Search results for " electricity"

Electrostatic control of the photoisomerization efficiency and optical properties in visual pigments: on the role of counterion quenching.

2009

Hybrid QM(CASPT2//CASSCF/6-31G*)/MM(Amber) computations have been used to map the photoisomerization path of the retinal chromophore in Rhodopsin and explore the reasons behind the photoactivity efficiency and spectral control in the visual pigments. It is shown that while the electrostatic environment plays a central role in properly tuning the optical properties of the chromophore, it is also critical in biasing the ultrafast photochemical event: it controls the slope of the photoisomerization channel as well as the accessibility of the S(1)/S(0) crossing space triggering the ultrafast decay. The roles of the E113 counterion, the E181 residue, and the other amino acids of the protein pock…

β2 integrin phosphorylation on Thr758 acts as a molecular switch to regulate 14-3-3 and filamin binding

2008

AbstractLeukocyte integrins of the β2 family are essential for immune cell-cell adhesion. In activated cells, β2 integrins are phosphorylated on the cytoplasmic Thr758, leading to 14-3-3 protein recruitment to the β2 integrin. The mutation of this phosphorylation site impairs cell adhesion, actin reorganization, and cell spreading. Thr758 is contained in a Thr triplet of β2 that also mediates binding to filamin. Here, we investigated the binding of filamin, talin, and 14-3-3 proteins to phosphorylated and unphosphorylated β2 integrins by biochemical methods and x-ray crystallography. 14-3-3 proteins bound only to the phosphorylated integrin cytoplasmic peptide, with a high affinity (Kd, 261…

The Minor Capsid Protein VP11 of Thermophilic Bacteriophage P23-77 Facilitates Virus Assembly by Using Lipid-Protein Interactions

2015

ABSTRACT Thermus thermophilus bacteriophage P23-77 is the type member of a new virus family of icosahedral, tailless, inner-membrane-containing double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses infecting thermophilic bacteria and halophilic archaea. The viruses have a unique capsid architecture consisting of two major capsid proteins assembled in various building blocks. We analyzed the function of the minor capsid protein VP11, which is the third known capsid component in bacteriophage P23-77. Our findings show that VP11 is a dynamically elongated dimer with a predominantly α-helical secondary structure and high thermal stability. The high proportion of basic amino acids in the protein enables electrost…

Customer benefits of demand-side management in the Nordic electricity market

2016

The increasing share of renewable energy sources is likely to lead to price effects in Nordic electricity market, resulting especially in increased volatility of spot and imbalance prices. The greater price volatility and amount of required balancing power increase the need for Demand-Side Management (DSM) in the electricity market and may as well increase the financial benefits of DSM participants. In this research I study the DSM in electricity mar-ket and evaluate how large the financial benefits of DSM participants could be. Monte Carlo simulation method is used to simulate imbalance prices with different volatilities for Finland and Sweden. The results show that increasing volatility m…

Optical, structural and electrical characterization of GaN/AIN nanoestructures : Quantum wells, quantum dots and nanowires

2011

Lipid nanocarriers containing esters prodrugs of Flurbiprofen. Preparation, physical-chemical characterization and biological studies.

2013

In this paper, the preparation, chemical-physical, technological and in vitro characterization of nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) carrying R-flurbiprofen ester prodrugs, were analyzed for a potential pharmaceutical application. R-flurbiprofen was chosen as a model drug because it has been found to play an effective role in counteracting secretases involved in neurodegenerative diseases, although it does not cross the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). In this study, two R-flurbiprofen ester prodrugs (ethyl and hexyl) were successfully synthesized and entrapped into non-pegylated and pegylated NLC. The obtained systems showed average diameters in the colloidal size range, negative zeta potential…

Non-cooperative game theory based stepwise power tariff model using Monte-Carle simulation for agricultural consumers

2019

Abstract In the present study the concept of non-cooperative game theory is proposed in the retail electricity market for introducing stepwise power tariff model (SPT) for agricultural consumers. The objective of the paper is to increase the energy generation through green energy generation sources (GEGS), introduction of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, education of families, standard wiring and appliance efficiency in tariffs for agricultural consumers with non-cooperative game theory. Agricultural consumers are able to generate a huge amount of electricity through GEGS and are able to control the consumption in their own way, and the non-cooperative game theory is introduced. Energy con…

Micellar versus hydro-organic mobile phases for retention-hydrophobicity relationship studies with ionizable diuretics and an anionic surfactant

2004

Abstract Logarithm of retention factors (log  k ) of a group of 14 ionizable diuretics were correlated with the molecular (log  P o/w ) and apparent (log  P app ) octanol–water partition coefficients. The compounds were chromatographed using aqueous–organic (reversed-phase liquid chromatography, RPLC) and micellar–organic mobile phases (micellar liquid chromatography, MLC) with the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), in the pH range 3–7, and a conventional octadecylsilane column. Acetonitrile was used as the organic modifier in both modes. The quality of the correlations obtained for log  P app at varying ionization degree confirms that this correction is required in the aqueou…

Technical and economical assessment of distributed electrochemical storages for load shifting applications: An Italian case study

2016

Time-of-use (TOU) energy cost management involves the use of energy storage systems (ESSs) by customers to reduce their electricity bills. The ESS is charged during off-peak time periods, when electricity energy prices are low, and discharged during times when on-peak energy prices are applied. This article addresses the question whether it is economically viable to install medium-scale distributed ESSs designed to lower the electricity cost for a customer-side application, assuming flexible electricity tariffs. The technical/economical evaluation is carried out referring to lithium-ion (Li-ion), sodium sulfur (NaS) and vanadium redox battery (VRB) technologies, performing a parametric anal…

Multi-party metering: An architecture for privacy-preserving profiling schemes

2013

Several privacy concerns about the massive deploy- ment of smart meters have been arisen recently. Namely, it has been shown that the fine-grained temporal traces generated by these meters can be correlated with different users behaviors. A new architecture, called multi-party metering, for enabling privacy-preserving analysis of high-frequency metering data without requiring additional complexity at the smart meter side is here proposed. The idea is to allow multiple entities to get a share of the high-frequency metering data rather than the real data, where this share does not reveal any information about the real data. By aggregating the shares provided by different users and publishing …