Amy E. Herr, Ph.D.

🚀 Excited to share that our latest research, "Hybrid Screen Printable Electrolyte for Large-Scale Flexible Electrochromic Display Production", is now published in Advanced Materials Technologies! 🔥 In this study, we developed an innovative screen-printable quasi-solid polymer electrolyte (p-QSPE) that combines high ionic conductivity, durability, and efficiency for fully screen-printed electrochromic displays. This innovation could streamline ECD production and enhance their performance, bringing us closer to large-scale flexible displays! Thanks to our former PhD student Fábio for driving this project forward! And to our partners at Ynvisible Interactive Inc for enabling the testing of these formulations in an industrial setting. This collaboration highlights the tangible, real-world impact collaborative academic research can achieve! Read more about our findings here: https://lnkd.in/dsUz37Tt #Electrochromics #MaterialScience #FlexibleDisplays #ResearchInnovation #AdvancedMaterials #Collaboration #Intersectoral #Impact

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Brighter, better, and polarized -- In a recent Journal of the American Chemical Socisty #JACS article, Deng et al. show a new method for circularly-polarized OLEDs based on photonic spin-orbit coupling with photons of opposite circular polarization emitted from different optical valleys: https://lnkd.in/dTi8PqTA

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Ever wondered how we can visualize organic samples in their natural, hydrated states? We’re excited to introduce a game-changing technique in electron microscopy! By combining Graphene Liquid Cells (GLCs) with Low Voltage Electron Microscopy (LVEM), we can now achieve high-contrast, high-resolution images of hydrated samples. Key benefits of this innovative technique include: 1. Enhanced contrast and resolution: The combination of LVEM with GLCs provides unparalleled contrast and resolution. 2. Automated Encapsulation: A streamlined, automated process for encapsulating samples in graphene liquid cells. 3. Imaging in the native environment: Enables the visualization of organic samples in their natural, hydrated environments. This breakthrough not only simplifies workflows but also opens up new possibilities for research and development across various scientific disciplines. Check out the full paper via the link below. For any inquiries, please feel free to reach out.

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Evan Williams is Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley give another prospective on the current and future state of play woth charge detection mass spectrometry (CDMS) 🎯 Summary: Quoting the authors on current issues "Another significant issue is the speed of the devices. A lot of the data being published involves long accumulation times – sometimes an hour or two just to get a decent ion count. That’s acceptable when you’re developing a new technique, but in practical applications, it’s not something most users are willing to endure. Our goal is to reduce this time to be more in line with an LC time scale" Authors vvies on advantage of CDMS to the biopharma industry "The advantage of CD-MS for large particles is similar to the advantage of conventional mass spectrometry for smaller molecules (below a MDa): it provides very accurate mass measurements, quickly, with high sensitivity and specificity. This is valuable for characterizing anything involving large particles, whether it’s viral particles, synthetic lipid nanoparticles, or other examples we’ve been working on. For instance, we can determine how much RNA is in lipid nanoparticles, what the average size of the particles is, and how they are affected by processes like freezing" #massspectrometry #massspec #chemistry #biopharmaceutical #pharma #biotherapeutics #mrna

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Hierarchical Architected Materials: Excited to share that our latest research on bioinspired hierarchical tape springs has just been published open-access in Materials & Design! K. Hector, S. Dasika, J. Rimoli, P. Zavattieri, “Decoupling stiffness and peak moment via hierarchical snapping structures designed with machine learning”, Mater. Des., 244, 113189, 2024. https://lnkd.in/gDAPhMGN We explored, through machine learning and genetic algorithms, how structural designs inspired by tree leaves can enhance and help decouple key mechanical properties of hierarchical tape-springs ("measuring tapes"). These hierarchical tape springs exhibit snap-through instability that can be used for the design of multistable hierarchical architected materials for energy dissipation, impact resistant structures, etc. Co-authored by my former PhD student Kristiaan Hector, current student Phani Saketh Dasika, and with the invaluable collaboration of Julian Rimoli (U.C. Irvine).    #bioinspireddesign #materialsdesign #machinelearning #geneticalgorithms #engineeringmaterials #architected_materials #architectedmaterials #solidmechanics #energy_dissipation #bioinspired_materials #snapping_structures #bistable_structures #biomimetics

