超新星 1987A 二十年

400年来最亮的超新星1987A(SN 1987A)发现已20年.国际上在2007年举行了多次学术会议,美国宇航局（NASA）发布了哈勃空间望远镜(HST)拍摄的漂亮照片,美国还为此发行了纪念邮票.文章介绍了SN1987A的发现过程和它的最初的光度,阐明了它的光谱观测以及它的前身星的特性,综述了哈勃空间望远镜长期监测获得的丰富资料（特别是它的三环结构）以及钱德拉X射线天文台取得的一系列新结果,指出了至今仍未发现它的中心致密天体,还有许多谜团未解开.最后对未来的研究作了展望.     

Parton dynamics, 30 years later

A review of the basics of the QCD parton evolution picture is given with an emphasis on recent findings that reveal intrinsic beauty, and hint at hidden potential simplicity, of the perturbative quark-gluon dynamics. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Self-assembled quantum dots: five years later

Self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) have been grown with good reproducibility by molecular beam epitaxy with up to five well-resolved zero-dimensional interband transitions measured by state-filling spectroscopy. The intersublevel energy spacing is shown to be readily tunable by adjusting the temperature of the substrate during the growth of the QDs and/or of the cap layer, or with post-growth annealing. The uniformity of InAs/GaAs QDs is optimized by studying the growth parameters affecting the equilibrium shape such as the amount of strain material deposited and the annealing time following the InAs deposition allowing the QDs ensemble to evolve. Such uniform QDs are also obtained for samples with multiple stacked layers. This allows us to study the effects of charged carriers, of tunneling between coupled QDs, of electrical injection, and of lasing in QDs with well-resolved excited states having adjustable intersublevel energy spacing.     

A cochlear model for acoustic emissions

Variability in cochlear emission properties among different species, particularly humans and small mammals, and within individuals in the same species, is modeled by a cochlear nonlinear transmission line. The difference between humans and animals is largely explained by a lower cochlear input impedance in human ears than in cats, gerbils, or chinchillas. Inconstancy in emission properties among individual human or animal subjects is related to structural variability among ears, which can be the result of a nonuniform connection between the outer hair cells cilia and the tectorial membrane. These structural differences are modeled by a nonuniform cochlear partition resistance along the cochlear length. The model predicts that an ear which has a uniform cochlear partition resistance and an adequate cochlear input impedance will emit acoustic distortion products (ADP), but not spontaneous acoustic emission (SAE), nor click-evoked emission (CE). Only a nonuniform cochlea emits SAE and CE in addition to enhanced ADPs. The model predictions agree quantitatively with cochlear emission data from humans and animals.     

Use of a sigmoidal-shaped function for noise attenuation in cochlear implants

A new noise reduction algorithm is proposed for cochlear implants that applies attenuation to the noisy envelopes inversely proportional to the estimated signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in each channel. The performance of the proposed noise reduction algorithm is evaluated with nine Clarion CII cochlear implant patients using IEEE sentences embedded in multi-talker babble and speech-shaped noise at 0-10 dB SNR. Results indicate that the sigmoidal-shaped weighting function produces significant improvements to speech recognition compared to the subjects' daily strategy. Much of the success of the proposed noise reduction algorithm is attributed to the improved temporal envelope contrast.     

The Kowalewski top 99 years later: A Lax pair,generalizations and explicit solutions

A natural Lax pair for the Kowalewski top is derived by using a general group-theoretic approach. This gives a new insight into the algebraic geometry of the top and leads to its complete solution via finite-band integration theory.     

A state space model for cochlear mechanics

The stability of a linear model of the active cochlea is difficult to determine from its calculated frequency response alone. A state space model of the cochlea is presented, which includes a discretized set of general micromechanical elements coupled via the cochlear fluid. The stability of this time domain model can be easily determined in the linear case, and the same framework used to simulate the time domain response of nonlinear models. Examples of stable and unstable behavior are illustrated using the active micromechanical model of Neely and Kim. The stability of this active cochlea is extremely sensitive to abrupt spatial inhomogeneities, while smoother inhomogeneities are less likely to cause instability. The model is a convenient tool for investigating the presence of instabilities due to random spatial inhomogeneities. The number of unstable poles is found to rise sharply with the relative amplitude of the inhomogeneities up to a few percent, but to be significantly reduced if the spatial variation is smoothed. In a saturating nonlinear model, such instabilities generate limit cycles that are thought to produce spontaneous otoacoustic emissions. An illustrative time domain simulation is presented, which shows how an unstable model evolves into a limit cycle, distributed along the cochlea.     

