Comparison of two models for bridge-assisted charge transfer

Based on the reduced density matrix method, we compare two different approaches to calculate the dynamics of the electron transfer in systems with donor, bridge, and acceptor. In the first approach a vibrational substructure is taken into account for each electronic state and the corresponding states are displaced along a common reaction coordinate. In the second approach it is assumed that vibrational relaxation is much faster than the electron transfer and therefore the states are modeled by electronic levels only. In both approaches the system is coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators but the way of relaxation is quite different. The theory is applied to the electron transfer in ${\rm H_2P}-{\rm ZnP}-{\rm Q}$ with free-base porphyrin (${\rm H_2P}$) being the donor, zinc porphyrin (${\rm ZnP}$) being the bridge and quinone (${\rm Q}$) the acceptor. The parameters are chosen as similar as possible for both approaches and the quality of the agreement is discussed.Comment: 12 pages including 4 figures, 1 table, 26 references. For more info see http://eee.tu-chemnitz.de/~kili

Anterior Mediastinal Mass in a Young Marijuana Smoker: A Rare Case of Small-Cell Lung Cancer

The use of cannabis is embedded within many societies, mostly used by the young and widely perceived to be safe. Increasing concern regarding the potential for cannabis to cause mental health effects has dominated cannabis research, and the potential adverse respiratory effects have received relatively little attention. We report a rare case of 22-year-old man who presented with bilateral neck lymphadenopathy, fatigue, and sore throat without significant medical or family history. The patient had smoked one marijuana joint three times a week for three years but no cigarettes. Chest CT demonstrated a large anterior mediastinal mass compressing the superior vena cava and mediastinal lymphadenopathy. A final diagnosis of small-cell lung cancer was reached. Although rare, a small-cell lung cancer in this patient should alert the physician that cannabis smoking may be a risk factor for lung cancer

Drought Reduces Release of Plant Matter Into Dissolved Organic Matter Potentially Restraining Ecosystem Recovery

Future climate scenarios indicate increasing drought intensity that threatens ecosystem functioning. However, the behavior of ecosystems during intense drought, such as the 2018 drought in Northern Europe, and their respective response following rewetting is not fully understood. We investigated the effect of drought on four different vegetation types in a temperate climate by analyzing dissolved organic matter (DOM) concentration and composition present in soil leachate, and compared it to two accompanying years. DOM is known to play an important role in ecosystem recovery and holds information on matter flows between plants, soil microorganisms and soil organic matter. Knowledge about DOM opens the possibility to better disentangle the role of plants and microorganisms in ecosystem recovery. We found that the average annual DOM concentration significantly decreased during the 2018 drought year compared to the normal year. This suggests a stimulation of DOM release under normal conditions, which include a summer drought followed by a rewetting period. The rewetting period, which holds high DOM concentrations, was suppressed under more intense drought. Our detailed molecular analysis of DOM using ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry showed that DOM present at the beginning of the rewetting period resembles plant matter, whereas in later phases the DOM molecular composition was modified by microorganisms. We observed this pattern in all four vegetation types analyzed, although vegetation types differed in DOM concentration and composition. Our results suggest that plant matter drives ecosystem recovery and that increasing drought intensity may lower the potential for ecosystem recovery

Economic and environmental assessments to support the decision making process in the offshore wind farm decommissioning projects

Open Access via the Elsevier agreement Funding This work was supported by the DecomTools project funded by the European Commission under the Interreg VB North Sea Region Programme [Project No.: 20180305091606]Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Leaky McEliece: Secret Key Recovery From Highly Erroneous Side-Channel Information

The McEliece cryptosystem is a strong contender for post-quantum schemes, including key encapsulation for confidentiality of key exchanges in network protocols. A McEliece secret key is a structured parity check matrix that is transformed via Gaussian elimination into an unstructured public key. We show that this transformation is a highly critical operation with respect to side-channel leakage. We assume leakage of the elementary row operations during Gaussian elimination, motivated by actual implementations of McEliece in real world cryptographic libraries (Classic McEliece and Botan). We propose a novel algorithm to reconstruct a secret key from its public key with information from a Gaussian transformation leak. Even if the obtained side-channel leakage is extremely noisy, i.e., each bit can be flipped with probability as high as $\tau \approx 0.4$, our algorithm still succeeds to recover the secret key in a matter of minutes for all proposed (Classic) McEliece instantiations. Remarkably, for high-security McEliece parameters, our attack is more powerful in the sense that it can tolerate even larger $\tau$. Technically, we introduce a novel cryptanalytic decoding technique that exploits the high redundancy exhibited in the McEliece secret key. This allows our decoding routine to succeed in reconstructing each column of the secret key successively. Our result stresses the necessity to well protect highly structured code-based schemes such as McEliece against side-channel leakage

Resolving physical interactions between bacteria and nanotopographies with focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy

To robustly assess the antibacterial mechanisms of nanotopographies, it is critical to analyze the bacteria-nanotopography adhesion interface. Here, we utilize focused ion beam milling combined with scanning electron microscopy to generate three-dimensional reconstructions of Staphylococcus aureus or Escherichia coli interacting with nanotopographies. For the first time, 3D morphometric analysis has been exploited to quantify the intrinsic contact area between each nanostructure and the bacterial envelope, providing an objective framework from which to derive the possible antibacterial mechanisms of synthetic nanotopographies. Surfaces with nanostructure densities between 36 and 58 per μm(2) and tip diameters between 27 and 50 nm mediated envelope deformation and penetration, while surfaces with higher nanostructure densities (137 per μm(2)) induced envelope penetration and mechanical rupture, leading to marked reductions in cell volume due to cytosolic leakage. On nanotopographies with densities of 8 per μm(2) and tip diameters greater than 100 nm, bacteria predominantly adhered between nanostructures, resulting in cell impedance

tDCS‐Induced Analgesia and Electrical Fields in Pain‐Related Neural Networks in Chronic Migraine

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93711/1/j.1526-4610.2012.02141.x.pd

Body mass index best predicts recovery of recombinant factor VIII in underweight to obese patients with severe haemophilia A

Background Factor VIII (FVIII) products are usually dosed according to body weight (BW). This may lead to under- or over-dosing in underweight or obese patients, respectively. Objective This article evaluates the pharmacokinetics (PK) of recombinant FVIII concentrate, particularly recovery, in relation to body mass index (BMI) and other body composition descriptors. Materials and Methods Thirty-five previously treated adults with severe haemophilia A from five BMI categories (underweight, normal, overweight, obese class I and II/III) were included. PK was evaluated after 50 IU per kilogram of BW single-dose recombinant FVIII (turoctocog alfa). The body composition variable was based on measurements of weight, height, bioimpedance analysis, and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. A dosing model was derived to achieve similar peak FVIII activity levels across BMI categories. Results A statistically significant positive association between BMI and C30min, IR30min, and AUC0–inf was observed; CL and Vss showed a significant negative association with BMI; t½ was independent of BMI and other parameters. The dosing model introduced a correction factor ‘M’ for each BMI category, based on linear regression analysis of C30min against BMI, which ranged from 0.55 for underweight to 0.39 for obese class II/III. This model achieved similar peak FVIII activity levels across BMI categories, estimating an average dose adjustment of þ243.3 IU (underweight) to –1,489.6 IU (obese class II/III) to achieve similar C30min. Conclusion BMI appears to be the best predictor of recombinant FVIII recovery; however, PK endpoints were also dependent on other body composition variables. The model demonstrated that dosing can be adjusted for individual BMI to achieve better FVIII predictability across BMI categoriesThis work was funded by Novo Nordisk A/S (Bagsværd, Denmark)