Building 2D quasicrystals from 5-fold symmetric corannulene molecules

Nano Research - The formation of long-range ordered aperiodic molecular films on quasicrystalline substrates is a new challenge that provides an opportunity for further surface functionalization....     

Structural characterization and immunochemical detection of a fluorophore derived from 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal and lysine

Aging and the progression of certain degenerative diseases are accompanied by increases in intracellular fluorescent material, termed "lipofuscin" and ceroid, respectively. These pigments are observed within granules composed, in part, of damaged protein and lipid. Modification of various biomolecules by aldehyde products of lipid peroxidation is believed to contribute to lipofuscin and ceroid formation. However, little direct evidence currently exists because the structures responsible for the fluorescent, cross-linked nature of this material are not well characterized. In this study, we have identified a fluorescent product formed in the reaction of Nalpha-acetyllysine and 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE), a major product of lipid peroxidation and the most reactive of these compounds under physiological conditions [Esterbauer, H., Shaur, R. J. & Zollner, H. (1991) Free Radical Biol. Med. 11, 81-128]. This fluorescent compound, characterized as a 2-hydroxy-3-imino-1,2-dihydropyrrol derivative, appears to form upon oxidative cyclization of the nonfluorescent 2:1 lysine-HNE Michael adduct-Schiff base cross-link. Polyclonal antibody was raised to the Nalpha-acetyllysine-HNE fluorophore and found to be highly specific to the chromophore structure of the compound. This antibody has been used to conclusively demonstrate that the lysine-HNE derivative of this fluorophore forms on protein upon exposure to HNE. The results of this study therefore provide the basis for future investigations on the contribution(s) of HNE-derived fluorophore formation to lipofuscin and ceroid accumulation.     

Phase separation in segmented polyurethanes derived from mixtures of polyether polyols with different functionality

A series of segmented polyurethanes containing 60 wt° of hard segments (HS) was prepared from MDI (4,4-diphenylmethane diisocyanate) ethylene glycol and mixtures of a polyoxyethylene end-capped polyoxypropylene triol and a polyoxyethylene end-capped polyoxypropylene diol. The effects of the content of polyether diol in polyether polyols on phase separation and properties was investigated by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and investigation of tensile properties. The DSC and DMA results indicate that the polyurethane derived from only polyether triol exhibits obvious phase separation and that the HS is immiscible with the SS, but that the HS is compatible with the HS for the polyurethane derived from polyether diol. As the content of polyether diol increases, the compatibility between HS and SS increases. As the content of polyether diol increases, the tensile strength. elongation. toughness and tear resistance of the polyurethanes increases. but their moduli decrease. The modulus-temperature dependence in the temperature region of –30 to 65 °C increases as the polyether diol content increases.     

Analysis of sperm concentration and motility in a microfluidic device

A home-use device that allows rapid and quantitative sperm quality analysis is desirable but not yet fully realized. To aid this effort, this article presents a microfluidic device capable of quantifying sperm quality in terms of two critical fertility-related parameters—motile sperm concentration and motility. The microdevice produces flow field for sperms to swim against, and sperms that overcame the flow within a specified time are propelled along in a separate channel and counted via resistive pulse technique. Data are compared to two control methods clinically utilized for sperm quality exam—hemocytometer and the sperm quality analyzer. Results reveal the numbers of pulses generated by passage of sperms correlates strongly with the two control methods: pulse number from 0 to 335 corresponds to progressively motile sperm concentrations from 0 to 19 × 10⁶/ml (hemocytometer) and Sperm Motility Index from 0 to 204 (sperm quality analyzer). The microdevice should be applicable to facilitate self-assessment of sperm quality at home.     

Dynamic energy enabled differentiation (DEED) image watermarking based on human visual system and wavelet tree classification

In this paper, we present a novel dynamic energy enabled differentiation (DEED) watermarking algorithm based on the wavelet tree classification and human visual system (HVS). The wavelet coefficients of the image are divided into disjoint trees and a wavelet tree consists of 21 coefficients which are divided into 6 blocks. One watermark bit is embedded into one wavelet tree using the energy differentiation of positive and negative modulation between coefficients of each block. In addition, the contrast sensitive function (CSF) of human visual system is also considered for better weighting in watermarking since the wavelet coefficients across the subbands perform different characteristics and importance. As DEED still requires extra storage of side information during the extraction and results non-blind watermarking approach, a random direction differentiation approach called DEED_R is then proposed which is a truly blind watermarking technique. This study has performed intensive comparison for the proposed scheme with other tree energy differentiation based techniques like WTQ, ABW-TMD and WTGM under various geometric and nongeometric attacks. From the experimental results, the advantage of DEED based algorithms is not only with low complexity, but also outperforms WTGM and WTQ in terms of robustness and imperceptibility of watermarking.     

A novel adaptive steganography based on local complexity and human vision sensitivity

This paper presents a novel adaptive steganographic scheme that is capable of both preventing visual degradation and providing a large embedding capacity. The embedding capacity of each pixel is dynamically determined by the local complexity of the cover image, allowing us to maintain good visual quality as well as embedding a large amount of secret messages. We classify pixels into three levels based on the variance of the local complexity of the cover image. When determining which level of local complexity a pixel should belong to, we take human vision sensitivity into consideration. This ensures that the visual artifacts appeared in the stego image are imperceptible, and the difference between the original and stego image is indistinguishable by the human visual system. The pixel classification assures that the embedding capacity offered by a cover image is bounded by the embedding capacity imposed on three levels that are distinguished by two boundary thresholds values. This allows us to derive a combination ratio of the maximal embedding capacity encountered with at each level. Consequently, our scheme is capable of determining two threshold values according to the desired demand of the embedding capacity requested by the user. Experimental results demonstrated that our adaptive steganographic algorithm produces insignificant visual distortion due to the hidden message. It provides high embedding capacity superior to that offered by a number of existing schemes. Our algorithm can resist the RS steganalysis attack, and it is statistically invisible for the attack of histogram comparison. The proposed scheme is simple, efficient and feasible for adaptive steganographic applications.     

A knowledge engineering approach to developing mindtools for context-aware ubiquitous learning

Recent developments in computing and mobile technologies have enabled the mobile and ubiquitous learning approach, which situates students in an environment that combines real-world and digital-world learning resources. Although such an approach seems to be innovative and interesting, several problems have been revealed when applying it to practical learning activities. One major problem is owing to the lack of proper learning strategies or tools that can guide or assist the students to learn in such a complex learning scenario. Students might feel excited or interested when using the mobile devices to learn in the real world; however, their learning achievements could be disappointing. To cope with this problem, in this study, a knowledge engineering approach is proposed to develop Mindtools for such innovative learning scenarios. Experimental results from a natural science course of an elementary school show that this innovative approach not only enhances learning motivation, but also improves the learning achievements of the students.