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Researchers at UCLA & Georgia Institute of Technology unveil #RNAGPT, a multi-modal chat model that simplifies RNA discovery by leveraging extensive literature to streamline complex queries. 🧬 🎯 RNA-GPT integrates RNA sequence encoders with large language models to process user-uploaded sequences. According to the researchers, RNA-GPT effectively addresses complex RNA queries, helping researchers navigate the vast literature and unlock new insights with the power of multi-modal AI. Quick Read: https://lnkd.in/gAeEQJfZ #Bioinformatics #RNA #LLMs #ArtificialIntelligence #gpt #ScienceNews #biotechnology

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All-optical phase conjugation using diffractive wavefront processing https://lnkd.in/gcC8KQF2 UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA ECE Department UCLA Bioengineering #diffractiveprocessors

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Excited to share that Daniel Wang, a current PhD student in EEL, is presenting his latest work at ECS PRIME 2024 in Honolulu! He'll be discussing the 'Role of Li Electrode Redox Potential and Solid Electrolyte Interphase (SEI) Species on the Coulombic Efficiency of LiFSI-DME and LiFSI-FEC Electrolytes'. Daniel's work explores how upshifting the Li electrode redox potential can help mitigate electrolyte decomposition, with a focus on LiFSI-DME and LiFSI-FEC electrolytes. He uses advanced techniques like in-situ FTIR, NMR, and Raman spectroscopy to uncover the complex relationships between SEI species, Li redox potential, and coulombic efficiency. His findings have the potential to pave the way for more efficient and stable lithium metal batteries. Link to talk abstract: https://lnkd.in/exjfdkZ3

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The #POSTDOCket: Postdoc to Faculty Conversion Programs Are a Win-Win While traditional postdoctoral appointments are insecure, requiring scholars to be on the job market constantly, some institutions and even state university systems are bucking the trend by creating pathways for postdocs to become faculty at their fellowship institution (or one close by). Read more to learn about these programs and what you should be asking when considering them! Read more at the 🔗https://ow.ly/8XMS50U2prc // #postdocs #postdoctoralscholars #postdocoffices #postdocassociations

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The book "Magnetic Nanoparticles in Nanomedicine," co-edited by my PhD advisor Jian-Ping Wang and me, is now available! This 542-page book, published by Elsevier, features contributions from experts in industry and academia. This book is divided into five sections. The first section covers the material properties, synthesis, modification, and characterization techniques of magnetic nanoparticles. The second section explores the medical applications of magnetic nanoparticles, including magnetic hyperthermia, drug/gene delivery, and neural stimulation. The third section introduces in vitro disease diagnosis, particularly focusing on emerging magnetic biosensors in recent years. The fourth section focuses on in vivo disease diagnostic imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic particle imaging (MPI). The fifth section discusses the biocompatibility of magnetic nanoparticles, considering aspects such as immunotoxicity and cellular uptake. Special thanks to the chapter contributors (not a complete list, only @ those connected on LinkedIn): Niranjan Natekar Aneesh Venugopal JINMING LIU Jenifer Gomez Pastora Bahar Rezaei Shahriar Mostufa Ravi Hadimani Renata Saha Shuang Liang Vinit Chugh Steve Conolly Zhi Wei Tay Jeff Chalmers

