The Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI; Croatian: Institut Ruđer Bošković, pronounced [instǐtuːt rûd͡ʑɛr bɔ̂ʃkɔʋit͡ɕ], IRB) is a research institute located in the Šalata neighborhood of Zagreb, Croatia, founded in 1950, which studies the sciences.
Up to date, the development of highly efficient, visible light-active catalysts remains a formidable challenge due to the enhanced rising of atmospheric CO2 concentration. This study discusses a class of ceria-based high-entropy oxides designed to optimize charge carrier dynamics, surface reactivity, and CO2 activation efficiency. Due to the advantages of high configurational entropy and multi-element synergy, these materials achieved improved photocatalytic performance, surpassing conventional ceria-based systems. Structural and spectroscopic analyses reveal that Pr3+/Pr4+ redox pairs and abundant oxygen vacancies create an electronically disordered yet thermodynamically stable environment, which enhances charge separation and suppresses electron-hole recombination. Photocatalytic experiments demonstrated that Ce0.2Zr0.2La0.2Pr0.2Sm0.2O2-delta (CZLPS) achieves the highest CO2 conversion rate, reaching a conversion of 20.3% under visible light irradiation, significantly surpassing pure ceria (1.4%), with a calculated space-time yield (STY) of 10.15 mol(CO)kg(-1)h(-1) under the same conditions. First-principles density functional theory (DFT) simulations were employed to investigate the CO2 reduction mechanism on CZLPS catalysts. The study elucidates the Gibbs free energy changes (Delta G) for each step of the reaction pathways leading to CO and HCOOH formation, highlighting the Zr site of CZLPS as the most active for the CO2RR, which is responsible for the outstanding catalytic activity
Detecting parity violation on cosmological scales would provide a striking clue to new physics. Large-scale structure offers the raw statistical power many three-dimensional modes to make such tests. However, for scalar observables, like galaxy clustering, the leading parity-sensitive observable is the trispectrum, whose high dimensionality makes the measurement and noise estimation challenging. We present two late-time parity-odd kurto spectra that compress the parity-odd scalar trispectrum into one-dimensional, power-spectrum-like observables. They are built by correlating (i) two appropriately weighted quadratic composite fields, or (ii) a linear and cubic composite field, constructed from dark matter (DM) or galaxy overdensity fields. We develop an FFTLog pipeline for efficient theoretical predictions of the two observables. We then validate the estimators for a specific parity-odd primordial template on perturbative DM field, and on DM and halo fields in full N-body Quijote simulations, with and without parity-odd initial conditions, in real and redshift space. For DM, the variance is dominated by the parity-even contribution i.e., the gravitationally induced parity-even trispectrum and is efficiently suppressed by phase-matched fiducial subtraction. For halos, discreteness-driven stochasticity dominates and is not appreciably reduced by subtraction; however, optimal weighting and halo-matter cross kurto spectra considerably mitigate this noise and enhance the signal. Using controlled down-sampling of the matter field, we empirically calibrate how the parity-even variance scales with number density and volume, and provide an illustrative forecast for the detectability of parity-odd kurto spectra in a Euclid-like spectroscopic galaxy survey.
We present the GRASPion, a compact, open-source bristlebot designed for the controlled study of active matter systems. Built around an Arduino-compatible board and modular 3D-printed components, the GRASPion combines ease of use, programmability, and mechanical versatility. It features dual vibrating motors for self-propulsion, integrated sensors for local interaction, and customizable firmware enabling various motion modes, from ballistic to diffusive regimes. The robot is equipped with onboard IR communication, color and proximity sensors, and a magnetometer, allowing for real-time interaction and complex collective behaviors. With a runtime exceeding 90 min and reproducible fabrication, the GRASPion provides a robust and scalable platform for both educational and research applications in out-of-equilibrium physics. This article details the mechanical and electronic design and software architecture of the GRASPion and illustrates its capabilities through prototypical experiments relevant to active matter, such as diffusive motion, synchronization, and phototaxis.
Generative models for crystalline materials often rely on equivariant graph neural networks, which capture geometric structure well but are costly to train and slow to sample. We present Crystalite, a lightweight diffusion Transformer for crystal modeling built around two simple inductive biases. The first is Subatomic Tokenization, a compact chemically structured atom representation that replaces high-dimensional one-hot encodings and is better suited to continuous diffusion. The second is the Geometry Enhancement Module (GEM), which injects periodic minimum-image pair geometry directly into attention through additive geometric biases. Together, these components preserve the simplicity and efficiency of a standard Transformer while making it better matched to the structure of crystalline materials. Crystalite achieves state-of-the-art results on crystal structure prediction benchmarks, and de novo generation performance, attaining the best S.U.N. discovery score among the evaluated baselines while sampling substantially faster than geometry-heavy alternatives.
Hyperthermia (HT) is a promising adjunct to conventional cancer therapies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy (RT). It offers several advantages, including low toxicity to normal tissues, limited tumor resistance, and synergistic therapeutic effects. HT enhances treatment efficacy by inhibiting DNA repair mechanisms, increasing tumor membrane permeability for improved drug uptake, and improving oxygenation to reduce hypoxia-induced resistance. HT also promotes cancer cell death by inducing oxidative stress, leading to mitochondrial dysfunction, caspase activation, and PARP cleavage. It causes G2/M cell cycle arrest and damages tumor vasculature. Additionally, HT downregulates proangiogenic and invasive factors such as TGF-β1, VEGF, and MMP-2/9, contributing to reduced tumor progression. Combining HT with natural compounds like propolis and flavonoids further improves therapeutic outcomes. These natural agents are accessible, cost-effective, and exhibit multi-targeted anticancer activity. In synergy with HT, they enhance reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, suppress heat shock proteins, modulate the tumor microenvironment (TME), and activate immune responses. They may also reduce the side effects of conventional therapies and support tissue regeneration. Overall, HT, especially in combination with natural compounds, offers a multifaceted and effective approach to cancer therapy.
