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Conservation of energy and reduction in emissions emerge as significantly cautious for automobiles because of severe current emissions and energy situation. Many of experts have opinion that, majority of cars fitted with internal combustion engines are the major contributors of unhealthy emissions to the atmosphere which causes global warming and increase air quality index in urban areas. Internal combustion engines are accountable for the major pollution issues. As the energy calamity and atmospheric pollution are becoming remarkable in day to day life, hybrid electric vehicles (HEV’s) necessity for the world is in accelerated pace.

Podocytes are crucial cells of the glomerular filtration unit and plays a vital role at the interface of the blood-urine barrier. Podocyte slit-diaphragm is a modified tight junction that facilitates size and charge-dependent permselectivity. Several proteins including podocin, nephrin, CD2AP, and TRPC6 form a macromolecular assembly and constitute the slit-diaphragm. Podocin is an integral membrane protein attached to the inner membrane of the podocyte via a short transmembrane region (101–125). The cytosolic N- and C-terminus help podocin to attain a hook-like structure. Podocin shares 44% homology with stomatin family proteins and similar to the stomatin proteins, podocin was shown to associate into higher-order oligomers at the site of slit-diaphragm. However, the stoichiometry of the homo-oligomers and how it partakes in the macromolecular assemblies with other slit-diaphragm proteins remains elusive. Here we investigated the oligomeric propensity of a truncated podocin construct (residues:126–350). We show that the podocin domain majorly homo-oligomerizes into a 16-mer. Circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy suggest that the 16-mer oligomer has considerable secondary structure and moderate tertiary packing.

In this study, the facile synthesis of SnO2 quantum dot (QD)-garnished V2O5 nanobelts exhibiting significantly enhanced reversible capacity and outstanding cyclic stability for Li+ storage was achieved. Electrochemical impedance analysis revealed strong charge transfer kinetics related to that of V2O5 nanobelts. The SnO2 QD-garnished V2O5 nanobelts exhibited the highest discharge capacity of ca. 760 mAhg−1 at a density of 441 mAg−1 between the voltage ranges of 0.0 to 3.0 V, while the pristine V2O5 nanobelts samples recorded a discharge capacity of ca. 403 mAhg−1. The high capacity of QD-garnished nanobelts was achieved as an outcome of their huge surface area of 50.49 m2g−1 and improved electronic conductivity. Therefore, the as-presented SnO2 QD-garnished V2O5 nanobelts synthesis strategy could produce an ideal material for application in high-performance Li-ion batteries.

In this work, we have explored the thermophysical properties of tetraalkylammonium hydroxide ionic liquids (ILs) such as tetrapropylammonium hydroxide (TPAH) and tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAH) with isomers of butanol (1-butanol, 2-butanol and 2-methyl-2-propanol) within the temperature range 293.15-313.15 K, with interval of 5 K and over the varied concentration range of ILs. The molecular interactions between ILs and butanol isomers are essential for understanding the function of ILs in related measures and excess functions are sensitive probe for the molecular interactions. Therefore, we calculated the excess molar volume (V(E) ) and the deviation in isentropic compressibility (Δκs ) using the experimental values such as densities (ρ) and ultrasonic sound velocities (u) that are measured over the whole compositions range at five different temperatures (293.15, 298.15, 303.15, 308.15 and 313.15 K) and atmospheric pressure. These excess functions were adequately correlated by using the Redlich-Kister polynomial equation. It was observed that for all studied systems, the V(E) and Δκs values are negative for the whole composition range at 293.15 K. And, the excess function follows the sequence: 2-butanol>1-butanol>2-methyl-2-propanol, which reveals that (primary or secondary or tertiary) position of hydroxyl group influence the magnitude of interactions with ILs. The negative values of excess functions are contributions from the ion-dipole interaction, hydrogen bonding and packing efficiency between the ILs and butanol isomers. Hence, the position of hydroxyl group plays an important role in the interactions with ILs. The hydrogen bonding features between ILs and alcohols were analysed using molecular modelling program by using HyperChem 7.