Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science

About: Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science is a education organization based out in Kolkata, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Excited state. The organization has 3867 authors who have published 10457 publications receiving 220098 citations.

Spherically symmetric brane spacetime with bulk f(\mathcal {R}) gravity

Abstract: Introducing \(f(\mathcal {R})\) term in the five-dimensional bulk action we derive effective Einstein’s equation on the brane using Gauss–Codazzi equation. This effective equation is then solved for different conditions on dark radiation and dark pressure to obtain various spherically symmetric solutions. Some of these static spherically symmetric solutions correspond to black hole solutions, with parameters induced from the bulk. Specially, the dark pressure and dark radiation terms (electric part of Weyl curvature) affect the brane spherically symmetric solutions significantly. We have solved for one parameter group of conformal motions where the dark radiation and dark pressure terms are exactly obtained exploiting the corresponding Lie symmetry. Various thermodynamic features of these spherically symmetric space-times are studied, showing existence of second order phase transition. This phenomenon has its origin in the higher curvature term with \(f(\mathcal {R})\) gravity in the bulk.

A biosynthetic model of cytochrome c oxidase as an electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction

Abstract: Creating an artificial functional mimic of the mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) has been a long-term goal of the scientific community as such a mimic will not only add to our fundamental understanding of how CcO works but may also pave the way for efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction in hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells. Here we develop an electrocatalyst for reducing oxygen to water under ambient conditions. We use site-directed mutants of myoglobin, where both the distal Cu and the redox-active tyrosine residue present in CcO are modelled. In situ Raman spectroscopy shows that this catalyst features very fast electron transfer rates, facile oxygen binding and O-O bond lysis. An electron transfer shunt from the electrode circumvents the slow dissociation of a ferric hydroxide species, which slows down native CcO (bovine 500 s(-1)), allowing electrocatalytic oxygen reduction rates of 5,000 s(-1) for these biosynthetic models.