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At least 109 records · Page 6

Structure, Morphology, and Assembly Behavior of Kafirin

Prolamins from grains have attracted intensive attention in recent years due to their potential in satisfying the demand for environmentally friendly (biodegradable), abundantly available (sustainable), and cost-effective biomaterials. However, for kafirin, the prolamin from sorghum, its composition, structure, morphology, and self-assembly behaviors have not been fully characterized. In this paper, kafirin was extracted from the whole sorghum grain and found to contain 68, 14, 6, and 12% of α-, β-, and γ-fractions and cross-linked kafirin, respectively. Freeze-dried kafirin contained ~49% α-helix in the solid state. When dissolved in 65% (v/v) isopropanol, 60% (v/v) tert-butanol, and 85% (v/v) ethanol aqueous solvents, the relative α-helix content in kafirin increased with the decrease of solvent polarity. Structural analysis using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) indicated that kafirin (2 mg/mL) took stretched and extended conformations with dimensions of 118 × 15 × 15 and 100 × 11 × 11 Å in 60% tert-butanol and 65% isopropanol, respectively. More elongated conformation of individual kafirin with high-order assembly was observed in 85% ethanol. Protein aggregation occurred as protein concentration increased in its good solvent. The morphology of kafirin assemblies captured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed that kafirin protein took uniform particle morphology at low concentration, and disk-like or rod-like structures resulting from solvent evaporation induced particle interactions emerged at high concentrations. These results suggest that both protein concentration and solvent polarity can effectively regulate kafirin assemblies from thick rod-like to slim rod-like structures, a convenient way to tune the fibrillation of prolamin-based biomaterials.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Quantum Critical Behavior in a Concentrated Ternary Solid Solution

The face centered cubic (fcc) alloy NiCoCr x with x ≈ 1 is found to be close to the Cr concentration where the ferromagnetic transition temperature, T c , goes to 0. Near this composition these alloys exhibit a resistivity linear in temperature to 2 K, a linear magnetoresistance, an excess –TlnT (or power law) contribution to the low temperature heat capacity and excess low temperature entropy. All of the low temperature electrical, magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the alloys with compositions near x ≈ 1 are not typical of a Fermi liquid and suggest strong magnetic fluctuations associated with a quantum critical region. The limit of extreme chemical disorder in this simple fcc material thus provides a novel and unique platform to study quantum critical behavior in a highly tunable system.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Anharmonic behavior and structural phase transition in Yb{sub 2}O{sub 3}

The investigation of structural phase transition and anharmonic behavior of Yb{sub 2}O{sub 3} has been carried out by high-pressure and temperature dependent Raman scattering studies respectively. In situ Raman studies under high pressure were carried out in a diamond anvil cell at room temperature which indicate a structural transition from cubic to hexagonal phase at and above 20.6 GPa. In the decompression cycle, Yb{sub 2}O{sub 3} retained its high pressure phase. We have observed a Stark line in the Raman spectra at 337.5 cm{sup −1} which arises from the electronic transition between {sup 2}F{sub 5/2} and {sup 2}F{sub 7/2} multiplates of Yb{sup 3+} (4f{sup 13}) levels. These were followed by temperature dependent Raman studies in the range of 80–440 K, which show an unusual mode hardening with increasing temperature. The hardening of the most dominant mode (T{sub g} + A{sub g}) was analyzed in light of the theory of anharmonic phonon-phonon interaction and thermal expansion of the lattice. Using the mode Grüneisen parameter obtained from high pressure Raman measurements; we have calculated total anharmonicity of the T{sub g} + A{sub g} mode from the temperature dependent Raman data.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

In-situ neutron diffraction study of deformation behavior of a multi-component high-entropy alloy

