768 research outputs found
Rational Strain Engineering in Delafossite Oxides for Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Catalysis in Acidic Media
The rational design of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts
which are competitive with platinum is an outstanding challenge to make
power-to-gas technologies economically viable. Here, we introduce the
delafossites PdCrO, PdCoO and PtCoO as a new family of
electrocatalysts for the HER in acidic media. We show that in PdCoO the
inherently strained Pd metal sublattice acts as a pseudomorphic template for
the growth of a strained (by +2.3%) Pd rich capping layer under reductive
conditions. The surface modification continuously improves the electrocatalytic
activity by simultaneously increasing the exchange current density j from 2
to 5 mA/cm and by reducing the Tafel slope down to 38 mV/decade,
leading to overpotentials < 15 mV for 10 mA/cm, superior
to bulk platinum. The greatly improved activity is attributed to the in-situ
stabilization of a -palladium hydride phase with drastically enhanced
surface catalytic properties with respect to pure or nanostructured palladium.
These findings illustrate how operando induced electrodissolution can be used
as a top-down design concept for rational surface and property engineering
through the strain-stabilized formation of catalytically active phases
Spatially resolved XMM-Newton analysis and a model of the nonthermal emission of MSH 15-52
We present an X-ray analysis and a model of the nonthermal emission of the
pulsar wind nebula (PWN) MSH15-52. We analyzed XMM-Newton data to obtain the
spatially resolved spectral parameters around the pulsar PSRB1509-58. A
steepening of the fitted power-law spectra and decrease in the surface
brightness is observed with increasing distance from the pulsar. In the second
part of this paper, we introduce a model for the nonthermal emission, based on
assuming the ideal magnetohydrodynamic limit. This model is used to constrain
the parameters of the termination shock and the bulk velocity of the leptons in
the PWN. Our model is able to reproduce the spatial variation of the X-ray
spectra. The parameter ranges that we found agree well with the parameter
estimates found by other authors with different approaches. In the last part of
this paper, we calculate the inverse Compton emission from our model and
compare it to the emission detected with the H.E.S.S. telescope system. Our
model is able to reproduce the flux level observed with H.E.S.S., but not the
spectral shape of the observed TeV {\gamma}-ray emission.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 9 pages, 15 figure
Observation of multiple soliton generation mediated by amplification of asymmetries
We report the experimental observation of the formation of multiple optical quadratic solitons in a process mediated by the amplification of minute asymmetries in the diffraction properties of the input light. Experiments were conducted in phase-matched second-harmonic generation in a bulk crystal of periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate pumped at 1064 nm. The different mechanisms that influence the process were investigated numerically, and the pulsed nature of the pump light was found to play a key role in the observed light distributions
Measuring surface-area-to-volume ratios in soft porous materials using laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR
We demonstrate a minimally invasive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
technique that enables determination of the surface-area-to-volume ratio (S/V)
of soft porous materials from measurements of the diffusive exchange of
laser-polarized 129Xe between gas in the pore space and 129Xe dissolved in the
solid phase. We apply this NMR technique to porous polymer samples and find
approximate agreement with destructive stereological measurements of S/V
obtained with optical confocal microscopy. Potential applications of
laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR include measurements of in vivo
lung function in humans and characterization of gas chromatography columns.Comment: 14 pages of text, 4 figure
Baraba Waldsteppe, Russland. Westsibirien. Neues zu Andronovo-Fundplätzen in der nördlichen Baraba Steppe. Die Arbeiten der Jahre 2020 und 2021
The steppe and forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia is one of the core regions of the Eurasian continent. Among the sites in the Siberian Forest steppe, those of the Andronovo (Fёdorovo) cultural community occupy a special position. In the northern Baraba Forest steppe many burial sites of these communities are known, including the large necropolises of Tartas 1, a long-term joint excavation of the Eurasia-Department and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology in Novosibirsk. However, nearly no settlements associated with the necropolises were known and it was a mystery, where the population lived at that time. In 2020, such an Andronovo (Fёdorovo) settlement site was discovered near the village of Vengerovo, Novosibirisk region; excavations started in 2021. The location of this site was surprising. Unlike other settlements, the site of Tartas 5 is located not on the riverbank but in the floodplain of the Tartas River. The site revealed a stratigraphy with two cultural horizons and sterile sediments in-between, stemming from repeated flooding of the plain. The lower stratum is associated with the Andronovo (Fёdorovo) cultural community, the upper layer dates most likely to the Iron Age. A short overview of complexes, layers, and the animal bone collection analyzed in 2021 is given. First dates place into the 15th/14th century BCE
A Preference for Contralateral Stimuli in Human Object- and Face-Selective Cortex
Visual input from the left and right visual fields is processed predominantly in the contralateral hemisphere. Here we investigated whether this preference for contralateral over ipsilateral stimuli is also found in high-level visual areas that are important for the recognition of objects and faces. Human subjects were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they viewed and attended faces, objects, scenes, and scrambled images in the left or right visual field. With our stimulation protocol, primary visual cortex responded only to contralateral stimuli. The contralateral preference was smaller in object- and face-selective regions, and it was smallest in the fusiform gyrus. Nevertheless, each region showed a significant preference for contralateral stimuli. These results indicate that sensitivity to stimulus position is present even in high-level ventral visual cortex
Distinct muscle imaging patterns in myofibrillar myopathies
Objective: To compare muscle imaging findings in different subtypes of myofibrillar myopathies (MFM) in order to identify characteristic patterns of muscle alterations that may be helpful to separate these genetic heterogeneous muscular disorders. Methods: Muscle imaging and clinical findings of 46 patients with MFM were evaluated (19 desminopathy, 12 myotilinopathy, 11 filaminopathy, 1 alpha B-crystallinopathy, and 3 ZASPopathy). The data were collected retrospectively in 43 patients and prospectively in 3 patients. Results: In patients with desminopathy, the semitendinosus was at least equally affected as the biceps femoris, and the peroneal muscles were never less involved than the tibialis anterior (sensitivity of these imaging criteria to detect desminopathy in our cohort 100%, specificity 95%). In most of the patients with myotilinopathy, the adductor magnus showed more alterations than the gracilis muscle, and the sartorius was at least equally affected as the semitendinosus (sensitivity 90%, specificity 93%). In filaminopathy, the biceps femoris and semitendinosus were at least equally affected as the sartorius muscle, and the medial gastrocnemius was more affected than the lateral gastrocnemius. The semimembranosus mostly showed more alterations than the adductor magnus (sensitivity 88%, specificity 96%). Early adult onset and cardiac involvement was most often associated with desminopathy. In patients with filaminopathy, muscle weakness typically beginning in the 5th decade of life was mostly pronounced proximally, while late adult onset (> 50 years) with distal weakness was more often present in myotilinopathy. Conclusions: Muscle imaging in combination with clinical data may be helpful for separation of distinct myofibrillar myopathy subtypes and in scheduling of genetic analysis
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