The sweet aroma of success: Modification of products for new markets in the case of TORQ by Di Bella Coffee

In 2002, Phillip Di Bella’s childhood passion for coffee and keen entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish a small coffee roasting warehouse in in the inner suburbs of Brisbane (Di Bella, 2012). With a keen sense of direction and passion for his coffee products and providing unparalleled customer service, Di Bella Coffee quickly grew to become a key player in the coffee roasting scene. This passion for the ultimate coffee experience is evident in the firm’s logo ‘Di Bella Coffee Inspires Passion’. Phillip Di Bella stated that ‘the common denominator of this company is about inspiration and passion. We are not a coffee company, we are a people company. You know, are we inspiring you from the moment you walk in the door to the moment you leave. If you are not feeling inspired then we haven’t done our job properly as a company’. Fundamentally, providing the ultimate coffee experience, as detailed in the following case is one in which focuses on the coffee consumption experience, not the coffee itself. Over that last 10 years Di Bella Coffee has constantly strived for the ultimate coffee, while expanding business operations into the booming Asian coffee market, establishing headquarters in Shanghai in 2010. In 2011, Di Bella Coffee commenced their second international venture with the launch of operations in India (Di Bella Coffee, 2012); followed shortly by the creation of a new category of coffee, set to revolutionise to coffee industry. The fusion of two traditional forms of coffee; espresso coffee and instant coffee, to create a third category- espresso instant, led to the development of TORQ by Di Bella.

Crystal structure of poly[[di-mu2-aqua-aquasodium] 4-amino-3,5,6-trichloropyridine-2-carboxylate trihydrate], the sodium salt of the herbicide picloram

In the structure of the title complex [[Na(H2O)3]+ (C6H2Cl3N2O2)-^ . 3(H2O)]n, the Na salt of the herbicide picloram, the cation is a polymeric chain structure, based on doubly water-bridged NaO5 trigonal bipyramidal complex units which have in addition, a singly-bonded monodentate water molecule. Each of the bridges within the chain which lies along the a cell direction is centrosymmetric with Na...Na separations of 3.4807(16) and 3.5109(16)Ang. In the crystal, there are three water molecules of solvation and these, as well as the coordinated water molecules and the amino group of the 4-amino-3,5,6-trichloropicolinate anion are involved in extensive inter-species hydrogen-bonding interactions with carboxyl and water O-atoms as well as the pyridine N-atom. Among these association is a centrosymmetric cyclic tetra-water R4/4(8) ring , resulting in an overall three-dimensional structure.

Structure of the K12 capsule containing 5,7-di-N-acetylacinetaminic acid from Acinetobacter baumannii isolate D36

The repeat unit of the K12 capsular polysaccharide isolated from the Acinetobacter baumannii global clone 1 clinical isolate, D36, was elucidated by means of chemical and spectroscopical methods. The structure was shown to contain N-acetyl-D-galactosamine (D-GalpNAc), N-acetyl-D-fucosamine and N-acetyl-L-fucosamine linked together in the main chain, with the novel sugar, 5,7-diacetamido-3,5,7,9-tetradeoxy-L-glycero-L-altro-non-2-ulosonic acid (5,7-di-N-acetylacinetaminic acid or Aci5Ac7Ac), attached to D-GalpNAc as a side branch. This matched the sugar composition of the K12 capsule and the genetic content of the KL12 capsule gene cluster reported previously. D-FucpNAc was predicted to be the substrate for the initiating transferase, ItrB3, with the Wzy polymerase making a α-D-FucpNAc-(1 → 3)-D-GalpNAc linkage between the repeat units. The three glycosyltransferases encoded by KL12 are all retaining glycosyltransferases and were predicted to form specific linkages between the sugars in the K12 repeat unit.

Predicting a new phase (T′′) of two-dimensional transition metal di-chalcogenides and strain-controlled topological phase transition

Single layered transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted tremendous research interest due to their structural phase diversities. By using a global optimization approach, we have discovered a new phase of transition metal dichalcogenides (labelled as T′′), which is confirmed to be energetically, dynamically and kinetically stable by our first-principles calculations. The new T′′ MoS2 phase exhibits an intrinsic quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect with a nontrivial gap as large as 0.42 eV, suggesting that a two-dimensional (2D) topological insulator can be achieved at room temperature. Most interestingly, there is a topological phase transition simply driven by a small tensile strain of up to 2%. Furthermore, all the known MX2 (M = Mo or W; X = S, Se or Te) monolayers in the new T′′ phase unambiguously display similar band topologies and strain controlled topological phase transitions. Our findings greatly enrich the 2D families of transition metal dichalcogenides and offer a feasible way to control the electronic states of 2D topological insulators for the fabrication of high-speed spintronics devices.

Spray deposition of exfoliated MoS2 flakes as hole transport layer in perovskite-based photovoltaics

We propose the use of solution-processed molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) flakes as hole transport layer (HTL) for metal-organic perovskite solar cells. MoS2 bulk crystals are exfoliated in 2-propanol and deposited on perovskite layers by spray coating. We fabricated cells with glass/FTO/compact-TiO2/mesoporous-TiO2/CH3NH3PbI3/spiro- OMeTAD/Au structure and cells with the same structure but with MoS2 flakes as HTL instead of spiro-OMeTAD, the most widely used HTL. The electrical characterization of the cells with MoS2 as HTL show promising power conversion efficiency -η- of 3.9% with respect to cells with pristine spiro-OMeTAD (η=3.1%). Endurance test on 800-hour shelf life has shown higher stability for the MoS2–based cells (ΔPCE/PCE=-17%) with respect to the doped spiro-OMeTAD-based one (ΔPCE/PCE =-45%). Further improvements are expected with the optimization of the MoS2 deposition process

Chromosomal rearrangements, phenotypic variation and modularity: A case study from a contact zone between house mouse Robertsonian races in Central Italy

The Western European house mouse, Mus musculus domesticus, is well-known for the high frequency of Robertsonian fusions that have rapidly produced more than 50 karyotipic races, making it an ideal model for studying the mechanisms of chromosomal speciation. The mouse mandible is one of the traits studied most intensively to investigate the effect of Robertsonian fusions on phenotypic variation within and between populations. This complex bone structure has also been widely used to study the level of integration between different morphogenetic units. Here, with the aim of testing the effect of different karyotypic assets on the morphology of the mouse mandible and on its level of modularity, we performed morphometric analyses of mice from a contact area between two highly metacentric races in Central Italy. We found no difference in size, while the mandible shape was found to be different between the two Robertsonian races, even after accounting for the genetic relationships among individuals and geographic proximity. Our results support the existence of two modules that indicate a certain degree of evolutionary independence, but no difference in the strength of modularity between chromosomal races. Moreover, the ascending ramus showed more pronounced interpopulation/race phenotypic differences than the alveolar region, an effect that could be associated to their different polygenic architecture. This study suggests that chromosomal rearrangements play a role in the house mouse phenotypic divergence, and that the two modules of the mouse mandible are differentially affected by environmental factors and genetic makeup.