BINA

4721 articles

79 publishers

Join mailing list

Nov 2023 • Gels 9 (11), 895, 2023

Engineering of PVA/PVP hydrogels for agricultural applications

Eyal Malka, Shlomo Margel

Hydrogels have gained significant popularity in agricultural applications in terms of minimizing waste and mitigating the negative environmental impact of agrochemicals. This review specifically examines the utilization of environmentally friendly, shapable hydrogels composed of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in various casings for crop protection against different pests, fertilizing, and watering. To activate their effectiveness, PVA/PVP hydrogels were loaded with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic environmentally friendly pesticides, namely hydrogen peroxide (HP), the essential oil thymol, and urea as a fertilizer, either separately or in combination. This review covers various physical and chemical approaches used for loading, shaping, and controlling the release profiles of pesticides and fertilizers. Additionally, it explores the evaluation of the chemical composition, structure, classification, rheology, and morphology of the hydrogels as well as their impact on the thermal stability of the encapsulated pesticides and fertilizer, followed by biological tests. These hydrogels significantly contribute to the stabilization and controlled release of essential nutrients and biocides for plants, while maintaining excellent biocidal and fertilizing properties as well as sustainability characteristics. By shedding light on the latest insights into the concepts, applications, and results of these hydrogels, this review demonstrates their immense potential for widespread future use in agriculture.

Show more

Nov 2023 • Advanced Optical Materials

Optical Properties and Ultrafast Near‐Infrared Localized Surface Plasmon Dynamics in Naturally p‐Type Digenite Films

Andrea Villa, Madina Telkhozhayeva, Fabio Marangi, Eti Teblum, Aaron M Ross, Mirko Prato, Luca Andena, Roberto Frassine, Francesco Scotognella, Gilbert Daniel Nessim

Copper chalcogenides are materials characterized by intrinsic doping properties, allowing them to display high carrier concentrations due to their defect‐heavy structures, independent of the preparation method. Such high doping enables these materials to display plasmonic resonances, tunable by varying their stoichiometry. Here, plasmonic dynamics is studied in drop‐cast Cu9S5 (digenite) nanocrystals (NCs) film using ultrafast pump–probe spectroscopy. The NCs are synthesized by thermal annealing of copper foil using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), followed by sonication and drop‐casting of the isolated few‐layered flakes on different substrates. The samples display a broad localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) in the near‐infrared (NIR), peaking at 2100 nm. The free carrier response is further confirmed by fitting the linear absorption with a Drude–Lorentz effective medium approximation model …

Show more

Nov 2023 • Molecular Reproduction and Development 90 (12), 785-803, 2023

Epigenetic aging of mammalian gametes

Michael Klutstein, Nitzan Gonen

The process of aging refers to physiological changes that occur to an organism as time progresses and involves changes to DNA, proteins, metabolism, cells, and organs. Like the rest of the cells in the body, gametes age, and it is well established that there is a decline in reproductive capabilities in females and males with aging. One of the major pathways known to be involved in aging is epigenetic changes. The epigenome is the multitude of chemical modifications performed on DNA and chromatin that affect the ability of chromatin to be transcribed. In this review, we explore the effects of aging on female and male gametes with a focus on the epigenetic changes that occur in gametes throughout aging. Quality decline in oocytes occurs at a relatively early age. Epigenetic changes constitute an important part of oocyte aging. DNA methylation is reduced with age, along with reduced expression of DNA …

Show more

Nov 2023 • Journal of the American Chemical Society

Near-temperature-independent electron transport well beyond expected quantum tunneling range via bacteriorhodopsin multilayers

Sudipta Bera, Jerry A Fereiro, Shailendra K Saxena, Domenikos Chryssikos, Koushik Majhi, Tatyana Bendikov, Lior Sepunaru, David Ehre, Marc Tornow, Israel Pecht, Ayelet Vilan, Mordechai Sheves, David Cahen

A key conundrum of biomolecular electronics is efficient electron transport (ETp) through solid-state junctions up to 10 nm, often without temperature activation. Such behavior challenges known charge transport mechanisms, especially via nonconjugated molecules such as proteins. Single-step, coherent quantum-mechanical tunneling proposed for ETp across small protein, 2–3 nm wide junctions, but it is problematic for larger proteins. Here we exploit the ability of bacteriorhodopsin (bR), a well-studied, 4–5 nm long membrane protein, to assemble into well-defined single and multiple bilayers, from ∼9 to 60 nm thick, to investigate ETp limits as a function of junction width. To ensure sufficient signal/noise, we use large area (∼10–3 cm2) Au–protein–Si junctions. Photoemission spectra indicate a wide energy separation between electrode Fermi and the nearest protein-energy levels, as expected for a polymer of …

