King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

About: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology is a education organization based out in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Membrane & Catalysis. The organization has 6221 authors who have published 22019 publications receiving 625706 citations. The organization is also known as: KAUST.

Bioinformatics clouds for big data manipulation.

Abstract: As advances in life sciences and information technology bring profound influences on bioinformatics due to its interdisciplinary nature, bioinformatics is experiencing a new leap-forward from in-house computing infrastructure into utility-supplied cloud computing delivered over the Internet, in order to handle the vast quantities of biological data generated by high-throughput experimental technologies. Albeit relatively new, cloud computing promises to address big data storage and analysis issues in the bioinformatics field. Here we review extant cloud-based services in bioinformatics, classify them into Data as a Service (DaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and present our perspectives on the adoption of cloud computing in bioinformatics.

Oxide Thin-Film Electronics using All-MXene Electrical Contacts.

Abstract: 2D MXenes have shown great promise in electrochemical and electromagnetic shielding applications. However, their potential use in electronic devices is significantly less explored. The unique combination of metallic conductivity and hydrophilic surface suggests that MXenes can also be promising in electronics and sensing applications. Here, it is shown that metallic Ti3 C2 MXene with work function of 4.60 eV can make good electrical contact with both zinc oxide (ZnO) and tin monoxide (SnO) semiconductors, with negligible band offsets. Consequently, both n-type ZnO and p-type SnO thin-film transistors (TFTs) have been fabricated entirely using large-area MXene (Ti3 C2 ) electrical contacts, including gate, source, and drain. The n- and p-type TFTs show balanced performance, including field-effect mobilities of 2.61 and 2.01 cm2 V-1 s-1 and switching ratios of 3.6 × 106 and 1.1 × 103 , respectively. Further, complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverters are demonstrated. The CMOS inverters show large voltage gain of 80 and excellent noise margin of 3.54 V, which is 70.8% of the ideal value. Moreover, the operation of CMOS inverters is shown to be very stable under a 100 Hz square waveform input. The current results suggest that MXene (Ti3 C2 ) can play an important role as contact material in nanoelectronics.

Free-Space Optical Communications: Capacity Bounds, Approximations, and a New Sphere-Packing Perspective

Abstract: The capacity of the free-space optical channel is studied. A new recursive approach for bounding the capacity of the channel based on sphere-packing is proposed. This approach leads to new capacity upper bounds for a channel with a peak intensity constraint or an average intensity constraint. Under an average constraint only, the derived bound is tighter than an existing sphere-packing bound derived earlier by Farid and Hranilovic. The achievable rate of a truncated-Gaussian input distribution is also derived. It is shown that under both average and peak constraints, this achievable rate and the sphere-packing bounds are within a small gap at high SNR, leading to a simple high-SNR capacity approximation. Simple fitting functions that capture the best known achievable rate for the channel are provided. These functions can be of practical importance especially for the study of systems operating under atmospheric turbulence and misalignment conditions.

A facile strategy for the fabrication of a bioinspired hydrophilic–superhydrophobic patterned surface for highly efficient fog-harvesting

Abstract: Fog water collection represents a meaningful effort in places where regular water sources, including surface water and ground water, are scarce. Inspired by the amazing fog water collection capability of the Stenocara beetles in the Namib Desert and based on the recent work in biomimetic water collection, this work reports a facile, easy-to-operate, and low-cost method for the fabrication of a hydrophilic–superhydrophobic patterned hybrid surface towards highly efficient fog water collection. The essence of the method is incorporating a (super)hydrophobically modified metal-based gauze onto the surface of a hydrophilic polystyrene (PS) flat sheet by a simple lab oven-based thermal pressing procedure. The produced hybrid patterned surfaces consisted of PS patches sitting within the holes of the metal gauzes. The method allows for easy control over the pattern’s dimensions (e.g., patch size) by varying the gauze mesh size and the thermal pressing temperature, which is then translated into the easy optimization of the ultimate fog water collection efficiency. Given the low-cost and wide availability of both PS and the metal gauze, this method has great potential for scaling-up. The results showed that the hydrophilic–superhydrophobic patterned hybrid surfaces with a similar pattern size to the Stenocara beetles's back pattern produced a significantly higher fog collection efficiency than the uniformly (super)hydrophilic or (super)hydrophobic surfaces. This work contributes to the general effort in fabricating mixed wettability patterned surfaces for atmospheric water collection for direct use.

Osmotic stress represses strigolactone biosynthesis in Lotus japonicus roots: exploring the interaction between strigolactones and ABA under abiotic stress

Abstract: Strigolactone changes and cross talk with ABA unveil a picture of root-specific hormonal dynamics under stress. Strigolactones (SLs) are carotenoid-derived hormones influencing diverse aspects of development and communication with (micro)organisms, and proposed as mediators of environmental stimuli in resource allocation processes; to contribute to adaptive adjustments, therefore, their pathway must be responsive to environmental cues. To investigate the relationship between SLs and abiotic stress in Lotus japonicus, we compared wild-type and SL-depleted plants, and studied SL metabolism in roots stressed osmotically and/or phosphate starved. SL-depleted plants showed increased stomatal conductance, both under normal and stress conditions, and impaired resistance to drought associated with slower stomatal closure in response to abscisic acid (ABA). This confirms that SLs contribute to drought resistance in species other than Arabidopsis. However, we also observed that osmotic stress rapidly and strongly decreased SL concentration in tissues and exudates of wild-type Lotus roots, by acting on the transcription of biosynthetic and transporter-encoding genes and independently of phosphate abundance. Pre-treatment with exogenous SLs inhibited the osmotic stress-induced ABA increase in wild-type roots and down-regulated the transcription of the ABA biosynthetic gene LjNCED2. We propose that a transcriptionally regulated, early SL decrease under osmotic stress is needed (but not sufficient) to allow the physiological increase of ABA in roots. This work shows that SL metabolism and effects on ABA are seemingly opposite in roots and shoots under stress.