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This paper reports on the fabrication and performance of a fiber bundle with seven hollow cores arranged in a hexagonal pattern. The bundle shows individual core transmission with less than 0.07% core-to-core coupling over a length of 11 cm. Each core exhibits several transmission windows in the visible to near infrared region. These low attenuation regions with large higher order mode suppression are a result of anti-resonant guidance due to the negative curvature membranes encircling the cores. The central core exhibits the widest transmission window with a minimum loss of 4 dB/m between 1250 nm and 1450 nm. The lowest loss for the central core is estimated to be 2.5 dB/m at 600 nm. Such hollow core fiber bundles may be employed in applications including communication, imaging systems, high power laser delivery, or sensing.

The prolonged radiation exposure from mobile phone antennas may cause several health problems. In this article, an innovative method derived from a metasurface-based phone case is introduced to reduce the electromagnetic (EM) exposure from mobile phones. A metasurface consisting of 2 × 3 unit cells, is directly printed on a commercially available phone case. The effective utilization of the slotted square metallic metasurface with the phone cover, the EM exposure, expressed as specific absorption rate (SAR) is significantly reduced by more than 26%. Moreover, the overall performance of the mobile antenna including operating bandwidth and gain is also improved using the proposed metasurface phone case. To validate the design concept, SAR is analyzed for the mobile antenna with and without the proposed phone case with the mannequin model that closely resembles a human head. The measurement data shows that the SAR value is reduced in the human head from 1.387 W/kg to 0.985 W/kg using the metasurface-integrated phone case. The proposed method not only provides an effective way to suppress mobile phone radiation exposure but also invites other researchers to explore metasurface-based phone cases to minimize the health risks from radiation exposure to cell phones and other handheld devices.

Recent years have witnessed much progress in the development of fiber lasers in the 2 μm region. Yet, to date, their power levels are limited by modulation instability and soliton formation attributed to the strong anomalous dispersions of fused silica in this wavelength region. Further power scaling requires a novel design of an all-solid silica active fiber that features normal dispersion by compensating the material dispersion with the waveguide dispersion. At the same time, a large mode area, low losses, single mode operation and robustness need to be maintained. In this paper, we propose an all-solid anti-resonant fiber (AS-ARF) design that meets these demands. We demonstrate that normal dispersion can be achieved in AS-ARFs at 2 μm by exploiting the Kramers-Kronig relation. To balance the desired dispersion with the other performance parameters, we optimize the design of the AS-ARFs using a genetic algorithm. The optimized AS-ARF has a mode field area of 1170 μm2 and normal dispersion over the spectrum from 1.96 μm to 2.04 μm. Within this spectrum, the maximum confinement loss (CL) of the fundamental mode (FM) is 16 dB/km and the minimum CL of the higher order modes (HOMs) is over 100 dB/km. The HOMs can be easily coupled out by bending the fiber while the FM stays in the core. For example, the CLs are over 2 × 104 dB/km for the HOMs and below 200 dB/km for the FM at 2 μm at a bending radius of 20 cm. Moreover, the properties of the proposed AS-ARF remain favorable even under large geometric variations, showing good tolerance to manufacturing errors. We expect the proposed AS-ARF to further stimulate the development of high-power fiber lasers in the 2 μm region.

Nucleoprotein is a conserved structural protein of SARS-CoV-2, which is involved in several functions, including replication, packaging, and transcription. In this research, 21 antiviral peptides that are known to have inhibitory function against nucleoprotein in several other viruses, were screened computationally against the nucleoprotein of SARS-CoV-2. The complexes of five best performing peptides (AVP1142, AVP1145, AVP1148, AVP1150, AVP1155) with nucleoprotein were selected for subsequent screening via 5 ns molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Two peptides, namely AVP1145 and AVP1155, came out as promising candidates and hence were selected for 200 ns MD simulation for further validation, incorporating a DMPC-based membrane environment. In the long MD simulation, both AVP1155 and AVP1145 utilized multiple residues—mainly aromatic, acidic, and nonpolar residues—as interacting points to remain in contact with the nucleoprotein and formed predominantly hydrogen bonds along with hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions. However, AVP1155 proved to be superior to AVP1145 when its complex with nucleoprotein was analyzed in terms of root-mean-square deviation, root-mean-square fluctuation, radius of gyration, solvent accessible surface area and free energy landscape. In a nutshell, the findings of this research may guide future studies in the development of selective peptide inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein.

The current study aimed to evaluate the in vivo hypoglycemic potential of Myristica fragransseed extract co-administered with glimepiride in Swiss albino mice. Computational tools were used to further verify the in vivo findings and to help compare this combination to the glimepiride-pioglitazone combination in terms of the binding affinity of the ligands to their respective target protein receptors and the relative stability of the drug-protein complexes. The effect of the combined therapy was observed both in alloxan- and glucose-induced hyperglycemic Swiss albino mice. The mean fasting blood glucose level of the test groups was measured and statistically evaluated using Student’s t test. The combined therapy significantly reduced the blood glucose level in a time-dependent manner compared to glimepiride alone. The binding affinity of glimepiride was found to be −7.6 kcal/mol with sulfonylurea receptor 1 in molecular docking. Conversely, macelignan-peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) α and macelignan-PPAR γ complexes were stabilized with −9.2 and −8.3 kcal/mol, respectively. Molecular dynamic simulation revealed that macelignan-PPAR α and γ complexes were more stable than pioglitazone complexes. The combination shows promise in animal and computer models and requires further trials to provide evidence of its activity in humans.

Over 50 peptides, which were known to inhibit SARS-CoV-1, were computationally screened against the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. Based on the binding affinity and interaction, 15 peptides were selected, which showed higher affinity compared to the α-helix of the human ACE2 receptor. Molecular dynamics simulation demonstrated that two peptides, S2P25 and S2P26, were the most promising candidates, which could potentially block the entry of SARS-CoV-2. Tyr489 and Tyr505 residues present in the “finger-like” projections of the RBD were found to be critical for peptide interaction. Hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions played important roles in prompting peptide–protein binding and interaction. Structure–activity relationship indicated that peptides containing aromatic (Tyr and Phe), nonpolar (Pro, Gly, Leu, and Ala), and polar (Asn, Gln, and Cys) residues were the most significant contributors. These findings can facilitate the rational design of selective peptide inhibitors targeting the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.