Protein–Protein Interaction Methods and Protein Phase Separation

In the last decade, newly developed experimental methods have made it possible to highlight that macromolecules in the cell milieu physically interact to support physiology. This has shifted the problem of protein–protein interaction from a microscopic, electron-density scale to a mesoscopic one. Further, nowadays there is increasing evidence that proteins in the nucleus and in the cytoplasm can aggregate in membraneless organelles for different physiological reasons. In this scenario, it is urgent to face the problem of biomolecule functional annotation with efficient computational methods, suited to extract knowledge from reliable data and transfer information across different domains of investigation. Here, we revise the present state of the art of our knowledge of protein–protein interaction and the computational methods that differently implement it. Furthermore, we explore experimental and computational features of a set of proteins involved in phase separation.

Developing the NIS solid density hydrostatic weighing system up to 20 kg

This paper presents a developed design and construction to improve the performance and increasing the density measuring capability of the previous Hydrostatic Weighing Apparatus (HWA-NIS) at the National Institute of Standards (NIS) up to 20 kg. The previous (HWA-NIS) has been constructed up to 10 kg on 2014. The 2-Positions mass handler in the previous (HWA) was developed with 4-Positions pentagon shape to be able to make handling for individual masses in a group at once, when transferring the traceability from the primary standard “the Silicon Sphere” to the standard masses in the density scale weighing process. The weighing pan in the previous (HWA) was developed with four suspension wires with a diameter of 0.3 mm each, leads to reduce the surface tension affect on the measurement uncertainty by factor four times. The density of the standard masses in the range from 2 kg up to 20 kg were measured with an improved expanded uncertainty from 0.150 kg/m3 to 0.078 kg/m3 respectively due to reducing the effect of surface tension via the developed design of the weighing pan.

Regulatory density: concept and rating scale

The article deals with the topic of assessing the quantitative increase in the array of legal norms. Topicality of the research topic is due to the negative consequences of legislative inflation, expressed in the creation of new legal norms and the novelisation of the current legislation. The author focuses on the ratio of the number of legal norms and the volume of social relations. The article defines concept of the regulatory density. The author pays particular attention to the scale of legal regulation density. The author identifies three degrees of legal regulation density: low, medium, and high density of legal regulation. As a basis for the differentiation of the density of legal regulation, the author highlights the gaps in the legislation. The goal of a legal density scale is to manage regulatory risks associated with the high costs of legality and administrative barriers to doing business.

Electron acceleration by an intense laser pulse inside a density profile induced by non-linear pulse evolution

By sophisticated application of particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate the ultimate role of non-linear pulse evolutions in accelerating electrons during the entrance of an intense laser pulse into a preformed density profile. As a key point in our discussions, the non-linear pulse evolutions are found to be very fast even at very low plasma densities, provided that the pulse length exceeds the local plasma wavelength. Therefore, these evolutions are sufficiently developed during the propagation of typical short density scale lengths occurred at high contrast ratios of the pulse, and lead to plasma heating via stochastic acceleration in multi-waves. Further analysis of simulation data at different physical parameters indicates that the rate of evolutions increases with the plasma density leading to higher plasma heating and overgrown energetic electrons. In the same way, shortening the density scale length results into increase in the evolution rate and, simultaneously, decrease in the interaction time. This behavior can describe the observed optimum value of pre-plasma scale length for the maximum electron heating.