More Like this

1. Heterogeneous climate change impacts on electricity demand in world cities circa mid-century

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-07922-w  

   Romitti, Yasmin ; Sue Wing, Ian ( March 2022 , Scientific Reports)

   Rising ambient temperatures due to climate change will increase urban populations’ exposures to extreme heat. During hot hours, a key protective adaptation is increased air conditioning and associated consumption of electricity for cooling. But during cold hours, milder temperatures have the offsetting effect of reducing consumption of electricity and other fuels for heating. We elucidate the net consequences of these opposing effects in 36 cities in different world regions. We couple reduced-form statistical models of cities’ hourly responses of electric load to temperature with temporally downscaled projections of temperatures simulated by 21 global climate models (GCMs), projecting the effects of warming on the demand for electricity circa 2050. Cities' responses, temperature exposures and impacts are heterogeneous, with changes in total annual consumption ranging from$$-2.7$$$-2.7$to 5.7%, and peak power demand increasing by as much as 9.5% at the multi-GCM median. The largest increases are concentrated in more economically developed mid-latitude cities, with less developed urban areas in the tropics exhibiting relatively small changes. The results highlight the important role of the structure of electricity demand: large temperature increases in tropical cities are offset by their inelastic responses, which can be attributed to lower air-conditioning penetration.
2. A database of calculated solution parameters for the AlphaFold predicted protein structures

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10607-z  

   Brookes, Emre ; Rocco, Mattia ( May 2022 , Scientific Reports)

   Recent spectacular advances by AI programs in 3D structure predictions from protein sequences have revolutionized the field in terms of accuracy and speed. The resulting “folding frenzy” has already produced predicted protein structure databases for the entire human and other organisms’ proteomes. However, rapidly ascertaining a predicted structure’s reliability based on measured properties in solution should be considered. Shape-sensitive hydrodynamic parameters such as the diffusion and sedimentation coefficients ($${D_{t(20,w)}^{0}}$$$D_{t(20,w)}^0$,$${s_{{\left( {{20},w} \right)}}^{{0}} }$$$s_{\left(20,w\right)}^0$) and the intrinsic viscosity ([η]) can provide a rapid assessment of the overall structure likeliness, and SAXS would yield the structure-related pair-wise distance distribution functionp(r) vs.r. Using the extensively validated UltraScan SOlution MOdeler (US-SOMO) suite, a database was implemented calculating from AlphaFold structures the corresponding$${D_{t(20,w)}^{0}}$$$D_{t(20,w)}^0$,$${s_{{\left( {{20},w} \right)}}^{{0}} }$$$s_{\left(20,w\right)}^0$, [η],p(r) vs.r, and other parameters. Circular dichroism spectra were computed using the SESCA program. Some of AlphaFold’s drawbacks were mitigated, such as generating whenever possible a protein’s mature form. Others, like the AlphaFold direct applicability to single-chain structures only, the absence of prosthetic groups, or flexibility issues, are discussed. Overall, this implementation of the US-SOMO-AF database should already aid in rapidly evaluating the consistency in solution of a relevant portion of AlphaFold predicted protein structures.
3. Efficient Computation of Sequence Mappability

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00453-022-00934-y  

   Charalampopoulos, Panagiotis ; Iliopoulos, Costas S. ; Kociumaka, Tomasz ; Pissis, Solon P. ; Radoszewski, Jakub ; Straszyński, Juliusz ( February 2022 , Algorithmica)

   Sequence mappability is an important task in genome resequencing. In the (k, m)-mappability problem, for a given sequenceTof lengthn, the goal is to compute a table whoseith entry is the number of indices$$j \ne i$$$j\ne i$such that the length-msubstrings ofTstarting at positionsiandjhave at mostkmismatches. Previous works on this problem focused on heuristics computing a rough approximation of the result or on the case of$$k=1$$$k=1$. We present several efficient algorithms for the general case of the problem. Our main result is an algorithm that, for$$k=O(1)$$$k=O\left(1\right)$, works in$$O(n)$$$O\left(n\right)$space and, with high probability, in$$O(n \cdot \min \{m^k,\log ^k n\})$$$O(n·min\{m^k,{log}^{k}n\})$time. Our algorithm requires a careful adaptation of thek-errata trees of Cole et al. [STOC 2004] to avoid multiple counting of pairs of substrings. Our technique can also be applied to solve the all-pairs Hamming distance problem introduced by Crochemore et al. [WABI 2017]. We further develop$$O(n^2)$$$O\left(n^2\right)$-time algorithms to computeall(k, m)-mappability tables for a fixedmand all$$k\in \{0,\ldots ,m\}$$$k\in \{0,\dots ,m\}$or a fixedkand all$$m\in \{k,\ldots ,n\}$$$m\in \{k,\dots ,n\}$. Finally, we show that, for$$k,m = \Theta (\log n)$$$k,m=\Theta (logn)$, the (k, m)-mappability problem cannot be solved in strongly subquadratic time unless the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis fails. This is an improved and extended version of a paper presented at SPIRE 2018.
4. GHz Ultrasonic Chip-Scale Device Induces Ion Channel Stimulation in Human Neural Cells

