Discovery of an Iron-Regulated Citrate Synthase in Staphylococcus aureus

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Highlights? Staphylococcus aureus SbnG is discovered to be an iron-regulated citrate synthase ? SbnG provides citrate for synthesis of the citrate siderophore staphyloferrin B ? Staphyloferrin B can be synthesized in vitro using purified enzymes ? SbnG inhibitors identified     

Some results about the pseudospectral approximation of one-dimensional fourth-order problems

Summary We analyze the pseudospectral approximation of fourth order problems. We give convergence results in the one dimensional case. Numerical experiments are shown in two dimensions for the approximation of the rhombic plate bending problem. Eigenvalues and preconditioning are also investigated.Work performed in the research program of the Istituto di Analisi Numerica del C.N.R., Pavia (Italy)The second author has been sponsored by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, contract He 1624/1-1     

Electronegativity in the local density functional formalism

A theoretical basis for Miedema and coworker's empirical relation between electronegativity and electron density at the boundary of a Wigner-Seitz cell is provided in the framework of local density functional theory. An essential feature of our model is the introduction of an effective mass parameter determined from the zero pressure stability condition for an individual cell. Our results suggest that non local effects play an important role in alloy formation.     

Long-term impacts of battery electric vehicles on the German electricity system

The emerging market for electric vehicles gives rise to an additional electricity demand. This new electricity demand will affect the electricity system. For quantifying those impacts a model-based approach, which covers long-term time horizons is necessary in order to consider the long lasting investment paths in electricity systems and the market development of electric mobility. Therefore, we apply a bottom-up electricity system model showing a detailed spatial resolution for different development paths of electric mobility in Germany until 2030. This model is based on a linear optimization which minimizes the discounted costs of the electricity system. We observe an increase of electricity exchange between countries and electricity generated by renewable energy sources. One major result turns out to be that electric vehicles can be integrated in the electricity system without increasing the system costs when a controlled (postponing) charging strategy for electric vehicles is applied. The impact on the power plant portfolio is insignificant. Another important side effect of electric vehicles is their substantial contribution to decreasing CO₂ emissions of the German transport sector. Hence, electric mobility might be an integral part of a sustainable energy system of tomorrow.     

An adaptive refinement method for convection‐diffusion problems

An adaptive finite difference method for singularly perturbed convection‐diffusion problems is presented. The method is introduced using a first‐order upwind scheme and a suitable error estimator based on the first derivatives. To obtain the grid structure needed for the cross stencil a special refinement strategy is considered. To avoid the slave points we change the stencil at the interface points from a cross to a skew one. After the convergence of the refinement algorithm we use a combination of a first order upwind and a second order central schemes to achieve higher order of convergence. Several numerical examples show the efficiency of our treatment. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Midgestational exposure of pregnant BALB/c mice to magnetic resonance imaging conditions

The potential for producing reproductive toxicity or teratogenesis in mice by exposure to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) conditions was evaluated by means of reproduction studies and the homeotic shift test. Embryos from pregnant BALB/c mice were exposed in vivo for 16 hours beginning on gestation day 8.75 to MRI conditions of modest field strength (static field, 0.35 tesla (T); pulsed gradients, 2.3 X 10(-4) T/cm for 2.5 to 10 msec; and radio frequency, 15 MHz at an average of 61.2 mW). Unexposed, sham-exposed (both MRI and X-ray) and X-irradiated (0.5 Gy) animals were the control groups. Neither placental resorptions nor stillbirths were increased by MRI. Fetal weight at birth and crown-rump length were proportional; however, crown-rump length was significantly less (p less than 0.001) in the MRI-exposed fetuses (respective mean values for MRI-exposed fetuses were 21.8 +/- 0.2 mm compared to 22.4 +/- 0.1 for sham-exposed fetuses). Both crown-rump length and fetal weight were significantly reduced after X-irradiation. The percentage of homeotic skeletal shifts was scored for each of eight anatomic sites. Only X-radiation produced significant increases in skeletal shifts. Prolonged midgestational exposure of mice to MRI conditions currently used for human clinical imaging, therefore, failed to reveal overt embryotoxicity (resorptions, stillbirths) or teratogenicity (homeotic shifts), consistent with the non-ionizing properties of MR. However, the slight but significant reduction in fetal crown-rump length after prolonged exposure justifies further study of higher MRI energy levels and consideration of other endpoints for establishing with greater confidence the safety of MRI during pregnancy.     

Nucleation Phenomenon in Silica Xerogels and Pd/SiO2, Ag/SiO2, Cu/SiO2 Cogelled Catalysts

Pd/SiO₂, Ag/SiO₂ and Cu/SiO₂ xerogel catalysts have been synthesized by cogelation of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and chelates of Pd, Ag and Cu with 3-(2-aminoethylamino)propyltrimethoxysilane (EDAS). It appears that, in cogelled samples, the metal complex acts as a nucleation agent in the formation of silica particles. The resulting catalysts are then composed of completely accessible metallic crystallites with a diameter of about 3 nm located inside silica porous particles with a monodisperse microporous distribution. Xerogels without metal synthesized with EDAS and TEOS (C. Alié, R. Pirard, A.J. Lecloux, and J.-P. Pirard, J. Non-Cryst. Solids 289, 88 (2001)) verify this hypothesis of nucleation by EDAS.     

A splitting technique of higher order for the Navier–Stokes equations

This article presents a splitting technique for solving the time dependent incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. Using nested finite element spaces which can be interpreted as a postprocessing step the splitting method is of more than second order accuracy in time. The integration of adaptive methods in space and time in the splitting are discussed. In this algorithm, a gradient recovery technique is used to compute boundary conditions for the pressure and to achieve a higher convergence order for the gradient at different points of the algorithm. Results on the ‘Flow around a cylinder’s- and the ‘Driven Cavity’s-problem are presented.     

Theory of the plasmon contribution to the surface energy of metals

The contribution of zero-point plasma oscillations to the surface energy of metals is studied by including single-particle dispersion effects, which play an essential role. In a simple model we find that the collective contribution scales as $\text{r}{}_{\mathrm{s}}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>?</mtext><mtext>5</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$, has a natural short-wavelength cut-off and is approximately four times smaller than the result of an earlier local treatment.     

Sol–gel preparation of pure and doped TiO2 films for the photocatalytic oxidation of ethanol in air

Stable sols of TiO₂ were synthesized by a non-aqueous sol–gel process using titanium (IV) isopropoxide as precursor. The microstructure, optical and morphological properties of the films obtained by spin-coating from the sol, and annealed at different temperatures, were investigated using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and ellipsometry. The crystalline structure of the films was characterized by X-ray diffraction and their photocatalytic activity was evaluated for the oxidation of ethanol in air. The influence of the calcination temperature, pre-heat treatment and the number of layers was studied. Simultaneous thermo-gravimetric and differential thermal analysis measurements were carried out to ascertain the thermal decomposition behavior of the precursors. In order to obtain a higher photoresponse in the visible region, a series of vanadium-, niobium- and tantalum-doped TiO₂ catalysts was synthesized by the same sol–gel method. For V doping two different precursors, a vanadium alkoxide and V₂O₅, were used. The effect on the crystallization and photocatalytic activity of the doped TiO₂ films was investigated. Furthermore, to identify the effective composition of the samples, they were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the surface area of the powders was measured by N₂ adsorption. The 10 wt.% doped catalysts exhibit high photocatalytic activity under visible light and among them the best performance was obtained for the sample containing Ta as dopant. The crystallite sizes are closely related to the photocatalytic activity.