Thermal conduction in molecular chains: non-Markovian effects

We study the effect of non-Markovian reservoirs on the heat conduction properties of short to intermediate size molecular chains. Using classical molecular dynamics simulations, we show that the distance dependence of the heat current is determined not only by the molecular properties, rather it is also critically influenced by the spectral properties of the heat baths, for both harmonic and anharmonic molecular chains. For highly correlated reservoirs the current of an anharmonic chain may exceed the flux of the corresponding harmonic system. Our numerical results are accompanied by a simple single-mode heat conduction model that can capture the intricate distance dependence obtained numerically.     

Light‐triggered antifouling coatings for porous silicon optical transducers

Nanostructured porous silicon (PSi) is an attractive platform for the design of biosensors because of its high sensitivity and selectivity towards various biological targets. Its use for biosensing applications, however, is compromised as a result of interfacial interactions with biological molecules that may accumulate on their surfaces and degrade their performance. We describe a new hybrid system comprising an oxidized PSi (PSiO₂) nanostructure and antifouling (anti‐adsorption), light‐triggered pre‐polymers that promote crosslinking and surface anchoring to Si walls. The incorporation of the pre‐polymers allowed the production of a thick hydrogel layer on the inorganic nanostructure. Coating completely prevents fouling of proteins on the surface without compromising biosensor performance in terms of sensitivity. The strategy developed here provides a convenient means to combine two distinct features of crosslinking and organic–inorganic hybrid fabrication in a “one‐pot” process. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linear positive magnetoresistance and quantum interference in ferromagnetic metals

Positive, linear in field, and isotropic magnetoresistance in fields up to 60 T is found in geometrically constrained ferromagnets, such as thin films of iron, nickel, and cobalt and their granular mixtures with nonmagnetic materials. The resistivity measured as a function of temperature shows a minimum at temperatures reaching a remarkably high 92 K, followed by logarithmic dependence at low temperatures. We propose to explain both phenomena by a modified version of the quantum electron-electron interaction theory. The agreement is only qualitative while the observed magnitude of the magnetoresistance slope is much larger than the calculated one.     

Monitoring and Targeting the Initial Dimerization Stage of Amyloid Self‐Assembly

Amyloid deposits are pathological hallmark of a large group of human degenerative disorders of unrelated etiologies. While accumulating evidence suggests that early oligomers may account for tissue degeneration, most detection tools do not allow the monitoring of early association events. Here we exploit bimolecular fluorescence complementation analysis to detect and quantify the dimerization of three major amyloidogenic polypeptides; islet amyloid polypeptide, β‐amyloid and α‐synuclein. The constructed systems provided direct visualization of protein‐protein interactions in which only assembled dimers display strong fluorescent signal. Potential inhibitors that interfere with the initial intermolecular interactions of islet amyloid polypeptide were further identified using this system. Moreover, the identified compounds were able to inhibit the aggregation and cytotoxicity of islet amyloid polypeptide, demonstrating the importance of targeting amyloid dimer formation for future drug development.     

Synthesis and antioxidant capacity of 5-selenopyranose derivatives

Described is a convenient method for the syntheses of sulfur and selenium containing carbohydrate derivatives of L-gulodeoxynojirimycin and the corresponding C-5 epimer D-mannodeoxynojirimycin. The key step in the synthesis of the latter involves epimerisation of the C-5 hydroxyl group by an oxidation followed by stereo-selective reduction to obtain the desired D-sugar derivative. Both derivatives displayed a dose-dependent prevention of the oxidation of methionine residues on human plasma proteins induced by the inflammatory oxidant hypochlorous acid. The seleno-analogues were considerably more active than their thio-equivalents.     

