamental and
Applied NanoElectroMagnetics" (Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
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