Integrated Calendar

The ATLAS and CMS experiments have made three major discoveries: The discovery of an elementary spin-zero particle, the discovery of the mechanism that makes the weak interactions short-range, and the discovery of the mechanism that gives the third generation fermions their masses. I explain how this progress in our understanding of the basic laws of Nature was achieved.

The soil spectroscopy discipline has been progressed over the past two decades quite remarkably. Many portable point spectrometers became available through that time where recently also image spectrometers have become quite popular. The technology was used in the laboratory, field, and airborne levels and provided a new capability for a rapid and quantitative view of a large number of samples. At the same time platforms were also developed to carry the new family of sensors for remote sensing applications of large areas using ground and airborne vehicles ( manned and un-manned) and recently even satellites. This progress has led to a large number of activities in exploiting the spectroscopy for many applications within the soil science discipline. As the data acquisition increases and the soil spectral database has been enlarged, a new technique to compile soil spectral database together with methods to effectively analyze them has also been developed. To that end, activities to deal with the data mining process using big databases were successfully adopted from other disciplines while also designed especially for the soil spectroscopy activity. The results demonstrated that soil spectroscopy could be used for many applications from different domains such as soil mapping, precision agriculture, and laboratory work and can progress the soil science discipline quite forward. In this talk, we will review the history of soil spectroscopy from the first spectrometer and platform to the present situation. A particular emphasis will be given to the recent applications that have been developed in our group and to the future capability of this critical technology from all perspectives and to the new horizon it may open as expressed by space agencies such as NASA, ESA, ASI, JAXA, ISA and DLR.

> Conventional computational methods often create a dilemma for fluid–structure interaction problems. Typically, solids are simulated using a Lagrangian approach with grid that moves with the material, whereas fluids are simulated using an Eulerian approach with a fixed spatial grid, requiring some type of interfacial coupling between the two different perspectives. Here, a fully Eulerian method for simulating structures immersed in a fluid will be presented. By introducing a reference map variable to model finite-deformation constitutive relations in the structures on the same grid as the fluid, the interfacial coupling problem is highly simplified. The method is particularly well suited for simulating soft, highly-deformable materials and many-body contact problems, and several examples will be presented. This is joint work with Ken Kamrin (MIT).

Self-assembly driven by phase separation coupled to Coulombic interactions is fundamental to a wide range of applications, examples of which include soft matter lithography via di-block copolymers, membrane design using poly-electrolytes, and renewable energy applications based on complex nano-materials, such as ionic liquids. I will show by using two continuum case models, ionic liquids and charged polymers, that although self-assembly in electrolytes is a gradient flow system, it surprisingly displays several fundamental features that are related to far from equilibrium (reaction-diffusion) systems and thus, allow for novel realizations, interpretations, and applications to concentrated electrolytes.

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are non-malignant tumor-supporting cells, which are highly abundant in the majority of carcinomas, and carry out distinct cancer related functions. The wide range of CAF activities suggests that CAFs are heterogenous and dynamically change. We analyzed CAFs using index and transcriptional single-cell sorting, at several time-points along breast tumor progression in mice, uncovering distinct subpopulations with transitioning transcriptional programs. We have further stained and analyzed sections of human breast tumors, and found that the two main CAF subpopulations are also present in human breast cancer, and that their ratio is associated with disease outcome

High-performance materials with elevated operating temperatures and robust mechanical properties, are essential for a wide variety of emerging applications, such as in functional adhesives, automobiles, aerospace, and coatings. Polyhexahydrotriazines (PHT) are new promising high-performance thermosets exhibiting enhanced thermal and mechanical properties.1 The performance and utility of PHT-based materials is further enhanced by the ability to design new material properties based on changes in the molecular structure.2 We demonstrated a new solvent-free approach for the fabrication of PHT based on low-melting-point diamines enabling the production of adhesives with comparable properties to well-established epoxy adhesives. Furthermore, these versatile materials could be degraded at different rates in acidic conditions based on the nature of the starting diamine molecular structure. Controlling the degradation is extremely valuable in composites and adhesives in order to be able to recycle and rework the materials.
In the second part of my talk I will show how the ability to control and adapt peptide conformation is crucial for the rational design and control of their function.3,4 We demonstrated by end-to-end distance measurements using Double Electron-Electron Resonance (DEER) EPR method that we can tune the conformations of the backbone while maintaining the sequence of the side-chains. Interestingly, tuning of the backbone has an effect on peptide propensity to aggregate or stabilize nanoparticles. Such knowledge is critical for designing new materials for various biotechnological applications.
1. J. M. García, G. O. Jones, K. Virwani, B. D. McCloskey, D. J. Boday, G. M. ter Huurne, H. W. Horn, D. J. Coady, A. M. Bintaleb, A. M. S. Alabdulrahman, F. Alsewailem, H. A. A. Almegren, J. L. Hedrick. Science 2014, 344, 732–735.
2. R. Kaminker, E. B. Callaway, N. D. Dolinski, S. M. Barbon, M. Shibata, H. Wang, J. Hu, C. J. Hawker. Solvent-Free Synthesis of High-Performance Polyhexahydrotriazine (PHT) Thermosets. Chem. Mater. 2018, 30, 8352–8358.
3. R. Kaminker, I. Kaminker, W. R. Gutekunst, Y. Luo, S.-H. Lee, J. Niu, C. J. Hawker, S. Han. Tuning Conformation and Properties of Peptidomimetic Backbones through Dual N/Cα-Substitution. Chem. Commun. 2018, 54, 5237–5240.
4. R. Kaminker, A. Anastasaki, W. R. Gutekunst, Y. Luo, S.-H. Lee, C. J. Hawker. Tuning of Protease Resistance in Oligopeptides through N-alkylation. Chem. Commun. 2018, 54, 9631–9634.