Essential (Mg,Fe, Zn and Cu) and Non-Essential (Cd and Pb) Elements in Predatory Insects (Vespa crabro and Vespa velutina): A Molecular Perspective

The recent introduction of the Asian yellow-legged hornet, Vespa velutina, into Europe has raised concern regarding the threat to honeybees and the competition with the European hornet, Vespa crabro. The aim of this study was to investigated essential (Mg, Fe, Zn, Cu) and non-essential (Cd and Pb) elements in these two species. Element concentrations were determined in the whole body and separately in the head, thorax and abdomen using atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The changes in essential element concentration and speciation during metamorphosis were also studied using size exclusion chromatography followed by AAS and proteomic analysis. In both species, the essential elements were more concentrated in the abdomen due to the presence of fat bodies. Magnesium, Fe and Zn concentrations were significantly higher in V. crabro than in V. velutina and could have been related to the higher aerobic energy demand of the former species required to sustain foraging flight. Low concentrations of Cd and Pb were indicative of low environmental exposure. The concentration and speciation of essential elements, particularly Fe, varied among the developmental stages, indicating a modification of ligand preferences during metamorphosis. Overall, the results in the present study provide a better understanding of the hornet metal metabolism and a foundation for additional studies.     

Improved error performance for generalised spatial modulation with enhanced spectral efficiency

The existing analytical average bit error rate (ABER) expression of conventional generalised spatial modulation (CGSM) does not agree well with the Monte Carlo simulation results in the low signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) region. Hence, the first contribution of this paper is to derive a new and easy way to evaluate analytical ABER expression that improves the validation of the simulation results at low SNRs. Secondly, a novel system termed CGSM with enhanced spectral efficiency (CGSM‐ESE) is presented. This system is realised by applying a rotation angle to one of the two active transmit antennas. As a result, the overall spectral efficiency is increased by 1 bit/s/Hz when compared with the equivalent CGSM system. In order to validate the simulation results of CGSM‐ESE, the third contribution is to derive an analytical ABER expression. Finally, to improve the ABER performance of CGSM‐ESE, three link adaptation algorithms are developed. By assuming full knowledge of the channel at the receiver, the proposed algorithms select a subset of channel gain vector (CGV) pairs based on the Euclidean distance between all CGV pairs, CGV splitting, CGV amplitudes, or a combination of these.     

Temperature adaptability of the soluble lead flow battery using different solutions of fluoborate,perchlorate, methanesulfonate and trifluoromethanesulfonate

The evaluation of cell's weatherability is of practical interest. To further improve the soluble lead flow battery's weatherability, physiochemical properties of electrolytes containing fluoborate, perchlorate, methanesulfonate and trifluoromethanesulfonate are investigated from ?60 to 50 °C. Activities of CF₃SO₃H and HClO₄ are poor in trifluoromethanesulfonate and perchlorate solutions due to common anion effect. The solubility of lead salt can be improved by increasing temperature, but worsened by increasing acid's content. With the temperature increasing, the conductivity is enhanced, and the viscosity is lowered for four solutions. The same results have been found by increasing acid's content except for CF₃SO₃H. The high energy efficiency can be achieved for cells over ?40–0 °C using fluoborate and perchlorate solutions, 73.2% at ?40 °C and 78.1% at ?30 °C respectively. Over the temperature range of 20–50 °C, the cells with methanesulfonate and trifluoromethanesulfonate solutions have good performance, 77.4% and 73.7% at 50 °C respectively.     

小型机载激光通信系统设计与验证

针对空空宽带高速通信的需求，设计了小型化机载激光通信系统。仿真分析了300 km、2.5 Gb/s无线激光链路性能，并通过运动仿真台模拟机动环境测试了系统的跟踪与通信性能，其中粗跟踪误差为533.2 μrad(1σ)，精跟踪误差为3.6 μrad(1σ)，测试数据传输240 s，通信误码率为2.82×10-9。仿真与实验验证了该系统用于远距离空空无线激光通信的可行性。     

Activity-Directed Synthesis: A Flexible Approach for Lead Generation

Activity-directed synthesis (ADS) is a structure-blind, functional-driven molecular discovery approach. In this Concept, four case studies highlight the general applicability of ADS and showcase its flexibility to support different medicinal chemistry strategies. ADS deliberately harnesses reactions with multiple possible outcomes, and allows many chemotypes to be evaluated in parallel. Resources are focused on bioactive molecules, which emerge in tandem with associated synthetic routes. Some of the future challenges for ADS are highlighted, including the realisation of an autonomous molecular discovery platform. The prospects for ADS to become a mainstream lead generation approach are discussed.     

Automated network management and configuration using Probabilistic Trans-Algorithmic Search

Online configuration of large-scale systems such as networks requires parameter optimization within a limited amount of time, especially when configuration is needed as a response to recover from a failure in the system. To quickly configure such systems in an online manner, we propose a Probabilistic Trans-Algorithmic Search (PTAS) framework which leverages multiple optimization search algorithms in an iterative manner. PTAS applies a search algorithm to determine how to best distribute available experiment budget among multiple optimization search algorithms. It allocates an experiment budget to each available search algorithm and observes its performance on the system-at-hand. PTAS then probabilistically reallocates the experiment budget for the next round proportional to each algorithm’s performance relative to the rest of the algorithms. This “roulette wheel” approach probabilistically favors the more successful algorithm in the next round. Following each round, the PTAS framework “transfers” the best result(s) among the individual algorithms, making our framework a trans-algorithmic one. PTAS thus aims to systematize how to “search for the best search” and hybridize a set of search algorithms to attain a better search. We use three individual search algorithms, i.e., Recursive Random Search (RRS) (Ye and Kalyanaraman, 2004), Simulated Annealing (SA) (Laarhoven and Aarts, 1987), and Genetic Algorithm (GA) (Goldberg, 1989), and compare PTAS against the performance of RRS, GA, and SA. We show the performance of PTAS on well-known benchmark objective functions including scenarios where the objective function changes in the middle of the optimization process. To illustrate applicability of our framework to automated network management, we apply PTAS on the problem of optimizing link weights of an intra-domain routing protocol on three different topologies obtained from the Rocketfuel dataset. We also apply PTAS on the problem of optimizing aggregate throughput of a wireless ad hoc network by tuning datarates of traffic sources. Our experiments show that PTAS successfully picks the best performing algorithm, RRS or GA, and allocates the time wisely. Further, our results show that PTAS’ performance is not transient and steadily improves as more time is available for search.     

