Zinc porphyrin with phenoxy-bridged pentacoordinate bis(8-hydroxyquinaldinate)gallium lateral pendants: synthesis and photophysical characterization

This communication reports the synthesis of polymetallic species formed by a zinc-tetraphenolporphyrinate core (ZnTPP(OH)₄, 1) and peripheral gallium-quinaldinate fragments. The photophysical analysis of 1 and of the model compound , R, shows an appreciable overlap between the absorption spectra of 1 and the emission spectra of R, suggesting the presence of a donor–acceptor energy-transfer process. Contrarily, the obtained results indicated that energy transfer does not occur, hence these polymetallic complexes work as double emitting species, for which the colour of luminescence depends on the excitation energy.     

Pathogenic Mutations Shift the Equilibria of α‐Synuclein Single Molecules towards Structured Conformers

α‐synuclein (α‐Syn) is an abundant brain protein whose mutations have been linked to early‐onset Parkinson's disease (PD). We recently demonstrated, by means of a single‐molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) methodology, that the conformational equilibrium of monomeric wild‐type (WT) α‐Syn shifts toward β‐containing structures in several unrelated conditions linked to PD pathogenicity. Herein, we follow the same methodology previously employed for WT α‐Syn to characterize the conformational heterogeneity of pathological α‐Syn mutants A30P, A53T, and E46K. Contrary to the bulk ensemble‐averaged spectroscopies so far employed to this end by different authors, our single‐molecule methodology monitored marked differences in the conformational behaviors of the mutants with respect to the WT sequence. We found that all the mutants have a much higher propensity than the WT to adopt a monomeric compact conformation that is compatible with the acquiring of β structure. Mutants A30P and A53T show a similar conformational equilibrium that is significantly different from that of E46K. Another class of conformations, stabilized by mechanically weak interactions (MWI), shows a higher variety in the mutants than in the WT protein. In the A30P mutant these interactions are relatively stronger, and therefore the corresponding conformations are possibly more structured. The more structured and globular conformations of the mutants can explain their higher propensity to aggregate with respect to the WT.     

Morphology and electrochemical activity of SOFC composite cathodes: II. Mathematical modelling

This paper presents a mathematical model of mass and charge transport and electrochemical reaction in porous composite cathodes for application in solid oxide fuel cells. The model describes a porous composite cathode as a continuum, and characterises charge and mass transfer and electrochemical kinetics using effective parameters (i.e. conductivity, diffusivity, exchange current) related to morphology and material properties by percolation theory. The model accounts for the distribution of morphological properties (i.e. porosity, tortuosity, density of contacts among particles) along cathode thickness, as experimentally observed on scanning electron microscope images of LSM/YSZ cathodes of varying thickness. This feature allows the model to reproduce the dependence of polarisation resistance on thickness, as determined by impedance spectroscopy on LSM/YSZ cathodes of varying thickness. Polarisation resistance in these cathodes is almost constant for thin cathodes (up to 10 μm thickness), it sharply decreases for intermediate thickness, to reach a minimum value for about 50 μm thickness, then it slightly increases in thicker cathodes.     

Facilitating the migration to the microservice architecture via model-driven reverse engineering and reinforcement learning

The microservice architecture has gained remarkable attention in recent years. Microservices allow developers to implement and deploy independent services, so they are a naturally effective architecture for continuously deployed systems. Because of this, several organizations are undertaking the costly process of manually migrating their traditional software architectures to microservices. The research in this paper aims at facilitating the migration from monolithic software architectures to microservices. We propose a framework which enables software developers/architects to migrate their software systems more efficiently by helping them remodularize the source code of their systems. The framework leverages model-driven reverse engineering to obtain a model of the legacy system and reinforcement learning to propose a mapping of this model toward a set of microservices.

     

Enhancement of interconnected power system stability using a control strategy involving static phase shifters

The static phase shifting transformer is one of the potential options of the recently proposed FACTS (flexible AC transmission systems). Promising results have been obtained for enhancing the small-disturbance and the transient stability of interconnected power systems.

In this paper, the important concept of involving in the same control strategy both generating units and static phase shifters has been considered. A systematic procedure for designing co-ordinated and decentralized controllers of these components is provided to assure a satisfactory dynamic performance of an interconnected power system under both small and large perturbations. The approach uses optimal control theory as a basis for the co-ordination of static phase shifter and governor controllers. A suboptimal decentralized control scheme is derived from the designed optimal controller by using a ‘minimum norm’ nearness criterion. The resulting feedback control signals for each generating unit and for each phase shifter is expressed in terms of measurable and local variables only.

Test results show the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy and the usefulness of control actions on static phase shifters.