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In this paper we develop a Nash-Moser iteration type reducibility approach to prove the (inverse) localization for some $d$-dimensional discrete almost-periodic operators with power-law long-range hopping. We also provide a quantitative lower bound on the regularity of the hopping. As an application, some results of \cite{Sar82, Pos83, Cra83, BLS83} are generalized to the power-law hopping case., Comment: to appear in CMP

In this paper we study on $L^2(\mathbb{R}^d)$ the quasi-periodic Schr\"odinger operator $H=-\Delta+ \lambda V(x),$ where $V$ is a real analytic quasi-periodic function and $\lambda>0$. We first show that $H$ has no eigenvalues in \textit{low energy region}. We also provide in \textit{low energy region} the new phase transition parameter, i.e. the competition between the strength of coupling and the length for frequencies., Comment: Comments welcome, a revised version, 22 pages

For the safety assessement of deep geological repository for high-level radioactive waste, radionuclides transport behavior in rock systems is necessary to clairify and establish a suitable model. The advection–dispersion experiments(ADEx) was effectively designed to inadequate transport models through a calibration/validation process, and HTO, selenate (VI) and selenite (IV) migration behavior on crushed granite was studied by a high reliable and dynamic column device to obtailned retardation factor (R) and the dispersion coeffcient (D) by fitting experimental breakthrough curves (BTCs) in a various range of flow rates. Moreover, it showed the similar results between the BTCs of HTO and Se(VI) by fitting a equlibrium model due to no retardation effect. In fact, there was a relatively obvious sorption of Se(IV) in BTCs by fitting a retardation factor (R) value higher than 1. In addition, the two sites non-equilibrium model with a lowest root mean square error were applied to realize Se(IV) sorption mechanism on granite.

An effective vaccine is needed to end the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Here, we assess the preliminary safety, tolerability and immunogenicity data from an ongoing single-center (in Jiangsu province, China), parallel-group, double-blind phase 1 trial of the vaccine candidate BNT162b1 in 144 healthy SARS-CoV-2-naive Chinese participants. These participants are randomized 1:1:1 to receive prime and boost vaccinations of 10 µg or 30 µg BNT162b1 or placebo, given 21 d apart, with equal allocation of younger (aged 18–55 years) and older adults (aged 65–85 years) to each treatment group (ChiCTR2000034825). BNT162b1 encodes the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein receptor-binding domain (RBD) and is one of several messenger RNA-based vaccine candidates under clinical investigation. Local reactions and systemic events were generally dose dependent, transient and mild to moderate. Fever was the only grade 3 adverse event. BNT162b1 induced robust interferon-γ T cell responses to a peptide pool including the RBD in both younger and older Chinese adults, and geometric mean neutralizing titers reached 2.1-fold (for younger participants) and 1.3-fold (for the older participants) that of a panel of COVID-19 convalescent human sera obtained at least 14 d after positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test. In summary, BNT162b1 has an acceptable safety profile and produces high levels of humoral and T cell responses in an Asian population. Phase 1 trial results of the messenger RNA vaccine candidate BNT162b1, which encodes the receptor-binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, show safety and elicitation of antibody and T cell responses in both younger and older Chinese adults.

Predicting material’s microstructure under new processing conditions is essential in advanced manufacturing and materials science. This is because the material’s microstructure hugely influences the material’s properties. We demonstrate an elegant machine learning algorithm that faithfully predicts the microstructure under new conditions, without the need of knowing the governing laws. We name this algorithm, RCWGAN-GP, which is regression-based conditional generative adversarial networks with Wasserstein loss function and gradient penalty. This algorithm was trained with experimental SEM micrographs from laser-sintered alumina under various laser powers. The RCWGAN-GP realistically regenerates the SEM micrographs under the trained laser powers. Impressively, it also faithfully predicts the alumina’s microstructure under unexplored laser powers. The predicted microstructure features, including the morphology of the sintered particles and the pores, match the experimental SEM micrographs very well. We further quantitatively examined the prediction accuracy of the RCWGAN-GP. We trained the algorithm with computer-created micrograph datasets of secondary-phase growth governed by the well-known Johnson–Mehl–Avrami (JMA) equation. The RCWGAN-GP accurately regenerates the micrographs at the trained time series, in terms of the grains’ shapes, sizes, and spatial distributions. More importantly, the predicted secondary phase fraction accurately follows the JMA curve.

We used molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the friction of a single asperity against a rigid substrate, while generating debris. In the low wear regime (i.e., non-linear wear rate dependence on the contact stress, via atom-by-atom attrition), the frictional stress is linearly dependent on the normal stress, without any lubrication effect from the wear debris particles. Both the slope (friction coefficient) and friction at zero normal stress depend strongly on asperity-substrate adhesion. In the high wear regime (i.e., linear wear rate dependence on the contact stress, via plastic flow), the friction-normal stress curves deviate from a linear relation merging toward plastic flow of the single asperity which is independent of the interfacial adhesion. One can further link wear and friction by considering debris generation as chemical reaction, driven by both normal and frictional forces. The coupling between wear and friction can then be quantified by a thermodynamic efficiency of the debris generation. While the efficiency is less than 5% in the low wear regime, indicating poor mechanochemical coupling, it increases with normal stress toward 50% in the high wear regime.

