Energetics, forces, and quantized conductance in jellium modeled metallic nanowires

Energetics and quantized conductance in jellium modeled nanowires are investigated using the local density functional based shell correction method, extending our previous study of uniform in shape wires [C. Yannouleas and U. Landman, J. Phys. Chem. B 101, 5780 (1997)] to wires containing a variable shaped constricted region. The energetics of the wire (sodium) as a function of the length of the volume conserving, adiabatically shaped constriction leads to formation of self selecting magic wire configurations. The variations in the energy result in oscillations in the force required to elongate the wire and are directly correlated with the stepwise variations of the conductance of the nanowire in units of 2e^2/h. The oscillatory patterns in the energetics and forces, and the correlated stepwise variation in the conductance are shown, numerically and through a semiclassical analysis, to be dominated by the quantized spectrum of the transverse states at the narrowmost part of the constriction in the wire.Comment: Latex/Revtex, 11 pages with 5 Postscript figure

Rapid escape of new SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants from BA.2-directed antibody responses

In November 2021, Omicron BA.1, containing a raft of new spike mutations, emerged and quickly spread globally. Intense selection pressure to escape the antibody response produced by vaccines or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection then led to a rapid succession of Omicron sub-lineages with waves of BA.2 and then BA.4/5 infection. Recently, many variants have emerged such as BQ.1 and XBB, which carry up to 8 additional receptor-binding domain (RBD) amino acid substitutions compared with BA.2. We describe a panel of 25 potent monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) generated from vaccinees suffering BA.2 breakthrough infections. Epitope mapping shows potent mAb binding shifting to 3 clusters, 2 corresponding to early-pandemic binding hotspots. The RBD mutations in recent variants map close to these binding sites and knock out or severely knock down neutralization activity of all but 1 potent mAb. This recent mAb escape corresponds with large falls in neutralization titer of vaccine or BA.1, BA.2, or BA.4/5 immune serum

Uma propriedade estrutural do problema de programação da produção flow shop permutacional com tempos de setup

Neste artigo apresenta-se uma propriedade estrutural do problema de programação da produção flow shop permutacional com tempos de setup das máquinas separados dos tempos de processamento das tarefas, a qual foi identificada a partir de investigações que foram realizadas sobre as características do problema. Tal propriedade fornece um limitante superior do tempo de máquina parada entre a sua preparação e o início de execução das tarefas. Utilizando a propriedade, o problema original de programação da produção com minimização do makespan pode ser resolvido de maneira heurística por meio de uma analogia com o problema assimétrico do caixeiro-viajante.<br>This paper deals with the permutation flow shop scheduling problem with separated machine setup times. As a result of an investigation on the problem characteristics a structural property is introduced. Such a property provides an upper bound on the idle time of the machines between the setup task and the job processing. As an application of this property, the original scheduling problem with the makespan criterion can be heuristically solved by an analogy with the asymmetric traveling salesman problem