Free Energy Approach to the Formation of an Icosahedral Structure during the Freezing of Gold Nanoclusters

The freezing of metal nanoclusters such as gold, silver, and copper exhibits a novel structural evolution. The formation of the icosahedral (Ih) structure is dominant despite its energetic metastability. This important phenomenon, hitherto not understood, is studied by calculating free energies of gold nanoclusters. The structural transition barriers have been determined by using the umbrella sampling technique combined with molecular dynamics simulations. Our calculations show that the formation of Ih gold nanoclusters is attributed to the lower free energy barrier from the liquid to the Ih phases compared to the barrier from the liquid to the face-centered-cubic crystal phases

Inverted polymer fullerene solar cells exceeding 10% efficiency with poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) nanodots on electron-collecting buffer layers

Polymer solar cells have been spotlighted due to their potential for low-cost manufacturing but their efficiency is still less than required for commercial application as lightweight/flexible modules. Forming a dipole layer at the electron-collecting interface has been suggested as one of the more attractive approaches for efficiency enhancement. However, only a few dipole layer material types have been reported so far, including only one non-ionic (charge neutral) polymer. Here we show that a further neutral polymer, namely poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEOz) can be successfully used as a dipole layer. Inclusion of a PEOz layer, in particular with a nanodot morphology, increases the effective work function at the electron-collecting interface within inverted solar cells and thermal annealing of PEOz layer leads to a state-of-the-art 10.74% efficiency for single-stack bulk heterojunction blend structures comprising poly[4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-alt-3-fluorothieno[3,4-b]thiophene-2-carboxylate] as donor and [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester as acceptor

Anatomy of the superior hypogastric plexus and its application in nerve-sparing paraaortic lymphadenectomy

Background: The purpose of this study was to clarify the anatomy of the superior hypogastric plexus, which would contribute to advancement of nerve-sparing paraaortic lymphadenectomy. Materials and methods: Eighteen cadavers were dissected and morphometrically analysed based on photographic images. Anatomical landmarks such as aortic bifurcation, transitional points of abdominal aorta to bilateral common iliac arteries, and cross point of the right ureter and pelvic brim, and cross point of sigmoid mesentery and pelvic brim were selected as reference points. Results: The left lowest lumbar splanchnic nerve was located more laterally to transitional point of abdominal aorta to in 11/18 specimens, whereas the right lowest lumbar splanchnic nerve passed onto the right transitional point in only one specimen. The lowest lumbar splanchnic nerves or the superior hypogastric plexus covered the aortic bifurcation in 11/18 specimens. The superior hypogastric plexus was separate from the cross point of right ureter and pelvic brim as well as cross point of sigmoid mesentery and pelvic brim. Conclusions: The superior hypogastric plexus is at risk of injury during paraaortic lymphadenectomy because of its topography. Preservation of the superior hypogastric plexus regarding its anatomic basis during paraaortic lymphadenectomy is required

Syntactic comprehension of relative clauses and center embedding using pseudowords

Relative clause (RC) formation and center embedding (CE) are two primary syntactic operations fundamental for creating and understanding complex sentences. Ample evidence from previous cross-linguistic studies has revealed several similarities and differences between RC and CE. However, it is not easy to investigate the effect of pure syntactic constraints for RC and CE without the interference of semantic and pragmatic interactions. Here, we show how readers process CE and RC using a self-paced reading task in Korean. More interestingly, we adopted a novel self-paced pseudoword reading task to exploit syntactic operations of the RC and CE, eliminating the semantic and pragmatic interference in sentence comprehension. Our results showed that the main effects of RC and CE conform to previous studies. Furthermore, we found a facilitation effect of sentence comprehension when we combined an RC and CE in a complex sentence. Our study provides a valuable insight into how the purely syntactic processing of RC and CE assists comprehension of complex sentences