In this paper, we study the non-self dual extended Harper’s model with a Liouvillean frequency. By establishing quantitative reducibility results together with the averaging method, we prove that the lengths of the spectral gaps decay exponentially.

In molecular dynamics simulations, the local stress state in the shear band is examined in six different model metallic glasses and one amorphous Si system (also has been perceived as a metallic glass analog) under different loading conditions. For all but the FeP and the amorphous Si systems, the running shear band (RSB) exhibits a liquid-like hydrostatic plus shear stress state. Our results suggest that the liquid feature of a RSB is not due to temperature rise or plastic confinement but due to the disorder driven by flow, which can be offset by strong directionality in bonding, phase segregation, or aging. The knowledge of the liquid-like stress state can be conveniently utilized in experiments to infer the local stress state of the RSB from the global tensile stress for metallic glasses.

Sepsis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients. MD-2 is a 25-kDa lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-binding protein that forms a heterodimer with TLR42, but its regulation in sepsis is not clear. This study aims to investigate the molecular mechanism of regulation of MD-2. Inflammation cytokines in monocytes were analyzed by real-time RT-PCR and ELISA, and it was found that IL-10 was elevated significantly in the monocytes with LPS treatment. And then, when the cells were treated with IL-10, STAT1 was activated in the monocytes using Western blotting. It was also found that STAT1 could enhance MD-2 expression on transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels. Finally, miR-30a was predicted to the molecule that may regulate STAT1 expression. It was verified that STAT1 was a new target gene of miR-30a. miR-30a could inhibit IL-10-induced cytokine release by targeting STAT1-MD-2 in monocytes. In conclusion, this study for the first time demonstrated that miR-30a inhibits MD-2 expression by targeting of STAT1 in human monocytes.

A new strategy using hyperbranched poly(amidoamine)s to functionalize CdTe quantum dots (QDs) has been described. Hyperbranched poly(amidoamine)s with amine terminals (HP-EDAMA1) were synthesized by one-pot polymerization via the coupled-monomer method and subsequently used to functionalize preformed CdTe QDs. Quite different from previous studies in which the photoluminescence of QDs was quenched by further functionalization with tailored ligands, the quantum yield of CdTe/HP-EDAMA1 nanocomposites was 2 times that of pure CdTe QDs without modification. With this versatile method, the photoluminescence quenching of QDs in the modification process by matrix materials can be effectively solved and new QDs/hyperbranched polymer nanocomposites with potential applications in biomedicine might be offered.

Given two bounded linear operators $$P$$ and $$Q$$ on a Banach space the formula for the Drazin inverse of $$P+Q$$ is given, under the assumptions $$P^2 Q+PQ^2=0$$ and $$P^3 Q=PQ^3=0$$ . In particular, some recent results arising in Drazin (Am Math Mon 65:506–514, 1958), Hartwig et al. (Linear Algebra Appl 322:207–217, 2001) and Castro-Gonzalez et al. (J Math Anal Appl 350:207–215, 2009) are extended.

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is the most common bacterium in sepsis and pneumonia involving gram-positive bacteria. Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is a cell wall component of gram-positive bacteria. It is a potent inducer of inflammatory mediators in human dendritic cells, human pulmonary epithelial cells, and murine macrophages. However, the effect of LTA on human alveolar macrophages (AMs) which are the major effector cells in host defense against respiratory tract infections has hardly been studied. Statins have anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antioxidative, anticoagulant, and antibacterial activities. These effects may be contributed to reduce the markers of systemic inflammation. Emerging retrospective studies have demonstrated that statin use decreased the mortality of pneumonia. However, the precise mechanisms responsible for these effects are unclear. The purpose of this study is to define the role of S. aureus LTA in human AMs and the effects of simvastatin (SV) on LTA-stimulated human AMs. The results showed that LTA induced tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-1beta (IL-1β), IL-8 mRNA expression, and suppressed IL-10 mRNA expression in human AMs. Simultaneously, LTA induced human AMs apoptosis. These effects were parallel with the up-regulation of the expression of NF-κB-P65 protein in the LTA-stimulated human AMs. The above effects of LTA on human AMs were inhibited significantly by SV. These data indicate that S. aureus LTA induces potent pro-inflammatory and pro-apoptotic effects on human AMs and statins exert anti-inflammatory effects by mediating inhibition of NF-κB activation and cytokine mRNA expression in human AMs. These results may explain, in part, the mechanisms responsible for favorable effects of statins on pneumonia.