Show more

Nov 2023 • Light, science & applications

Weak measurements and quantum-to-classical transitions in free electron-photon interactions

Yiming Pan, Eliahu Cohen, Ebrahim Karimi, Avraham Gover, Norbert Schönenberger, Tomáš Chlouba, Kangpeng Wang, Saar Nehemia, Peter Hommelhoff, Ido Kaminer, Yakir Aharonov

How does the quantum-to-classical transition of measurement occur? This question is vital for both foundations and applications of quantum mechanics. Here, we develop a new measurement-based framework for characterizing the classical and quantum free electron–photon interactions and then experimentally test it. We first analyze the transition from projective to weak measurement in generic light–matter interactions and show that any classical electron-laser-beam interaction can be represented as an outcome of weak measurement. In particular, the appearance of classical point-particle acceleration is an example of an amplified weak value resulting from weak measurement. A universal factor, \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek …

Show more

Nov 2023 • ACS Applied Bio Materials

Zirconium-coated β-cyclodextrin nanomaterials for biofilm eradication

Akanksha Gupta, John HT Luong, Aharon Gedanken

Under alkaline treatment, zirconyl chloride (ZrOCl2.8H2O) became a zirconia gel and formed a stable complex with beta-cyclodextrin (βCD). This complex was highly active in reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation via H2O2 decomposition. Its surface with numerous hydroxyl groups acts as an ionic sponge to capture the charged reaction intermediates, including superoxide (O2–•) and the hydroxyl radical (•OH). ROS, especially •OH radicals, are harmful to living microorganisms because of their kinetic instability, high oxidation potential, and chemical nonselectivity. Therefore, •OH radicals can engage in fast reactions with virtually any adjacent biomolecule. With H2O2, the complex with cationic and hydrophobic moieties interacted with the anionic bacterial membrane of two Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and S. epidermidis) and two Gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae) strains …

Show more

Nov 2023

Strain Stiffening of Flexible Polymer Chains

Liel Sapir, Danyang Chen, Michael Rubinstein

Both polymer size and chain elasticity depend on long-range bond correlations. These correlations are gradually cut off for higher externally applied force thus increasing chain stiffness. We develop a theory for tension-dependent elasticity and validate it with simulations. Our model explains the higher stiffness measured in single-molecule force spectroscopy experiments compared with scattering experiments of unperturbed chains.

Show more

Nov 2023 • ACS Applied Bio Materials

Zirconium-Coated β-Cyclodextrin Nanomaterials for Biofilm Eradication

Akanksha Gupta, John HT Luong, Aharon Gedanken

Under alkaline treatment, zirconyl chloride (ZrOCl2.8H2O) became a zirconia gel and formed a stable complex with beta-cyclodextrin (βCD). This complex was highly active in reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation via H2O2 decomposition. Its surface with numerous hydroxyl groups acts as an ionic sponge to capture the charged reaction intermediates, including superoxide (O2–•) and the hydroxyl radical (•OH). ROS, especially •OH radicals, are harmful to living microorganisms because of their kinetic instability, high oxidation potential, and chemical nonselectivity. Therefore, •OH radicals can engage in fast reactions with virtually any adjacent biomolecule. With H2O2, the complex with cationic and hydrophobic moieties interacted with the anionic bacterial membrane of two Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and S. epidermidis) and two Gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae) strains …

Show more

Nov 2023 • arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.13164

Control of open quantum systems via dynamical invariants

Loris Maria Cangemi, Hilario Espinós, Ricardo Puebla, Erik Torrontegui, Amikam Levy

In this work, we confront the challenge of controlling quantum systems that are influenced by their environment, utilizing the theory of dynamical invariants. Our strategy involves a reverse engineering method for formulating control protocols like Shortcuts to Adiabaticity (STA), tailored to be resilient against environmental noise and dissipation. This technique offers two main advantages compared to other quantum control methods: firstly, it incorporates the time-varying aspect of the dissipation factor in the master equation, which arises from driving the system's Hamiltonian (the control fields). Secondly, our method eliminates the need for iterative propagation of the system state, a process that is typically resource-intensive. The efficacy and practicality of our approach are demonstrated through the application to two fundamental models: a two-level quantum system and a quantum harmonic oscillator, each interacting with a thermal bath.

Show more

Nov 2023 • 2023 Asia Communications and Photonics Conference/2023 International …, 2023

Forward Brillouin Scattering Fiber Sensors

Avi Zadok

Sensors based on forward Brillouin scattering processes allow for quantitative analysis of liquid media and coating layers outside the cladding of standard, unmodified fibers. Point measurements and spatially distributed analysis have been demonstrated.

