Affibody molecules are small, robust, and versatile affinity proteins currently being explored for therapeutic, diagnostic, and biotechnological applications. Surface-exposed residues on the affibody scaffold are randomized to create large affibody libraries from which novel binding specificities to virtually any protein target can be generated using combinatorial protein engineering. Affibody molecules have the potential to complement—or even surpass—current antibody-based technologies, exhibiting multiple desirable properties, such as high stability, affinity, and specificity, efficient tissue penetration, and straightforward modular extension of functional domains. It has been shown in both preclinical and clinical studies that affibody molecules are safe, efficacious, and valuable alternatives to antibodies for specific targeting in the context of in vivo diagnostics and therapy. Here, we provide a general background of affibody molecules, give examples of reported applications, and briefly summarize the methodology for affibody generation.

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Congested Kelley goes HONK! Chris runs over old people in GTA while distracting Anna Marie with Octopath. RPGamer tip of the week: If your game has more than 12 currencies, it's main stream.

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The future of engineering is bright, and it’s being shaped by the young minds at the TryEngineering Summer Institute (TESI), a program administered by IEEE Educational Activities. This year more than 300 students attended TESI to fuel their passion for engineering and prepare for higher education and careers. Sessions were held from 30 June through 2 August on the campuses of Rice University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of San Diego.

The program is an immersive experience designed for students ages 13 to 17. It offers hands-on projects, interactive workshops, field trips, and insights into the profession from practicing engineers. Participants get to stay on a college campus, providing them with a preview of university life.

Student turned instructor

One future innovator is Natalie Ghannad, who participated in the program as a student in 2022 and was a member of this year’s instructional team in Houston at Rice University. Ghannad is in her second year as an electrical engineering student at the University of San Francisco. University students join forces with science and engineering teachers at each TESI location to serve as instructors.

For many years, Ghannad wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a pediatric neurosurgeon. As a high school junior in Houston in 2022, however, she had a change of heart and decided to pursue engineering after participating in the TESI at Rice. She received a full scholarship from the IEEE Foundation TESI Scholarship Fund, supported by IEEE societies and councils.

“I really liked that it was hands-on,” Ghannad says. “From the get-go, we were introduced to 3D printers and laser cutters.”

The benefit of participating in the program, she says, was “having the opportunity to not just do the academic side of STEM but also to really get to play around, get your hands dirty, and figure out what you’re doing.”

“Looking back,” she adds, “there are so many parallels between what I’ve actually had to do as a college student, and having that knowledge from the Summer Institute has really been great.”

She was inspired to volunteer as a teaching assistant because, she says, “I know I definitely want to teach, have the opportunity to interact with kids, and also be part of the future of STEM.”

More than 90 students attended the program at Rice. They visited Space Center Houston, where former astronauts talked to them about the history of space exploration.

Participants also were treated to presentations by guest speakers including IEEE Senior Member Phil Bautista, the founder of Bull Creek Data, a consulting company that provides technical solutions; IEEE Senior Member Christopher Sanderson, chair of the IEEE Region 5 Houston Section; and James Burroughs, a standards manager for Siemens in Atlanta. Burroughs, who spoke at all three TESI events this year, provided insight on overcoming barriers to do the important work of an engineer.

Learning about transit systems and careers

The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, hosted the East Coast TESI event this year. Students were treated to a field trip to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Association (SEPTA), one of the largest transit systems in the country. Engineers from AECOM, a global infrastructure consulting firm with offices in Philadelphia that worked closely with SEPTA on its most recent station renovation, collaborated with IEEE to host the trip.

The benefit of participating in the program was “having the opportunity to not just do the academic side of STEM but also to really get to play around, get your hands dirty, and figure out what you’re doing.” — Natalie Ghannad

Participants also heard from guest speakers including Api Appulingam, chief development officer of the Philadelphia International Airport, who told the students the inspiring story of her career.

Guest speakers from Google and Meta

Students who attended the TESI camp at the University of San Diego visited Qualcomm. Hosted by the IEEE Region 6 director, Senior Member Kathy Herring Hayashi, they learned about cutting-edge technology and toured the Qualcomm Museum.

Students also heard from guest speakers including IEEE Member Andrew Saad, an engineer at Google; Gautam Deryanni, a silicon validation engineer at Meta; Kathleen Kramer, 2025 IEEE president and a professor of electrical engineering at the University of San Diego; as well as Burroughs.

