Inwards Interweaving of Polymeric Layers within Hydrogels: Assembly of Spherical Multi‐Shells with Discrete Porosity Differences

The unique inwards interweaving morphology of polyamines and polyacids within agarose hydrogels that leads to the formation of striated shells with different porosities within the spherical scaffold is reported. Microcompartments with sophisticated structures are commonly used in drug delivery, tissue engineering, and other biomedical applications. However, a method capable of producing well‐defined, multiporous shells within a single compartment is still lacking. By the alternating deposition of polyallylamine (PA) and polystyrenesulfonic acid (PSS) in 1‐butanol, at equal mass ratios, multiple levels of porosity are generated within an agarose microsphere. Each level of porosity is represented by a well‐defined, concentric shell of interweaving PA and PSS layers. The number, thickness, and porosity of the striated shells can be easily controlled by varying the number of PA/PSS bilayers and the polymer concentration, respectively. The feasibility of utilizing this morphology for the assembly of a multi‐shell porous spherical scaffold is validated by trapping different molecular weight dextrans within different regions of porosity. The unique interaction of polyacids and polyamines in hydrogels represents a facile and inexpensive approach to the development of intricate scaffold architectures.     

Crystallization of 2D Hybrid Organic–Inorganic Perovskites Templated by Conductive Substrates

2D hybrid organic–inorganic perovskites are valued in optoelectronic applications for their tunable bandgap and excellent moisture and irradiation stability. These properties stem from both the chemical composition and crystallinity of the layer formed. Defects in the lattice, impurities, and crystal grain boundaries generally introduce trap states and surface energy pinning, limiting the ultimate performance of the perovskite; hence, an in-depth understanding of the crystallization process is indispensable. Here, a kinetic and thermodynamic study of 2D perovskite layer crystallization on transparent conductive substrates are provided—fluorine-doped tin oxide and graphene. Due to markedly different surface structure and chemistry, the two substrates interact differently with the perovskite layer. A time-resolved grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) is used to monitor the crystallization on the two substrates. Molecular dynamics simulations are employed to explain the experimental data and to rationalize the perovskite layer formation. The findings assist substrate selection based on the required film morphology, revealing the structural dynamics during the crystallization process, thus helping to tackle the technological challenges of structure formation of 2D perovskites for optoelectronic devices.     

On-Line Error Detection for Bit-Serial Multipliers in GF(2m)

In this paper error detection is applied to four finite field bit-serial multipliers. It is shown that by using parity prediction, on-line error detection can be incorporated into these multipliers with very low hardware overheads. These hardware overheads are generally independent of m and comprise only a handful of gates, so for large values of m these overheads are particularly low. The fault coverage of the presented structures has been investigated by simulation experiment and shown to range between 90% and 94.3%.     

Dynamics of the transient buildup of emission inNd3+-doped fiber lasers

The two-stage process of the transient buildup of emission in Nd ⁴⁺-doped fiber lasers is described both experimentally and theoretically. After switching on the pump, spontaneous emission increases first until the gain becomes sufficient to compensate for the cavity losses; the laser field then develops and reaches the steady state after more or less regular oscillations. During this second stage, an almost chaotic spiking is obtained either for high pumping rates and/or at low temperatures. The whole set of these dynamical scenarios is not described under the usual assumptions of uniform cavity losses over the whole field spectrum and of pure homogeneous broadening for the transition line, but rather a modified form of the Maxwell-Bloch equations which retains some frequency dependence for the losses in the cavity and the inhomogeneous broadening as well is proposed     

Synthesis,Crystal Structure,and Transport Properties of Na<Subscript>22</Subscript>Si<Subscript>136</Subscript>

The type II clathrate Na₂₂Si₁₃₆ is prepared by the thermal decomposition of NaSi. Thermal analysis indicates this phase is metastable yet has a relatively high decomposition temperature. Rietveld analysis indicates that Na in the larger Si₂₈ cage is shifted off-center, analogous to observations in some type I clathrates. Temperature-dependent electrical and thermal transport properties are reported for Na₂₂Si₁₃₆, for which the spark plasma sintering technique was found to be effective in achieving intergrain sintering in the consolidated specimen. The potential that type II clathrate materials possess for thermoelectric applications is discussed.     

爱特梅尔基于ARM Cortex-M3微控制器嵌入信号完整性解决方案

由于低功耗领域(手持式或工业应用)的消费者要求产品在更小的PCB尺寸上提供更高的性能,故工程师必须提高这些应用产品的电路密度,经常需要设计带有公用电源轨的数字、模拟和传感器电路,以节省空间,并满足EMI要求.     

Large-scale biomedical image analysis in grid environments

This paper presents the application of a component-based Grid middleware system for processing extremely large images obtained from digital microscopy devices. We have developed parallel, out-of-core techniques for different classes of data processing operations employed on images from confocal microscopy scanners. These techniques are combined into a data preprocessing and analysis pipeline using the component-based middleware system. The experimental results show that: 1) our implementation achieves good performance and can handle very large datasets on high-performance Grid nodes, consisting of computation and/or storage clusters and 2) it can take advantage of Grid nodes connected over high-bandwidth wide-area networks by combining task and data parallelism.     

Broadband cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna excited by modified microstrip line

The impedance bandwidth of a high permittivity cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna excited by a microstrip line was significantly improved by modifying the feed geometry. The 10 dB return loss bandwidth is enhanced from 12 to 26% without much affecting the gain and other radiation properties of the antenna. Good agreement has been observed between the predicted and measured results.     

One‐Step Formulation of Protein Microparticles with Tailored Properties: Hard Templating at Soft Conditions

Formulation of therapeutic proteins into particulate forms is a main strategy for site‐specific and prolonged protein delivery as well as for protection against degradation. Precise control over protein particle size, dispersity, purity, as well as mild preparation conditions and minimal processing steps are highly desirable. It is, however, hard to fit all these criteria with conventional preparation techniques. Here a one‐step hard‐templating synthesis of microparticles composed of functional, non‐denatured protein is reported. The method is based on filling porous CaCO₃ microtemplates with the protein near to its isoelectric point (pI) followed by pH‐ or EDTA‐mediated dissolution of the tempplates. In principle, a wide variety of proteins can be converted into microparticles using this approach. The main requirement is an overlap of the protein insolubility and a template solubility for a certain parameter (here pH or EDTA). Here the formulation of insulin particles is studied in detail and it is shown that particles consisting of high molecular weight protein (catalase) can also be prepared. In this context, the synthesis of CaCO₃ templates with controlled size, the mechanism of the protein microparticle formation and mechanical properties of the microparticles are discussed. For the first time, the fabrication of mesoporous monodispersed CaCO₃ microtemplates with identical porocity but tuned diameter from 3 to 20 μm is demonstrated. The protein particle diameter can be adjusted by choosing the appropriate template size that is critical for successful pulmonary delivery of insulin. As a first step towards insulin delivery, the in vitro release of insulin at physiological conditions is studied.