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58133-0  

   Balasubramanian, Priya S. ; Singh, Ankur ; Xu, Chris ; Lal, Amit ( February 2020 , Scientific Reports)

   Emergent trends in the device development for neural prosthetics have focused on establishing stimulus localization, improving longevity through immune compatibility, reducing energy re-quirements, and embedding active control in the devices. Ultrasound stimulation can single-handedly address several of these challenges. Ultrasonic stimulus of neurons has been studied extensively from 100 kHz to 10 MHz, with high penetration but less localization. In this paper, a chip-scale device consisting of piezoelectric Aluminum Nitride ultrasonic transducers was engineered to deliver gigahertz (GHz) ultrasonic stimulus to the human neural cells. These devices provide a path towards complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integration towards fully controllable neural devices. At GHz frequencies, ultrasonic wavelengths in water are a few microns and have an absorption depth of 10–20 µm. This confinement of energy can be used to control stimulation volume within a single neuron. This paper is the first proof-of-concept study to demonstrate that GHz ultrasound can stimulate neuronsin vitro. By utilizing optical calcium imaging, which records calcium ion flux indicating occurrence of an action potential, this paper demonstrates that an application of a nontoxic dosage of GHz ultrasonic waves$$(\ge 0.05\frac{W}{c{m}^{2}})$$$\left(\ge 0.05\frac{W}{c{m}^2}\right)$caused an average normalized fluorescence intensity recordings >1.40 for the calcium transients. Electrical effects due to chip-scale ultrasound delivery wasmore »discounted as the sole mechanism in stimulation, with effects tested atα = 0.01 statistical significance amongst all intensities and con-trol groups. Ionic transients recorded optically were confirmed to be mediated by ion channels and experimental data suggests an insignificant thermal contributions to stimulation, with a predicted increase of 0.03^oCfor$$1.2\frac{W}{c{m}^{2}}\cdot $$$1.2\frac{W}{c{m}^2}\cdot$This paper paves the experimental framework to further explore chip-scale axon and neuron specific neural stimulation, with future applications in neural prosthetics, chip scale neural engineering, and extensions to different tissue and cell types.

   « less
5. Reduction of the electroweak correlation in the PDF updating by using the forward–backward asymmetry of Drell–Yan process

   https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10280-6  

   Yang, Siqi ; Fu, Yao ; Liu, Minghui ; Zhang, Renyou ; Hou, Tie-Jiun ; Wang, Chen ; Yin, Hang ; Han, Liang ; Yuan, C. -P. ( April 2022 , The European Physical Journal C)

   We propose a new observable for the measurement of the forward–backward asymmetry$$(A_{FB})$$$\left(A_{\mathrm{FB}}\right)$in Drell–Yan lepton production. At hadron colliders, the$$A_{FB}$$$A_{\mathrm{FB}}$distribution is sensitive to both the electroweak (EW) fundamental parameter$$\sin ^{2} \theta _{W}$$${sin}^2{\theta }_W$, the weak mixing angle, and the parton distribution functions (PDFs). Hence, the determination of$$\sin ^{2} \theta _{W}$$${sin}^2{\theta }_W$and the updating of PDFs by directly using the same$$A_{FB}$$$A_{\mathrm{FB}}$spectrum are strongly correlated. This correlation would introduce large bias or uncertainty into both precise measurements of EW and PDF sectors. In this article, we show that the sensitivity of$$A_{FB}$$$A_{\mathrm{FB}}$on$$\sin ^{2} \theta _{W}$$${sin}^2{\theta }_W$is dominated by its average value around theZpole region, while the shape (or gradient) of the$$A_{FB}$$$A_{\mathrm{FB}}$spectrum is insensitive to$$\sin ^{2} \theta _{W}$$${sin}^2{\theta }_W$and contains important information on the PDF modeling. Accordingly, a new observable related to the gradient of the spectrum is introduced, and demonstrated to be able to significantly reduce the potential bias on the determination of$$\sin ^{2} \theta _{W}$$${sin}^2{\theta }_W$when updating the PDFs using the same$$A_{FB}$$$A_{\mathrm{FB}}$data.