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Together with Nayomi Plaza, Joseph Jakes, Carlos Baez, Sai Venkatesh Pingali, and Wim Bras, we have a new paper published in the Carbohydrate Polymers journal: https://lnkd.in/d9vR87d4. Research on new conservation treatments for #historicalwood requires considerable amounts of appropriate #wood material, which is hard to acquire. Thus, we produced biologically and chemically degraded #modelwood that could be used as a representative material in future research on #consolidatingagents. Using chemical composition determinations, we found that #fungaldecay targeted mainly #polysaccharides, while alkaline treatment mostly reduced #hemicelluloses and #lignin content. X-ray and #neutronscattering showed that all decayed samples had increased disorder in #microfibrilalignment and larger #elementaryfibril cross-sections, and alkaline-treated samples had much larger elementary fibril spacing compared to those decayed by #fungi. These #nanoscale and chemical differences correlate with physical property changes. For example, decreased #cellulosecrystallinity and increased disorder of the microfibrils in degraded cell walls likely contribute to the lower #elasticmoduli measured for these #cellwalls. The obtained data improves understanding of how degradation alters wood structures and properties across length scales and will be valuable for future studies focusing on #archeologicalwood. Moreover, it leads to the conclusion that it is more appropriate to develop treatments that consider not only spatial variability and degree of wood degradation but also the corresponding molecular and nanoscale changes in the cell walls. #societywood #degradedwood #woodtechnology #wooddegradation #JestemFulbrighterem #JestemFulbrighterką Fulbright Poland Uniwersytet Przyrodniczy w Poznaniu Wydział Leśny i Technologii Drewna USDA Forest Service Oak Ridge National Laboratory Forest Products Society

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【LDIPRS: A novel longitudinal driving intention prior recognition technique empowered by TENG and deep learning】 Nano Energy (IF 16.8) Pub Date : 2024-08-03 , DOI:10.1016/j.nanoen.2024.110087 For autonomous vehicles, real-time and accurate longitudinal driving intention recognition is crucial as it effectively enhances driving safety and improves the driving experience. This study proposes a novel data and model hybrid-driven fine-grained longitudinal driving intention prior recognition system (LDIPRS). Firstly, the system integrates a human-pedal interaction sensor (HPIS) based on triboelectric nanogenerators for fine-grained longitudinal driving maneuver monitoring and the channel attention (CA)-enhanced convolutional neural network (CBRCNet). The HPIS, integrated into the vehicle's acceleration and brake pedals, is capable of monitoring driver foot movement information in the form of electrical signals before the vehicle responds, achieving data level advance. The collected electrical signals are fed into the CBRCNet network, which models and learns the mapping relationship between these signals and fine-grained longitudinal driving intentions, leading to model level advances. The HPIS completes the capture of longitudinal maneuver information 541 ms before the driving simulator starts to respond at the data level. At the model level, CBRCNet can achieve a recognition accuracy of 96.1 % based on partial response data (50 ms after starting response) rather than complete response data of the HPIS. Finally, our proposed LDIPRS realizes the recognition of emergency braking, rapid acceleration, normal braking, and normal acceleration in advance by 732 ms, 1035 ms, 1757 ms, and 2227 ms, respectively. This study introduces self-powered, low-cost, highly sensitive triboelectric sensors into the field of intention recognition, and combines the triboelectric sensors with deep learning algorithms to offer a promising solution to improve the safety of autonomous vehicles and the efficiency of intelligent transportation systems. https://lnkd.in/eHVDrykj

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It's #FreePaperFriday, and I'd like to follow up on last week's post about work in Purdue University School of Materials Engineering on experimental measurements of the properties of molecular crystals. Know what else we do here at Purdue? We also use computational tools to study these complex materials systems, and the complexity in the molecules, the need to consider atoms and molecules in the simulations, and the low symmetry structures make them just as tricky to simulate as to test experimentally. But hard doesn't stop Boilermakers. So, for today here's a new paper from Prof. Alejandro Strachan and Dr. Brian Lee at Purdue with their collaborators James Larentzos and John K Brennan at the Army Research Laboratory where they develop new computational force field methods to coarse grain the simulation of the crystalline material RDX, allowing simulations of structures in both crystalline and amorphous conditions and showing you can scale these up from a few molecules to particulate solids. https://lnkd.in/gk9tQk6z

