Single-Longitudinal-Mode Erbium-Doped Fiber Ring Laser Based on High Finesse Fiber Bragg Grating Fabry–PÉrot Etalon

We present a simple and stable single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) erbium-doped fiber laser. It consists of an apodized fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and a high finesse FBG-based Fabry-Perot (FP) etalon in the ring cavity. The apodized FBG acts as a wavelength discriminative component selecting a few oscillation modes while the FP etalon serves as narrow bandwidth bandpass filter to further discriminate and select SLM efficiently. Stable SLM laser output at 1.55 m with linewidth about 2.5 kHz is acquired. Furthermore, continuous wavelength tuning over 8 nm is achieved by simultaneously applying strain to the FBG and the FP etalon.     

A 3-DOF MR-Compatible Device for Magic Angle Related In Vivo Experiments

The "magic angle" effect consists of the increase in signal intensity observed at a tendon or cartilage in a magnetic resonance image, when the tissue is oriented at an angle of approximately 55deg with respect to the main magnetic field B₀. The exploitation of this phenomenon is often used to assist diagnosis of tendinous and other diseases, although practical difficulties derived from positioning target tissue at the desired orientation inside closed-bore scanners has made this exploitation hard to implement. A 3-DOF MR-compatible mechatronic system has been developed to position a variety of limbs at the magic angle inside a closed- bore scanner, actuated by a custom-developed pneumatic air motor. The system is capable of locating the desired anatomy with high accuracy, and is designed to position the target tissue at a minimal distance from the isocenter. The compatibility of the system is demonstrated, producing negligible artifacts and an insignificant reduction in signal to noise of the image. Preliminary clinical trials scanning the Achilles tendon of healthy volunteers prove the functionality of the device. An increase in signal intensity of up to 21-fold has been recorded in the tendon at the magic angle.     

A thermal-aware VM consolidation mechanism with outage avoidance

Efficient energy and temperature management techniques are essential elements for operators of cloud data centers. Dynamic virtual machine (VM) consolidation using live migration techniques presents a great opportunity for cloud service providers to adaptively reduce energy consumption and optimize their resource utilization. In recent studies, power consumption readings of individual physical hosts were chosen as the main monitoring parameters in their allocation policies, whereas very few have considered host temperature, which has shown to have a negative impact on server reliability, as a migration criterion. In this work, a thermal-aware VM consolidation mechanism is proposed for resource allocation optimization and server reliability assurance. We consider the variability in host temperature as a migration criterion to avoid outage incidents via having better VM consolidations. Extensive simulation results obtained from CloudSim show the promising performance of the proposed mechanism in energy saving while reducing the number of server outage incidents due to fluctuations in host temperature.     

Carbon‐Quantum‐Dots‐Loaded Ruthenium Nanoparticles as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Production in Alkaline Media

Highly active, stable, and cheap Pt‐free catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are facing increasing demand as a result of their potential use in future energy‐conversion systems. However, the development of HER electrocatalysts with Pt‐like or even superior activity, in particular ones that can function under alkaline conditions, remains a significant challenge. Here, the synthesis of a novel carbon‐loaded ruthenium nanoparticle electrocatalyst (Ru@CQDs) for the HER, using carbon quantum dots (CQDs), is reported. Electrochemical tests reveal that, even under extremely alkaline conditions (1 m KOH), the as‐formed Ru@CQDs exhibits excellent catalytic behavior with an onset overpotential of 0 mV, a Tafel slope of 47 mV decade^?1, and good durability. Most importantly, it only requires an overpotential of 10 mV to achieve the current density of 10 mA cm^?2. Such catalytic characteristics are superior to the current commercial Pt/C and most noble metals, non‐noble metals, and nonmetallic catalysts under basic conditions. These findings open a new field for the application of CQDs and add to the growing family of metal@CQDs with high HER performance.     

退火热处理对等径角挤压回收Ti-6Al-4V合金微观结构和显微硬度的影响

采用等径角挤压法回收Ti-6Al-4V合金切屑,并研究了回收样品和退火处理样品的微观结构和显微硬度。结果表明:在回收样品中,切屑之间的边界依然存在,而由于剧烈塑性变形,超细晶结构和较强的纤维织构得以形成。退火处理后,切屑边界部分消失,超细晶组织部分再结晶;而与此同时,退火处理样品展现出更宽泛的织构,再结晶晶粒并不存在择优取向。值得注意的是,退火处理样品的显微硬度较回收样品略有升高。     

Isothermal crystallization of poly(ethylene‐co‐glycidyl methacrylate)/clay nanocomposites

