Notre Dame College

In this work, a single-channel slope-plate modular and membraneless phase separation and extraction (MPSE) device was fabricated using 3D printing. The slope-plate was designed with an insertable glass slide to enable surface modification with coatings. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and perfluoropolyether (Zdol) coatings were applied to tailor the surface wettability and enhance the phase separation. Using a model biphasic system of water and hexadecane, both coatings significantly improved the separation efficiency compared with the uncoated device by promoting selective wetting. Building on these results, lithium extraction from a simulated saline solution was investigated using 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([EMIM][NTf2]) as the ionic liquid (IL) extractant. The IL effectively extracted Li+ from the aqueous phase in bulk extraction, demonstrating its potential for lithium recovery. However, the low interfacial tension between the IL and aqueous phases posed challenges for phase separation. The application of SAM and Zdol coatings effectively mitigated this issue. Overall, integrating tailored surface chemistry with the slope-plate MPSE design shows great promise as an efficient and scalable platform for studying liquid-liquid separation and optimizing ionic-liquid-based extraction processes for lithium recovery from saline sources.

A self-aligned focusing schlieren (SAFS) system with two field lenses is designed and constructed which combines the field of view of a conventional schlieren system with the defocus blur of a focusing schlieren system in a compact form, with 1.2 m (4 ft) total length. The depth of field is sufficient to recognize specific spanwise features in a 76.2 mm (3 in) wide test section and to blur the boundary layers on the windows as well as window defects. The spherical shock wave from a laser spark in Mach 2 flow is tracked using 500 kHz SAFS imaging with 200 ns optical pulse width, and the flow Mach number and stagnation temperature are found by comparison to an analytical blast wave solution. Analytical forms are derived for the depth of field and vignetting.

Sand flies infect more than one million people annually with Leishmania parasites and other bacterial and viral pathogens. Progress in understanding sand fly adaptations to xenobiotics, such as insecticides has been hampered by the limited availability of genomic resources. Here we sequenced, assembled and annotated the transcriptomes of 11 phlebotomine sand fly species, and used them to generate new evolutionary insights pertaining to their adaptations to xenobiotics, including those contributing to insecticide resistance. We annotated and performed large-scale phylogenetic comparisons of more than 2,700 sand fly genes from the five major detoxification enzyme families, Cytochrome P450s (CYPs), Glutathione-S-Transferases (GSTs), UDP-Glycosyltransferases (UGTs), Carboxyl/Cholinesterases (CCEs) and ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Transporters. This comparative approach uncovered that sand flies have evolved diverse CYP and GST repertoires, with striking expansions in gene groups encoding for potential xenobiotic metabolizers. Furthermore, we identified conserved orthologs for two primary insecticide targets, acetylcholinesterase-1 (Ace1) and Voltage Gated Sodium Channel (VGSC). This work provides novel biological insights and valuable genomic resources for enabling sand fly research in xenobiotic adaptation and insecticide resistance.

Phase aberrations and their effect on the development of flowfields caused by laser-induced breakdown is investigated. The phase aberrations are imparted onto a high-energy laser pulse at a wavelength of 1064nm using a deformable mirror. An experimental setup was devised to capture the motion of the flowfields resulting from laser-induced breakdown with phase aberration which focuses on capturing both the transverse profile, as well as the coaxial profile of the flowfield. It is shown that the laser pulse energy (181mJ) decreases significantly due to the presence of non-planar phase, which is due to spreading in the focal plane where breakdown typically occurs. Of the data collected, a single instance of Zernike Astigmatism, Zernike Y-Coma, and Zernike Spherical aberrations are investigated. The well-known Horn-Schunck optical flow method is used to analyze the shadowgraph images, producing dense optical flowfield representations of the motion. It is shown that each aberration investigated creates a unique flowfield, and the implications are further discussed.

We consider networked systems comprised of interconnected sets of linear subsystems and propose a decentralized and compositional approach to stabilize or dissipativate such linear networked systems via optimally modifying some existing interconnections and/or creating entirely new interconnections. We also extend this interconnection topology synthesis approach to ensure the ability to stabilize or dissipativate such networks under distributed (local) feedback control. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that attempts to address the optimal interconnection topology synthesis problem for general linear networked systems. The proposed approach only involves solving a sequence of linear matrix inequality problems (one at each subsystem), and thus, it can be implemented efficiently and scalably in a decentralized and compositional manner. We also include a case study where the proposed interconnection topology synthesis approach is compared with an alternative dissipativity-based approach.

