Electrochemical Synthesis of Rare Earth Ceramic Oxide Coatings

Rare earth ceramic oxides are used in several applications including, phosphors, gas sensors, fuel cells, catalytic converters, and corrosion protection. These materials exhibit attractive properties such as fracture toughness, stiffness, and high strength-to-weight ratios. Synthesis of rare earth oxides includes a long list of techniques, but electrodeposition is one that has not been used as extensively as other techniques. This chapter discusses in detail the electrochemical synthesis of lanthanum, cerium, and praseodymium oxides. The physical and chemical properties of the electrodeposited oxides are characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and other techniques. The electrochemical synthesis and post-treatment of other rare earth oxides, such as gadolinium, terbium, samarium, neodymium, europium, and dysprosium oxides are also covered in this chapter. Two main mechanisms of electrodeposition for rare earth oxides are discussed in detail

Oma1 Links Mitochondrial Protein Quality Control and TOR Signaling To Modulate Physiological Plasticity and Cellular Stress Responses

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Dennis Winge (University of Utah) and the members of the Khalimonchuk laboratory for critical comments. We also thank Christoph Schuller (University of Natural Resources, Austria) and Paul Herman (Ohio State University) for reagents. We acknowledge the expert technical assistance of Nataliya Zahayko. We also thank Donna MacCallum for help with the Candida virulence assays. This research was supported by grants from the NIH (P30GM103335 and 5R01GM108975 [O.K.], GM071775-06 and GM105781-01 [A.B.], DK079209 [J.L.]), the U.K. Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (BB/K017365/1 [A.J.P.B.]), the U.K. Medical Research Council (MR/ M026663/1 [A.J.P.B.]), and the European Research Council (C-2009- AdG-249793 [A.J.P.B.]). We declare that we have no competing financial interests. FUNDING INFORMATION This work, including the efforts of Alistair J. P. Brown, was funded by Biotechnology and Biological Research Counsil (BB/K017365/1). This work, including the efforts of Oleh Khalimonchuk, was funded by HHS | National Institutes of Health (NIH) (5R01GM108975). This work, including the efforts of Oleh Khalimonchuk, was funded by HHS | National Institutes of Health (NIH) (P30GM103335).This work, including the efforts of Antoni Barrientos, was funded by HHS | National Institutes of Health (NIH) (GM071775-06). This work, including the efforts of Antoni Barrientos, was funded by HHS | National Institutes of Health (NIH) (GM105781-01). This work, including the efforts of Jaekwon Lee, was funded by HHS | National Institutes of Health (NIH) (DK079209). This work, including the efforts of Alistair J. P. Brown, was funded by Medical Research Council (MRC) (MR/M026663/1). This work, including the efforts of Alistair J. P. Brown, was funded by EC | European Research Council (ERC) (C-2009-AdG-249793).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

New Trends in Chinese Diet: Cultural Influences on Consumer Behavior

Although the Chinese market is traditionally characterized by a gastronomic culture which is profoundly different from its Western counterpart, the emerging social classes is expressing a growing demand for processed food, opening up to foreign influences, which are neither accepted with prejudice nor viewed passively.This paper analyzes of the propensity of consumers to include in the ancient Chinese culinary culture food products from other countries. A market segmentation of the Chinese consumers was performed, according their degree of cultural openness towards non-Chinese food, taking into account both socio-demographic and cognitive and psychographic variables. The research was carried out by administering a questionnaire to 500 Chinese consumers, living in urban areas, including a consumer analysis of the "values" and the "lifestyle".The results seem to confirm the relevant potential of the Chinese market as a destination for quality western products. The cognitive and modern approach in the market segmentation, provides a Chinese consumer profile “open mind” that is very useful for the implementation of policies for specific marketing and promotion strategies

Identification of critical residues in Gap3 of Streptococcus parasanguinis involved in Fap1 glycosylation, fimbrial formation and in vitro adhesion

BACKGROUND: Streptococcus parasanguinis is a primary colonizer of human tooth surfaces and plays an important role in dental plaque formation. Bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation are mediated by long peritrichous fimbriae that are composed of a 200 kDa serine rich glycoprotein named Fap1 (fimbriae-associated protein). Glycosylation and biogenesis of Fap1 are modulated by a gene cluster downstream of the fap1 locus. A gene encoding a glycosylation-associated protein, Gap3, was found to be important for Fap1 glycosylation, long fimbrial formation and Fap1-mediated biofilm formation. RESULTS: Deletion and site-directed mutagenesis were employed to dissect the regions within Gap3 that were important for its function in Fap1 glycosylation and biogenesis. A deletion of 6 consecutive amino acids, PDLPIL, eliminated the production of the mature 200 kDa Fap1 protein and gave rise instead to a 470 kDa Fap1 intermediate that was only partially glycosylated. Site-directed mutagenesis of the 6 amino acids revealed that only three of these amino acids were required. Mutants in these amino acids (L64R, P65R and L67T) produced the premature 470 kDa Fap1 intermediate. Mutants in the remaining amino acids produced the mature form of Fap1. Cell surface expression of the Fap1 precursor among L64R, P65R and L67T mutants was reduced to levels consistent with that of a gap3 insertional mutant. Electron micrographs showed that these 3 mutants lost their long peritrichous fimbriae. Furthermore, their in vitro adhesion ability to saliva-coated hydroxylapatite (SHA) was inhibited. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that 3 highly conserved, hydrophobic residues L64, P65 and L67 in Gap3 are essential for Gap3 function and are important for complete glycosylation of Fap1, fimbrial formation and bacterial adhesion

