Antimicrobial and Amyloidogenic Activity of Peptides. Can Antimicrobial Peptides Be Used against SARS-CoV-2?

At present, much attention is paid to the use of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) of natural and artificial origin to combat pathogens. AMPs have several points that determine their biological activity. We analyzed the structural properties of AMPs, as well as described their mechanism of action and impact on pathogenic bacteria and viruses. Recently published data on the development of new AMP drugs based on a combination of molecular design and genetic engineering approaches are presented. In this article, we have focused on information on the amyloidogenic properties of AMP. This review examines AMP development strategies from the perspective of the current high prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the potential prospects and challenges of using AMPs against infection caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).     

Contract-theoretic Approach for Delay Constrained Offloading in Vehicular Edge Computing Networks

Mobile Networks and Applications - Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a promising solution to improve vehicular services through offloading computation to cloud servers in close proximity to mobile...     

Aluminiumhydroxychlorid-Flockungsmittel aus dem Kupferrecycling aus Abfällen der Leiterplattenproduktion

The production of printed circuit boards using the printing process produces considerable quantities of copper-containing etching solutions. The copper is recovered from the ammoniacal etching baths by cementation with aluminum waste at ≥ 99 % Cu yield rates. Instead of the usual landfilling, the aluminum-containing solution is processed into a coagulant which can be used in the treatment of mining tailings and wastewater. The aluminum oxychloride produced in this way was characterized in detail and its effectiveness as a flocculant for a finely dispersed system (kaolin suspension) was investigated and confirmed in a jar test.     

Local dimensionality reduction and supervised learning within natural clusters for biomedical data analysis.

Inductive learning systems were successfully applied in a number of medical domains. Nevertheless, the effective use of these systems often requires data preprocessing before applying a learning algorithm. This is especially important for multidimensional heterogeneous data presented by a large number of features of different types. Dimensionality reduction (DR) is one commonly applied approach. The goal of this paper is to study the impact of natural clustering--clustering according to expert domain knowledge--on DR for supervised learning (SL) in the area of antibiotic resistance. We compare several data-mining strategies that apply DR by means of feature extraction or feature selection with subsequent SL on microbiological data. The results of our study show that local DR within natural clusters may result in better representation for SL in comparison with the global DR on the whole data.     

Reentrant superconducting transport behavior of single grain boundary Josephson junction in BaPb1−xBixO3 Bicrystals

Critical current and resistance of a single grain boundary in bulk bicrystals of the oxide superconductor BaPb_1–x Bi _x 0₃ show a reentrant behavior in the temperature region below critical temperature of single crystal blocks. We established that the reentrant behavior is related to intrinsic properties of a barrier of single grain boundary Josephson junctions in the bicrystals. Origin and structure of the tunneling barrier in the bicrystals under study are discussed.     

Cobalt-Catalyzed Green Cross-Dehydrogenative C(sp<Superscript>2</Superscript>)-H/P-H Coupling Reactions

Joined electrolysis of arenes (benzene or coumarin derivatives) and diethyl-H-phosphonate (EtO)₂P(O)H in the presence of [CoCl₂(bpy)] catalyst (5%) in an ethanol-aqueous solution in reductive conditions allows obtaining the desired products in a single step by aromatic C–H bonds phosphonation with yields up to 70%. The only by-product is hydrogen; the reaction proceeds at room temperature and does not require specially added reducing agents and oxidants or other initiators. Radical mechanism has been confirmed for the catalytic reaction proceeding via bicobalt phosphonates with Co–P bond, the structure of which also has been identified.     

Thermal Properties of Ultra- and Nanodispersed Core–Shell Structures of Ti(Mo)C and Ti(Mo)C-Co Obtained During Plasma-Chemical Synthesis by Plasma Recondensation Scheme

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B - In this work, the thermal studies of ultrafine and nanocrystalline core–shell structures of Ti(Mo)C and Ti(Mo)C-Co formed in the process of plasma...     

Multifunctional magnetic rotator for micro and nanorheological studies

We report on the development of a multifunctional magnetic rotator that has been built and used during the last five years by two groups from Clemson and Drexel Universities studying the rheological properties of microdroplets. This magnetic rotator allows one to generate rotating magnetic fields in a broad frequency band, from hertz to tens kilohertz. We illustrate its flexibility and robustness by conducting the rheological studies of simple and polymeric fluids at the nano and microscale. First we reproduce a temperature-dependent viscosity of a synthetic oil used as a viscosity standard. Magnetic rotational spectroscopy with suspended nickel nanorods was used in these studies. As a second example, we converted the magnetic rotator into a pump with precise controlled flow modulation. Using multiwalled carbon nanotubes, we were able to estimate the shear modulus of sickle hemoglobin polymer. We believe that this multifunctional magnetic system will be useful not only for micro and nanorheological studies, but it will find much broader applications requiring remote controlled manipulation of micro and nanoobjects.     

The structure and bonding of Ni3Sn

The electronic structure of Ni₃Sn was calculated at ab initio levels for the crystal structure of the low-temperature modification of Ni₃Sn refined upon data of single-crystal X-ray diffractometry (P6₃/mmc, a=5.2950(7), c=4.247(1) Å, R=0.0288). The calculations were made with the use of fixed Gaussian (CRYSTAL98 software) and energy-dependent (Stuttgart TB-LMTO-ASA software) basis sets. Difference electron charge density maps were analysed and compared with that of a hypothetical hcp Ni in order to understand bonding in Ni₃Sn. It was found that bonding in Ni₃Sn has multicentre character with Ni–Sn interaction stronger than Ni–Ni one.     

Samarium-Doped Nickel Oxide for Superior Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells: Insight into Doping Effect for Electronic Applications

Hole transport layers (HTLs) play a key role in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), particularly in the inverted PSCs (IPSCs) that demand more in its stability. In this study, samarium-doped nickel oxide (Sm:NiO_x) nanoparticles are synthesized via a chemical precipitation method and deposited as a hole transport layer in the IPSCs. Sm³⁺ doping can reduce the formation energy of Ni vacancy and naturally increase the density of Ni vacancies, thereby rendering increased hole density. Thenceforth, the electronic conductivity is enhanced significantly, and work function enlarged in the Sm:NiO_x film in favor of extracting holes and suppressing charge recombination. Consequently, the Sm:NiO_x-based IPSCs attain outstanding power conversion efficiencies as high as 20.71%. Even when it is applied in flexible solar cells, it still outputs efficiency as high as 17.95%. More importantly, the Sm:NiO_x is compatible with large-scale processing whereby the large area IPSCs of 1.0 cm² and 40 × 40 mm² deliver high efficiencies of 18.51% and 15.27%, respectively, all are among the highest for the inorganic HTLs based IPSCs. This research demonstrates that, while revealing the doping effect in depth, Sm:NiO_x can be a promising hole transport material for fabricating efficient, large-area, and flexible IPSCs in the future.