Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

About: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is a education organization based out in Karlsruhe, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Catalysis. The organization has 37946 authors who have published 82138 publications receiving 2197068 citations. The organization is also known as: KIT & University of Karlsruhe.

Metamaterials beyond electromagnetism

Abstract: Metamaterials are rationally designed man-made structures composed of functional building blocks that are densely packed into an effective (crystalline) material. While metamaterials are mostly associated with negative refractive indices and invisibility cloaking in electromagnetism or optics, the deceptively simple metamaterial concept also applies to rather different areas such as thermodynamics, classical mechanics (including elastostatics, acoustics, fluid dynamics and elastodynamics), and, in principle, also to quantum mechanics. We review the basic concepts, analogies and differences to electromagnetism, and give an overview on the current state of the art regarding theory and experiment-all from the viewpoint of an experimentalist. This review includes homogeneous metamaterials as well as intentionally inhomogeneous metamaterial architectures designed by coordinate-transformation-based approaches analogous to transformation optics. Examples are laminates, transient thermal cloaks, thermal concentrators and inverters, 'space-coiling' metamaterials, anisotropic acoustic metamaterials, acoustic free-space and carpet cloaks, cloaks for gravitational surface waves, auxetic mechanical metamaterials, pentamode metamaterials ('meta-liquids'), mechanical metamaterials with negative dynamic mass density, negative dynamic bulk modulus, or negative phase velocity, seismic metamaterials, cloaks for flexural waves in thin plates and three-dimensional elastostatic cloaks.

Measurements of the Cosmic-Ray Positron Fraction From 1 to 50 GeV

Abstract: Two measurements of the cosmic-ray positron fraction as a function of energy have been made using the High Energy Antimatter Telescope (HEAT) balloon-borne instrument. The first flight took place from Ft. Sumner, New Mexico in 1994, and yielded results above the geomagnetic cutoff energy of 4.5 GeV. The second flight from Lynn Lake, Manitoba in 1995 permitted measurements over a larger energy interval, from 1 GeV to 50 GeV. In this letter we present results on the positron fraction based on data from the Lynn Lake flight, and compare these with the previously published results from the Ft. Sumner flight. The results confirm that the positron fraction does not increase with energy above ~10 GeV, although a small excess above purely secondary production cannot be ruled out. At low energies the positron fraction is slightly larger than that reported from measurements made in the 1960's. This effect could possibly be a consequence of charge dependence in the level of solar modulation.

Biosynthesis of isoprenoids (carotenoids, sterols, prenyl side-chains of chlorophylls and plastoquinone) via a novel pyruvate/glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate non-mevalonate pathway in the green alga Scenedesmus obliquus.

Abstract: Isoprenoid biosynthesis was investigated in the green alga Scenedesmus obliquus grown heterotrophically on 13C-labelled glucose and acetate. Several isoprenoid compounds were isolated and investigated by 13C-NMR spectroscopy. According to the 13C-labelling pattern indicated by the 13C-NMR spectra, the biosynthesis of all plastidic isoprenoids investigated (prenyl side-chains of chlorophylls and plastoquinone-9, and the carotenoids beta-carotene and lutein), as well as of the non-plastidic cytoplasmic sterols, does not proceed via the classical acetate/mevalonate pathway (which leads from acetyl-CoA via mevalonate to isopentenyl diphosphate), but via the novel glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate/pyruvate route recently detected in eubacteria. Formation of isopentenyl diphosphate involves the condensation of a C2 unit derived from pyruvate decarboxylation with glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate and a transposition yielding the branched C5 skeleton of isoprenic units.

Experimental Binding Energies in Supramolecular Complexes

Abstract: On the basis of many literature measurements, a critical overview is given on essential noncovalent interactions in synthetic supramolecular complexes, accompanied by analyses with selected proteins. The methods, which can be applied to derive binding increments for single noncovalent interactions, start with the evaluation of consistency and additivity with a sufficiently large number of different host–guest complexes by applying linear free energy relations. Other strategies involve the use of double mutant cycles, of molecular balances, of dynamic combinatorial libraries, and of crystal structures. Promises and limitations of these strategies are discussed. Most of the analyses stem from solution studies, but a few also from gas phase. The empirically derived interactions are then presented on the basis of selected complexes with respect to ion pairing, hydrogen bonding, electrostatic contributions, halogen bonding, π–π-stacking, dispersive forces, cation−π and anion−π interactions, and contributions f...