Show more

Nov 2023 • APL Photonics

Supercontinuum generation by saturated second-order nonlinear interactions

Marc Jankowski, Carsten Langrock, Boris Desiatov, Marko Lončar, MM Fejer

We propose a new approach to supercontinuum generation and carrier-envelope-offset detection based on saturated second-order nonlinear interactions in dispersion-engineered nanowaveguides. The technique developed here broadens the interacting harmonics by forming stable bifurcations of the pulse envelopes due to an interplay between phase-mismatch and pump depletion. We first present an intuitive heuristic model for spectral broadening by second-harmonic generation of femtosecond pulses and show that this model agrees well with experiments. Then, having established strong agreement between theory and experiment, we develop scaling laws that determine the energy required to generate an octave of bandwidth as a function of input pulse duration, device length, and input pulse chirp. These scaling laws suggest that future realization based on this approach could enable supercontinuum …

Show more

Nov 2023 • arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.13658

Cascade infrared thermal photon emission

Klavs Hansen, Ori Licht, Adeliya Kurbanov, Yoni Toker

The time development of the excitation energy of molecules and clusters cooling by emission of thermal vibrational infrared radiation has been studied. The energy distributions and the photon emission rates develop into near-universal functions that can be characterized with only a few parameters, irrespective of the precise vibrational spectra and oscillator strengths of the systems. The photon emission constant and emitted power averaged over all thermally populated states vary linearly with total excitation energy with a small offset. The time developments of ensemble internal energy distributions are calculated with respect to their first two moments. For the derived linear dependence of the emission rate constant, these results are exact.

Show more

Nov 2023 • Entropy

Discrete-Time Quantum Walk on Multilayer Networks

Mahesh N Jayakody, Priodyuti Pradhan, Dana Ben Porath, Eliahu Cohen

A Multilayer network is a potent platform that paves the way for the study of the interactions among entities in various networks with multiple types of relationships. This study explores the dynamics of discrete-time quantum walks on a multilayer network. We derive a recurrence formula for the coefficients of the wave function of a quantum walker on an undirected graph with a finite number of nodes. By extending this formula to include extra layers, we develop a simulation model to describe the time evolution of the quantum walker on a multilayer network. The time-averaged probability and the return probability of the quantum walker are studied with Fourier, and Grover walks on multilayer networks. Furthermore, we analyze the impact of decoherence on quantum transport, shedding light on how environmental interactions may impact the behavior of quantum walkers on multilayer network structures.

Show more

Nov 2023 • Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Generating Correlated X-ray Pairs as a Low-Noise Low-Damage Probe

Nicholas Hartley, Daniel Hodge, Eric Christie, Arianna Gleason, Siegfried Glenzer, Aliaksei Halavanau, Abigail Mae Hardy, Colin Recker, Sean Sheehan, Sharon Shwartz, Michael Ware, Richard Sandberg, Gary Walker

PM10. 00002: Generating Correlated X-ray Pairs as a Low-Noise Low-Damage Probe*

Show more

Nov 2023 • Optical Fiber Sensors, W5. 3, 2023

Tensor attributes of forward Brillouin fiber sensors

Alon Bernstein, Elad Zehavi, Yosef London, Rafael Suna, Shai Ben-Ami, Mirit Hen, Avi Zadok

Forward Brillouin scattering through torsional radial modes is studied in bare and coated fibers in liquids. Tensor characteristics distinguish between two mode types. Shear dominated modes are significantly less affected by liquids outside the fiber.

Show more

Nov 2023 • medRxiv

Supplementation with short-chain fatty acids and the prebiotic 2FL improves clinical outcome in PD

Tobias Hegelmaier, Alexander Duscha, Christiane Desel, Sabrina Fuchs, Michal Shapira, Qihao Shan, Gabriele I Stangl, Frank Hirche, Stefan Kempa, Andras Maifeld, Lisa-Marie Würtele, Jana Peplinski, Diana Jauk, Claudia A Dumitru, Ute Obermüller-Jevic, Svein-Olaf Hustvedt, Nina Timmesfeld, Ralf Gold, Antonia Zapf, Ibrahim E Sandalcioglu, Sanaz Mostaghim, Horst Przuntek, Eran Segal, Nissan Yissachar, Aiden Haghikia

BackgroundParkinson’s disease (PD) is associated with dysbiosis, proinflammatory gut microbiome, disruptions to intestinal barrier functions, and immunological imbalance. Microbiota-produced short-chain fatty acids promote gut barrier integrity and immune regulation, but their impact on PD pathology remains mostly unknown.ObjectivesTo evaluate supplementation with short-chain fatty acids as an add-on intervention in PD.MethodsIn a randomized double-blind prospective study, 72 PD patients received short-chain fatty acids and/or the prebiotic fiber 2′-fucosyllactose supplementation over 6 months.ResultsWe observed improvement in motor and nonmotor symptoms, in addition to modulation of peripheral immunity and improved mitochondrial respiration in immunocytes. The supplementation had no effect on microbiome diversity or composition. Finally, multiobjective analysis and comprehensive immunophenotyping revealed parameters associated with an optimal response to short-chain fatty acids and/or 2′-fucosyllactose supplementation.ConclusionShort-chain fatty acids ameliorate clinical symptoms in Parkinson’s disease patients and modulate mitochondrial function and peripheral immunity.

