Shape Transformations and Self-Assembly of Hairy Particles under Confinement

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the behavior of polymer-tethered nanoparticles between two inert or attractive walls. The confinement in pores creates new possibilities for controlling the shape transformation of individual hairy particles and their self-organization. We introduce a minimalistic model of the system; only chain-wall interactions are assumed to be attractive, while the others are softly repulsive. We show how the shape of isolated particles can be controlled by changing the wall separation and the strength of the interaction with the surfaces. For attractive walls, we found two types of structures, “bridges” and “mounds”. The first structures are similar to flanged spools in which the chains are connected with both walls and form bridges between them. We observed various bridges, symmetrical and asymmetrical spools, hourglasses, and pillars. The bridge-like structures can be “nano-oscillators” in which the cores jump from one wall to the other. We also study the self-assembly of a dense fluid of hairy particles in slit-like pores and analyze how the system morphology depends on interactions with the surfaces and the wall separation. The hairy particles form layers parallel to the walls. Different ordered structures, resembling two-dimensional crystalline lattices, are reported. We demonstrate that hairy particles are a versatile soft component forming a variety of structures in the slits.     

了解高级处理器特点提高编码效率

如今的数字信号处理器(DSP)在性能、外围设备集成、功耗和成本方面都具备很多优势,很多系统设计人员希望在原有系统设计中利用DSP获得比传统处理器更好的效益。但其中一个     

Dielectric integrity of thin thermal oxides on silicon

The role of silicon dioxide layers in microelectronics and the importance of their integrity are undisputable. From passivating coatings and masking layers for diffusion to ultra-thin tunneling films — all the silicon technology could not exist without silicon dioxide. This review deals with some aspects of the integrity of thin silicon dioxide films for VLSI applications. The problems of dielectric strength and wear-out are considered from the point of view of their mechanisms, models, oxide processing dependence, testing, and measuring. A brief presentation of statistical approaches commonly applied to reliability topics is also included.     

Alcohol-induced changes of {beta}-lactoglobulin - retinol-binding stoichiometry

It has been demonstrated using CD that ethanol induces importantsecondary structure changes of ß-lactoglobulin. CDspectra indicate that ß-lactoglobulin secondary structure,which is mainly composed of ß-strands, becomes mostly-helical under the influence of the solvent polarity changes.The midpoint of ß-strand/-helix transition in ß-lactoglobulinis observed at dielectric constant {small tilde}60 (35% ethanol;v/v). According to CD measurements, the ethanol-dependent secondarystructure changes are reversible. The alkylation of lysines-NH₂ in ß-lactoglobulin weakens the central ß-barrelstructure, since the ß-strand/-helix transition midpointof alkylated ß-lactoglobulin is shifted to lower ethanolconcentration (25% ethanol; v/v). ß-Lactoglobulinstructural changes are triggering the dissociation of the ß-lactoglobulin- retinol complex as judged from complete quenching of its fluorescencein ethanol concentration >30% (v/v). However, in 20% ethanol(v/v), ß-lactoglobulin still retains most of its nativesecondary structure as shown by CD and, in this condition, oneß-lactoglobulin molecule binds an additional secondretinol molecule. This suggests that the highly populated speciesobserved around 20% ethanol (v/v) might represent an intermediatestate able to bind two molecules of retinol.     

Families of magnetic semiconductors — an overview

The interplay of magnetic and semiconducting properties has been in the focus for more than a half of the century. In this introductory article we briefly review the key properties and functionalities of various magnetic semiconductor families, including europium chalcogenides, chromium spinels, dilute magnetic semiconductors, dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors and insulators, mentioning also sources of non-uniformities in the magnetization distribution, accounting for an apparent high Curie temperature ferromagnetism in many systems. Our survey is carried out from today's perspective of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spintronics as well as of the emerging fields of magnetic topological materials and atomically thin 2D layers.     

Design Methodology for Offloading Software Executions to FPGA

Field programmable gate array (FPGA) is a flexible solution for offloading part of the computations from a processor. In particular, it can be used to accelerate an execution of a computationally heavy part of the software application, e.g., in DSP, where small kernels are repeated often. Since an application code for a processor is a software, a design methodology is needed to convert the code into a hardware implementation, applicable to the FPGA. In this paper, we propose a design method, which uses the Transport Triggered Architecture (TTA) processor template and the TTA-based Co-design Environment toolset to automate the design process. With software as a starting point, we generate a RTL implementation of an application-specific TTA processor together with the hardware/software interfaces required to offload computations from the system main processor. To exemplify how the integration of the customized TTA with a new platform could look like, we describe a process of developing required interfaces from a scratch. Finally, we present how to take advantage of the scalability of the TTA processor to target platform and application-specific requirements.