Water-Repellent TiO₂-Organic Dye-Based Air Filters for Efficient Visible-Light-Activated Photochemical Inactivation against Bioaerosols

Recently, bioaerosols, including the 2019 novel coronavirus, pose a serious threat to global public health. Herein, we introduce a visible-light-activated (VLA) antimicrobial air filter functionalized with titanium dioxide (TiO2)–crystal violet (CV) nanocomposites facilitating abandoned visible light from sunlight or indoor lights. The TiO2–CV based VLA antimicrobial air filters exhibit a potent inactivation rate of ∼99.98% and filtration efficiency of ∼99.9% against various bioaerosols. Under visible-light, the CV is involved in overall inactivation by inducing reactive oxygen species production both directly (CV itself) and indirectly (in combination with TiO2). Moreover, the susceptibility of the CV to humidity was significantly improved by forming a hydrophobic molecular layer on the TiO2 surface, highlighting its potential applicability in real environments such as exhaled or humid air. We believe this work can open a new avenue for designing and realizing practical antimicrobial technology using ubiquitous visible-light energy against the threat of infectious bioaerosols

Are transnational tobacco companies' market access strategies linked to economic development models? A case study of South Korea.

Transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) have used varied strategies to access previously closed markets. Using TTCs' efforts to enter the South Korean market from the late 1980s as a case study, this article asks whether there are common patterns in these strategies that relate to the broader economic development models adopted by targeted countries. An analytical review of the existing literature on TTCs' efforts to access emerging markets was conducted to develop hypotheses relating TTCs' strategies to countries' economic development models. A case study of Korea was then undertaken based on analysis of internal tobacco industry documents. Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that TTCs' strategies in Korea were linked to Korea's export-oriented economic development model and its hostile attitude towards foreign investment. A fuller understanding of TTCs' strategies for expansion globally can be derived by locating them within the economic development models of specific countries or regions. Of foremost importance is the need for governments to carefully balance economic and public health policies when considering liberalisation

Anomaly mediated SUSY breaking scenarios in the light of cosmology and in the dark (matter)

Anomaly mediation is a popular and well motivated supersymmetry breaking scenario. Different possible detailed realisations of this set-up are studied and actively searched for at colliders. Apart from limits coming from flavour, low energy physics and direct collider searches, these models are usually constrained by the requirement of reproducing the observations on dark matter density in the universe. We reanalyse these bounds and in particular we focus on the dark matter bounds both considering the standard cosmological model and alternative cosmological scenarios. These scenarios do not change the observable cosmology but relic dark matter density bounds strongly depend on them. We consider few benchmark points excluded by standard cosmology dark matter bounds and suggest that loosening the dark matter constraints is necessary in order to avoid a too strong (cosmological) model dependence in the limits that are obtained for these models. We also discuss briefly the implications for phenomenology and in particular at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: 37 pages, 20 figures, 1 tabl

Stabilization of monodomain polarization in ultrathin PbTiO3 films

Using in situ high-resolution synchrotron x-ray scattering, the Curie temperature T-C has been determined for ultrathin c-axis epitaxial PbTiO3 films on conducting substrates (SrRuO3 on SrTiO3), with surfaces exposed to a controlled vapor environment. The suppression of T-C was relatively small, even for the thinnest film (1.2 nm). We observe that 180 degrees stripe domains do not form, indicating that the depolarizing field is compensated by free charge at both interfaces. This is confirmed by ab initio calculations that find polar ground states in the presence of ionic adsorbates.open15511

Spinor-Vector Duality in Heterotic String Orbifolds

The three generation heterotic-string models in the free fermionic formulation are among the most realistic string vacua constructed to date, which motivated their detailed investigation. The classification of free fermion heterotic string vacua has revealed a duality under the exchange of spinor and vector representations of the SO(10) GUT symmetry over the space of models. We demonstrate the existence of the spinor-vector duality using orbifold techniques, and elaborate on the relation of these vacua to free fermionic models.Comment: 20 pages. v2 minor corrections. Version to appear on JHEP. v3 misprints correcte

PeanutMap: an online genome database for comparative molecular maps of peanut

BACKGROUND: Molecular maps have been developed for many species, and are of particular importance for varietal development and comparative genomics. However, despite the existence of multiple sets of linkage maps, databases of these data are lacking for many species, including peanut. DESCRIPTION: PeanutMap provides a web-based interface for viewing specific linkage groups of a map set. PeanutMap can display and compare multiple maps of a set based upon marker or trait correspondences, which is particularly important as cultivated peanut is a disomic tetraploid. The database can also compare linkage groups among multiple map sets, allowing identification of corresponding linkage groups from results of different research projects. Data from the two published peanut genome map sets, and also from three maps sets of phenotypic traits are present in the database. Data from PeanutMap have been incorporated into the Legume Information System website to allow peanut map data to be used for cross-species comparisons. CONCLUSION: The utility of the database is expected to increase as several SSR-based maps are being developed currently, and expanded efforts for comparative mapping of legumes are underway. Optimal use of these data will benefit from the development of tools to facilitate comparative analysis

Genotoxic agents promote the nuclear accumulation of annexin A2: role of annexin A2 in mitigating DNA damage

Annexin A2 is an abundant cellular protein that is mainly localized in the cytoplasm and plasma membrane, however a small population has been found in the nucleus, suggesting a nuclear function for the protein. Annexin A2 possesses a nuclear export sequence (NES) and inhibition of the NES is sufficient to cause nuclear accumulation. Here we show that annexin A2 accumulates in the nucleus in response to genotoxic agents including gamma-radiation, UV radiation, etoposide and chromium VI and that this event is mediated by the nuclear export sequence of annexin A2. Nuclear accumulation of annexin A2 is blocked by the antioxidant agent N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) and stimulated by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), suggesting that this is a reactive oxygen species dependent event. In response to genotoxic agents, cells depleted of annexin A2 show enhanced phospho-histone H2AX and p53 levels, increased numbers of p53-binding protein 1 nuclear foci and increased levels of nuclear 8-oxo-2'-deoxyguanine, suggesting that annexin A2 plays a role in protecting DNA from damage. This is the first report showing the nuclear translocation of annexin A2 in response to genotoxic agents and its role in mitigating DNA damage.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); European Union [PCOFUND-GA-2009-246542]; Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal; Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute; Terry Fox Foundationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sparticle mass spectra from SU(5) SUSY GUT models with b−τb-\tau Yukawa coupling unification

Supersymmetric grand unified models based on the gauge group SU(5) often require in addition to gauge coupling unification, the unification of b-quark and $\tau$-lepton Yukawa couplings. We examine SU(5) SUSY GUT parameter space under the condition of $b-\tau$ Yukawa coupling unification using 2-loop MSSM RGEs including full 1-loop threshold effects. The Yukawa-unified solutions break down into two classes. Solutions with low tan\beta ~3-11 are characterized by gluino mass ~1-4 TeV and squark mass ~1-5 TeV. Many of these solutions would be beyond LHC reach, although they contain a light Higgs scalar with mass <123 GeV and so may be excluded should the LHC Higgs hint persist. The second class of solutions occurs at large tan\beta ~35-60, and are a subset of $t-b-\tau$ unified solutions. Constraining only $b-\tau$ unification to ~5% favors a rather light gluino with mass ~0.5-2 TeV, which should ultimately be accessible to LHC searches. While our $b-\tau$ unified solutions can be consistent with a picture of neutralino-only cold dark matter, invoking additional moduli or Peccei-Quinn superfields can allow for all of our Yukawa-unified solutions to be consistent with the measured dark matter abundance.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, PDFLate