Can we make color switchable photovoltaic windows?

The development of smart windows could enhance the functionality of the large glass facades found in modern buildings around the globe. While these facades offer occupants views and natural light, the poor insulating qualities of glass cut against the desire for more efficient use of energy resources. In this perspective article, we explore recent developments for next-generation smart window technologies that can offer improved energy management through dynamic color switching, reducing heating and cooling loads, while also generating electricity through the photovoltaic effect.

Long-distance dispersal or postglacial contraction? Insights into disjunction between Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains and Taiwan in a cold-adapted herbaceous genus, .

Current disjunct patterns can result from long-distance dispersal or postglacial contraction. We herein investigate the evolutionary history of to elucidate the disjunction between the Himalaya-Hengduan Mountain region (HHM) and Taiwan (TW). Genetic structure of was investigated for 48 populations using sequences from five chloroplast loci and the ribosomal nuclear internal transcribed spacer.

Characterization of Gut Microbiome Dynamics in Developing Pekin Ducks and Impact of Management System.

Little to no research has been conducted on the gut microbiome of the Pekin duck, yet over 24.5 million ducks are raised for human consumption each year in the United States alone. Knowledge of the microbiome could lead to an understanding of the effects of growing conditions such as the use of prebiotics, probiotics, and enzymes in feeding practices, the use of antibiotics, and the sources of pathogenic bacteria in diseased ducks.

Computing and Applying Atomic Regulons to Understand Gene Expression and Regulation.

Understanding gene function and regulation is essential for the interpretation, prediction, and ultimate design of cell responses to changes in the environment. An important step toward meeting the challenge of understanding gene function and regulation is the identification of sets of genes that are always co-expressed. These gene sets, (ARs), represent fundamental units of function within a cell and could be used to associate genes of unknown function with cellular processes and to enable rational genetic engineering of cellular systems.

Illegitimate Tasks as an Impediment to Job Satisfaction and Intrinsic Motivation: Moderated Mediation Effects of Gender and Effort-Reward Imbalance.

The current work examines a contemporary workplace stressor that has only recently been introduced into the literature: illegitimate tasks. Illegitimate tasks are work tasks that violate identity role norms about what can reasonably be expected from an employee in a given position. Although illegitimate tasks have been linked to employee well-being in past work, we know little about the potential explanatory mechanisms linking illegitimate tasks to work-relevant negative psychological states.

A Bayesian Framework for the Classification of Microbial Gene Activity States.

Numerous methods for classifying gene activity states based on gene expression data have been proposed for use in downstream applications, such as incorporating transcriptomics data into metabolic models in order to improve resulting flux predictions. These methods often attempt to classify gene activity for each gene in each experimental condition as belonging to one of two states: active (the gene product is part of an active cellular mechanism) or inactive (the cellular mechanism is not active). These existing methods of classifying gene activity states suffer from multiple limitations, including enforcing unrealistic constraints on the overall proportions of active and inactive genes, failing to leverage a priori knowledge of gene co-regulation, failing to account for differences between genes, and failing to provide statistically meaningful confidence estimates.

Cautions about the reliability of pairwise gene correlations based on expression data.

Background: Rapid growth in the availability of genome-wide transcript abundance levels through gene expression microarrays and RNAseq promises to provide deep biological insights into the complex, genome-wide transcriptional behavior of single-celled organisms. However, this promise has not yet been fully realized.

Results: We find that computation of pairwise gene associations (correlation; mutual information) across a set of 2782 total genome-wide expression samples from six diverse bacteria produces unexpectedly large variation in estimates of pairwise gene association-regardless of the metric used, the organism under study, or the number and source of the samples.

Auditory and motion metaphors have different scalp distributions: an ERP study.

While many links have been established between sensory-motor words used literally (kick the ball) and sensory-motor regions of the brain, it is less clear whether metaphorically used words (kick the habit) also show such signs of "embodiment." Additionally, not much is known about the timing or nature of the connection between language and sensory-motor neural processing. We used stimuli divided into three figurativeness conditions-literal, metaphor, and anomalous-and two modality conditions-auditory (Her limousine was a privileged snort) and motion (The editorial was a brass-knuckle punch).

Comparative genomics and functional analysis of rhamnose catabolic pathways and regulons in bacteria.

L-rhamnose (L-Rha) is a deoxy-hexose sugar commonly found in nature. L-Rha catabolic pathways were previously characterized in various bacteria including Escherichia coli. Nevertheless, homology searches failed to recognize all the genes for the complete L-Rha utilization pathways in diverse microbial species involved in biomass decomposition.