BINA

Articular cartilage (AC) is a specialized connective tissue able to provide a low‐friction gliding surface supporting shock‐absorption, reducing stresses, and guaranteeing wear‐resistance thanks to its structure and mechanical and lubrication properties. Being an avascular tissue, AC has a limited ability to heal defects. Nowadays, conventional strategies show several limitations, which results in ineffective restoration of chondral defects. Several tissue engineering approaches have been proposed to restore the AC's native properties without reproducing its mechanical and lubrication properties yet. This work reports the fabrication of a bilayered structure made of gellan gum (GG) and poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA), able to mimic the mechanical and lubrication features of both AC superficial and deep zones. Through appropriate combinations of GG and PEGDA, cartilage Young's modulus is effectively …

We formalize the concept of the modular energy operator within the Page and Wooters timeless framework. As a result, this operator is elevated to the same status as the more studied modular operators of position and momentum. In analogy with dynamical nonlocality in space associated with the modular momentum, we introduce and analyze the nonlocality in time associated with the modular energy operator. Some applications of our formalization are provided through illustrative examples.

Adenosine-to-inosine editing is catalyzed by ADAR1 at thousands of sites transcriptome-wide. Despite intense interest in ADAR1 from physiological, bioengineering, and therapeutic perspectives, the rules of ADAR1 substrate selection are poorly understood. Here, we used large-scale systematic probing of ∼2,000 synthetic constructs to explore the structure and sequence context determining editability. We uncover two structural layers determining the formation and propagation of A-to-I editing, independent of sequence. First, editing is robustly induced at fixed intervals of 35 bp upstream and 30 bp downstream of structural disruptions. Second, editing is symmetrically introduced on opposite sites on a double-stranded structure. Our findings suggest a recursive model for RNA editing, whereby the structural alteration induced by the editing at one site iteratively gives rise to the formation of an additional editing site …

In a lithium–sulfur battery (LSB) discharge process, elemental sulfur is reduced to Li2S via a multi-step process. The soluble lithium-polysulfide (PS) (Li2Sn) intermediate species then diffuses through the electrolyte solution from the porous cathode to the lithium anode. These species react with the anode and form an interphase of insoluble lithium PS. This “shuttle” phenomenon is the main obstacle in the development of practical LSBs. The most previous reports dealt with LSBs focusing their attention on the cathode side, and the aspect of lithium reversibility influenced by the PS is not well quantified. In this paper, we designed an experimental protocol that allows us to control the exact amount of lithium in the cell and determine the influence of the different intermediate PS species on the reversibility of Li anode via spectroscopic, microscopic, and electrochemical techniques. We study the correlation between the …

In the search for replacement of the platinum‐based catalysts for fuel cells, MN4 molecular catalysts based on abundant transition metals play a crucial role in modeling and investigation of the influence of the environment near the active site in platinum‐group metal‐free (PGM‐free) oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts. To understand how the ORR activity of molecular catalysts can be controlled by the active site structure through modification by the pH and substituent functional groups, the change of the ORR onset potential and the electron number in a broad pH range was examined for three different metallocorroles. Experiments revealed a switch between two different ORR mechanisms and a change from 2e− to 4e− pathway in the pH range of 3.5‐6. This phenomenon was shown by density functional theory (DFT) calculations to be related to the protonation of the nitrogen atoms and carboxylic acid …

The generation and amplification of photons by parametric down-conversion in quadratic nonlinear media is used as a source of entangled photons, squeezed light, and short optical pulses at difficult to access wavelengths. Optical nonlinearities are inherently weak, and therefore the pump energy required to produce sufficient gain for efficient down-conversion has been limited to energies in excess of nanojoules. Here we use dispersion-engineered nonlinear nanowaveguides driven by femtosecond pulses to demonstrate efficient down-conversion at the picojoule level; we observe parametric gains in excess of 70 decibels with pump pulse energies as little as 4 picojoules. When driven with pulse energies in excess of 10 picojoules these waveguides amplify vacuum fluctuations to 10\% of the pump power, and the generated bandwidth broadens to span an octave. These results represent a new class of parametric devices that combine sub-wavelength spatial confinement with femtosecond pulses to achieve efficient operation with remarkably low energy.