Perceptually optimized gain function for cochlear implant signal-to-noise ratio based noise reduction

Noise reduction in cochlear implants has achieved significant speech perception improvements through spectral subtraction and signal-to-noise ratio based noise reduction techniques. Current methods use gain functions derived through mathematical optimization or motivated by normal listening psychoacoustic experiments. Although these gain functions have been able to improve speech perception, recent studies have indicated that they are not optimal for cochlear implant noise reduction. This study systematically investigates cochlear implant recipients' speech perception and listening preference of noise reduction with a range of gain functions. Results suggest an advantageous gain function and show that gain functions currently used for noise reduction are not optimal for cochlear implant recipients. Using the cochlear implant optimised gain function, a 27% improvement over the current advanced combination encoder (ACE) stimulation strategy in speech weighted noise and a 7% improvement over current noise reduction strategies were observed in babble noise conditions. The optimized gain function was also most preferred by cochlear implant recipients. The CI specific gain function derived from this study can be easily incorporated into existing noise reduction strategies, to further improve listening performance for CI recipients in challenging environments.     

A model for active elements in cochlear biomechanics

A linear, mathematical model of cochlear biomechanics is presented in this paper. In this model, active elements are essential for simulating the high sensitivity and sharp tuning characteristic of the mammalian cochlea. The active elements are intended to represent the motile action of outer hair cells; they are postulated to be mechanical force generators that are powered by electrochemical energy of the cochlear endolymph, controlled by the bending of outer hair cell stereocilia, and bidirectionally coupled to cochlear partition mechanics. The active elements are spatially distributed and function collectively as a cochlear amplifier. Excessive gain in the cochlear amplifier causes spontaneous oscillations and thereby generates spontaneous otoacoustic emissions.     

A channel-selection criterion for suppressing reverberation in cochlear implants

Little is known about the extent to which reverberation affects speech intelligibility by cochlear implant (CI) listeners. Experiment 1 assessed CI users' performance using Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) sentences corrupted with varying degrees of reverberation. Reverberation times of 0.30, 0.60, 0.80, and 1.0 s were used. Results indicated that for all subjects tested, speech intelligibility decreased exponentially with an increase in reverberation time. A decaying-exponential model provided an excellent fit to the data. Experiment 2 evaluated (offline) a speech coding strategy for reverberation suppression using a channel-selection criterion based on the signal-to-reverberant ratio (SRR) of individual frequency channels. The SRR reflects implicitly the ratio of the energies of the signal originating from the early (and direct) reflections and the signal originating from the late reflections. Channels with SRR larger than a preset threshold were selected, while channels with SRR smaller than the threshold were zeroed out. Results in a highly reverberant scenario indicated that the proposed strategy led to substantial gains (over 60 percentage points) in speech intelligibility over the subjects' daily strategy. Further analysis indicated that the proposed channel-selection criterion reduces the temporal envelope smearing effects introduced by reverberation and also diminishes the self-masking effects responsible for flattened formants.     

开展普通物理双语教学的经验、体会和教训

介绍了近几年来在开展普通物理双语教学过程中取得的一些经验、体会和教训．我们教学的基本方针是一切为了学生的进步,调动学生的积极性,与国际接轨,为将来学生能更好地学习、交流和开展科学研究做好准备．在教学中,我们使用了国外原版教材,并用英语授课,采取灵活的教学方式．尽管我们在逐渐加强英语教学的力度,但在目前,我们的英语教学仍是中文教学的辅助部分．     

A concept for a research tool for experiments with cochlear implant users

APEX, an acronym for computer Application for Psycho-Electrical eXperiments, is a user friendly tool used to conduct psychophysical experiments and to investigate new speech coding algorithms with cochlear implant users. Most common psychophysical experiments can be easily programmed and all stimuli can be easily created without any knowledge of computer programing. The pulsatile stimuli are composed off-line using custom-made MATLAB (Registered trademark of The Mathworks, Inc., http://www.mathworks.com) functions and are stored on hard disk or CD ROM. These functions convert either a speech signal into a pulse sequence or generate any sequence of pulses based on the parameters specified by the experimenter. The APEX personal computer (PC) software reads a text file which specifies the experiment and the stimuli, controls the experiment, delivers the stimuli to the subject through a digital signal processor (DSP) board, collects the responses via a computer mouse or a graphics tablet, and writes the results to the same file. At present, the APEX system is implemented for the LAURA (Registered trademark of Philips Hearing Implants) cochlear implant. However, the concept-and many parts of the system-is portable to any other device. Also, psycho-acoustical experiments can be conducted by presenting the stimuli acoustically through a sound card.     

