Zeitschriftenaufsätze

The liver is the main organ responsible for the metabolism of ethanol, which suffers significantly as a result of tissue damage due to oxidative stress. It is known that C60 fullerenes are able to efficiently capture and inactivate reactive oxygen species in in vivo and in vitro systems. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether water-soluble C60 fullerene reduces the level of pathological process development in the liver of rats induced by chronic alcohol intoxication for 3, 6, and 9 months, depending on the daily dose (oral administration; 0.5, 1, and 2 mg/kg) of C60 fullerene throughout the experiment. In this context, the morphology of the C60 fullerene nanoparticles in aqueous solution was studied using atomic force microscopy. Such biochemical parameters of experimental animal blood as ALT (alanine aminotransferase), AST (aspartate aminotransferase), GGT (gamma-glutamyl transferase) and ALP (alkaline phosphatase) enzyme activities, CDT (carbohydrate-deficient transferrin) level, values of pro-antioxidant balance indicators (concentrations of H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) and GSH (reduced glutathione), activities of CAT (catalase), SOD (superoxide dismutase) and GPx (selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase)), and pathohistological and morphometric features of liver damage were analyzed. The most significant positive change in the studied biochemical parameters (up to 29 ± 2% relative to the control), as markers of liver damage, was recorded at the combined administration of alcohol (40% ethanol in drinking water) and water-soluble C60 fullerenes in the optimal dose of 1 mg/kg, which was confirmed by small histopathological changes in the liver of rats. The obtained results prove the prospective use of C60 fullerenes as powerful antioxidants for the mitigation of pathological conditions of the liver arising under prolonged alcohol intoxication.

The low-energy excitation spectrum of a metal-free phthalocyanine molecule on Ag(111) is probed in scanning tunneling spectroscopy experiments. The use of functionalized p-orbital and s-orbital tips leads to markedly different results. While CO-terminated p-wave tips probe the zero-energy Abrikosov-Suhl resonance induced by the molecular Kondo effect, Ag-coated s-wave tips - in strong contrast - feign the absence of the Kondo effect due to a missing Abrikosov-Suhl resonance. Reducing the vertical distance between the s-orbital tip and the molecule progressively unveils the resonance, compatible with findings for the p-orbital tip in the far tunneling range. A mechanism based on orbital overlap is suggested as the tentative origin of the observations. The CO-functionalized tip is then used to explore the altered Kondo effect of the tautomerized phthalocyanine.

This paper proposed a prediction algorithm for the degraded actuator taking into account the impact of estimation error of hidden index in the closed-loop system. To this end, a unified prediction framework is established to evaluate the hidden degradation information and recursively update the degradation model parameters simultaneously. The advantage is that the prediction framework can comprehensively compensate the estimation error of hidden degradation index caused by system uncertainty. To jointly estimate the degradation information in avoidance of the impact of system uncertainty, a modified adaptive Kalman filter is designed, and the proof of stability is provided. With the priori estimate from the filter, the degradation model parameters are updated by the inverse filtering probability based on Bayes’ theorem. It is followed by the computation of the remaining useful life (RUL) prediction utilizing aforementioned hidden degradation information and the latest degradation model. The effectiveness of the proposed RUL prediction algorithm is demonstrated by the degraded actuator in the continuous casting process.

This study assessed the feasibility of using a plasma-modified Ni foam as an anode to improve the electrochemical performance of double-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs). Scanning electron microscopy results showed that Ni foam exhibited an open cellular structure and rough surface morphology, providing a large contact area between bacteria and anodes in the MFCs. N2 plasma modification did not influence the surface morphology of the Ni foam, whereas the hydrophobic surfaces of the Ni foam became highly hydrophilic. X-ray photoelectron spectrometer results revealed that Ni-N and NH3 functional groups, formed on the surface of the Ni foam during the N2 plasma modification, were responsible for its highly hydrophilic surface. Electrochemical measurements demonstrated that the highest power density of the MFC configured with an unmodified Ni foam anode electrode (166.9 mW m−2) was much higher than those of the MFCs configured with dense Ni rod (5.1 mW m−2) or graphite rod (29.5 mW m−2) anodes because Ni foam combined the advantages of an open cellular structure and good electrical conductivity. The highest power density of MFC configured with Ni foam was further improved to 247.1 mW m−2 after 60 min N2 plasma treatment owing to the high hydrophilicity of the N2 plasma-modified Ni foam electrodes, which facilitated bacteria adhesion and biofilm formation.

Scientific progress is made in understanding photoluminescence (PL) lines in thallium-doped silicon. Two PL lines called A and P, which appear after quenching, are found to exhibit irreversible as well as reversible behavior under the application of light-induced degradation (LID) treatments. The reversible behavior is similar to changes of a P line in indium-doped silicon due to LID treatments, which have led to the identification of this P line to be caused by an InSi-Sii-defect. By exploiting the metastability of defects from the ASi-Sii category, the experimental findings of this study indicate that the underlying defect for the A and P line in thallium-doped silicon is the TlSi-Sii-defect.