“I enjoyed the opportunity to meet new, like-minded people and enjoy fun activities in the city, as well as get a sense of the dorm and college life,” one participant said.

Hands-on projects

In addition to field trips and guest speakers, participants at each location worked on several hands-on projects highlighting the engineering design process. In the toxic popcorn challenge, the students designed a process to safely remove harmful kernels. Students tackling the bridge challenge designed and built a span out of balsa wood and glue, then tested its strength by gradually adding weight until it failed. The glider challenge gave participants the tools and knowledge to build and test their aircraft designs.

One participant applauded the hands-on activities, saying, “All of them gave me a lot of experience and helped me have a better idea of what engineering field I want to go in. I love that we got to participate in challenges and not just listen to lectures—which can be boring.”

The students also worked on a weeklong sparking solutions challenge. Small teams identified a societal problem, such as a lack of clean water or limited mobility for senior citizens, then designed a solution to address it. On the last day of camp, they pitched their prototypes to a team of IEEE members that judged the projects based on their originality and feasibility. Each student on the winning teams at each location were awarded the programmable Mech-5 robot.

Twenty-nine scholarships were awarded with funding from the IEEE Foundation. IEEE societies that donated to the cause were the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, the IEEE Computer Society, the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society, the IEEE Industry Applications Society, the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, the IEEE Power & Energy Society, the IEEE Power Electronics Society, the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society.

Team at Kolkata institute engineers bacteria to solve maths problems  The Hindu

A thimbleful of soil can contain a universe of microorganisms, up to 10 billion by some estimates. Now a group of researchers in Bath, United Kingdom, are building prototype technologies that harvest electrons exhaled by some micro-species.

The idea is to power up low-yield sensors and switches, and perhaps help farmers digitally optimize crop yields to meet increasing demand and more and more stressful growing conditions. There could be other tasks, too, that might make use of a plant-and-forget, low-yield power source—such as monitoring canals for illegal waste dumping.

The research started small, based out of the University of Bath, with field-testing in a Brazilian primary school classroom and a green pond near it—just before the onset of the pandemic.

“We had no idea what the surroundings would be. We just packed the equipment we needed and went,” says Jakub Dziegielowski, a University of Bath, U.K. chemical engineering Ph.D. student. “And the pond was right by the school—it was definitely polluted, very green, with living creatures in it, and definitely not something I’d feel comfortable drinking from. So it got the job done.”

The experiments they did along with kids from the school and Brazilian researchers that summer of 2019 were aimed at running water purifiers. It did so. However, it also wasn’t very efficient, compared to, say, a solar panel.

So work has moved on in the Bath labs: in the next weeks, Dziegielowski will both turn 29 and graduate with his doctorate. And he, along with two other University of Bath advisors and colleagues recently launched a spinoff company—it’s called Bactery—to perfect a prototype for a network of soil microbial fuel cells for use in agriculture.

A microbial fuel cell is a kind of power plant that converts chemical energy stored in organic molecules into electrical energy, using microbes as a catalyst. It’s more often used to refer to liquid-based systems, Dziegielowski says. Organics from wastewater serve as the energy source, and the liquid stream mixes past the electrodes.

A soil microbial fuel cell, however, has one of its electrodes—the anode, which absorbs electrons—in the dirt. The other electrode, the cathode, is exposed to air. Batteries work because ions move through an electrolyte between electrodes to complete a circuit. In this case, the soil itself acts as the electrolyte—as well as source of the catalytic microbes, and as the source of the fuel.

The Bath, U.K.-based startup Bactery has developed a set up fuel cells powered by microbes in the soil—with, in the prototype pictured here, graphite mats as electrodes. University of Bath

Fields full of Watts

In a primary school in the fishing village of Icapuí on Brazil’s semi-arid northeastern coast, the group made use of basic components: graphite felt mats acting as electrodes, and nylon pegs to maintain spacing and alignment between them. (Bactery is now developing new kinds of casing.)

By setting up the cells in a parallel matrix, the Icapuí setup could generate 38 milliwatts per square meter. In work since, the Bath group’s been able to reach 200 milliwatts per square meter.

Electroactive bacteria—also called exoelectrogens or electricigens—take in soluble iron or acids or sugar and exhale electrons. There are dozens of species of microbes that can do this, including bacteria belonging to genera such as Geobacter and Shewanella. There are many others.

