Asia Pacific (AP) is the largest regional vehicle market and accounted for 48% of global sales in 2019. Air quality is a pressing issue in many AP countries and together with increased vehicle sales has led to intense scrutiny of vehicle emissions. The heterogeneity of socio-economic features and transportation patterns in AP countries has resulted in different emission levels and control policies

Restrictions on movement in Beijing to limit the COVID-19 epidemic tended to reduce the emissions of primary pollutants. However, changes in pollutant concentrations are also affected by chemical transformation and meteorology. Decreases in concentrations were also not as obvious in Beijing, when compared with Hubei Province, where lockdown was especially strict. Declines are evident in concentrations

Caveolin-1 (cav-1) is a multi-domain membrane protein that is a key player in cell signaling, endocytosis and mechanoprotection. It is the principle component of cholesterol-rich caveolar domains and has been reported to induce membrane curvature. The molecular mechanisms underlying the interactions of cav-1 with complex membranes leading to modulation of membrane topology and the formation of cholesterol-rich

High particle concentrations are observed in the streets. Regional-scale chemistry-transport models are not able to reproduce these high concentrations, because their spatial resolution is not fine enough. Local-scale models are usually employed to simulate the high concentrations in street networks, but they often adopt substantial simplifications to determinate background concentrations and use simplified

Photonic structures in ordered, quasi-ordered or disordered forms have evolved across many different animals and plant systems. They can produce complex and often functional optical responses through coherent and incoherent scattering processes, often too, in combination with broadband or narrowband absorbing pigmentation. Interestingly, these systems appear highly tolerant of faults in their photonic

Cooking emissions account for a significant proportion of the organic aerosol emitted into the urban environment and high pollution events have been linked to an increased organic content on urban particulate matter surfaces. We present a kinetic study on surface coatings of self-assembled (semi-solid) oleic acid-sodium oleate cooking aerosol proxies undergoing ozonolysis. We found a clear film thickness-dependent

Air quality in megacities is significantly impacted by emissions from vehicles and other urban-scale human activities. Amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in January 2020, strict policies were in place to restrict people movement, bringing about steep reductions in pollution activities and notably lower ambient concentrations of primary pollutants. In this study, we report hourly measurements of fine particulate

A major challenge in density functional theory (DFT) is the development of density functional approximations (DFAs) to overcome errors in existing DFA, leading to more complex functionals. For such functionals, we consider roles of the Kohn-Sham (KS) noninteracting reference system. The electron density of the KS reference with a local potential has been traditionally defined as being equal to the

Membrane protein structure and function are modulated via interactions with their lipid environment. This is particularly true for the integral membrane pumps, the P-type ATPases. These ATPases play vital roles in cell physiology, where they are associated with the transport of cations and lipids, thereby generating and maintaining crucial (electro-)chemical potential gradients across the membrane

Peripheral membrane proteins play a major role in numerous biological processes by transiently associating with cellular membranes, often with extreme membrane specificity. Because of the short-lived nature of these interactions, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have emerged as an appealing tool to characterize at the structural level the molecular details of the protein-membrane interface. Transferable

Intrinsic apoptosis is orchestrated by a group of proteins that mediate the coordinated disruption of mitochondrial membranes. Bax is a multi-domain protein that, upon activation, disrupts the integrity of the mitochondrial outer membrane by forming pores. We strategically introduced glutamic acids into a short sequence of the Bax protein that constitutively creates membrane pores. The resulting BaxE5

Atmospheric gas-to-particle conversion is the crucial or even dominating contributor to haze formation in Chinese megacities in terms of aerosol number, surface area and mass. Based on our comprehensive observations in Beijing during 15 January 2018 – 31 March 2019, we are able to show that 80–90 % of the aerosol mass (PM2.5) was formed via atmospheric reactions during the haze days and over 65 % of

Haze episodes, characterised by extremely high aerosol concentrations and a reduction in visibility to less than 10 km are a frequent occurrence in wintertime Beijing, despite policy interventions leading to an overall improvement in average annual air quality. The main drivers in the onset of haze episodes in wintertime Beijing are changing synoptic conditions however, aerosol radiation interactions

The reactions of Zn(NO3)2·6H2O with the polycarboxylic acids 1,3-benzenedicarboxylic acid (H2mbdc), 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid (H2bdc), 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid (H3btc) and 4,4'-biphenyldicarboxylic acid (H2bpdc) in the presence of methyl viologen iodide ([MV]I2) in DMF gave anionic frameworks with methyl viologen species incorporated as counter-ions. When the reactions were carried out at

This study aimed to investigate the long-term variations in the contribution of emission sources to ambient PM2.5 organic carbon (OC) in central Los Angeles (CELA) and Riverside using the Chemical Speciation Network (CSN) database in the 2005-2015 period, during which several federal and state PM-based regulations were implemented to reduce tailpipe emissions in the region. The measured concentrations

Perforin is a pore forming protein used by cytotoxic T lymphocytes to remove cancerous or virus-infected cells during immune response. During the response, the lymphocyte membrane becomes refractory to perforin function by accumulating densely ordered lipid rafts and externalizing negatively charged lipid species. The dense membrane packing lowers the capacity of perforin to bind, and negatively charged

