1,005 research outputs found
Towards a Knowledge Graph Enhanced Automation and Collaboration Framework for Digital Twins
The Digital Twin (DT) provides a digital representation of a physical system and allows users to interactively study the physical processes of a real system via the digital representation in different scenarios in real time. The development of a DT is highly complex; it requires not only expertise from multiple disciplines but also the integration of often heterogeneous software components, e.g., simulations, machine learning, visualization, and user interface components across distributed environments. This poster presents a Knowledge Graph-based ontological framework to boost automation and collaboration during the DT lifecycle stages. We implement our methods in developing a what-if analysis service for a DT of an ecosystem of wetlands and its automated deployment to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.</p
Rice endosperm is cost-effective for the production of recombinant griffithsin with potent activity against HIV
Protein microbicides containing neutralizing antibodies and antiviral lectins may help to reduce the rate of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) if it is possible to manufacture the components in large quantities at a cost affordable in HIV‐endemic regions such as sub‐Saharan Africa. We expressed the antiviral lectin griffithsin (GRFT), which shows potent neutralizing activity against HIV, in the endosperm of transgenic rice plants (Oryza sativa), to determine whether rice can be used to produce inexpensive GRFT as a microbicide ingredient. The yield of (OS)GRFT in the best‐performing plants was 223 μg/g dry seed weight. We also established a one‐step purification protocol, achieving a recovery of 74% and a purity of 80%, which potentially could be developed into a larger‐scale process to facilitate inexpensive downstream processing. (OS)GRFT bound to HIV glycans with similar efficiency to GRFT produced in Escherichia coli. Whole‐cell assays using purified (OS)GRFT and infectivity assays using crude extracts of transgenic rice endosperm confirmed that both crude and pure (OS)GRFT showed potent activity against HIV and the crude extracts were not toxic towards human cell lines, suggesting they could be administered as a microbicide with only minimal processing. A freedom‐to‐operate analysis confirmed that GRFT produced in rice is suitable for commercial development, and an economic evaluation suggested that 1.8 kg/ha of pure GRFT could be produced from rice seeds. Our data therefore indicate that rice could be developed as an inexpensive production platform for GRFT as a microbicide component
Magnetic long-range order induced by quantum relaxation in single-molecule magnets
Can magnetic interactions between single-molecule magnets (SMMs) in a crystal
establish long-range magnetic order at low temperatures deep in the quantum
regime, where the only electron spin-fluctuations are due to incoherent
magnetic quantum tunneling (MQT)? Put inversely: can MQT provide the
temperature dependent fluctuations needed to destroy the ordered state above
some finite Tc, although it should basically itself be a T-independent process?
Our experiments on two novel Mn4 SMMs provide a positive answer to the above,
showing at the same time that MQT in the SMMs has to involve spin-lattice
coupling at a relaxation rate equaling that predicted and observed recently for
nuclear spin-mediated quantum relaxation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Partially incoherent optical vortices in self-focusing nonlinear media
We observe stable propagation of spatially localized single- and
double-charge optical vortices in a self-focusing nonlinear medium. The
vortices are created by self-trapping of partially incoherent light carrying a
phase dislocation, and they are stabilized when the spatial incoherence of
light exceeds a certain threshold. We confirm the vortex stabilization effect
by numerical simulations and also show that the similar mechanism of
stabilization applies to higher-order vortices.Comment: 4 pages and 6 figures (including 3 experimental figures
The European Union, borders and conflict transformation: the case of Cyprus
Much of the existing literature on the European Union (EU), conflict transformation and border dynamics has been premised on the assumption that the nature of the border determines EU intervention and the consequences that flow from this in terms of EU impact. The article aims to transcend this literature through assessing how domestic interpretations influence EU border transformation in conflict situations, taking Cyprus as a case study. Moreover, the objective is to fuse the literature on EU bordering impact and perceptions of the EU’s normative projection in conflict resolution. Pursuing this line of inquiry is an attempt to depart from the notion of borders being constructed solely by unidirectional EU logics of engagement or bordering practices to a conceptualization of the border as co-constituted space, where the interpretations of the EU’s normative projections by conflict parties, and the strategies that they pursue, can determine the relative openness of the EU border
Field-induced level crossings in spin clusters: Thermodynamics and magneto-elastic instability
Quantum spin clusters with dominant antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange
interactions typically exhibit a sequence of field-induced level crossings in
the ground state as function of magnetic field. For fields near a level
crossing, the cluster can be approximated by a two-level Hamiltonian at low
temperatures. Perturbations, such as magnetic anisotropy or spin-phonon
coupling, sensitively affect the behavior at the level-crossing points. The
general two-level Hamiltonian of the spin system is derived in first-order
perturbation theory, and the thermodynamic functions magnetization, magnetic
torque, and magnetic specific heat are calculated. Then a magneto-elastic
coupling is introduced and the effective two-level Hamilitonian for the
spin-lattice system derived in the adiabatic approximation of the phonons. At
the level crossings the system becomes unconditionally unstable against lattice
distortions due to the effects of magnetic anisotropy. The resultant
magneto-elastic instabilities at the level crossings are discussed, as well as
the magnetic behavior.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, REVTEX
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