101 research outputs found
Quality Research Follows the Power Law
No full textResearch output can be evaluated with productivity and impact, which are quantified by the numbers of publications and citations, respectively. The H-index unifies both factors. However, as an extensive variable, it grows with quantity of research output and favors senior researchers over juniors. In this report, by analyzing the data of the world top 2% scientists (n = 179,597) from an online database, we found that H-index follows power laws with both impact and productivity in a minimalist fitting with only one free parameter. We propose intensive indices (QN and QC) to measure quality research by comparing the actual H-index of a researcher with the power-law fitted H-indices from the top 2% scientists with the same numbers of publications and citations respectively. We further calculated a dynamic research quality (Q1=QN/QC) and a reduced index (Q2=(QNQC)0.5) to evaluate research quality over time. We rationalized that the power law dependency of quality research is due to its heterogeneous production pathways that require extra effort with respect to "regular” research output. A major advantage of these indices is that they are relative to the academic peers with similar accomplishments in publications and citations, and therefore, are independent of career stages. Another advantage is that the average indices are close to 1.0, giving an easily comprehensible physical significance of the indices
Detecting the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
No full texthttps://kent-islandora.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/node/10688/11464-thumbnail.jpgThe COVID-19 pandemic has created huge damage to society and brought panic around the world. Such panic can be ascribed to the seemingly deceptive features of COVID-19: Compared to other deadly viral outbreaks, it has medium transmission and mortality rates. As a result, the severity of the causative coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was deeply underestimated by society at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. Based on this, in this review, we define the viruses with features similar to those of SARS-CoV-2 as the Panic Zone viruses. To contain those viruses, accurate and fast diagnosis followed by effective isolation and treatment of patients are pivotal at the early stage of virus breakouts. This is especially true when there is no cure or vaccine available for a transmissible disease, which is the case for the current COVID-19 pandemic. As of July 2020, more than 100 kits for COVID-19 diagnosis on the market have been surveyed in this review, while emerging sensing techniques for SARS-CoV-2 are also discussed. It is of critical importance to rationally use these kits for efficient management and control of the Panic Zone viruses. Therefore, we discuss guidelines to select diagnostic kits at different outbreak stages of the Panic Zone viruses, SARS-CoV-2 in particular. While it is of utmost importance to use nucleic acid based detection kits with low false negativity (high sensitivity) at the early stage of an outbreak, the low false positivity (high specificity) gains importance at later stages of the outbreak. When society is set to reopen from the lockdown stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, it becomes critical to have immunoassay based kits with high specificity to identify people who can safely return to society after their recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infections. Finally, since a massive attack from a viral pandemic requires a massive defense from the whole society, we urge both government and the private sector to research and develop affordable and reliable point-of-care testing (POCT) kits, which can be used massively by the general public (and therefore called massive POCT) to contain Panic Zone viruses in the future.
Link to published version included, and author\u27s accepted version included here.</p
Peptide-DNA conjugates as building blocks for de novo design of hybrid nanostructures
No full textInspired by nature, modern nanotechnology has enabled the bottom-up construction of molecular machines and nanorobots using two different biomolecular building blocks, DNAs or peptides. As an emerging research field, synergizing these two biomolecular codes into a single nanostructure has provided super-powerful molecular tools into the arsenal of modern nanotechnology. Among them, peptide-DNA conjugates possess both attributes of peptide and DNA and can be arbitrarily predefined in given structural configurations, standing out as unique nanoscale building blocks for de novo design of instrumental nanostructures that otherwise could not be composed by using DNA or peptides only. Herein, the term peptide is used in the broadest sense, including oligopeptide, polypeptide, and protein. In this tutorial review, we survey the main progress made within the past decade in how to use peptide-DNA conjugates as nanoscale bricks to self-assemble hybrid nanostructures for different chemical and biological purposes. A concise perspective is included for existing challenges and potential future research directions. Looking to the horizon, peptide-DNA conjugates may serve as key structural elements in the coming decade to enable the bottom-up construction of advanced molecular machines, even comparable to those cellular organelles evolved by nature
Quantification of Chemical and Mechanical Effects on the Formation of the G-Quadruplex and i-Motif in Duplex DNA
No full textPolymers responsive to radiation pressures
No full textPolymers that undergo a reversible phase change in response to being exposed to a light from a laser having a radiation pressure greater than a threshold level. The phase changeable polymers have the ability to reduce the intensity of the laser and can advantageously scatter laser light incident on the polymers. The on-off response of such polymers is in the microsecond range and the light scattering property is independent of laser wavelength. The polymers can beneficially be incorporated into devices to protect human vision and optical instruments that are vulnerable to lasers at high intensities. Methods for making and using such devices are also disclosed.U
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