We consider the extreme value statistics of N independent and identically distributed random variables, which is a classic problem in probability theory. When N→∞, fluctuations around the maximum of the variables are described by the Fisher-Tippett-Gnedenko theorem, which states that the distribution of maxima converges to one out of three limiting forms. Among these lies the Gumbel distribution, for which the convergence rate with N is of a logarithmic nature. Here, we present a theory that allows one to use the Gumbel limit to accurately approximate the exact extreme value distribution. We do so by representing the normalization sequences as power series, and by a transformation of the underlying distribution. We consider functional corrections to the Gumbel limit as well, showing they are obtainable via Taylor expansion. Our method improves the description of large deviations from the mean extreme value. It …

With subrecoil-laser-cooled atoms one may reach nano-Kelvin temperatures while the ergodic properties of these systems do not follow usual statistical laws. Instead, due to an ingenious trapping mechanism in momentum space, power-law-distributed sojourn times are found for the cooled particles. Here, we show how this gives rise to a statistical-mechanical framework based on infinite ergodic theory, which replaces ordinary ergodic statistical physics of a thermal gas of atoms. In particular, the energy of the system exhibits a sharp discontinuous transition in its ergodic properties. Physically this is controlled by the fluorescence rate, but more profoundly it is a manifestation of a transition for any observable, from being an integrable to becoming a non-integrable observable, with respect to the infinite (non-normalised) invariant density.

During the past several decades, a variety of imaging modalities in fluorescence microscopy have emerged as powerful tools for probing the spatial and temporal dimensions in fixed and living cells and tissues to uncover structural and dynamic information. Recently, our journal accepted a paper in this topic, and we received comments. We found it as opportunity to discuss this important topic for additional angles. We believe that this discussion will be interesting and helpful to the whole community.

The Cu (II)‐diacetyl‐bis (N4‐methylthiosemicarbazone) complex (ATSM− Cu (II)) has been suggested as a promising positron emission tomography (PET) agent for hypoxia imaging. Several in‐vivo studies have shown its potential to detect hypoxic tumors. However, its uptake mechanism and its specificity to various cancer cell lines have been less studied. Herein, we tested ATSM− Cu (II) toxicity, uptake, and reduction, using four different cell types:(1) mouse breast cancer cells (DA‐3),(2) human embryonic kidney cells (HEK‐293),(3) breast cancer cells (MCF‐7), and (4) cervical cancer cells (Hela) under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. We showed that ATSM− Cu (II) is toxic to breast cancer cells under normoxic and hypoxic conditions; however, it is not toxic to normal HEK‐293 non‐cancer cells. We showed that the Cu (I) content in breast cancer cell after treatment with ATSM− Cu (II) under hypoxic conditions is …

Owing to their inherent features like smaller size and higher surface area exposed to reactants, iron oxide nanoparticles have gained enormous interest and are extensively used as magnetically recyclable catalysts for various organic reactions. Herein, we report highly hydrophilic, non-aggregated, and strongly positively charged (ζ potential:+ 45.7 mV) ultra-small cerium cations/complexes-stabilized maghemite nanoparticles in water as an efficient and reusable nanoscaled catalyst for the nucleophilic addition reaction of various amines with α, β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds to give corresponding β-amino derivatives under ultrasonic irradiation. The developed protocol provides several merits such as high product yields, mild reaction conditions, reusable catalyst and easy workup.

