678 research outputs found

    Quasi-radial growth of metal tube on si nanowires template

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    It is reported in this article that Si nanowires can be employed as a positive template for the controllable electrochemical deposition of noble metal tube. The deposited tube exhibits good crystallinity. Scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope characterizations are conducted to reveal the growth process of metal tube, showing that the metal tube grows quasi-radially on the wall of Si nanowire. The quasi-radial growth of metal enables the fabrication of thickness-defined metal tube via changing deposition time. Inner-diameter-defined metal tube is achieved by choosing Si nanowires with desired diameter as a template. Metal tubes with inner diameters ranging from 1 Îźm to sub-50 nm are fabricated

    Versatile control of metal-assisted chemical etching for vertical silicon microwire arrays and their photovoltaic applications

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    A systematic study was conducted into the use of metal-assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) to fabricate vertical Si microwire arrays, with several models being studied for the efficient redox reaction of reactants with silicon through a metal catalyst by varying such parameters as the thickness and morphology of the metal film. By optimizing the MacEtch conditions, high-quality vertical Si microwires were successfully fabricated with lengths of up to 23.2 mu m, which, when applied in a solar cell, achieved a conversion efficiency of up to 13.0%. These solar cells also exhibited an open-circuit voltage of 547.7 mV, a short-circuit current density of 33.2 mA/cm(2), and a fill factor of 71.3% by virtue of the enhanced light absorption and effective carrier collection provided by the Si microwires. The use of MacEtch to fabricate high-quality Si microwires therefore presents a unique opportunity to develop cost-effective and highly efficient solar cells.open1

    Mono-dispersed Functional Polymeric Nanocapsules with Multi-lacuna via Soapless Microemulsion Polymerization with Spindle-like Îą-Fe2O3Nanoparticles as Templates

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    The mono-dispersed crosslinked polymeric multi-lacuna nanocapsules (CP(St–OA) nanocapsules) about 40 nm with carboxylic groups on their inner and outer surfaces were fabricated in the present work. The small conglomerations of the oleic acid modified spindle-like α-Fe2O3nanoparticles (OA–Fe2O3) were encapsulated in the facile microemulsion polymerization with styrene (St) as monomer and divinyl benzene (DVB) as crosslinker. Then the templates, small conglomerations of OA–Fe2O3, were etched with HCl in tetrahydrofuran (THF). The surface carboxylic groups of the crosslinked polymeric multi-lacuna nanocapsules were validated by the Zeta potential analysis

    Spinal CX3CL1/CX3CR1 may not directly participate in the development of morphine tolerance in rats

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    CX3CL1 (fractalkine), the sole member of chemokine CX3C family, is implicated in inflammatory and neuropathic pain via activating its receptor CX3CR1 on neural cells in spinal cord. However, it has not been fully elucidated whether CX3CL1 or CX3CR1 contributes to the development of morphine tolerance. In this study, we found that chronic morphine exposure did not alter the expressions of CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 in spinal cord. And neither exogenous CX3CL1 nor CX3CR1 inhibitor could affect the development of morphine tolerance. The cellular localizations of spinal CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 changed from neuron and microglia, respectively, to all the neural cells during the development of morphine tolerance. A microarray profiling revealed that 15 members of chemokine family excluding CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 were up-regulated in morphine-treated rats. Our study provides evidence that spinal CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 may not be involved in the development of morphine tolerance directly

    A new multi-anticipative car-following model with consideration of the desired following distance

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    We propose in this paper an extension of the multi-anticipative optimal velocity car-following model to consider explicitly the desired following distance. The model on the following vehicle’s acceleration is formulated as a linear function of the optimal velocity and the desired distance, with reaction-time delay in elements. The linear stability condition of the model is derived. The results demonstrate that the stability of traffic flow is improved by introducing the desired following distance, increasing the time gap in the desired following distance or decreasing the reaction-time delay. The simulation results show that by taking into account the desired following distance as well as the optimal velocity, the multi-anticipative model allows longer reaction-time delay in achieving stable traffic flows

    Archaic chaos: intrinsically disordered proteins in Archaea

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    Background: Many proteins or their regions known as intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) lack unique 3D structure in their native states under physiological conditions yet fulfill key biological functions. Earlier bioinformatics studies showed that IDPs and IDRs are highly abundant in different proteomes and carry out mostly regulatory functions related to molecular recognition and signal transduction. Archaea belong to an intriguing domain of life whose members, being microbes, are characterized by a unique mosaic-like combination of bacterial and eukaryotic properties and include inhabitants of some of the most extreme environments on the planet. With the expansion of the archaea genome data (more than fifty archaea species from five different phyla are known now), and with recent improvements in the accuracy of intrinsic disorder prediction, it is time to re-examine the abundance of IDPs and IDRs in the archaea domain.Results: The abundance of IDPs and IDRs in 53 archaea species is analyzed. The amino acid composition profiles of these species are generally quite different from each other. The disordered content is highly species-dependent. Thermoproteales proteomes have 14% of disordered residues, while in Halobacteria, this value increases to 34%. In proteomes of these two phyla, proteins containing long disordered regions account for 12% and 46%, whereas 4% and 26% their proteins are wholly disordered. These three measures of disorder content are linearly correlated with each other at the genome level. There is a weak correlation between the environmental factors (such as salinity, pH and temperature of the habitats) and the abundance of intrinsic disorder in Archaea, with various environmental factors possessing different disorder-promoting strengths. Harsh environmental conditions, especially those combining several hostile factors, clearly favor increased disorder content. Intrinsic disorder is highly abundant in functional Pfam domains of the archaea origin. The analysis based on the disordered content and phylogenetic tree indicated diverse evolution of intrinsic disorder among various classes and species of Archaea.Conclusions: Archaea proteins are rich in intrinsic disorder. Some of these IDPs and IDRs likely evolve to help archaea to accommodate to their hostile habitats. Other archaean IDPs and IDRs possess crucial biological functions similar to those of the bacterial and eukaryotic IDPs/IDRs
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