三：胆识
（1）不要常用缺乏自信的词句
（2）不要常常反悔，轻易推翻已经决定的事。
（3）在众人争执不休时，不要没有主见。
（4）整体氛围低落时，你要乐观、阳光。
（5）做任何事情都要用心，因为有人在看着你。
（6）事情不顺的时候，歇口气，重新寻找突破口，就结束也要干净利落。
四：大度
（1）不要刻意把有可能是伙伴的人变成对手。
（2）对别人的小过失、小错误不要斤斤计较。
（3）在金钱上要大方，学习三施（财施、法施、无畏施）
（4）不要有权力的傲慢和知识的偏见。
（5）任何成果和成就都应和别人分享。
（6）必须有人牺牲或奉献的时候，自己走在前面。
五：诚信
（1）做不到的事情不要说，说了就努力做到。
（2）虚的口号或标语不要常挂嘴上。
（3）针对客户提出的“不诚信”问题，拿出改善的方法。
（4）停止一切“不道德”的手段。
（5）耍弄小聪明，要不得！
（6）计算一下产品或服务的诚信代价，那就是品牌成本。
六：担当
（1）检讨任何过失的时候，先从自身或自己人开始反省。
（2）事项结束后，先审查过错，再列述功劳。
（3）认错从上级开始，表功从下级启动
（4）着手一个计划，先将权责界定清楚，而且分配得当。
（5）对“怕事”的人或组织要挑明了说。
（6）因为勇于承担责任所造成的损失，公司应该承担

The pitcher for barley tea.

Curry chicken, onion fried egg, green tea, barley tea and ice coffee, etc…

就像把一颗颗的珠子串起来。一个一个的点，构成记忆，一个一个的点，连成线，变成我们的轨迹。

Don’t worry about the spring; it knows when it’d come—from Phillip喜欢这么洒脱的态度。改变自己有能力改变的，不是吗？坦然接受不能改变的，然后用智慧分辨它们的不同。

看到那个白色的pitcher 里面装了三个多啦A梦爱吃的铜锣烧，心里就很甜蜜。就像他从背后抱着我，看我洗碗，我们在风和日丽的四月，一起过小日子。

生活，就应该是甘之如饴的，无论发生什么。

也就是说，要有轻松的心态。自己已经尽力了，不是吗？对自己那么harsh 没有什么好处。

睡个好觉~

daffodil 都在向我微笑。春天来了。

过去的两个学期，很不一样。我学着慢慢从另一个角度看问题，把自己从透明玻璃鱼缸里解放出来。从前的自己，就像一条透明玻璃缸里的鱼，在自己的世界里打量其余的世界。我不是一个参与者，我习惯躲在自己的空间，和孤单为伴，并告诉自己，我并不孤独，因为我也有我的世界。

但反过来想想，为什么我要把自己关在透明玻璃缸里？是害怕外面的世界？还是不屑与外面的世界沟通？还是自信心不足，觉得自己呆在水族箱里更安全？我想，种种原因都有吧。

我们两个人在一起，我开始勇敢地渐渐越出我的水族箱。参与的感觉很好，因为自己被其余的世界接受，总某种程度上，这鼓励了我自信心的成长。

但，自信心最终来源于自己客观，实事求是的接受自己的现状，并逐渐完善提高自己。可是如何做更好的自己？

我的路在哪里？我有点低落。人人都会有这种感觉，up in the air, don’t know where i’m gonna end up.

没什么大不了，不是吗？

现在要做的，就是睡觉，做个好梦，明天醒来，一切归于平静。

圣地亚哥街道上的建筑错落有致，绿色的植被点缀其中，一点都没有大城市的紧张感觉。

我们带着小小的期待寻找little Italy，但是没有找到，或者说后来没有继续再找。不是非要找到的，不是吗？

Antennas and energy transfer processes
For light energy to be stored by photosynthesis, it must first be absorbed by one of
the pigments associated with the photosynthetic apparatus. Photon absorption creates
an excited state that eventually leads to charge separation in the reaction center. Not
every pigment carries out photochemistry; the vast majority function as antennas,
collecting light and then delivering energy to the reaction center where the photochemistry
takes place.The antenna system is conceptually similar to a satellite dish, collecting
energy and concentrating it in a receiver, where the signal is converted into a
different form.
The antenna system does not do any chemistry; it works by an energy transfer process
that involves the migration of electronic excited states from one molecule to another.
This is a purely physical process,which depends on a weak energetic coupling of the antenna
pigments. In almost all cases, the pigments are bound to proteins in highly specific
associations. In addition to chlorophylls, common antenna pigments include carotenoids
and open-chain tetrapyrrole bilin pigments found in phycobilisome antenna
complexes.
3.  Engel’s presentation. I learned about how he attributes the spectral features to quantum coherence. In FMO, there are 7 energy eigenstates or 7 pigments embedded in protein scaffold (I need to check what exactly he refers to, energy eigenstates or number of pigments). Quantum coherence still seems murky to me but I recognized the density matrix with diagonal terms and off-diagonal terms. In my understanding, off-diagonal terms are resulted from the superposition states of the 7 energy states. (I think this is what the term “coherence” refers to.) As he says, FMO is able to look at all possible paths, that is all possible combinations of energy eigenstates and the most effective one will “channel” the energy to reaction center. Excitonic basis is used for analysis.

4. I also read the annual review paper by Yuan-Chung Cheng and GR Fleming once again. There are a few theoretical models accounting for energy transfer dynamics. I can consider Forster theory of EET that assumes incoherent hopping. Then there are more sophisticated theoretical models which I can take a look at Tomas Mancal’s papers and another Czech scientist’s work.

5. The book Phtosynthetic excitons will be useful to obtain the background knowledge. (P18 FMO specifically and P47 Introduction to the concept of exciton.)

How does the EM wave interact with the pigments in chloroplasts? Why is it so efficient? Can we learn from photosynthesis to come up with better solar cells?

It started to become clearer that through a technique called 2D electronic spectroscopy developed in G.R. Fleming’s group in the Lawrence lab at Berkeley, plants exploit quantum coherence to make it work. However, we will not expect quantum coherence in a “wet”, warm and “noisy” biological environment. Nevertheless, nature knows the best.

Reading through many research articles, at this stage, I’m still confused about the techniques of 2D electronic spectroscopy. Understanding this will help me tremendously in interpreting the experimental results from the Berkeley group, thus explaining the hidden “quantumness”.

On the other hand, since Comps has to be integrative, I have to include other areas of physics. This shouldn’t be a problem. It’s just that each area of physics can’t be treated in same depth. Some are bound to be more introductory than others, but I guess it’s OK.

Can I produce a 30 pages long stuff by the end of January?

Yes Yes Yes, Emma, you can do it!!!

p.s. I miss you a lot, my dear Alex.

Synthetic biology: The yin and yang of nature

Jeff Gore¹ & Alexander van Oudenaarden¹

Periodic oscillations are the basis of timekeeping. For many millennia, the main timekeeper was the water clock, in which time is recorded by the regular dripping of water into or out of a basin.

Jeff Gore and Alexander van Oudenaarden are in the Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.