But 200 milliwatts per square meter is not a lot of juice: enough to charge a mobile phone, maybe, or keep an LED nightlight going—or, perhaps, serve as a power source for sensors or irrigation switches. “As in so many things, it comes down to the economics,” says Bruce Logan, an environmental engineer at Penn State who wrote a 2007 book, Microbial Fuel Cells.

A decade ago Palo Alto engineers launched the MudWatt, a self-contained kit that could light a small LED. It’s mostly marketed as a school science project. But even now, some 760 million people do not have reliable access to electricity. “In remote areas, soil microbial fuel cells with higher conversion and power management efficiencies would fare better than batteries,” says Sheela Berchmans, a retired chief scientist of the Central Electrochemical Research Institute in Tamil Nadu, India.

Korneel Rabaey, professor in the department of biotechnology at the University of Ghent, in Belgium, says electrochemical micro-power sources—a category that now includes the Bactery battery—is gaining buzz in resource recovery, for uses such as extracting pollutants from wastewater, with electricity as a byproduct. “You can think of many applications that don’t require a lot of power,” he says, “But where sensors are important.”

The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi were arguably India’s greatest contribution to the 20th century. Raghunath Anant Mashelkar has borrowed some of that wisdom to devise a frugal new form of innovation he calls “Gandhian engineering.” Coming from humble beginnings, Mashelkar is driven to ensure that the benefits of science and technology are shared more equally. He sums up his philosophy with the epigram “more from less for more.” This engineer has led India’s preeminent R&D organization, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and he has advised successive governments.

What was the inspiration for Gandhian engineering?

Raghunath Anant Mashelkar: There are two quotes of Gandhi’s that were influential. The first was, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” He was saying that when resources are exhaustible, you should get more from less. He also said the benefits of science must reach all, even the poor. If you put them together, it becomes “more from less for more.”

My own life experience inspired me, too. I was born to a very poor family, and my father died when I was six. My mother was illiterate and brought me to Mumbai in search of a job. Two meals a day was a challenge, and I walked barefoot until I was 12 and studied under streetlights. So it also came from my personal experience of suffering because of a lack of resources.

How does Gandhian engineering differ from existing models of innovation?

Mashelkar: Conventional engineering is market or curiosity driven, but Gandhian engineering is application and impact driven. We look at the end user and what we want to achieve for the betterment of humanity.

Most engineering is about getting more from more. Take an iPhone: They keep creating better models and charging higher prices. For the poor it is less from less: Conventional engineering looks at removing features as the only way to reduce costs.

In Gandhian engineering, the idea is not to create affordable [second-rate] products, but to make high technology work for the poor. So we reinvent the product from the ground up. While the standard approach aims for premium price and high margins, Gandhian engineering will always look at affordable price, but high volumes.

The Jaipur foot is a light, durable, and affordable prosthetic.Gurinder Osan/AP

What is your favorite example of Gandhian engineering?

Mashelkar: My favorite is the Jaipur foot. Normally, a sophisticated prosthetic foot costs a few thousand dollars, but the Jaipur foot does it for [US] $20. And it’s very good technology; there is a video of a person wearing a Jaipur foot climbing a tree, and you can see the flexibility is like a normal foot. Then he runs one kilometer in 4 minutes, 30 seconds.

What is required for Gandhian engineering to become more widespread?

Mashelkar: In our young people, we see innovation and we see passion, but compassion is the key. We also need more soft funding [grants or zero-interest loans], because venture capital companies often turn out to be “vulture capital” in a way, because they want immediate returns.

We need a shift in the mindset of businesses—they can make money not just from premium products for those at the top of the pyramid, but also products with affordable excellence designed for large numbers of people.

This article appears in the November 2024 print issue as “The Gandhi Inspired Inventor.”

Manu Prakash spoke with IEEE Spectrum shortly after returning to Stanford University from a month aboard a research vessel off the coast of California, where he was testing tools to monitor oceanic carbon sequestration. The associate professor conducts fieldwork around the world to better understand the problems he’s working on, as well as the communities that will be using his inventions.

Prakash develops imaging instruments and diagnostic tools, often for use in global health and environmental sciences. His devices typically cost radically less than conventional equipment—he aims for reductions of two or more orders of magnitude. Whether he’s working on pocketable microscopes, mosquito or plankton monitors, or an autonomous malaria diagnostic platform, Prakash always includes cost and access as key aspects of his engineering. He calls this philosophy “frugal science.”

Why should we think about science frugally?