Poly(ethylene‐co‐glycidyl methacrylate) (PEGMA)/clay nanocomposites with clay concentrations of 1, 3, or 5 wt % were prepared via y melt blending in a twin‐screw extruder. Wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction showed that the clay layers were intercalated by PEGMA. Differential scanning calorimetry was used to analyze the isothermal crystallization, and the equilibrium melting temperature was determined with the Hoffman–Weeks method. The Avrami, Tobin, Malkin, and Urbanovici–Segal models were applied to describe the kinetics of crystallization from the melt state under isothermal conditions. The crystallization kinetics showed that the addition of clay facilitated the crystallization of PEGMA, with the clay functioning as a heterophase nucleating agent; at higher concentrations, however, the physical hindrance of the clay layers to the motion of PEGMA chains retarded the crystallization process. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 97: 1051–1064, 2005     

Social functioning and adjustment in Canadian-born children with Chinese and European backgrounds.

The purpose of the study was to examine social functioning and adjustment in peer context in Chinese Canadian and European Canadian children. A sample of elementary school children participated in the study. Data on social functioning, peer acceptance and rejection, and victimization were collected from peer assessments and sociometric nominations. The results indicated that Chinese Canadian children were viewed by peers as less aggressive-disruptive than European Canadian children. Chinese Canadian girls, but not boys, were more shy-sensitive than their European Canadian counterparts. Sociability was associated with peer acceptance, whereas aggression was associated with peer rejection and victimization. Shyness was associated with peer relationship difficulties more evidently in European Canadian children than in Chinese Canadian children. These results indicate the relevance of ethnic background to children's peer social experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

X图书馆

X图书馆位于虹口岸边的沙泾港.虹口是上海的十个中心区之一.它南濒黄浦江和苏州河,北接宝山,西连闸北,东邻杨浦.占地面积23.4km2,下辖8个街道办事处,居住人口达797 000人.图书馆紧邻的1933老场坊,周边将成为现代化的综合社区,城市肌理正在发生改变.社区以居住为主,商业、办公、娱乐、教育、体育、文化、景观与休闲功能为辅,充满活力.在此基础上,图书馆由7个近似立面单元的体量侧面叠成,一条西南一东北走向的对角线走道贯穿整个体量,实现了对周边社区的连接.     

Volumetric imaging with homogenised excitation and static field at 9.4 T

Objectives

To overcome the challenges of B₀ and RF excitation inhomogeneity at ultra-high field MRI, a workflow for volumetric B₀ and flip-angle homogenisation was implemented on a human 9.4 T scanner.

Materials and methods

Imaging was performed with a 9.4 T human MR scanner (Siemens Medical Solutions, Erlangen, Germany) using a 16-channel parallel transmission system. B₀- and B₁-mapping were done using a dual-echo GRE and transmit phase-encoded DREAM, respectively. B₀ shims and a small-tip-angle-approximation kT-points pulse were calculated with an off-line routine and applied to acquire T₁- and T ₂ ^* -weighted images with MPRAGE and 3D EPI, respectively.

Results

Over six in vivo acquisitions, the B₀-distribution in a region-of-interest defined by a brain mask was reduced down to a full-width-half-maximum of 0.10 ± 0.01 ppm (39 ± 2 Hz). Utilising the kT-points pulses, the normalised RMSE of the excitation was decreased from CP-mode’s 30.5 ± 0.9 to 9.2 ± 0.7 % with all B ₁ ⁺  voids eliminated. The SNR inhomogeneities and contrast variations in the T₁- and T ₂ ^* -weighted volumetric images were greatly reduced which led to successful tissue segmentation of the T₁-weighted image.

Conclusion

A 15-minute B₀- and flip-angle homogenisation workflow, including the B₀- and B₁-map acquisitions, was successfully implemented and enabled us to reduce intensity and contrast variations as well as echo-planar image distortions in 9.4 T images.

     

Sensing Pollution on Online Social Networks: A Transportation Perspective

Transportation policy and planning strategies, as well as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), can all play important roles in decreasing pollution levels and their negative effects. Interestingly, limited effort has been devoted to exploring the potential of social network analysis in such context. Social networks provide direct feedback from people and, hence, potentially valuable information. A post telling how a person feels about pollution at a given time at a given location, could be useful to policy-makers, planners or environmentally-aware ITS designers. This work verifies the feasibility of sensing air pollution from social networks and of integrating such information with real sensors feeds, unveiling how people advertise such phenomenon, acting themselves as smart objects, and how online posts relate to true pollution levels. This work explores a new dimension in pollution sensing for the benefit of environmental and transportation research in future smart cities, confronting over 1,500,000 posts and pollution readings obtained from governmental on-the-field sensors over a one-year span.