A thematic Catalogue of British String Quartets of the early Twentieth Century and an account of the some of their contexts: 1890-1950

Few string quartets were composed in Britain before the late nineteenth century, but from that time until the end of World War 2, the string quartet was one of the most crucial and vibrant genres in British music. The genre developed dramatically on account of promotion at public concerts, concerts at musical institutions, musical competitions, commissions, and the publication industries. This resulted in many British composers (including immigrants) writing string quartets, totalling approximately 600. The thesis documents, describes and contextualises the string-quartet genre in Britain in the early twentieth century. A thematic catalogue provides basic information such as the full titles of pieces (with a work number, where applicable), year of composition and, if applicable, date of first (or first known) performances (live or broadcast), information on recordings of the work, the year of publication and the name of the publisher). Subsequent chapters provide context for the catalogue by investigating institutional history and string quartet repertoires that were performed in public and at musical institutions in London during the early twentieth century, as well as radio broadcasts. Overall the thesis focuses on quantitative approaches and broad trends in the repertory rather than sustained analysis or criticism of pieces by well-known composers, and avoids implicit judgements about value in relation to musical style

Correlating the structures and photovoltaic properties in phase-separated blends of conjugated donor polymers and acceptors

The power conversion efficiency of polymer solar cells strongly depends on the microscale morphology of the interpenetrating network structures between the polymer donor and acceptor materials. Therefore, it is essential to understand the relationship between photovoltaic properties and phase-separated structures in the blend active layer. Here, we discuss the relationship between charge generation and collection and phase-separated structures, which was analyzed by a ternary phase diagram for polymer solar cells based on blends of a thiophene-based conjugated polymer donors and the following different acceptors: a fullerene derivative, a nonfullerene acceptor, and a conjugated polymer acceptor. By considering the ternary phase diagram based on the Flory–Huggins interaction parameters, we discuss the binodal point and acceptor volume fraction in the mixed phase in each material combination. Furthermore, we suggest strategies for improving the efficiency of polymer solar cells according to the molecular weight of acceptor materials. These findings will provide a guideline for developing highly efficient polymer solar cells

Halogen‐Free πupiupi‐Conjugated Polymers Based on Thienobenzobisthiazole for Efficient Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells: Rational Design for Achieving High Backbone Order and High Solubility

In π-conjugated polymers, a highly ordered backbone structure and solubility are always in a trade-off relationship that must be overcome to realize highly efficient and solution-processable organic photovoltaics (OPVs). Here, it is shown that a π-conjugated polymer based on a novel thiazole-fused ring, thieno[2′, 3′:5, 6]benzo[1, 2-d:4, 3-d′]bisthiazole (TBTz) achieves both high backbone order and high solubility due to the structural feature of TBTz such as the noncovalent interlocking of the thiazole moiety, the rigid and bent-shaped structure, and the fused alkylthiophene ring. Furthermore, based on the electron-deficient nature of these thiazole-fused rings, the polymer exhibits deep HOMO energy levels, which lead to high open-circuit voltages (VOCs) in OPV cells, even without halogen substituents that are commonly introduced into high-performance polymers. As a result, when the polymer is combined with a typical nonfullerene acceptor Y6, power conversion efficiencies of reaching 16% and VOCs of more than 0.84 V are observed, both of which are among the top values reported so far for “halogen-free” polymers. This study will serve as an important reference for designing π-conjugated polymers to achieve highly efficient and solution-processable OPVs

KOREF_S1: phased, parental trio-binned Korean reference genome using long reads and Hi-C sequencing methods

Background KOREF is the Korean reference genome, which was constructed with various sequencing technologies including long reads, short reads, and optical mapping methods. It is also the first East Asian multiomic reference genome accompanied by extensive clinical information, time-series and multiomic data, and parental sequencing data. However, it was still not a chromosome-scale reference. Here, we updated the previous KOREF assembly to a new chromosome-level haploid assembly of KOREF, KOREF_S1v2.1. Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) PromethION, Pacific Biosciences HiFi-CCS, and Hi-C technology were used to build the most accurate East Asian reference assembled so far. Results We produced 705 Gb ONT reads and 114 Gb Pacific Biosciences HiFi reads, and corrected ONT reads by Pacific Biosciences reads. The corrected ultra-long reads reached higher accuracy of 1.4% base errors than the previous KOREF_S1v1.0, which was mainly built with short reads. KOREF has parental genome information, and we successfully phased it using a trio-binning method, acquiring a near-complete haploid-assembly. The final assembly resulted in total length of 2.9 Gb with an N50 of 150 Mb, and the longest scaffold covered 97.3% of GRCh38's chromosome 2. In addition, the final assembly showed high base accuracy, with Conclusions KOREF_S1v2.1 is the first chromosome-scale haploid assembly of the Korean reference genome with high contiguity and accuracy. Our study provides useful resources of the Korean reference genome and demonstrates a new strategy of hybrid assembly that combines ONT's PromethION and PacBio's HiFi-CCS

Piezoelectric Coefficient of Single Polymer Nanowire Measured on Quartz Tuning Fork

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High Performance Evaporative Cooling Using Biomass-based Hierarchically Porous All-Day Evaporator

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Laser-Drawn Groove Structures on Wood for Continuous Solar Steam Generation in Saline Water

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Continuous-Flow Enrichment and Detection of Pathogenic Bacteria Using Virtual Net of Magnetic Nanoparticle Clusters

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