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Thanks to my coauthors without whom this experimental work could not be completed. The paper abstract is as follows. ______________ Abstract In artificial reproductive technologies mirroring in vivo fertilization, there is a correlation between sperm motility and fertilization outcomes. Here, we present a technology for separating sperm based on motility, which uses a biocompatible, pump-less, and simple acoustofluidic approach. Our developed and fabricated sperm separation configuration is an acoustofluidic platform consisting of a circular glass capillary tube mounted on top of a ZnO-based surface acoustic wave (SAW) device. It can separate highly motile sperm from small volumes of normal raw human semen samples. This configuration allows the generated traveling SAW to couple into the capillary, causing highly motile sperm cells to swim against the propagation direction of the traveling SAW along the capillary tube. We term this fascinating acoustic-induced sperm swimming behavior acoustotaxis in analogy with the well-known rheotaxis, in which sperm orientate to swim against a continuous fluid flow frequently generated by using an external pump in the microfluidic systems. Here, we benefit from the acoustotaxis for a pump-less separation of an effective highly motile sperm concentration from raw human semen samples at low volumes of up to 20-30 µL within a short period of about 4 minutes free from any centrifugation step. This sperm separation device exhibits a successful selection capability that leads to sperm progressive motility increase by 45%, sperm curvilinear velocity by 23%, sperm average path velocity by 69%, and sperm linearity by 78% in the selected cells in comparison with the raw sample. This acoustotaxic sperm selection separation approach provides an easy-to-use and effective method for the selection of highly motile sperm cells without adversely affecting sperm viability, paving the way for efficient and rapid sperm separation platforms, applicable for patients with low semen volumes, and up-scalable for a large volume of raw semen processing in a short time. ____________________________________________________________________________ Authors: Sara Abbasi, Behdad Barahimi, Sara Darbari, Iman Halvaei, Mohammad Zabetian, Reza Nosrati, Adrian Neild, and Mohammad Kazem Moravvej-Farshi _____________-

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New article in ACS Nano from ACS Publications. Inspired by the experiment of Maelle Kapfer of Cori R. Dean's group from Columbia University. We analyze the elastic properties, structural effects, and low-energy physics of a sheared nanoribbon placed on top of graphene, which creates a gradually changing moiré pattern. By means of a classical elastic model we derive the strains in the ribbon and we obtain its electronic energy spectrum with a scaled tight-binding model. From the theoretical modelling group from IMDEA Nanociencia and Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) https://lnkd.in/gjh7X4XQ

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Researchgate link: https://lnkd.in/g3gBND8E Exploring the World of Mixed Oxide Nanoclusters: CeO2 and ZrO2 In the field of materials science, researchers are constantly exploring new ways to enhance the properties of materials to make them more effective for several applications. One such exciting area of research involves mixed oxide nanoclusters, particularly those composed of cerium dioxide (CeO2) and zirconium dioxide (ZrO2). These nanoclusters hold great promise due to their unique physical and chemical properties, which can be finely tuned by adjusting their size and composition. What Are Mixed Oxide Nanoclusters? Mixed oxide nanoclusters are tiny particles that combine two different metal oxides. In our case, we're focusing on clusters made from CeO2 and ZrO2. By mixing these oxides, we can enhance their properties beyond what they can achieve individually. For example, cerium dioxide is known for its excellent catalytic properties, and zirconium dioxide is prized for its thermal stability. When combined, these materials can offer superior performance in various applications, including catalysis, fuel cells, and more. The Importance of Size and Composition: The properties of these nanoclusters are not static; they change with the size of the particles and the ratio of CeO2 to ZrO2. Our research used advanced simulations to understand how these factors influence the behavior of the nanoclusters. We examined particles ranging from very small clusters with just 32 cations to larger clusters containing 256 cations. 1. We found that nanoclusters with more than 108 cations undergo a significant structural phase transition from a disordered state to an ordered one. This transition is evident through abrupt changes in potential energy as the temperature varies. As expected, the phase transition temperature (Tpt) is affected by the composition of the nanoclusters. Adding more zirconium (Zr4+) lowers the Tpt, making the transition occur at lower temperatures. Conversely, reducing the size of the particles also leads to a lower Tpt. Larger nanoclusters exhibit a more defined atomic order, which is visible through peaks in their radial distribution functions. These peaks, indicating ordered structures, diminish as the particle size decreases and the Zr4+ concentration increases. X-ray diffraction analysis supports these findings. In cerium-rich clusters, ordered structures appear even in smaller clusters (56 cations), while for zirconium-rich clusters, larger sizes (108 cations) are required to see similar order. During simulated heating, cerium atoms tend to cluster first and occupy the core of the nanoclusters, preferring highly coordinated sites. Zirconium atoms, on the other hand, prefer less coordinated sites on the surface.

