Halogenation of SiC for band-gap engineering and excitonic functionalization

The optical excitation spectra and excitonic resonances are investigated in systematically functionalized SiC with Fluorine and/or Chlorine utilizing density functional theory in combination with many-body perturbation theory. The latter is required for a realistic description of the energy band-gaps as well as for the theoretical realization of excitons. Structural, electronic and optical properties are scrutinized and show the high stability of the predicted two-dimensional materials. Their realization in laboratory is thus possible. Huge band-gaps of the order of 4 eV are found in the so-called GW approximation, with the occurrence of bright excitons, optically active in the four investigated materials. Their binding energies vary from 0.9 eV to 1.75 eV depending on the decoration choice and in one case, a dark exciton is foreseen to exist in the fully chlorinated SiC. The wide variety of opto-electronic properties suggest halogenated SiC as interesting materials with potential not only for solar cell applications, anti-reflection coatings or high-reflective systems but also for a possible realization of excitonic Bose-Einstein condensation

EKSISTENSI MASYARAKAT HUKUM ADAT DALAM PENGUATAN DESA ADAT DI DESA BENTENAN KABUPATEN MINAHASA TENGGARA

Eksistensi masyarakat hukum adat telah menjadi bahan perdebatan luas dan menarik perhatian termasuk di kalangan para pakar. Upaya untuk menggali dan menunjukkan kebangkitan masyarakat hukum adat, akan bertolak dari hukum adat itu sendiri yang dalam perkembangannya sebagai salah satu sistem hukum di Indonesia dihadapkan pada tantangan berat. Eksistensi hukum adat cukup lama termarjinalisasi oleh berbagai kebijakan Pemerintah, termasuk dalam peraturan perundang-undangan sebagai hukum positif sekarang ini, bahkan dalam Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945. Berdasarkan uraian tersebut di atas, yang melatarbelakangi permasalahan dalam penulisan ini yakni bagaimana eksistensi masyarakat hukum adat di Indonesia, serta bagaimana penguatan Desa Adat pada Desa, Bentenan, Kabupaten Minahasa Tenggara. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian hukum normatif. Dijelaskan bahwa pada penelitian hukum normatif, bahan pustaka merupakan data dasar yang dalam ilmu penelitian digolongkan sebagai data sekunder. Sumber data pustaka atau data sekunder diperoleh dari berbagai bahan hukum yang meliputi bahan hukum primer, bahan hukum sekunder, dan bahan hukum tersier atau bahan penunjang. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa eksistensi hukum adat cukup lama termarjinalisasi oleh berbagai kebijakan Pemerintah, termasuk dalam peraturan perundang-undangan sebagai hukum positif sekarang ini. Penghapusan Pengadilan Adat dipertegas pula dengan penghapusannya sebagai Peradilan Negara dalam sistem peradilan di Indonesia, serta menjadi bukti nyata dari politik hukum nasional yang telah menghancurkan eksistensi Hukum Adat sebagai suatu sistem hukum yang berlaku di Indonesia. Di kalangan masyarakat Desa Bentenan, aspek penguatan budaya dan kemasyarakatan tidak lagi dalam kerangka dan struktur sebagai Sistem Hukum Adat yang bertumpu pada adanya Masyarakat Hukum Adat, melainkan lebih memperhatikan aspek Masyarakat Adat belaka. Keberadaan Adat Istiadat sebagai identitas baik identitas budaya maupun warisan nenek moyang yang masih dominan di kalangan masyarakat Desa Bentenan menunjukan penguatan status Desa Bentenan menjadi Desa Adat. Dari hasil penelitian dapat ditarik kesimpulan bahwa pengaturan konstitusional terhadap Masyarakat Hukum Adat dan hak tradisionalnya membangkitkan kehendak untuk kembali mengangkat dan memperjuangkan eksistensinya Masyarakat Hukum Adat sebagai bagian dari Sistem Hukum Nasional. Pengakuan dan pengaturan Desa Adat sebagai jenis Desa di samping Desa itu sendiri dalam Undang-Undang Nomor 6 Tahun 2014 tentang Desa kurang mendukung penguatan dan perwujudan eksistensi Hukum Adat. Status Desa Adat dimungkinkan berubah menjadi Desa, sedangkan perubahan status Desa dari Desa menjadi Desa Adat dipersulit oleh peraturan perundangan tentang Desa. Untuk itu keberadaan Adat Istiadat sebagai identitas baik identitas budaya maupun warisan nenek moyang yang masih dominan di kalangan masyarakat Desa Bentenan Kecamatan Pusomaen Kabupaten Minahasa Tenggara menunjukan penguatan status Desa Bentenan menjadi Desa Adat