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a cancer-related herpesvirus. Like other herpesviruses, the KSHV icosahedral capsid includes a portal vertex, composed of 12 protein subunits encoded by open reading frame (ORF) 43, which enables packaging and release of the viral genome into the nucleus through the nuclear pore complex (NPC). Capsid vertex-specific component (CVSC) tegument proteins, which directly mediate docking at the NPCs, are organized on the capsid vertices and are enriched on the portal vertex. Whether and how the portal vertex is selected for docking at the NPC is unknown. Here, we investigated the docking of incoming ORF43-null KSHV capsids at the NPCs, and describe a significantly lower fraction of capsids attached to the nuclear envelope compared to wild-type (WT) capsids. Like WT capsids, nuclear envelope-associated ORF43-null capsids co-localized with different nucleoporins (Nups) and did not detach upon salt treatment. Inhibition of nuclear export did not alter WT capsid docking. As ORF43-null capsids exhibit lower extent of association with the NPCs, we conclude that although not essential, the portal has a role in mediating the interaction of the CVSC proteins with Nups, and suggest a model whereby WT capsids can dock at the nuclear envelope through a non-portal penton vertex, resulting in an infection ‘dead end’. View Full-Text

A method for fast non-scanning remote photoacoustic imaging is presented and experimentally demonstrated. The approach is based on speckle contrast measurement, proceeding the previously developed method for speckle contrast based photoacoustic detection. This previously developed method is now presented without the need for raster scanning of the sample, an advantage rarely found in optical photoacoustic detection, and offers 50 times faster as well as a simpler remote photoacoustic scheme in respect to interferometric available solutions.

Nanosecond laser pulsed ablation is a common technique for micromachining of microelectronics. Recent laser technologies use temporal shaping of single pulses to create ‘pulse bursts’ of several short consecutive pulses at several times the laser repetition rate with a reduced peak power, achieving significantly higher average powers. In this study we tested the effects of pulse bursts on ablation of multilayer PCB. We show that by implementing temporal beam shaping, we were able to increase the throughput by a factor of 40%. To gain a deeper insight of the laser mater interactions of ablation with pulse bursts, we studied the plasma emissions and monitor the process with a time resolution of several nanoseconds. These results demonstrate the importance of temporal pulse shapes for laser micromachining in the microelectronics industry.

We demonstrate strong coupling between a single J-aggregate and an inverse bowtie plasmonic structure, when the J-aggregate is located at a specific axial distance from the metallic surface. Three hybrid modes are clearly observed, witnessing a strong interaction, with a Rabi splitting of up to 290 meV, the precise value of which significantly depends on the orientation of the J-aggregate with respect to the symmetry axis of the plasmonic structure. We repeated our experiments with a set of triangular hole arrays, showing consistent formation of three or more hybrid modes, in good agreement with numerical simulations.

This paper is an initial proof of concept for an optical speckled-based method for the evaluation of facial nerve paralysis. Differences between the affected and the healthy sides of the face were measured in patients with Bell's palsy—a peripheral facial nerve paralysis. The patients’ faces were illuminated with two symmetrical spots on their nasolabial folds and the reflected speckle patterns were analyzed. Muscle activity was evaluated by muscle tone contraction-release motion inducing associated skin tilting movements. The skin movements were imaged with a defocused lens, which enables extraction of the speckle pattern's time changing trajectory. We found an asymmetry ratio expression that may be the key for the estimation of the degeneration level in Bell's palsy.

There is a growing need for remote monitoring of patients due to a lack of resources and infection control. Current systems use sensors that require constant physical contact with the user, which may result in discomfort or lack of adherence. In the present study, we evaluated the accuracy of a new contact-free system to monitor heart and respiratory rate. Study participants were measured simultaneously using two devices: a contact-free optical system that measures nano-vibrations and movements (investigational device, “Gili Pro BioSensor”) and a standard reference bed-side monitor, inclusive of an electrocardiogram and capnograph modules (Mindray®). Co-primary endpoints included HR and RR accuracy in subjects without active arrhythmias for HR, and for all study populations for RR (i.e., for subjects with and without active arrhythmias). Confirmatory secondary endpoints included HR scored continuously for …

In this paper, we present a novel configuration for an all-fiber tunable infinite impulse response optical filter using stimulated Brillouin scattering. By applying the Brillouin acoustic waves within the coupling area of an optical coupler, we can control its transmissivity and so to affect the spectral response of the IIR optical filter. In this paper, we explain the principle of operation of the proposed device and experimentally demonstrate the ability to control the spectral response of an optical filter based on fiber ring resonator configuration.