Mo(Si1-x,Alx)2 composites were produced by a pulsed laser reactive selective laser melting of MoSi2 and 30 wt.% AlSi10Mg powder mixture. The parametric study, altering the laser power between 100 and 300 W and scan speed between 400 and 1500 mm·s-1, has been conducted to estimate the effect of processing parameters on printed coupon samples' quality. It was shown that samples prepared at 150-200 W laser power and 400-500 mm·s-1 scan speed, as well as 250 W laser power along with 700 mm·s-1 scan speed, provide a relatively good surface finish with 6.5 ± 0.5 µm-10.3 ± 0.8 µm roughness at the top of coupons, and 9.3 ± 0.7 µm-13.2 ± 1.1 µm side surface roughness in addition to a remarkable chemical and microstructural homogeneity. An increase in the laser power and a decrease in the scan speed led to an apparent improvement in the densification behavior resulting in printed coupons of up to 99.8% relative density and hardness of ~600 HV1 or ~560 HV5. The printed parts are composed of epitaxially grown columnar dendritic melt pool cores and coarser dendrites beyond the morphological transition zone in overlapped regions. An increase in the scanning speed at a fixed laser power and a decrease in the power at a fixed scan speed prohibited the complete single displacement reaction between MoSi2 and aluminum, leading to unreacted MoSi2 and Al lean hexagonal Mo(Si1-x,Alx)2 phase.The failure of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has been associated with a profound immunodeficiency that follows shortly after treatment, which renders patients susceptible to opportunistic infections and/or cancer relapse. Thus, given the additional immunosuppressive pathways involved in immune evasion in cancer, strategies that induce a faster reconstitution of key immune effector cells are needed. Natural killer (NK) cells mediate potent anti-tumor effector functions and are the first immune cells to repopulate after HSCT. TGF-β is a potent immunosuppressive cytokine that can impede both the development and function of immune cells. Here, we evaluated the use of an immunotherapeutic regimen that combines low dose of IL-2, an NK cell stimulatory signal, with TGF-β neutralization, in order to accelerate NK cell reconstitution following congenic HSCT in mice by providing stimulatory signals yet also abrogating inhibitory ones. This therapy led to a marked expansion of NK cells and accelerated NK cell maturation. Following HSCT, mature NK cells from the treated recipients displayed an activated phenotype and enhanced anti-tumor responses both in vitro and in vivo. No overt toxicities or adverse effects were observed in the treated recipients. However, these stimulatory effects on NK cell recovery were predicated upon continuous treatment as cessation of treatment led to return to baseline levels and to no improvement of overall immune recovery when assessed at later time-points, indicating strict regulatory control of the NK cell compartment. Overall, this study still demonstrates that therapies that combine positive and negative signals can be plausible strategies to accelerate NK cell reconstitution following HSCT and augment anti-tumor efficacy.The presented paper summarizes the main research findings on the impact of the environment concerning the durability and service life of building joint sealants. The focus is placed on sealed joints in façade applications, which can serve different purposes and can also be several meters long which often intensifies the stresses that the joint needs to withstand and therefore its service life can be significantly shortened.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/Temsirolimus.html  Different approaches, test sample geometries and high-performance sealants, were used in this context to determine the most critical aspects for the studied application sector. The research was divided into three phases where the joints were subjected to (I) artificial weathering in a laboratory environment, (II) real weathering in an external environment, and (III) weathering via a real application that was monitored for almost 4 years. The extensive research scope confirmed one commonly known presumption, that standardized artificial weathering/aging methods are not able, from a long-term perspective, to simulate the impact of a real environment. The most valuable results were obtained in the third phase of the research, where the monitoring of a real façade brought to light completely different conclusions. The joints exposed to the real environment were either completely deteriorated or showed signs of advanced aging.Studying the properties of complex molecules on surfaces is still mostly an unexplored research area because the deposition of the metal complexes has many pitfalls. Herein, we probed the possibility to produce surface hybrids by depositing a Co(II)-based complex with chalcone ligands on chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown graphene by a wet-chemistry approach and by thermal sublimation under high vacuum. Samples were characterized by high-frequency electron spin resonance (HF-ESR), XPS, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and optical microscopy, supported with density functional theory (DFT) and complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF)/N-electron valence second-order perturbation theory (NEVPT2) calculations. This compound's rationale is its structure, with several aromatic rings for weak binding and possible favorable π-π stacking onto graphene. In contrast to expectations, we observed the formation of nanodroplets on graphene for a drop-cast sample and microcrystallites localized at grain boundaries and defects after thermal sublimation.In this study, the dominant role of the top electrode is presented for Nb2O5-based devices to demonstrate either the resistive switching or threshold characteristics. These Nb2O5-based devices may exhibit different characteristics depending on the selection of electrode. The use of the inert electrode (Au) initiates resistive switching characteristics in the Au/Nb2O5/Pt device. Alternatively, threshold characteristics are induced by using reactive electrodes (W and Nb). The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis confirms the presence of oxide layers of WOy and NbOx at interfaces for W and Nb as top electrodes. However, no interface layer between the top electrode and active layer is detected in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy for Au as the top electrode. Moreover, the dominant phase is Nb2O5 for Au and NbO2 for W and Nb. The threshold characteristics are attributed to the reduction of Nb2O5 phase to NbO2 due to the interfacial oxide layer formation between the reactive top electrode and Nb2O5. Additionally, reliability tests for both resistive switching and threshold characteristics are also performed to confirm switching stabilities.