Do chemically saturated antihyperon abundancies signal the quark gluon plasma?

We first review the production and the possible chemical equilibration of strange particles at CERN-SPS energies within a microscopic hadronic transport calculation. It is shown in particular that the strange quarks are produced initially via string excitations in the primary, secondary and ternary interactions. We then further elaborate on a recent idea of antihyperon production by multi-mesonic reactions like $n_1 \pi + n_2 K \to \bar Y + p$ corresponding to the inverse of the strong binary baryon-antibaryon annihilation process. It is argued that by these reactions the (rare) antihyperons are driven towards local chemical equilibrium with pions, nucleons and kaons on a timescale of 1–3 fm/c in the still moderately baryon-dense initial hadronic environment after the termination of the prehadronic string phase. Accordingly this mechanism can provide a convenient explanation for the antihyperon yields at CERN-SPS energies without any need of a deconfined quark gluon plasma phase.     

Modular Breath Analyzer (MBA): Introduction of a Breath Analyzer Platform Based on an Innovative and Unique,Modular eNose Concept for Breath Diagnostics and Utilization of Calibration Transfer Methods in Breath Analysis Studies

Exhaled breath analysis for early disease detection may provide a convenient method for painless and non-invasive diagnosis. In this work, a novel, compact and easy-to-use breath analyzer platform with a modular sensing chamber and direct breath sampling unit is presented. The developed analyzer system comprises a compact, low volume, temperature-controlled sensing chamber in three modules that can host any type of resistive gas sensor arrays. Furthermore, in this study three modular breath analyzers are explicitly tested for reproducibility in a real-life breath analysis experiment with several calibration transfer (CT) techniques using transfer samples from the experiment. The experiment consists of classifying breath samples from 15 subjects before and after eating a specific meal using three instruments. We investigate the possibility to transfer calibration models across instruments using transfer samples from the experiment under study, since representative samples of human breath at some conditions are difficult to simulate in a laboratory. For example, exhaled breath from subjects suffering from a disease for which the biomarkers are mostly unknown. Results show that many transfer samples of all the classes under study (in our case meal/no meal) are needed, although some CT methods present reasonably good results with only one class.     

Improving the efficiency of thin film tandem solar cells by plasmonic intermediate reflectors

Thin film tandem solar cells made of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon provide renewable energy at the benefit of low material consumption. As a drawback, these materials do not posses the high carrier mobilities of their crystalline counterpart which limits the feasible material thickness. For maintaining the light absorption as high as possible, photon management is required. Here we show that metallic nanodiscs that sustain localized plasmon polaritons can increase the efficiency of such solar cells if they are incorporated into the dielectric intermediate reflector separating the top and the bottom cell. We provide quantitative estimates for the possible absorption enhancement of optimized bi-periodic nanodiscs that are feasible for fabrication. Emphasis is also put on discussing the impact of obliquely incident sun light on the solar cell performance.     

A convergent adaptive finite element method for an optimal design problem

The optimal design problem for maximal torsion stiffness of an infinite bar of given geometry and unknown distribution of two materials of prescribed amounts is one model example in topology optimisation. It eventually leads to a degenerate convex minimisation problem. The numerical analysis is therefore delicate for possibly multiple primal variables u but unique derivatives σ : = DW(D u). Even fine a posteriori error estimates still suffer from the reliability-efficiency gap. However, it motivates a simple edge-based adaptive mesh-refining algorithm (AFEM) that is not a priori guaranteed to refine everywhere. Its convergence proof is therefore based on energy estimates and some refined convexity control. Numerical experiments illustrate even nearly optimal convergence rates of the proposed AFEM. Supported by the DFG Research Center MATHEON “Mathematics for key technologies” in Berlin.     

IDENTIFICATION OF MEMBRANE PROTEINS IMAGED BY ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY USING A TEMPLATE MATCHING ALGORITHM

The atomic force microscope allows to image biological samples in their native environment. But the identification and the topography of individual randomly distributed membrane proteins is still a challenge. We used membranes of isolated vacuoles of barley mesophyll cells. Images at low resolution indicate that vacuoles spontaneously attach, rupture and finally adsorb completely as planar membrane to mica. Height profiles indicate that the membrane at the peripheral boundary exposes the extravacuolar surface to the scanning tip. At molecular resolution a template matching correlation algorithm was used to identify the most abundant membrane protein, the vacuolar H⁺-ATPase by the characteristic extravacuolar head of the transport molecule. The data indicate the possibility to analyse single randomly distributed membrane proteins in their native environment with the knowledge of a suitable template.     

Synthesis of the selective antimuscarinic agent 4-{[cyclohexylhydroxy(2-methoxyphenyl)silyl]-methyl}-1,1-dimethylpiperazinium methyl sulfate (o-methoxy-sila-hexocyclium methyl sulfate)

The synthesis of the potent and highly selective silicon-containing antimuscarinic agent o-methoxysila-hexocyclium methyl sulfate and its corresponding tertiary amine (isolated as the dihydrochloride) is described. The quarternary compound is an o-methoxy derivative of sila-hexocyclium methyl sulfate, which represents one of the tools currently used in experimental pharmacology for the subclassification of muscarinic receptors. The o-methoxy derivative, the pharmacological profile of which differs substantially from that of the nonmethoxy compound, is also recommended as a tool for the investigation of muscarinic receptor heterogeneity.