Fabrication of a high aspect ratio nanoporous array on silicon

In this study, a simple method for the fabrication of high aspect ratio silicon nanoporous arrays is developed. A N-type silicon wafer is used as the substrate material. A micro-scale pattern of the desired porous array is transferred to the front surface of the silicon wafer by photolithography after which the wafer is placed in a home-made fixture to efficiently expel the etching generated air and promptly hold the back-side illumination light. A halogen lamp is used as the light source for backside illumination to enhance the electron–hole pair generation. An anodization process is then carried out using a new etchant consisting of hydrofluoric acid and mixed EtOH and EMSO surfactant to effectively polish the pore surfaces and sharpen the tips of the etched pores. A nanochannel array with a nano-tip of 61.4?nm is obtained.     

Severe motor disability affects functional cortical integration in the context of brain-computer interface (BCI) use

The purpose of this study was to investigate cortical interaction between brain regions in people with and without severe motor disability during brain-computer interface (BCI) operation through coherence analysis. Eighteen subjects, including six patients with cerebral palsy (CP) and three patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), participated. The results showed (1) the existence of BCI performance difference caused by severe motor disability; (2) different coherence patterns between participants with and without severe motor disability during BCI operation and (3) effects of motor disability on cortical connections varying in the brain regions for the different frequency bands, indicating reduced cortical differentiation and specialisation. Participants with severe neuromuscular impairments, as compared with the able-bodied group, recruited more cortical regions to compensate for the difficulties caused by their motor disability, reflecting a less efficient operating strategy for the BCI task. This study demonstrated that coherence analysis can be applied to examine the ways cortical networks cooperate with each other during BCI tasks. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: Few studies have investigated the electrophysiological underpinnings of differences in BCI performance. This study contributes by assessing neuronal synchrony among brain regions. Our findings revealed that severe motor disability causes more cortical areas to be recruited to perform the BCI task, indicating reduced cortical differentiation and specialisation.     

从《玛丽·巴顿》到《南方与北方》——盖斯凯尔夫人工业题材小说中情感结构的比较与分析

《玛丽·巴顿》(1848)和《南方与北方》(1855)是英国工业革命小说家伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔(1810-1865)的代表作。两部小说以英国北部的工业城市为主要背景,描写了英国工业革命期间人们的种种心理矛盾和心理冲突,因此评论家们习惯上将两部作品归为工业题材小说。其实,由于创作背景和叙述视角的不同,作品体现了作者在不同时期对英国工业革命的不同体验。本文从雷蒙德·威廉斯的“情感结构”理论入手,对盖斯凯尔夫人的小说《玛丽·巴顿》和《南方与北方》进行比较和研究,从创作背景和叙述视点来分析并探讨盖斯凯尔夫人在不同时期对英国工业革命的不同体验。     

In-plane directional mechanical properties of carbon fabric skins in sandwich structures after thermoforming

In this paper, a representative unit volume finite element (RUV FE) model was employed to simulate thermoforming process of carbon fabric-polymeric foam sandwich structures. Thermoforming simulations, which capture crimp angles and amplitude changes of carbon fabric with respect to different operational pressure, were conducted with the help of RUV FE model. Micro-deformation of tow structures after thermoforming was rigorously reflected in the second stage FE model to determine the in-plane directional stiffness of skin parts. Tensile tests were carried out to investigate mechanical properties of skin parts in sandwich structures for the potential usage of automotives, electronic housings or the satellite structure design.     

Low complexity iterative decoding for bit-interleaved coded modulation

Bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (ID) is an effective scheme for both AWGN and fading channels because it simultaneously realizes large Euclidean distance and high diversity. In the literature, ID schemes with hard-decision feedback (HDF), as well as soft-decision feedback (SDF), have been investigated. While HDF/ID exhibits a performance inferior to SDF/ID, it is much simpler to implement. To enhance the performance of HDF/ID with moderate additional complexity, we propose a uniform soft-decision feedback ID (USF/ID) scheme. The proposed scheme is applicable in both single antenna and multiple antenna communication systems. The simulation results verify that it achieves impressive performance gain over HDF/ID and has a practically more attractive implementation than SDF/ID, especially for complexity-constrained wireless applications.     

Image segmentation via self-organising fusion

A method called self-organising fusion (SOF) for performing fast image segmentation is presented. The input image is divided into a set of small regions, each associated with a working feature. First, all regions are simultaneously updated and then a statistical process is applied to merge the qualified regions. The contours of objects are obtained by alternating the two processes of updating and merging until convergence. The concurrent updating creates a SOF behaviour that facilitates the identification of regions presumably comprising the same object. The method can save computation cost as both updating and merging are conducted in parallel fashion, and as parameter selection is done for local regions, it is able to deal with fairly complex images     

Cover Picture: Protein Detecting Arrays Based on Cationic Polythiophene–DNA‐Aptamer Complexes (Adv. Mater. 20/2006)

The cover image depicts biochips based on responsive nanoaggregates made from stoichiometric complexes between a cationic polythiophene and an appropriate DNA aptamer. These structures undergo a conformational transition from an unfolded to a folded (G‐quadruplex) structure in the presence of a specific target protein that results in a significant increase of the fluorescence intensity, as reported on p. 2703 by Leclerc and co‐workers.