Synthesis and cytotoxicity of pyridine and quinoline oxorhenium(V) complexes with tridentate (NS2, S3)/monodentate (s) coordination*

New oxorhenium complexes with tridentate 3-thia- and 3-methylazapentane-1,5-dithiolate and monodentate pyridine and quinoline derivatives have been synthesized. As a result of investigation of biological activity a high cytotoxicity was found for the synthesized complexes in relation to tumor cells. The specificity of the 2-pyridylthiolato[3-(N-methyl)azapentane-1,5-dithiolato]oxorhenium(V) cytotoxic action towards cells of mouse hepatoma MG-22A on a background of low acute toxicity was established.     

Improved sparse fourier approximation results: faster implementations and stronger guarantees

We study the problem of quickly estimating the best k-term Fourier representation for a given periodic function f: [0, 2π] → ?. Solving this problem requires the identification of k of the largest magnitude Fourier series coefficients of f in worst case k ² · log ^O(1) N time. Randomized sublinear-time Monte Carlo algorithms, which have a small probability of failing to output accurate answers for each input signal, have been developed for solving this problem (Gilbert et al. 2002, 2005). These methods were implemented as the Ann Arbor Fast Fourier Transform (AAFFT) and empirically evaluated in Iwen et al. (Commun Math Sci 5(4):981–998, 2007). In this paper we present a new implementation, called the Gopher Fast Fourier Transform (GFFT), of more recently developed sparse Fourier transform techniques (Iwen, Found Comput Math 10(3):303–338, 2010, Appl Comput Harmon Anal, 2012). Experiments indicate that GFFT is faster than AAFFT. In addition to our empirical evaluation, we also consider the existence of sublinear-time Fourier approximation methods with deterministic approximation guarantees for functions whose sequences of Fourier series coefficents are compressible. In particular, we prove the existence of sublinear-time Las Vegas Fourier Transforms which improve on the recent deterministic Fourier approximation results of Iwen (Found Comput Math 10(3):303–338, 2010, Appl Comput Harmon Anal, 2012) for Fourier compressible functions by guaranteeing accurate answers while using an asymptotically near-optimal number of function evaluations.     

Dynamics of laser-cooled Ca+ ions in a Penning trap with a rotating wall

We have performed systematic measurements of the dynamics of laser-cooled ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ions confined in a Penning trap and driven by a rotating dipole field (‘rotating wall’). The trap used is a copy of the one used in the SPECTRAP experiment located at the HITRAP facility at GSI, Germany. The size and shape of the ion cloud has been monitored using a CCD camera to image the fluorescence light resulting from excitation by the cooling laser. We have varied the experimental conditions such as amplitude and frequency of the rotating wall drive as well as the trapping parameters. The rotating wall can be used for a radial compression of the ion cloud thus increasing the ion density in the trap. We have also observed plasma mode excitations in agreement with theoretical expectations. This work will allow us to define the optimum parameters for high compression of the ions as needed for precision spectroscopy of forbidden transitions.     

Analysis Technique for Exceptional Points in Open Quantum Systems and QPT Analogy for the Appearance of Irreversibility

We propose an analysis technique for the exceptional points (EPs) occurring in the discrete spectrum of open quantum systems (OQS), using a semi-infinite chain coupled to an endpoint impurity as a prototype. We outline our method to locate the EPs in OQS, further obtaining an eigenvalue expansion in the vicinity of the EPs that gives rise to characteristic exponents. We also report the precise number of EPs occurring in an OQS with a continuum described by a quadratic dispersion curve. In particular, the number of EPs occurring in a bare discrete Hamiltonian of dimension n _D is given by n _D(n _D−1); if this discrete Hamiltonian is then coupled to continuum (or continua) to form an OQS, the interaction with the continuum generally produces an enlarged discrete solution space that includes a greater number of EPs, specifically , in which n _C is the number of (non-degenerate) continua to which the discrete sector is attached. Finally, we offer a heuristic quantum phase transition analogy for the emergence of the resonance (giving rise to irreversibility via exponential decay) in which the decay width plays the role of the order parameter; the associated critical exponent is then determined by the above eigenvalue expansion.