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Excited to share our latest work on the stereoselective synthesis of pyridine-functionalized cyclopropanes via enzymatic activation of pyridotriazoles just published in JACS! In this paper, we report the first example of asymmetric cyclopropanation using pyridotriazoles as stable and readily available carbene donor reagents. This method enables the asymmetric cyclopropanation of a variety of olefins, including electronrich and electrodeficient ones, with high activity, high stereoselectivity, and enantiodivergent selectivity. The resulting products combine a cyclopropane ring with a pyridine moiety, i.e., two highly valuable structural motifs in medicinal chemistry. Mechanistic studies in collaboration with Prof. Yong Zhang group unveiled a multifaceted role of halogen substitution in the pyridotriazole reagent toward favoring multiple catalytic steps in the enzymatic transformation. Congratulations to lead authors Dr. Satyajit Roy and Yining Wang and kudos to the entire team at The University of Texas at Dallas and Stevens Institute of Technology for this important accomplishment! 🎉 🎉 #biocatalysis #enzymes #cyclopropanes #proteinengineering

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Boltz-1: Pioneering Open-Source Excellence in Biomolecular Modeling MIT’s Jameel Clinic unveils Boltz-1, a groundbreaking AI model democratizing access to biomolecular interaction research. With Boltz-1, researchers can now accelerate drug discovery and molecular engineering, breaking barriers in computational biology. Why Boltz-1 stands out: Impressive Results: ➡️ LDDT-PLI: 65% (vs. Chai-1's 40%) ➡️ DockQ Success Rate: 83% (exceeding Chai-1's 76%) ➡️ Improved accuracy in protein-ligand complex predictions Key Features: ➡️Fully open-source under the MIT license ➡️Matches AlphaFold3-level accuracy ➡️Advanced MSA pairing algorithms ➡️Enhanced confidence modeling With an 83% success rate in structure prediction, Boltz-1 is set to revolutionize drug discovery and protein design research, accelerating innovation like never before. Explore Boltz-1 and its transformative potential! #Biotechnology #OpenSource #DrugDiscovery #AIinBiology #Innovation

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On October 10th, Peking University and BGI research teams, led by Professor Lin Li and Ph.D. student Zhao Yixuan, published a review paper titled “Graphene, Beyond Lab Benches” in the journal Science. The article focuses on the current state of graphene applications beyond the laboratory and explores its future development directions. Since its discovery, graphene has drawn significant attention from both academia and industry due to its exceptional electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties. However, despite the enormous potential demonstrated by high-quality graphene produced in laboratories, large-scale production and practical applications still face many challenges. The paper delves into the bottlenecks in applying graphene to electronic and optoelectronic devices and highlights the technical difficulties encountered during industrialization efforts. It further discusses potential solutions to overcome these challenges and presents an outlook on graphene’s future industrial applications and the revolutionary impact it may have on existing technologies. Original Link：https://lnkd.in/gxrB9XBh

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