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-3856.vid Close monitoring of small Uncrewed Aerial Systems (sUAS) is imperative for promptly detecting, diagnosing, and potentially mitigating problems that arise during flight. Researchers are investigating a diverse range of flight problems and solutions through studying sUAS flight behavior; however, progress is impeded by the lack of publicly available flight logs with descriptions of anomalies that include annotated time-series data, diagnoses, and explanations of the observed behavior. We address this lack of data through a longitudinal collection of time-series flight data for small Uncrewed Aerial Systems (sUAS) running PX4. Our data collection is in-progress with an anticipated release of the AWPX4RC-2023 (All weather PX4 RotorCopter flight logs) data set by December 30, 2023. The data set contains physical sUAS flight log data collected using five standard routes executed repeatedly by multiple sUAS and several additional routes. The flights are collected across multiple seasons and weather conditions. Metadata collected for each flight includes weather, flight plans, battery details, payload descriptions, and alerts raised by the Ground Control Station. Each flight log is analyzed and subsequently annotated with ground truth anomalies and corresponding explanations of the observed flight behavior. The current data set is available for immediate use, but will be continually appended until its official release in December 2023. This paper describes the data we are collecting, and its suggested use-cases.

Abstract Human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV), a retrovirus belonging to the oncovirus family, has long been linked to be associated with various inflammatory and immunosuppressive disorders. To combat the devastating impact of this virus, our study employed a reverse vaccinology approach to design a multi-epitope-based vaccine targeting the highly virulent subtypes of HTLV. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of the molecular interactions between the vaccine and Toll-like receptors (TLRs), providing valuable insights for future research on preventing and managing HTLV-related diseases and any possible outbreaks. The vaccine was designed by focusing on the envelope glycoprotein gp62, a crucial protein involved in the infectious process and immune mechanisms of HTLV inside the human body. Epitope mapping identified T cell and B cell epitopes with low binding energies, ensuring their immunogenicity and safety. Linkers and adjuvants were incorporated to enhance the vaccine’s stability, antigenicity, and immunogenicity. Two vaccine constructs were developed, both exhibiting high antigenicity and conferring safety. Vaccine construct 2 demonstrated expected solubility and structural stability after disulfide engineering. Molecular docking analyses revealed strong binding affinity between the vaccine construct 2 and both TLR2 and TLR4. Molecular dynamics simulations indicated that the TLR2-vaccine complex displayed enhanced stability, compactness, and consistent hydrogen bond formation, suggesting a favorable affinity. Contact analysis, Gibbs free energy landscapes, and DCC analysis further supported the stability of the TLR2-vaccine complex, while DSSP analysis confirmed stable secondary structures. MM-PBSA analysis revealed a more favorable binding affinity of the TLR4-vaccine complex, primarily due to lower electrostatic energy. In conclusion, our study successfully designed a multi-epitope-based vaccine targeting HTLV subtypes and provided valuable insights into the molecular interactions between the vaccine and TLRs. These findings should contribute to the development of effective preventive and treatment approaches against HTLV-related diseases.

In a recent paper (2021 Eur. J. Phys. 42 045407), Antão and Peres study both the static and dynamic polarizability of a bound system. The binding potential they consider is the one-dimensional Dirac delta. The authors use the Dalgarno and Lewis method to calculate the polarizabilities to demonstrate its effectiveness in perturbation calculations. The authors left out essential steps in applying the time-dependent perturbation method to derive the expression for the dynamic electric polarizability. In addition, references that are useful to the paper are missing. To aid our comment, we first give a summary of the Dalgarno and Lewis method. Second, we present the work of the authors in deriving the dynamic electric polarizability. We follow by presenting the time-dependent perturbation method, which is needed to derive the expression for the dynamic electric polarizability. In the process, we will provide some essential references, which will be of value to the subject of the paper.