Show more

Oct 2023 • ACS Omega

Synthesis and Characterization of Durable Antibiofilm and Antiviral Silane-Phosphonium Thin Coatings for Medical and Agricultural Applications

Matan Nissim, Taly lline-Vul, Sivan Shoshani, Gila Jacobi, Eyal Malka, Aviv Dombrovsky, Ehud Banin, Shlomo Margel

Pathogens such as bacteria and viruses cause disease in a range of hosts, from humans to plants. Bacterial biofilms, communities of bacteria, e.g., Staphylococcus aureusand Escherichia coli, attached to the surface, create a protective layer that enhances their survival in harsh environments and resistance to antibiotics and the host’s immune system. Biofilms are commonly associated with food spoilage and chronic infections, posing challenges for treatment and prevention. Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV), a newly discovered tobamovirus, infects tomato plants, causing unique symptoms on the fruit, posing a risk for tomato production. The present study focuses on the effectiveness of silane-phosphonium thin coatings on polymeric films, e.g., polypropylene. Phosphonium has significant antibacterial activity and is less susceptible to antibacterial resistance, making it a safer alternative with a reduced …

Show more

Oct 2023 • arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.02739

High energy-resolution transient ghost absorption spectroscopy

Alok Kumar Tripathi, Yishai Klein, Edward Strizhevsky, Flavio Capotondi, Dario De Angelis, Luca Giannessi, Matteo Pancaldi, Emanuele Pedersoli, Kevin C Prince, Or Sefi, Young Yong Kim, Ivan A Vartanyants, Sharon Shwartz

We demonstrate the measurement of ultrafast dynamics using ghost spectroscopy and a pump-probe approach with an optical pump and a short-wavelength radiation probe. The ghost spectroscopy approach is used to overcome the challenge of the strong intensity and spectrum fluctuations at free-electron lasers and to provide high -spectral resolution, which enables the measurement of small energy shifts in the absorption spectrum. We exploit the high resolution to explore the dynamics of the charge carrier excitations and relaxations and their impact on the photoinduced structural changes in silicon by measuring the variation of the absorption spectrum of a Si(100) membrane near the silicon L2,3 edge and the accompanying edge shifts in response to the optical illumination.

Show more

Oct 2023 • Frontiers in Microbiology

Corrigendum: Comparative genomics of Bacillus cereus sensu lato spp. biocontrol strains in correlation to in-vitro phenotypes and plant pathogen antagonistic …

Maya Moshe, Chhedi Lal Gupta, Rakeshkumar Manojkumar Jain, Noa Sela, Dror Minz, Ehud Banin, Omer Frenkel, Eddie Cytryn

MM: conducted experiments, data and bioinformatics analyses, and wrote manuscript. CG: bioinformatics analysis. NS: genome assembly. DM: project idea and funding acquisition. EB: supervision. EC: experimental design, supervision, funding acquisition, writing, and revisions. OF: participating in experimental design, supervision, funding acquisition, writing, and revisions. RJ: isolation and conducting of the initial in-vitro antifungal analysis on three of the five bacteria investigated in the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Show more

Oct 2023 • 244th ECS Meeting (October 8-12, 2023), 2023

L08-Materials Chemistry for Electrocatalysis

Lior Elbaz, Petr Krtil


Oct 2023

How synchronized human networks escape local minima

Moti Fridman, Elad Shniderman, Yahav Avraham, Shir Shahal, Hamootal Duadi, Nir Davidson

Finding the global minimum in complex networks while avoiding local minima is challenging in many types of networks. We study the dynamics of complex human networks and observed that humans have different methods to avoid local minima than other networks. Humans can change the coupling strength between them or change their tempo. This leads to different dynamics than other networks and makes human networks more robust and better resilient against perturbations. We observed high-order vortex states, oscillation death, and amplitude death, due to the unique dynamics of the network. This research may have implications in politics, economics, pandemic control, decision-making, and predicting the dynamics of networks with artificial intelligence.

Show more

logo
Articali

Powered by Articali

TermsPrivacy