The Higgs Potential in the Type II Seesaw Model

We perform in the type II seesaw setting, a detailed study of the dynamical features of the corresponding general renormalizable doublet/triplet Higgs potential that depends on five dimensionless couplings and two mass parameters after spontaneous symmetry breaking, and highlight the implications for the Higgs phenomenology. In particular, we determine i) the complete set of tree-level unitarity constraints on the couplings of the potential and ii) the exact tree-level {\sl all directions} boundedness from below constraints on these couplings. When combined, these constraints delineate precisely the theoretically allowed parameter space domain within our perturbative approximation. Among the seven physical Higgs states of this model, the mass of the lighter (heavier) CP-even state h0 (H0) will always satisfy a theoretical upper (lower) bound that is reached for a critical value mu_c of mu (the mass parameter controlling triple couplings among the doublet/triplet Higgses). Saturating the unitarity bounds we find m_h0 < {\cal O}(0.7 - 1 TeV), while the upper bound for the remaining Higgses lies in the several tens of TeV. However, the actual masses can be much lighter. We identify two regimes corresponding to mu > mu_c and mu < mu_c. In the first regime the Higgs sector is typically very heavy and only h0 that becomes SM-like could be accessible to the LHC. In contrast, in the second regime, somewhat overlooked in the literature, most of the Higgs sector is light. In particular the heaviest state H0 becomes SM-like, the lighter states being the CP-odd Higgs, the (doubly) charged Higgses and a decoupled h0, possibly leading to a distinctive phenomenology at the colliders.Comment: 55 pages, 9 figures, no major changes, references added, a comment added to sec 3.1, typos correcte

Rorc restrains the potency of ST2+ regulatory T cells in ameliorating intestinal graft-versus-host disease

Soluble stimulation-2 (ST2) is increased during graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), while Tregs that express ST2 prevent GVHD through unknown mechanisms. Transplantation of Foxp3- T cells and Tregs that were collected and sorted from different Foxp3 reporter mice indicated that in mice that developed GVHD, ST2+ Tregs were thymus derived and predominantly localized to the intestine. ST2-/- Treg transplantation was associated with reduced total intestinal Treg frequency and activation. ST2-/- versus WT intestinal Treg transcriptomes showed decreased Treg functional markers and, reciprocally, increased Rorc expression. Rorc-/- T cells transplantation enhanced the frequency and function of intestinal ST2+ Tregs and reduced GVHD through decreased gut-infiltrating soluble ST2-producing type 1 and increased IL-4/IL-10-producing type 2 T cells. Cotransfer of ST2+ Tregs sorted from Rorc-/- mice with WT CD25-depleted T cells decreased GVHD severity and mortality, increased intestinal ST2+KLRG1+ Tregs, and decreased type 1 T cells after transplantation, indicating an intrinsic mechanism. Ex vivo IL-33-stimulated Tregs (TregIL-33) expressed higher amphiregulin and displayed better immunosuppression, and adoptive transfer prevented GVHD better than control Tregs or TregIL-33 cultured with IL-23/IL-17. Amphiregulin blockade by neutralizing antibody in vivo abolished the protective effect of TregIL-33. Our data show that inverse expression of ST2 and RORγt in intestinal Tregs determines GVHD and that TregIL-33 has potential as a cellular therapy avenue for preventing GVHD

Short-term assessment of left ventricular function after coronary artery bypass grafting