Deformation behavior of a high-entropy alloy (HEA) was investigated by in situ tensile deformation with neutron diffraction. It was found that the face-centered cubic (FCC) HEA alloy showed strong crystal elastic and plastic anisotropy, and the evolution of its lattice strains and textures were similar to those observed in conventional FCC metals and alloys. Our results demonstrated that, in spite of chemical complexity, the multi-component HEA behaved like a simple FCC metal and the deformation was caused by the motion of mixed dislocations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Behavior of moving plasma in solenoidal magnetic field in a laser ion source

In a laser ion source, a solenoidal magnetic field is useful to guide the plasma and to control the extracted beam current. However, the behavior of the plasma drifting in the magnetic field has not been well understood. Therefore, to investigate the behavior, we measured the plasma ion current and the total charge within a single pulse in the solenoid by changing the distance from the entrance of the solenoid to a detector. We observed that the decrease of the total charge along the distance became smaller as the magnetic field became larger and then the charge became almost constant with a certain magnetic flux density. The results indicate that the transverse spreading speed of the plasma decreased with increasing the field and the plasma was confined transversely with the magnetic flux density. We found that the reason of the confinement was not magnetization of ions but an influence induced by electrons.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

High-resolution 2-D Bragg diffraction reveal heterogeneous domain transformation behavior in a bulk relaxor ferroelectric

In-situ measurement of fine-structure of neutron Bragg diffraction peaks from a relaxor single-crystal using a time-of-flight instrument reveals highly heterogeneous mesoscale domain transformation behavior under applied electric fields. We observed that only 25% of domains undergo reorienta- tion or phase transition contributing to large average strains, while at least 40% remain invariant and exhibit microstrains. Such insights could be central for designing new relaxor materials with better performance and longevity. The current experimental technique can also be applied to resolve com- plex mesoscale phenomena in other functional materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

High-pressure behavior of A 2 B 2 O 7 pyrochlore (A=Eu, Dy; B=Ti, Zr)

In situ high-pressure X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy were used to determine the influence of composition on the high-pressure behavior of A 2 B 2 O 7 pyrochlore (A=Eu, Dy; B=Ti, Zr) up to ~50GPa. Based on X-ray diffraction results, all compositions transformed to the high-pressure cotunnite structure. The B-site cation species had a larger effect on the transition pressure than the A-site cation species, with the onset of the phase transformation occurring at ~41 GPa for B=Ti and ~16 GPa B=Zr. However, the A-site cation affected the kinetics of the phase transformation, with the transformation for compositions with the smaller ionic radii, i.e., A=Dy, proceeding faster than those with a larger ionic radii, i.e., A=Eu. These results were consistent with previous work in which the radius-ratio of the A- and B-site cations determined the energetics of disordering, and compositions with more similarly sized A- and B-site cations had a lower defect formation energy. Raman spectra revealed differences in the degree of short-range order of the different compositions. Due to the large phase fraction of cotunnite at high pressure for B=Zr compositions, Raman modes for cotunnite could be observed, with more modes recorded for A=Eu than A=Dy. These additional modes are attributed to increased short-to-medium range ordering in the initially pyrochlore structured Eu 2 Zr 2 O 7 as compared with the initially defect-fluorite structured Dy 2 Zr 2 O 7 .

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Novel phase diagram behavior and materials design in heterostructural semiconductor alloys

Structure and composition control the behavior of materials. Isostructural alloying is historically an extremely successful approach for tuning materials properties, but it is often limited by binodal and spinodal decomposition, which correspond to the thermodynamic solubility limit and the stability against composition fluctuations, respectively. We show that heterostructural alloys can exhibit a markedly increased range of metastable alloy compositions between the binodal and spinodal lines, thereby opening up a vast phase space for novel homogeneous single-phase alloys. We distinguish two types of heterostructural alloys, that is, those between commensurate and incommensurate phases. Because of the structural transition around the critical composition, the properties change in a highly nonlinear or even discontinuous fashion, providing a mechanism for materials design that does not exist in conventional isostructural alloys. The novel phase diagram behavior follows from standard alloy models using mixing enthalpies from first-principles calculations. Furthermore, thin-film deposition demonstrates the viability of the synthesis of these metastable single-phase domains and validates the computationally predicted phase separation mechanism above the upper temperature bound of the nonequilibrium single-phase region.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Access Patterns and Performance Behaviors of Multi-layer Supercomputer I/O Subsystems under Production Load

