Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Simone Capaccioli, Lirong Zheng, Apostolos Kyritsis, Alessandro Paciaroni, Michael Vogel, Kia L. Ngai
Summary: The dynamics of hydrated proteins are found to be richer than previously known, with the presence of two structural alpha-relaxations and the hydration water nu-relaxation coupled together. The dynamics of hydrated proteins are similar to that of highly asymmetric mixtures of glass-formers, as shown by the experimental results in this study.
Letter
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Luca Angelani, Taras Bryk, Simone Capaccioli, Matteo Paoluzzi, Giancarlo Ruocco, Walter Schirmacher
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
F. Caporaletti, S. Capaccioli, S. Valenti, M. Mikolasek, A. Chumakov, G. Monaco
Summary: The dynamics of a liquid slow down significantly when cooled to form glass, with a characteristic relaxation time of about 100s at the glass-transition temperature T-g. The Johari-Goldstein relaxation, beta(JG), decouples from the structural relaxation at slightly elevated temperatures, and remains much faster down to T-g. Experimental evidence supports a picture of an intermittent mosaic structure in the deeply supercooled liquid phase.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Lucia Silvestrini, Norhan Belhaj, Lucia Comez, Yuri Gerelli, Antonino Lauria, Valeria Libera, Paolo Mariani, Paola Marzullo, Maria Grazia Ortore, Antonio Palumbo Piccionello, Caterina Petrillo, Lucrezia Savini, Alessandro Paciaroni, Francesco Spinozzi
Summary: The study investigated the structural features and thermodynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 M-pro protein using Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS), providing key information for therapeutic intervention. It was found that small molecule inhibitors can affect dimerization and enzymatic activity of M-pro to varying extents, potentially serving as leads for antiviral drug development.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Marina Katava, Guillaume Stirnemann, Maria Pachetti, Simone Capaccioli, Alessandro Paciaroni, Fabio Sterpone
Summary: The study investigates the impact of macromolecular crowding on protein stability, revealing that the flexibility and interactions of crowders alleviate the stabilizing contributions of the static volume effect.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Valeria Libera, Elena A. Andreeva, Anne Martel, Aurelien Thureau, Marialucia Longo, Caterina Petrillo, Alessandro Paciaroni, Giorgio Schiro, Lucia Comez
Summary: This study employed a structure-based strategy to investigate the interaction between TMPyP4 porphyrin and a human telomeric sequence, revealing that porphyrin binding promotes dimerization and light irradiation can control the dimer fraction. Changes in quaternary structure were found to be closely correlated with modifications at the secondary structure level.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Materials Science, Ceramics
F. Puosi, F. Fidecaro, S. Capaccioli, D. Pisignano, D. Leporini
Summary: A density anomaly with negative thermal expansion (NTE) has been discovered and characterized in tantala for the first time using Molecular Dynamics simulations. This phenomenon is observed in the metastable supercooled liquid and is close to the glass transition.
JOURNAL OF NON-CRYSTALLINE SOLIDS
(2022)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
M. Labardi, P. Tripathi, S. Capaccioli, R. Casalini
Summary: Local dielectric spectroscopy (LDS) is a scanning probe method that uses atomic force microscopy (AFM) to differentiate dielectric properties on material surfaces with nanometer-scale resolution. This study introduces and explores a variant of AFM called constant-excitation frequency modulation for LDS, assessing its resolution capability. Using optimized parameters, a lateral resolution of at least 3 nm was achieved in dielectric imaging and spectroscopy, allowing for mapping and tracking of characteristic changes in thin films of diblock copolymers. LDS has potential applications in studying fundamental physical phenomena like structural arrest in glass formers.
Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Fabio Di Martino, Damiano Del Sarto, Maria Giuseppina Bisogni, Simone Capaccioli, Federica Galante, Alessia Gasperini, Stefania Linsalata, Giulia Mariani, Matteo Pacitti, Fabiola Paiar, Stefano Ursino, Verdi Vanreusel, Dirk Verellen, Giuseppe Felici
Summary: This paper presents a new conceptual design of a gas chamber (the ALLS chamber) to overcome the challenges in dosimetry for ultra-high dose per pulse regimens.
PHYSICA MEDICA-EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL PHYSICS
(2022)
Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Fabio Di Martino, Damiano Del Sarto, Salvatore Barone, Maria Giuseppina Bisogni, Simone Capaccioli, Federica Galante, Alessia Gasparini, Giulia Mariani, Luigi Masturzo, Marco Montefiori, Matteo Pacitti, Fabiola Paiar, Jake Harold Pensavalle, Francesco Romano, Stefano Ursino, Verdi Vanreusel, Dirk Verellen, Giuseppe Felici
Summary: The free electron fraction is an important parameter for describing the recombination processes of an ionization chamber. This study proposes a simple and direct method to evaluate this fraction, allowing for accurate measurements under various conditions. The results obtained from advanced equipment support the practicality of this method.
PHYSICA MEDICA-EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL PHYSICS
(2022)
Article
Thermodynamics
Daniele Sonaglioni, Elpidio Tombari, Simone Capaccioli
Summary: Fast scanning calorimetry is a useful experimental technique that can suppress reorganization processes. This paper proposes a new method for estimating the dynamical thermal lag and provides a novel interpretation of heat flow losses due to the sample. The use of glass to liquid transition is also shown as a new method to reveal static thermal gradients.
THERMOCHIMICA ACTA
(2023)
Article
Polymer Science
Aurora Magnani, Simone Capaccioli, Bahareh Azimi, Serena Danti, Massimiliano Labardi
Summary: This study demonstrated the mapping of effective converse piezoelectric coefficient in poly(vinylidene fluoride) nanofibers with BaTiO3 nanoparticles using piezoresponse force microscopy. The analysis was conducted in a peculiar dynamic mode suitable for compliant materials. The results revealed a decreased piezoelectric activity at the nanoparticle site compared to the polymeric fiber, indicating a tradeoff between the dielectric constants and piezoelectric coefficients of the materials, as well as the orientation of polar axes.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Federico Caporaletti, Simone Capaccioli, Dimitrios Bessas, Aleksander I. Chumakov, Alessandro Martinelli, Giulio Monaco
Summary: The JG relaxation is closely connected to the structural relaxation in supercooled liquids, and investigating its microscopic properties is crucial for understanding the glass-transition. In this study, we used time-domain interferometry to probe the microscopic density fluctuations of the van der Waals glass-former cumene. Our results show that the molecules involved in the JG relaxation undergo a restricted motion, leading to local cage-breaking events at the characteristic time-scale for molecular re-orientations.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR LIQUIDS
(2023)
Article
Polymer Science
Fatima Ezzahra Bouharras, Massimiliano Labardi, Elpidio Tombari, Simone Capaccioli, Mustapha Raihane, Bruno Ameduri
Summary: The dielectric properties of PVDF-g-BT core-shell structured nanocomposites obtained by RAFT polymerization were investigated. The dielectric constant increased with the addition of BT, exhibiting a larger increase than predicted by usual modeling methods for composite materials, due to the effect of the interfacial core-shell structure. PVDF's known dielectric relaxations were observed in both the neat polymer and its nanocomposites, unaffected by the presence of nanoparticles. A relaxation process due to interfacial polarization was found at higher temperatures, attributed to the high crystallinity of the materials produced by RAFT.