Supersymmetric spectroscopy on AdS4 × S7 and AdS4 × S6

New techniques based on Exceptional Field Theory have recently allowed for the calculation of the Kaluza-Klein spectra of certain AdS4 solutions of D = 11 and massive IIA supergravity. These are the solutions that consistently uplift on S7 and S6 from vacua of maximal four-dimensional supergravity with SO(8) and ISO(7) gaugings. In this paper, we provide an algorithmic procedure to compute the complete Kaluza-Klein spectrum of five such AdS4 solutions, all of them $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1, and give the first few Kaluza-Klein levels. These solutions preserve SO(3) and U(1) × U(1) internal symmetry in D = 11, and U(1) (two of them) and no continuous symmetry in type IIA. Together with previously discussed cases, our results exhaust the Kaluza-Klein spectra of known supersymmetric AdS4 solutions in D = 11 and type IIA in the relevant class.

Solvent-free esterifications mediated by immobilized lipases: a review from thermodynamic and kinetics perspective

Esters are a highly relevant class of compounds in the industrial context, and biocatalysis applied to esters syntheses is already a reality for some chemical companies. Their syntheses in solvent-free...

Plant Polyphenols-Biofortified Foods as a Novel Tool for the Prevention of Human Gut Diseases

Plant food biofortification is recently receiving remarkable attention, as it aims to increase the intake of minerals, vitamins, or antioxidants, crucial for their contribution to the general human health status and disease prevention. In this context, the study of the plant’s secondary metabolites, such as polyphenols, plays a pivotal role for the development of a new generation of plant crops, compensating, at least in part, the low nutritional quality of Western diets with a higher quality of dietary sources. Due to the prevalent immunomodulatory activity at the intestinal level, polyphenols represent a nutritionally relevant class of plant secondary metabolites. In this review, we focus on the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of different classes of polyphenols with a specific attention to their potential in the prevention of intestinal pathological processes. We also discuss the latest biotechnology strategies and new advances of genomic techniques as a helpful tool for polyphenols biofortification and the development of novel, healthy dietary alternatives that can contribute to the prevention of inflammatory bowel diseases.

Paradoxical Behavior of Organodiselenides: Pro-Oxidant to Antioxidant

Over the years, organodiselenides have emerged as the biologically relevant class of molecules. On the one hand, such compounds are known for pro-oxidant effects leading to toxicity in biological systems. On the other hand, there are growing evidences about their bio-mimetic activities as catalysts such as glutathione peroxidase (GPx)-like activity. Our recent work has explored this paradoxical behavior of diselenides in developing antioxidants and/or anticancer agents. For this purpose, a number of alkyl and aryl diselenides have been evaluated in different biological models. The results have shown that aryl diselenides, in particular pyridinediselenides, altered the ratio of the intracellular thiol redox pairs of glutathione (GSH) and glutathione disulfide (GSSG) towards reduction (antioxidant) rather than oxidation (pro-oxidant) to protect normal cells against radiation damage and to induce cytotoxicity in tumor cells. Further, these studies have also postulated that the intracellular redox state, the level of thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), and reductive intermediates (e.g., selenol and/or selone) might play a very important role in the manifestation of the toxicities of aryl diselenides in cells.

Thouless pumping in disordered photonic systems

Thouless charge pumping protocols provide a route for one-dimensional systems to realize topological transport. Here, using arrays of evanescently coupled optical waveguides, we experimentally demonstrate bulk Thouless pumping in the presence of disorder. The degree of pumping is quite tolerant to significant deviations from adiabaticity as well as the addition of system disorder until the disorder is sufficiently strong to reduce the bulk mobility gap of the system to be on the scale of the modulation frequency of the system. Moreover, we show that this approach realizes near-full-unit-cell transport per pump cycle for a physically relevant class of localized initial system excitations. Thus, temporally pumped systems can potentially be used as a design principle for a new class of modulated slow-light devices that are resistant to system disorder.

Comprehensive Anonymity Trilemma: User Coordination is not enough

For anonymous communication networks (ACNs), Das et al. recently confirmed a long-suspected trilemma result that ACNs cannot achieve strong anonymity, low latency overhead and low bandwidth overhead at the same time. Our paper emanates from the careful observation that their analysis does not include a relevant class of ACNs with what we call user coordination where users proactively work together towards improving their anonymity. We show that such protocols can achieve better anonymity than predicted by the above trilemma result. As the main contribution, we present a stronger impossibility result that includes all ACNs we are aware of. Along with our formal analysis, we provide intuitive interpretations and lessons learned. Finally, we demonstrate qualitatively stricter requirements for the Anytrust assumption (all but one protocol party is compromised) prevalent across ACNs.

An eco-friendly pathway to thermosensitive micellar nanoobjects via photoRAFT PISA: the full guide to poly(N-acryloylpyrrolidin)-block-polystyrene diblock copolymers

Spherical macromolecular assemblies, so-called latexes, consisting of polystyrene (PS) resemble a relevant class of synthetic polymers used for a plethora of applications ranging from coatings or lubricants to biomedical applications.

Judgments and Prejudices of Students against Their Failure in the Social Studies Class

It is necessary to determine the ways of success in order to achieve success. It can be said that it is essential to be aware of the factors that may cause failure to achieve success. Some students have certain prejudices against their classes. This study aims to reveal the prejudice and negative judgments which are thought to affect the failures of students in the social studies class and to establish a solution by determining the prescribed prejudices and judgments that affect students' failures in the relevant class. In addition, as a result of this research, the students who regarded their failure in the social studies class as fundamentally teacher-based indicated it with 138 frequencies in 9 different coding, as self-based with 229 frequencies in 14 different coding and as program-based with 94 frequencies in 4 different coding. It has been seen that the students prioritized themselves more in comparison to the teacher-based and program-based considering the coding varieties and frequency numbers. It can be stated that the students regarded the program as the source of their failure the least.

Robust Forecast Evaluation of Expected Shortfall*

Motivated by the Basel III regulations, recent studies have considered joint forecasts of Value-at-Risk and Expected Shortfall. A large family of scoring functions can be used to evaluate forecast performance in this context. However, little intuitive or empirical guidance is currently available, which renders the choice of scoring function awkward in practice. We therefore develop graphical checks of whether one forecast method dominates another under a relevant class of scoring functions, and propose an associated hypothesis test. We illustrate these tools with simulation examples and an empirical analysis of S&P 500 and DAX returns.

Ideals

Ideals are models of excellence. They can be moral or nonmoral, and either ‘substantive’ or ‘deliberative’. Substantive ideals present models of excellence against which things in a relevant class can be assessed, such as models of the just society or the good person. Deliberative ideals present models of excellent deliberation, leading to correct or warranted ethical conclusions. Ideals figure in ethics in two opposed ways. Most centrally, ideals serve to justify ethical judgments and to guide people in how to live. Sometimes, however, ideals may conflict with moral demands, thereby testing the limits of morality. Reliance upon ideals in the development of ethical theories seems unavoidable but raises difficult questions. How can the choice of a particular ideal be justified? How might conflicts between ideals and other values, especially moral demands, be resolved?