Scientific computing workloads at HPC facilities have been shifting from traditional numerical simulations to AI/ML applications for training and inference while processing and producing ever-increasing amounts of scientific data. To address the growing need for increased storage capacity, lower access latency, and higher bandwidth, emerging technologies such as non-volatile memory are integrated into supercomputer I/O subsystems. With these emerging trends, we need a better understanding of the multilayer supercomputer I/O systems and ways to use these subsystems efficiently. In this work, we study the I/O access patterns and performance characteristics of two representative supercomputer I/O subsystems. Through an extensive analysis of year-long I/O logs on each system, we report new observations in I/O reads and writes, unbalanced use of storage system layers, and new trends in user behaviors at the HPC I/O middleware stack.

Bez, JL↗

A thermodynamics-based damage model for the non-linear mechanical behavior of SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites in irradiation and thermal environments

A damage model is developed and validated with experimental data for the non-linear mechanical behavior of SiC/SiC composite materials in nuclear applications. Cyclic thermal and mechanical loading associated with neutron irradiation effects of these composites leads to wide-spread and progressive micro-cracking that leads to loss of thermal conductivity and further enhancement of thermo-mechanical damage. A physics-based model of wide-spread micro-cracking is developed within the thermodynamic framework of continuum damage mechanics. Evolution equations for damage parameters that describe the growth of continuum damage are developed, where the material variables are obtained from experiments. The model novelty is in coupling mechanical, thermal, and irradiation damage through a consistent thermodynamic framework, including loss of thermal conductivity due to the evolution of mechanically induced micro-cracks. A number of thermo-mechanical experiments were conducted to confirm model assumptions. The model is shown to be validated with out-of-pile experiments, and then implemented using commercial finite element code COMSOL to the fuel cladding problem with normal and high radiation dose cases.

Materials Science↗

Quantifying Grain Level Stress-Strain Behavior for AM40 via Instrumented Microindentation

ABSTRACT Microindentation is performed on hot isostatic pressed (HIP) Mg-Al (AM40) alloy samples produced by high-pressure die cast (HPDC) process for the purpose of quantifying the mechanical properties of the α-Mg grains. The process of obtaining elastic modulus and hardness from indentation load-depth curves is well established in the literature. A new inverse method is developed to extract plastic properties in this study. The method utilizes empirical yield strength-hardness relationship reported in the literature together with finite element modeling of the individual indentation. Due to the shallow depth of the indentation, indentation size effect (ISE) is taken into account when determining plastic properties. The stress versus strain behavior is determined for a series of indents. The resulting average values and standard deviations are obtained for future use as input distributions for microstructure-based property prediction of AM40.

AM40↗

Designer membraneless organelles sequester native factors for control of cell behavior

Subcellular compartmentalization of macromolecules increases flux and prevents inhibitory interactions to control biochemical reactions. Inspired by this functionality, we sought to build designer compartments that function as hubs to regulate the flow of information through cellular control systems. Here we report a synthetic membraneless organelle platform to control endogenous cellular activities through sequestration and insulation of native proteins. We engineer and express a disordered protein scaffold to assemble micron size condensates and recruit endogenous clients via genomic tagging with high-affinity dimerization motifs. By relocalizing up to ninety percent of a targeted enzymes to synthetic condensates, we efficiently control cellular behaviors, including proliferation, division, and cytoskeletal organization. Further, we demonstrate multiple strategies for controlled cargo release from condensates to switch cells between functional states. These synthetic organelles offer a powerful and generalizable approach to modularly control cell decision-making in a variety of model systems with broad applications for cellular engineering.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