Manu Prakash: To me, when we are trying to ask and solve problems and puzzles, it becomes important: In whose hands are we putting these solutions? A frugal approach to solving the problem is the difference between 1 percent of the population or billions of people having access to that solution.

Lack of access creates these kinds of barriers in people’s minds, where they think they can or cannot approach a kind of problem. It’s important that we as scientists or just citizens of this world create an environment that feels that anybody has a chance to make important inventions and discoveries if they put their heart to it. The entrance to all that is dependent on tools, but those tools are just inaccessible.

How did you first encounter the idea of “frugal science”?

Prakash: I grew up in India and lived with very little access to things. And I got my Ph.D. at MIT. I was thinking about this stark difference in worlds that I had seen and lived in, so when I started my lab, it was almost a commitment to [asking]: What does it mean when we make access one of the critical dimensions of exploration? So, I think a lot of the work I do is primarily driven by curiosity, but access brings another layer of intellectual curiosity.

How do you identify a problem that might benefit from frugal science?

Prakash: Frankly, it’s hard to find a problem that would not benefit from access. The question to ask is “Where are the neglected problems that we as a society have failed to tackle?” We do a lot of work in diagnostics. A lot [of our solutions] beat the conventional methods that are neither cost effective nor any good. It’s not about cutting corners; it’s about deeply understanding the problem—better solutions at a fraction of the cost. It does require invention. For that order of magnitude change, you really have to start fresh.

Where does your involvement with an invention end?

Prakash: Inventions are part of our soul. Your involvement never ends. I just designed the 415th version of Foldscope [a low-cost “origami” microscope]. People only know it as version 3. We created Foldscope a long time ago; then I realized that nobody was going to provide access to it. So we went back and invented the manufacturing process for Foldscope to scale it. We made the first 100,000 Foldscopes in the lab, which led to millions of Foldscopes being deployed.

So it’s continuous. If people are scared of this, they should never invent anything [laughs], because once you invent something, it’s a lifelong project. You don’t put it aside; the project doesn’t put you aside. You can try to, but that’s not really possible if your heart is in it. You always see problems. Nothing is ever perfect. That can be ever consuming. It’s hard. I don’t want to minimize this process in any way or form.

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1. The present Petitions under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ('A&C Act') have been filed by the Petitioner seeking appointment of an independent sole arbitrator to adjudicate upon the disputes which have arisen between the parties from work order dated 03.09.2014.

2. Shorn of unnecessary details, the facts leading to the filing of the present petitions are that:-

a. It is stated that the work order bearing No.JMD/SUBURIO- 67/FW/JKR/LOI/01, dated 03.09.2014 was issued by the Respondent in favour of the Petitioner herein for design, manufacture, supply, installation, testing, commissioning and handing over of Fire-Fighting system at JMD SUBURIO, Sector- 67, Sohna Road, Gurgaon, Haryana, for total consideration of Rs.1,69,51,000/-.

1. Petitioner has approached this Court under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 („A&C Act') challenging the Order dated 13.05.2023, by which an application under Order I Rule 10 CPC filed on behalf of the Claimant (Petitioner-herein) seeking impleadment of Mr. Rajesh Kumar Srivastava as Respondent No.4 in the arbitration proceedings has been dismissed.

2. Shorn of unnecessary details, the facts leading to the filing of the present petitions are as under:-

1. Petitioner has approached this Court under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 („A&C Act') challenging the Order dated 13.05.2023, by which an application under Order I Rule 10 CPC filed on behalf of the Claimant (Petitioner-herein) seeking impleadment of Mr. Rajesh Kumar Srivastava as Respondent No.4 in the arbitration proceedings has been dismissed.

2. Shorn of unnecessary details, the facts leading to the filing of the present petitions are as under:-

The Court :The affidavit of service is taken on record. This is an application under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1966 (hereinafter referred to as the 'said Act'). The petitioner was engaged by the respondent to execute some piling work. The petitioner contends that the work could not be completed as NTPC had stopped the petitioner from carrying out the same on account of certain disputes between NTPC and the respondent. It is submitted that non- payments of the amounts due and other disputes between the petitioner and the respondent could not be resolved as a proceeding was before an arbitrator for resolution of a dispute between NTPC and the respondent. The petitioner claims to have also approached NTPC and were allegedly informed that the claim of the petitioner would be liquidated by the respondent as the money awarded by the arbitrator in the arbitration proceedings between the respondent and NTPC, had been paid to the respondents.The petitioner had invoked the arbitration clause and the respondent replied to the notice, thereby denying the claim of the petitioner. The respondent suggested the name of a learned Retired Judge to act as the sole arbitrator, in response to the notice invoking arbitration. In reply to such letter, the petitioner suggested the names of three learned Retired Judges.

