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Metamaterial absorbers have been widely studied and continuously concerned owing to their excellent resonance features of ultra‐thin thickness, light‐weight, and high absorbance. Their applications, however, are typically restricted by the intrinsic dispersion of materials and strong resonant features of patterned arrays (mainly referring to narrow absorption bandwidth). It is, therefore essential to reassert the principles of building broadband metamaterial absorbers (BMAs). Herein, the research progress of BMAs from principles, design strategies, tunable properties to functional applications are comprehensively and deeply summarized. Physical principles behind broadband absorption are briefly discussed, typical design strategies in realizing broadband absorption are further emphasized, such as top‐down lithography, bottom‐up self‐assembly, and emerging 3D printing technology. Diversified active components choices, including optical response, temperature response, electrical response, magnetic response, mechanical response, and multi‐parameter responses, are reviewed in achieving dynamically tuned broadband absorption. Following this, the achievements of various interdisciplinary applications for BMAs in energy‐harvesting, photodetectors, radar‐IR dual stealth, bolometers, noise absorbing, imaging, and fabric wearable are summarized. Finally, the challenges and perspectives for future development of BMAs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review considers the impact of combining discrete membrane filtration configurations in a multistage or sequential configuration to improve processing performance, energy efficiency and component selectivity in dairy processes. The review focuses on the impact of multistage membrane filtration on (i) concentration processes, through the examination of fouling accumulation and its impact on flux and energy efficiency, and (ii) fractionation processes, whereby the yield/purity of dairy components is assessed. Observations from single‐stage and batch microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis processes reported in the literature are compared to the continuous multistage filtration processes common in commercial dairy installations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious gaming is increasingly used to explore important real‐world problems and a growing number of serious games are addressing flood‐related issues. However, there has been limited synthesis of these attempts and their contributions to the ongoing shift toward a more holistic and governance‐based flood resilience perspective in flood risk management (FRM). This international review collates and analyses these attempts in order to develop a knowledge base of serious gaming in the field of FRM. It contains 37 games that were developed with different rationales that include engaging players in the topic of FRM, supporting practice by exploring future options through collaboration, improving communication of FRM, as educational tools, and to collect research data. The gameplay countries and player characteristics, game characteristics, relevance to FRM, game rationales, and collection of data are explored in this paper. Identified serious games provided an unconventional and entertaining approach to engage stakeholders on flood‐related issues. The review analyzed the serious games in light of the shift toward flood resilience and identified limitations in the documentation of serious games and their potential in understanding the longer‐term impacts of gameplay on players. Furthermore, the vast majority of reviewed games were played in a single country and missed out on understanding the cultural production and perspectives of FRM that could support cross‐cultural learning and inspiration for future FRM strategies. Overall, the review identified an important role for serious games in the shift toward governance and the adoption of more holistic flood resilience perspectives. This article is categorized under:Human Water > Water GovernanceHuman Water > MethodsScience of Water > Water Extremes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for transformative change and participatory modes of knowledge production demand researchers to assume new roles. This paper synthesizes the literature on knowledge co‐production and researcher roles to explore challenges for researchers involved in transdisciplinary environmental management projects. Our research methods combine a scoping review and reflections on personal experiences with three transdisciplinary projects. To conceptualize researcher roles in transdisciplinary knowledge co‐production, we distinguish between three spaces: knowledge, formal policy, and stakeholder. Knowledge co‐production requires collaboration between actors from different spaces and integration of diverse knowledge sources and types. Depending on whether researchers adopt knowledge‐oriented, change‐oriented or intermediating roles, they will experience different challenges. When researchers combine knowledge development with change‐oriented and/or intermediating roles, they encounter new challenges, such as, maintaining independence or objectivity. To assist researchers in transdisciplinary projects, we conclude with a checklist of four elements to reflect upon: orientation, norms and values, expectations and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Molecular dynamics and de novo techniques, associated to quality parameter sets, have excelled at determining the structure of small proteins with high accuracy. To achieve a detailed description of protein conformations, these methods must critically assess the thermodynamic features of the molecular ensembles. Here, a comparison of the conformational ensemble generated by molecular dynamics and de novo techniques were carried out for six Top7-based proteins carrying gp41 HIV-1 epitopes. The native Top7, a highly stable computationally designed protein, was used as benchmark. Structural stability, flexibility, and secondary structure content were assessed. The consistency of the latter was compared to experimental circular dichroism spectra for all proteins. While both methods are capable to identify the stable from unstable chimeric proteins, the sampled conformational space and flexibility differ significantly in both methods. Molecular dynamics simulations seem to better describe secondary structure content and identify regions responsible for conformational instability. The de novo method, as implemented in Rosetta-a prime tool for protein design, overestimates secondary structure content. On the other hand, its empirical energy function is capable to predict the threshold for protein stability. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 103: 351-361, 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cleaning is a commonplace but poorly understood operation in the dairy industries. This paper describes recent work to identify and quantify the critical factors that control cleaning. Experiments have used micromanipulation probes to remove deposits from surfaces; these probes can measure the force required to remove deposits, and allow simple models of cleaning to be produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clustered DNA damage sites induced by ionizing radiation have been suggested to have serious consequences to organisms, such as cancer, due to their reduced probability to be repaired by the enzymatic repair machinery of the cell. Although experimental results have revealed that clustered DNA damage sites effectively retard the efficient function of repair enzymes, it remains unclear as to what particular factors influence this retardation. In this study, approaches based on molecular dynamics (MD) simulation have been applied to examine conformational changes and energetic properties of DNA molecules containing clustered damage sites consisting of two lesioned sites, namely 7,8-dihydro-8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) and apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site, located within a few base pairs of each other. After 1 ns of MD simulation, one of the six DNA molecules containing a clustered damage site develops specific characteristic features: sharp bending at the lesioned site and weakening or complete loss of electrostatic interaction energy between 8-oxoG and bases located on the complementary strand. From these results it is suggested that these changes would make it difficult for the repair enzyme to bind to the lesions within the clustered damage site and thereby result in a reduction of its repair capacity. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 26: 788–798, 2005 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NIZO food research is one of the few remaining independent centres of dairy expertise in the world. Founded in 1948, NIZO has built a track record of exploring new scientific frontiers and the application of new science and technology in industry. NIZO nowadays provides its R&D services to the dairy industry as well as to other food companies. Changes in the dairy industry are also reflected in the development of NIZO. Research has changed its focus, which was predominantly raw material driven, to a new approach where two activities dominate: (a) exploration of new areas of science (e.g. genomics or computational physics) to develop new technology driven opportunities for the dairy industry; and (b) confidential research to deliver technology to industry for new consumer benefits or improvements in the supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, market forces have pushed many food companies into a process of continuous cost cutting and rationalization. The only way to escape this ‘spiral of death’ is to innovate. This presents new challenges to food technologists: they have to connect the right functional benefits to the emotional benefits to support brand strengths. To achieve the desired speed to market, companies should build skills to utilize the latest technology and learn to work in an open innovation environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]