氢化物原子荧光光谱法测定酱油中微量铅的方法研究

建立了一种快速、高效的QuEChERS-高效液相色谱-质谱联用法（QuEChERS-HPLC-MS/MS）测定谷类杂粮制品中脱氧雪腐镰刀菌烯醇（DON）、3-乙酰脱氧雪腐镰刀菌烯醇（3-ADON）、15-乙酰脱氧雪腐镰刀菌烯醇（15-ADON）和玉米赤霉烯酮（ZON）共4种真菌毒素。样品前处理采用乙腈-水溶剂提取，经Florisil+C18+无水硫酸镁净化后检测。以0.10%甲酸-乙腈作为流动相，在质谱检测器的多反应监测模式下进行分析。结果表明，4种真菌毒素在各自的线性范围内线性关系良好，相关系数R2均大于0.999，回收率在85.1%～102.0%，相对标准偏差（RSD）为2.11%～6.22%。该方法具有前处理简单、净化效果好、灵敏度高和检测速度快的优点，适用于谷类杂粮制品中DON、3-ADON、15-ADON 和ZON的分析和定量检测。     

Uplink Scheduling in CDMA Packet-Data Systems

Uplink scheduling in wireless systems is gaining importance due to arising uplink intensive data services (ftp, image uploads etc.), which could be hampered by the currently in-built asymmetry in favor of the downlink. In this work, we propose and study algorithms for efficient uplink packet-data scheduling in a CDMA cell. The algorithms attempt to maximize system throughput under transmit power limitations on the mobiles assuming instantaneous knowledge of user queues and channels. However no channel statistics or traffic characterization is necessary. Apart from increasing throughput, the algorithms also improve fairness of service among users, hence reducing chances of buffer overflows for poorly located users. The major observation arising from our analysis is that it is advantageous on the uplink to schedule “strong” users one-at-a-time, and “weak” users in larger groups. This contrasts with the downlink where one-at-a-time transmission for all users has shown to be the preferred mode in much previous work. Based on the optimal schedules, we propose less complex and more practical approximate methods, both of which offer significant performance improvement compared to one-at-a-time transmission, and the widely acclaimed Proportional Fair (PF) algorithm, in simulations. When queue content cannot be fed back, we propose a simple modification of PF, Uplink PF (UPF), that offers similar improvement. Hereafter, we refer to users with low recieved power at the base even when transmitting at peak transmit power as “weak” users, and the strongly recieved users at the base as “strong” users. Krishnan Kumaran is currently a member of the Complex Systems Modeling section in the Corporate Strategic Research of ExxonMobil Corp., Clinton, NJ. Formerly, he was a Member of Technical Staff in the Mathematics of Networks and Systems Research Department at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ, where his research interests were in modeling, analysis and simulation of design, resource management and scheduling issues in telecommunication networks. Lijun Qian is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Prairie View A&M University. He received his B.S. from Tsinghua University in Beijing, M.S. from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. from WINLAB, Rutgers University, all in electrical engineering. Before joining PVAMU, he was a researcher at Networks and Systems Research Department of Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ. His major research interests are in wireless communications and networking technologies, especially in radio resource management, protocol design, TCP/RLP optimization and MPLS traffic engineering.     

A Bluetooth Based Sensor Network for Civil Infrastructure Health Monitoring

Communicating with sensors has long been limited either to wired connections or to proprietary wireless communication protocols. Using a ubiquitous and inexpensive wireless communication technology to create Sensor Area Networks (SANs) will accelerate the extensive deployment of sensor technology. Bluetooth, an emerging, worldwide standard for inexpensive, local wireless communication is a viable choice for SANs because of its inherent support for some of the important requirements – low power, small form factor, low cost and sufficient communication range. In this paper we outline an approach, centered on the Bluetooth technology, to support a sensor network composed of fixed wireless sensors for health monitoring of highways, bridges and other civil infrastructures. We present a topology formation scheme that not only takes into account the traffic generated by different sensors but also the associated link strengths, buffer capacities and energy availability. The algorithm makes no particular assumptions as to the placement of nodes, and not all nodes need to be in radio proximity of each other. The output is a tree shaped scatternet rooted at the sensor hub (data logger) that is balanced in terms of traffic carried on each of the links. We also analyze the scheduling, routing and healing aspects of the resulting sensor-net topology.     

WPAN/WLAN应用环境下基于PER的链路自适应算法

本文重点研究基于包错误率测量的链路自适应算法，分析了包错误率与信道参数的关系，提出了一种有别于固定门限值方案的优化门限值方案。仿真结果表明，优化门限值方案的网络吞吐量要大于固定门限值方案和基于信干比估计的链路自适应算法，最大增幅可达12Mbit/s。在系统引入重传机制后，网络吞吐量将有所损失，但最大不超过1Mbit/s，相比较服务质量的提高是值得的。需指出的是，虽然分析和仿真均以HIPERLAN／2为例，但不失一般性，它们同样适合于WPAN/WLAN等类似系统。