[Judgment of the Court was made by M.SUNDAR, J.,] Captioned intra-Court appeal i.e., 'Original Side Appeal' {hereinafter 'OSA' for the sake of brevity} is under Section 37 of 'The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (Act No.26 of 1996)' [hereinafter 'A and C Act' for the sake of convenience and clarity].

2. Short facts (shorn of particulars not imperative for appreciating this order) are that the appellant before this 'Commercial Appellate Division' {'CAD' for the sake of brevity} is engaged in the business of manufacturing, producing and distributing Sugar and its by-products; that the appellant shall hereinafter be referred to as 'SBSL' denoting 'Sree Basaveshwar Sugars Limited'; that the respondent before this CAD is a company which is https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis engaged in the business of designing, manufacturing and supplying / selling plant, machinery and equipment required for sugar plants; that the respondent before CAD shall hereinafter be referred to as 'UIEPL' denoting 'Uttam Industrial Engineering Private Limited'; that short facts / abbreviations are deployed for the sake of brevity and convenience; that fulcrum or in other words nucleus of lis between the parties is a 'contract dated 05.05.2011' {hereinafter 'said contract' for the sake of brevity}; that vide said contract, UIEPL {to be noted, 'UIEPL' shall be referred to as 'contractor' also for the sake of brevity and convenience} was to design and supply Sugar Mill House Equipments for sugar factory of SBSL {to be noted, 'SBSL' shall be referred to as 'employer' also for the sake of brevity and convenience}; that under the said contract, contractor was to supply employer in Karnataka all material and equipments so as to enable erection and commissioning of Mill House equipments including Cane Handling on or before April 2012; that said contract broadly had three aspects included in it namely, (i) Commercial Terms and Condition for supply at site, (ii) Technical Terms and Conditions and (iii) Data Sheet and Annexure; that under the said contract, contractor UIEPL supplied the sugar house https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis equipments till May 2012; that thereafter, said contract ran into rough weather as according to the contractor, employer did not make payments though clause 1.14.6 of the said contract stipulates that employer has to pay as per invoice without making deductions unless the details of such claims have already been communicated to the contractor; that according to the contractor, as per clause 1.14.1(d) of said contract, money should have been settled within 15 days; that this Court is on a legal drill under Section 37 of A and C Act and therefore it is really not necessary to delve into numbers in terms of claims with specificity and exactitude; that it will suffice to say that employer in and by a notice dated 12.02.2012 terminated the said contract; that this lead to eruption of arbitrable disputes and constitution of a three member 'Arbitral Tribunal' {'AT' for the sake of brevity}; that before AT, UIEPL contractor was claimant and SBSL employer was respondent; that contractor as claimant made a claim for a sum of a little over Rs.4.43 Crores stating that the same are monies due from employer SBSL for supply of machinery and equipments supplied during the period of 23.12.2011 to 15.03.2018 under said contract; that this amount of a little over Rs.4.43 Crores (Rs.4,43,56,687/- to be precise) was claimed with interest at 14% per https://www.mhc.tn.gov.in/judis annum; that employer SBSL as respondent before AT resisted the claim and also made a counter claim for Rs.5 Crores saying that the same is towards damages said to have been suffered by SBSL for breach of terms of said contract; that this damages of Rs.5 Crores was claimed by employer SBSL with 18% interest per annum; that AT, after full contest, made an 'award dated 03.08.2019' {hereinafter 'impugned award' for the sake of brevity} inter alia returning a verdict in favour of claimant / contractor / UIEPL in a sum of Rs.4,43,56,687/- together with 12% interest per annum besides costs of Rs.6 Lakhs; that as regards the counter claim of employer SBSL i.e., counter claim of Rs.5 Crores, the entire counter claim was dismissed as a case of no evidence {no pleadings with specificity too}; that the employer SBSL assailed the impugned award under Section 34 of A and C Act vide O.P.No.39 of 2020 and Section 34 Court in and by an 'order dated 30.06.2021' {hereinafter 'impugned order' for the sake of brevity} dismissed the Section 34 petition; that against the impugned order of Section 34 Court, captioned OSA has been filed by SBSL employer; that the captioned appeal was heard out in full;

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