Enhancement of bioelectrochemical dioxygen reduction with oxygen-enriching materials

Bioelectrochemical dioxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyzed by multi-copper oxidases (MCOs) is a process of paramount importance occurring at the cathode of enzymatic biofuel cells (EBFCs), which is an energy harvester that holds promise of self-sustained implantable and wearable medical devices. The MCO biocathode is, however, frequently the limiting factor of a working EBFC. Besides the operational stability issue, enzymatic biocathodes are largely constrained by the relatively low solubility of dioxygen in aqueous solution. As an emerging topic, we here review the introduction of dioxygen-enriching materials to the cathodic bioelectrode for overcoming the dioxygen supply limitation, leading to improved ORR performance.     

Compactness and convergence rates in the combinatorial integral approximation decomposition

The combinatorial integral approximation decomposition splits the optimization of a discrete-valued control into two steps: solving a continuous relaxation of the discrete control problem, and computing a discrete-valued approximation of the relaxed control. Different algorithms exist for the second step to construct piecewise constant discrete-valued approximants that are defined on given decompositions of the domain. It is known that the resulting discrete controls can be constructed such that they converge to a relaxed control in the \(\hbox {weak}^*\) topology of \(L^\infty \) if the grid constant of this decomposition is driven to zero. We exploit this insight to formulate a general approximation result for optimization problems, which feature discrete and distributed optimization variables, and which are governed by a compact control-to-state operator. We analyze the topology induced by the grid refinements and prove convergence rates of the control vectors for two problem classes. We use a reconstruction problem from signal processing to demonstrate both the applicability of the method outside the scope of differential equations, the predominant case in the literature, and the effectiveness of the approach.

     

Judith R. Goodstein: Einstein’s Italian Mathematicians – Ricci,Levi-Civita,and the Birth of General Relativity

Mathematische Semesterberichte -     

Some geometric inequalities for varifolds on Riemannian manifolds based on monotonicity identities

Annals of Global Analysis and Geometry - Using Rauch’s comparison theorem, we prove several monotonicity inequalities for Riemannian submanifolds. Our main result is a general Li–Yau...     

How to speed up the detection of aerobic microbial contaminations by using isothermal microcalorimetry

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - A sudden expansion is a classical problem which is happened in different industries such as energy conversion, environmental control, and chemical...     

Dynamics of Bacteriorhodopsin in the Dark-Adapted State from Solution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

To achieve efficient proton pumping in the light-driven proton pump bacteriorhodopsin (bR), the protein must be tightly coupled to the retinal to rapidly convert retinal isomerization into protein structural rearrangements. Methyl group dynamics of bR embedded in lipid nanodiscs were determined in the dark-adapted state, and were found to be mostly well ordered at the cytosolic side. Methyl groups in the M145A mutant of bR, which displays only 10 % residual proton pumping activity, are less well ordered, suggesting a link between side-chain dynamics on the cytosolic side of the bR cavity and proton pumping activity. In addition, slow conformational exchange, attributed to low frequency motions of aromatic rings, was indirectly observed for residues on the extracellular side of the bR cavity. This may be related to reorganization of the water network. These observations provide a detailed picture of previously undescribed equilibrium dynamics on different time scales for ground-state bR.