Organic aerosols, a complicated mixture of organics, are important constituents of atmospheric particulate matter. However, little is known about the size distributions and vertical profiles of these compositions at a molecular level in the urban boundary layer. Here, we characterized molecular compositions of size-segregated samples collected simultaneously at two heights (8 m and 260 m above ground

Rapid economic growth and development have exacerbated air quality problems across India, driven by many poorly understood pollution sources and understanding their relative importance remains critical to characterising the key drivers of air pollution. A comprehensive suite of measurements of 90 non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs)(C2-C14), including monoterpenes and higher molecular weight aromatics

Air quality in cities is influenced not only by the emissions and chemical transformations but also by the physical state of the atmosphere which varies both temporally and spatially. Increasingly, tall buildings (TB) are common features of the urban landscape, yet their impact is not well understood on urban air flow and dispersion, and their effects are not appropriately captured in parameterisation

China is currently in a crucial stage of air pollution control, with intensive clean air policies. Historical strict policies have been demonstrated remarkable effectiveness on emission control and PM2.5 pollution mitigations, however, it’s not clear about the continuous benefits of current policies in the future. Here, we summarized China’s currently implemented and released clean air policies, and

Surface ozone is a major pollutant threatening public health, agricultural production and natural ecosystems. While measures to improve air quality in megacities such as Delhi are typically aimed at reducing levels of particulate matter (PM), ozone could become a greater threat if these measures focus on PM alone, as some air pollution mitigation steps can actually lead to an increase in surface ozone

New particle formation (NPF) occurs frequently in various atmospheric environments and contributes majorly to the aerosol number budget. In megacities, high concentrations of gaseous precursors and background aerosols add complexity to this process. Based on long-term measurements (373 days) in urban Beijing, we examine the formation and growth of sub-3 nm particles under the impacts of background

Long-term exposure to ambient fine particles (PM2.5) has been evidenced a leading contributor to premature mortality in China and many other countries. Previous studies assess the health risk using an exposure-response function, such as an exposure-mortality model (EMM) based on total concentration of PM2.5. However, the risk assessment method can be problematic by ignoring the unequal toxicity between

The endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) organises in supramolecular structures on the surface of lipid bilayers to drive membrane invagination and scission of intraluminal vesicles (ILVs), a process also controlled by membrane mechanics. However, ESCRT association with the membrane is also mediated by electrostatic interactions with anionic phospholipids. Phospholipid distribution

Modern density functional approximations achieve moderate accuracy at low computational cost for many electronic structure calculations. A mathematical framework for analyzing asymptotic behavior unites both corrections to the gradient expansion of DFT and hyperasymptotics of sums. Simple examples are given for the model problem of orbital-free DFT in one dimension. In some cases, errors can be made

The proteins of the Bcl-2 family are key regulators of apoptosis. They form a complex interaction network in the cytosol and in the cellular membranes, whose outcome determines mitochondrial permeabilization and commitment to death. However, we still fail to understand how the action of the different family members is orchestrated to regulate apoptosis. Here, we combined a quantitative analysis of

Following the development in recent years of progressively accurate approximations to the exchange-correlation functional, the use of density functional theory (DFT) methods to examine increasingly large and complex systems has grown, in particular for solids and other condensed mat- ter systems. However the cost of these calculations is high, often requiring the use of specialist HPC facilities. As

Virulence-associated glycolipids from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) act as effector molecules during infection—in addition to proteins. Upon insertion, they alter host cell membrane properties modifying host functions to impact Mtb survival and disease course. Here we combine tether force experiments and microscopy to reveal, previously unknown, insights on the potential involvement of phosphatidylinositol

Two-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (2D COFs) are synthetically diverse, layered macromolecules. Their covalent lattices are thought to confer high thermal stability, which is typically evaluated with thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). However, TGA measures the temperature at which volatile degradation products are formed and is insensitive to changes of the periodic structure of the COF. Here

The impact of maculatin 1.1 (Mac1) on the mechanical properties of supported lipid membranes derived from exponential growth phase (EGP) and stationary growth phase (SGP) E. coli lipid extracts was analysed by surface plasmon resonance and atomic force microscopy. Each membrane was analysed by quantitative nanomechanical mapping to derive measurements of the modulus, adhesion and deformation in addition

A cell membrane of Gram-negative bacteria interacting with an antimicrobial peptide represents a complex supramolecular assembly. Fabrication of the models of bacterial cell membranes remains a large experimental challenge. Langmuir-Blodgett and Langmuir-Schaefer (LS-LB) transfer enables deposition of multicomponent asymmetric lipid bilayers onto a gold surface. In this work 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-s

A central ambition of the robotics field has been to increasingly miniaturize such systems, with perhaps the ultimate achievement being the synthetic microbe or cell sized machine. To this end, we have introduced and demonstrated prototypes of what we call Colloidal State Machines (CSMs) as particulate devices capable of integrating sensing, memory, energy harvesting as well as other functions onto

We analyse a path to construct density functionals for the dispersion interaction energy from an expression in terms of the ground state densities and exchange-correlation holes of the isolated fragments. The expression is based on a constrained search formalism for a supramolecular wavefunction that is forced to leave the diagonal of the many-body density matrix of each fragment unchanged, and is