A new strategy for facile preparation of highly luminescent CdTe quantum dots (QDs) within amine-terminated hyperbranched poly(amidoamine)s (HPAMAM) was proposed in this paper. CdTe precursors were first prepared by adding NaHTe to aqueous Cd2+ chelated by 3-mercaptopropionic sodium (MPA-Na), and then HPAMAM was introduced to stabilize the CdTe precursors. After microwave irradiation, highly fluorescent and stable CdTe QDs stabilized by MPA-Na and HPAMAM were obtained. The CdTe QDs showed a high quantum yield (QY) up to 58%. By preparing CdTe QDs within HPAMAM, the biocompatibility properties of HPAMAM and the optical, electrical properties of CdTe QDs can be combined, endowing the CdTe QDs with biocompatibility. The resulting CdTe QDs can be directly used in biomedical fields, and their potential application in bio-imaging was investigated.

The effects of annealing and fatigue on the local structure of Zr50Cu40Al10 and Zr60Cu30Al10 bulk metallic glasses (BMG) were investigated using the pair density function (PDF) analysis of synchrotron X-ray and neutron diffraction data. Our results indicate that the two compositions respond differently to annealing. The first PDF peak becomes sharper after annealing in Zr50Cu40Al10 with its intensity increasing, indicating that short-range ordering may be induced after the heat treatment. On the other hand, in Zr60Cu30Al10, the effects due to the heat treatment on the local structure are more subtle. Separately, the as-quenched and annealed alloys with the composition Zr50Cu40Al10 were subjected to fatigue loading conditions with ~ 106 compression cycles. The room temperature measurements showed changes in the local structure with fatigue especially for the annealed sample, involving the Cu-Zr correlations. Our results suggest that the physical properties of BMGs upon fatigue loading conditions may become accentuated due to the structural relaxation brought upon by annealing, leading to observable structural changes at the atomic level from fatigue.

Activated carbon is widely used for its attractive diffusion, adsorption and reaction properties. However, its mechanical behavior has received much less attention. We present a molecular dynamics simulation study on the elastic properties of activated carbon with nanometer-sized pores. The nanoporous carbon sample is composed of curved and defected graphene sheets, which is synthesized using quench molecular dynamics (QMD) method [1]. One unique feature of the current model is the mechanical stability, thus the bulk modulus, Young’s modulus, shear modulus and Poisson’s ratio can be obtained from simulated mechanical tests. By varying the density of the nanoporous carbon model, it was further found that the bulk modulus vs. density relation follows Gibson-Ashby type power law with exponents of 2.80 at low densities and 1.65 at high densities.

This is a copy of the slides presented at the meeting but not formally written up for the volume. Bulk metallic glass (BMG) has been of intense interest recently because of its unique combination of excellent mechanical properties including high strength. One of the major drawbacks of monolithic BMG materials is the limited ductility due to strain localization. Except a few recent reports on monolithic ductile BMG, the most popular method to enhance the ductility of the BMG samples is to introduce a crystalline or quasicrystalline phase by precipitation or mixing. The composite material usually exhibits some degree of strain hardening along with significantly higher impact resistance and fracture toughness. However, the mechanism of this strain hardening is not well understood. We present simulated uniaxial compression tests on a monatomic model amorphous system embedded with body-center cubic (BCC) nanocrystals. The advantage of this model system is that intimate amorphous-crystal interfaces can be obtained. We observe that when comparing to monolithic glassy samples where a single shear band normally dominates, multiple shear bands appear in the BCC-amorphous composite samples. The plastic deformation initiates at the interfaces between nanocrystals and the glassy phase due to stress concentration. Furthermore, we demonstrate that shear along the bands results in growth of the nanocrystals.

Molecular dynamics is used to simulate model non-crystalline solids described by a single-component Dzugutov system. The solids are produced by quenching equilibrium liquids at different cooling rates. These are then tested in uniaxial compression. Samples produced at high cooling rates exhibit homogenous deformation while samples quenched at low cooling rates exhibit localized deformation. Shear bands are shown to correspond to regions of depleted short-range order as determined by a Frank-Kasper criterion.

We report an experimental investigation on the morphology and orientation of Ag nanoclusters by RT deposition and subsequent annealing. We show that epitaxial Ag clusters of 2 ∼ 6 nm in diameter can be synthesized in this way. The RT self-assembled Ag clusters grow as mostly single-crystal crystallites with Ag(111)//Si(111), but the in-plane orientation has a dispersion of ∼ 9° centering at Si[110] direction. Upon annealing, the Ag clusters drastically rotated to the epitaxial configuration with the in-plane orientation aligned to the Ag[110] //Si[110] direction. The rotation and epitaxy of the Ag nanoclusters are explained based on a coincident site lattice model and interface energy minimization.

Molecular dynamics simulations of a two-dimensional amorphous solid exhibit strain localization when loaded in uniaxial tension with free boundaries. The degree of localization depends sensitively on the rate of loading and on the existence of surface defects. Regions of both dilation and contraction arise during the shear band slip process. These dilation and contraction events correspond to dynamic free-volume generation and annihilation during shear. Correlations of the dilation and contraction of the material reveal a length scale of 1–4 atomic diameters associated with this physical process. Dilation is observed to result in nanometer scale cavitation.