Double exchange model on triangular lattice: non-coplanar spin configuration and phase transition near quarter filling

Unconventional anomalous Hall effect in frustrated pyrochlore oxides is originated from spin chirality of non-coplanar localized spins, which can also be induced by the competition between ferromagnetic (FM) double exchange interaction $J_{H}$ and antiferromagnetic superexchange interaction $J_{AF}$. Here truncated polynomial expansion method and Monte Carlo simulation are adopted to investigate the above model on two-dimensional triangular lattice. We discuss the influence of the range of FM-type spin-spin correlation and strong electron-spin correlation on the truncation error of spin-spin correlation near quarter filling. Two peaks of the probability distribution of spin-spin correlation in non-coplanar spin configuration clearly show that non-coplanar spin configuration is an intermediate phase between FM and 120-degree spin phase. Near quarter filling, there is a phase transition from FM into non-coplanar and further into 120-degree spin phase when $J_{AF}$ continually increases. Finally the effect of temperature on magnetic structure is discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Idiosyncratic biases in the perception of medical images

Funding This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (grant number: R01 CA236793-01). Publication made possible in part by support from the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) sponsored by the UC Berkeley Library. Acknowledgments Raw data from Experiment 1 and 2 were obtained from Manassi et al. (2021) and Ren et al. (2022). Parts of these datasets have been previously presented at conferences including VSS and ECVP.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Small-polaron hopping conductivity in bilayer manganite La1.2_{1.2}Sr1.8_{1.8}Mn2_{2}O7_{7}

We report anisotropic resistivity measurements on a La$_{1.2}$Sr$_{1.8}$Mn$_{2}$O$_{7}$ single crystal over a temperature $T$ range from 2 to 400 K and in magnetic fields $H$ up to 14 T. For $T\geq 218$ K, the temperature dependence of the zero-field in-plane $\rho_{ab}(T)$ resistivity obeys the adiabatic small polaron hopping mechanism, while the out-of-plane $\rho_{c}(T)$ resistivity can be ascribed by an Arrhenius law with the same activation energy. Considering the magnetic character of the polarons and the close correlation between the resistivity and magnetization, we developed a model which allows the determination of $\rho_{ab,c}(H,T)$. The excellent agreement of the calculations with the measurements indicates that small polarons play an essential role in the electrical transport properties in the paramagnetic phase of bilayer manganites.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Physical Review

MicroRNA-223 ameliorates alcoholic liver injury by inhibiting the IL-6–p47phox–oxidative stress pathway in neutrophils

Objectives Chronic-plus-binge ethanol feeding activates neutrophils and exacerbates liver injury in mice. This study investigates how recent excessive drinking affects peripheral neutrophils and liver injury in alcoholics, and how miR-223, one of the most abundant microRNAs (miRNAs) in neutrophils, modulates neutrophil function and liver injury in ethanol-fed mice. Designs Three hundred alcoholics with (n=140) or without (n=160) recent excessive drinking and 45 healthy controls were enrolled. Mice were fed an ethanol diet for 10 days followed by a single binge of ethanol. Results Compared with healthy controls or alcoholics without recent drinking, alcoholics with recent excessive drinking had higher levels of circulating neutrophils, which correlated with serum levels of alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST). miRNA array analysis revealed that alcoholics had elevated serum miR-223 levels compared with healthy controls. In chronic-plus-binge ethanol feeding mouse model, the levels of miR-223 were increased in both serum and neutrophils. Genetic deletion of the miR-223 gene exacerbated ethanol-induced hepatic injury, neutrophil infiltration, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and upregulated hepatic expression of interleukin (IL)-6 and phagocytic oxidase (phox) p47phox. Mechanistic studies revealed that miR-223 directly inhibited IL-6 expression and subsequently inhibited p47phox expression in neutrophils. Deletion of the p47phox gene ameliorated ethanol-induced liver injury and ROS production by neutrophils. Finally, miR-223 expression was downregulated, while IL-6 and p47phox expression were upregulated in peripheral blood neutrophils from alcoholics compared with healthy controls. Conclusions miR-223 is an important regulator to block neutrophil infiltration in alcoholic liver disease and could be a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of this malady

The phase-separated states in antiferromagnetic semiconductors with polarizable lattice

The possibility of the slab or stripe phase separation (alternating ferromagnetic highly- conductive and insulating antiferromagnetic layers) is proved for isotropic degenerate antiferromagnetic semiconductors. This type of phase separation competes with the droplet phase separation (ferromagnetic droplets in the antiferromagnetic host or vice versa). The interaction of electrons with optical phonons alone cannot cause phase-separated state with alternating highly-conductive and insulating regions but it stabilizes the magnetic phase separation. The magnetostriction deformation of the lattice in the phase-separated state is investigated.Comment: 17 Pages, 1 EPS Figur