Background: The effect of coronary artery bypass grafting on postoperative left ventricular function is still the subject of ongoing studies. The degree of recovery and its duration have not been precisely determined, and the published data are discordant. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of surgical revascularization on left ventricular systolic function. Methods: We prospectively studied 50 consecutive patients who underwent elective isolated coronary artery bypass grafting in the period from January 2017 to November 2017. All patients had echocardiography preoperatively, pre-discharge, and at 3 and 6 months postoperatively. Left ventricular end-systolic volume, left ventricular end-diastolic volume, stroke volume, and ejection fraction were measured in all patients. Results: The mean age was 57.22±7.04 years. The mean number of grafts was 2.60±1.02. Improvement in Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) score from (2.72 ± 1.03) preoperatively to [(0.12 ± 0.39), p&lt;0.001] after six months was achieved. Additionally, improvement in the patient New York Heart Association (NYHA) score occurred from (1.70 ± 0.97) preoperatively to [(0.12 ± 0.33), p&lt;0.001] after six months. A significant improvement in left ventricular function occurred&nbsp; as demonstrated by improvement in mean left ventricular ejection fraction from (54.14±9.80) % to&nbsp; [(62.40 ± 4.18) %, p&lt;0.001] at six months. The mean total hospital stay was 5.62±1.51 days. The mean total intensive care unit length of stay was 47.16±25.73 hours. Two patients (4%) had re-exploration for bleeding, and postoperative myocardial infarction occurred in three patients (6%). &nbsp;One patient (2%) had postoperative neurocognitive dysfunction, and 3 patients (6%) had postoperative atrial fibrillation. Two patients (4%) suffered from superficial wound infection. There was no hospital mortality. &nbsp; Conclusion: Patients undergoing CABG experienced an improvement in left ventricular contractile function at six months postoperatively. Further studies are required to evaluate the changes after 6 months

A THREE-DIMENSIONAL TRANSIENT NUMERICAL STUDY OF A CLOSE-COUPLED CATALYTIC CONVERTER INTERNAL FLOW

ABSTRACT This study involves a numerical and experimental investigation of fluid flow in automotive catalytic converters. The numerical work involves using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to perform three-dimensional calculations of turbulent flow in an inlet pipe, inlet cone, catalyst substrate (porous medium), outlet cone, and outlet pipe. The experimental work includes using hot-wire anemometry to measure the velocity profile at the outlet of the catalyst substrate, and pressure drop measurements across the system. Very often, the designer may have to resort to offset inlet and outlet cones, or angled inlet pipes due to space limitations. Hence, it is very difficult to achieve a good flow distribution at the inlet cross section of the catalyst substrate. Therefore, it is important to study the effect of the geometry of the catalytic converter on flow uniformity in the substrate. The analysis involved determining back pressure (BP) across the converter system for different monolith cell densities, mass flow rates, converter aspect ratio, inlet cone angle, and inlet pipe offset. The numerical results were used to study the velocity profile at the inlet to the substrate, and were verified with experimental measurements of velocity and BP

Substituted pyrazoles and their heteroannulated analogs—recent syntheses and biological activities

Pyrazoles are considered privileged scaffolds in medicinal chemistry. Previous reviews have discussed the importance of pyrazoles and their biological activities; however, few have dealt with the chemistry and the biology of heteroannulated derivatives. Therefore, we focused our attention on recent topics, up until 2020, for the synthesis of pyrazoles, their heteroannulated deriva-tives, and their applications as biologically active moieties. Moreover, we focused on traditional procedures used in the synthesis of pyrazoles

Detection of Listeria pathogens by gradient/constant denaturing gel electrophoresis

Listeriosis is a serious, but preventable disease, and the virulence factor of this disease is produced only by the two pathogenic species L. monocytogenes and L. ivanovii in humans and/or animals. In this study, we used both denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and constant denaturing gel electrophoresis (CDGE) as molecular methods combined with Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) for the detection and identification of Listeria pathogens on 543 samples of raw milk collected from all Syrian provinces. The two methods are based on the PCR amplification of a fragment of the InlC gene (virulence gene) from the studied Listeria species and on the analysis of the PCR products ob-tained by DGGE/CDGE. Based on the differences present in the sequences amplified, it was possible to obtain species-specific DGGE/CDGE migration that allowed fast and easy identification of the virulence and pathogenicity of L. monocytogenes and L. ivanovii in humans and/or animals, in order to reduce the incidence of Listeria bacteria in the environment and foods and to prevent the occur-rence of listeriosis in animal and human hosts