Defects-engineered tailoring of tri-doped interlinked metal-free bifunctional catalyst with lower gibbs free energy of OER/HER intermediates for overall water splitting

Controllable tailoring of metal-free/carbon-based nanostructures tends an encouraging way to enhance the bifunctional activity of electrodes, but a great challenge owing to the sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, a facile tempted-defects assisted fractionation strategy is presented to synthesize N, S, and O tri-doped metal-free catalyst (DE-TDAP). Due to this effective tempted-defects and heteroatoms interlinking in DE-TDAP, it delivers the lowest overpotential toward both the OER (346 mV) and HER (154 mV) at 10 mA cm^?2. Remarkably, the DE-TDAP-electrode carries only a cell voltage of 1.81 V at 10 mA cm^?2 for overall water splitting and long-term stability. Considerably, the density functional theory (DFT) calculation exposes that the tailored-defects in tri-doped interlinking could enhance bifunctional catalytic performance devising from lower Gibbs free energy of OER/HER intermediates on active sites. This struggle henceforth provides a perceptive understanding of the synergetic principles of heteroatom-interlinking-tailoring nanostructures in water splitting.     

In Vitro Inhibitory Analysis of Rationally Designed siRNAs against MERS-CoV Replication in Huh7 Cells

MERS-CoV was identified for the first time in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2012 in a hospitalized patient. This virus subsequently spread to 27 countries with a total of 939 deaths and 2586 confirmed cases and now has become a serious concern globally. Camels are well known for the transmission of the virus to the human population. In this report, we have discussed the prediction, designing, and evaluation of potential siRNA targeting the ORF1ab gene for the inhibition of MERS-CoV replication. The online software, siDirect 2.0 was used to predict and design the siRNAs, their secondary structure and their target accessibility. ORF1ab gene folding was performed by RNAxs and RNAfold software. A total of twenty-one siRNAs were selected from 462 siRNAs according to their scoring and specificity. siRNAs were evaluated in vitro for their cytotoxicity and antiviral efficacy in Huh7 cell line. No significant cytotoxicity was observed for all siRNAs in Huh7 cells. The in vitro study showed the inhibition of viral replication by three siRNAs. The data generated in this study provide preliminary and encouraging information to evaluate the siRNAs separately as well as in combination against MERS-CoV replication in other cell lines. The prediction of siRNAs using online software resulted in the filtration and selection of potential siRNAs with high accuracy and strength. This computational approach resulted in three effective siRNAs that can be taken further to in vivo animal studies and can be used to develop safe and effective antiviral therapies for other prevalent disease-causing viruses.     

A family of explicit linear six-step methods with vanished phase-lag and its first derivative

A family of explicit linear sixth algebraic order six-step methods with vanished phase-lag and its first derivative is obtained in this paper. The investigation of the above family of methods contains:

theoretical study of the new family of methods and

computational study of the new family of methods.

The theoretical study of the above mentioned family of methods contains:

1. the development of the method,
2. the computation of the local truncation error,
3. the comparative local truncation error analysis. The comparison is taken place between the new family of methods with the corresponding method with constant coefficients and
4. the stability analysis of the new family of methods. The stability analysis is taken place using test equation with different frequency than the frequency of the test equation used for the phase-lag analysis of the methods.

The application of the new family of linear six-step sixth algebraic order methods to the resonance problem of the one-dimensional time independent Schrödinger equation is used for the computational study of the new family of methods. The result of the above mentioned theoretical and computational investigation is that the new proposed family of linear explicit schemes are computationally and theoretically more effective than other well known methods for the approximate solution of the radial Schrödinger equation and related initial or boundary value problems with periodic and/or oscillating solutions.     

Effect of Cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica) and Acacia (Acacia seyal) Gums on the Pasting,Thermal, Textural,and Rheological Properties of Corn,Sweet Potato,and Turkish Bean Starches

This study was planned to explore the locally available natural sources of gum hydrocolloids as a natural modifier of different starch properties. Corn (CS), sweet potato (SPS), and Turkish bean (TBS) starches were mixed with locally extracted native or acetylated cactus (CG) and acacia (AG) gums at 2 and 5% replacement levels. The binary mixtures (starch–gums) were prepared in water, freeze dried, ground to powder, and stored airtight. A rapid viscoanalyzer (RVA), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), texture analyzer, and dynamic rheometer were used to explore their pasting, thermal, textural, and rheological properties. The presence of acetylated AG or CG increased the final viscosity (FV) in all three starches when compared to starch pastes containing native gums. Plain SPS dispersion had a higher pasting temperature (PT) than CS and TBS. The addition of AG or CG increased the PT of CS, SPS, and TBS. The thermograms revealed the overall enthalpy change of the starch and gum blends: TBS > SPS > CS. The peak temperature (T_p) of starches increased with increasing gum concentration from 2 to 5% for both AG and CG native and modified gums. When compared to the control gels, the addition of 2% CG, either native or modified, reduced the syneresis of starch gels. However, further addition (5% CG) increased the gels’ syneresis. Furthermore, the syneresis for the first cycle on the fourth day was higher than the second cycle on the eighth day for all starches. The addition of native and acetylated CG reduced the hardness of starch gels at all concentrations tested. All of the starch dispersions had higher G′ than G″ values, indicating that they were more elastic and less viscous with or without the gums. The apparent viscosity of all starch gels decreased as shear was increased, with profiles indicating time-dependent thixotropic behavior. All of the starch gels, with or without gums, showed a non-Newtonian shear thinning trend in the shear stress vs. shear rate graphs. The addition of acetylated CG gum to CS resulted in a higher activation energy (Ea) than the native counterparts and the control. More specifically, starch gels with a higher gum concentration (5%) provided greater Ea than their native counterparts.     

New measurements and reanalysis of 14N elastic scattering on 10B target

The angular distributions of elastic scattering of ¹⁴N ions on ¹⁰B targets have been measured at incident beam energies of 21.0 and 24.5 MeV. Angular distributions at higher energies 38–94.0 MeV (previously measured) were also included in the analysis. All data were analyzed within the framework of the optical model and the distorted waves Born approximation method. The observed rise in cross sections at large angles was interpreted as a possible contribution of the α-cluster exchange mechanism. Spectroscopic amplitudes SA₂ and SA₄ for the configuration ¹⁴N→ ¹⁰B +α were extracted. Their average values are 0.58±0.10 and 0.81±0.12 for SA₂ and SA₄, respectively, suggesting that the exchange mechanism is a major component of the elastic scattering for this system. The energy dependence of the depths for the real and imaginary potentials was found.