A symmetry suppresses the cochlear catastrophe

When the independent spatial variable is defined appropriately, the empirical finding that the phase of the cochlear input impedance is small [Lynch et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 72, 108-130 (1982)] is shown to imply that the wavelength of the pressure wave in the cochlea changes slowly with position near the stapes. As a result, waves traveling in either direction through the basal turn undergo little reflection, and the transfer of energy between the middle and inner ears remains efficient at low frequencies. The slow variation of the wavelength implies that the series impedance Z and shunt admittance Y of the cochlear transmission line are approximately proportional at low frequencies and thus requires that the width of the basilar membrane and the cross-sectional areas of the cochlear scalae taper in opposite directions. Maintenance of the symmetry between Z and Y is both necessary and sufficient to ensure that the spatial derivative of the wavelength, and hence the phase of the cochlear input impedance, remains small. Although introduced in another context, the model of Zweig ["Finding the impedance of the organ of Corti," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 1229-1254 (1991)] manifests the symmetry between Z and Y. In other transmission-line models of cochlear mechanics, however, that symmetry is absent, and the spatial derivative of the wavelength diverges at low frequencies--the "cochlear catastrophe." Those models therefore contradict the impedance measurements and predict little transfer of energy between the middle and inner ears.     

Recovery of potato apices after several years of storage in liquid nitrogen

A method for the systematic cryopreservation of potato apices was developed by the Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH (DSMZ) and the Institute for Crop and Grassland Science of the Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL, Braunschweig). Designed specifically for routine use in genebanks, this method uses a very simple ultra-rapid freezing approach and was applied to a wide range of varieties within the Federal Centre for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants (BAZ, Quedlinburg) Potato Collection. After several years of storage in liquid nitrogen, shoot tips from a random sample of 51 varieties were thawed and the survival and shoot regeneration percentages compared to those measured immediately after freezing. There were no major changes in either survival or recovery of frozen apices. Data presented are not the outcome of a systematic experiment but from that accumulated during our work from 1992 to 1999.     

A new sound coding strategy for suppressing noise in cochlear implants

In the n-of-m strategy, the signal is processed through m bandpass filters from which only the n maximum envelope amplitudes are selected for stimulation. While this maximum selection criterion, adopted in the advanced combination encoder strategy, works well in quiet, it can be problematic in noise as it is sensitive to the spectral composition of the input signal and does not account for situations in which the masker completely dominates the target. A new selection criterion is proposed based on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of individual channels. The new criterion selects target-dominated (SNR > or = 0 dB) channels and discards masker-dominated (SNR<0 dB) channels. Experiment 1 assessed cochlear implant users' performance with the proposed strategy assuming that the channel SNRs are known. Results indicated that the proposed strategy can restore speech intelligibility to the level attained in quiet independent of the type of masker (babble or continuous noise) and SNR level (0-10 dB) used. Results from experiment 2 showed that a 25% error rate can be tolerated in channel selection without compromising speech intelligibility. Overall, the findings from the present study suggest that the SNR criterion is an effective selection criterion for n-of-m strategies with the potential of restoring speech intelligibility.     

A parametric study of cochlear input impedance

In this paper various aspects of the cat cochlear input impedance Zc (omega) are implemented using a transmission line model having perilymph viscosity and a varying cross-sectional scalae area. These model results are then compared to the experimental results of Lynch et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 72, 108-130 (1982)]. From the model, the following observations are made about the cochlear input impedance: (a) Scalae area variations significantly alter the model Zc (omega); (b) the use of anatomically measured area improves the fits to the experimental data; (c) improved agreement between model and experimental phase is obtained when perilymph viscosity and tapering are included in the cochlear model for frequencies below approximately 150 Hz; (d) when model scalae tapering and perilymph viscosity are chosen to match physiological conditions, the effect of the helicotrema impedance on Zc (omega) is insignificant; and (e) the cochlear map, which is defined as the position of the basilar membrane peak displacement as a function of stimulus frequency, can have an important effect on Zc (omega) for frequencies below 500 Hz. A nonphysiological cochlear map can give rise to cochlear standing waves, which result in oscillations in Zc (omega). Scalae tapering and perilymph viscosity contribute significantly to the damping of these standing waves. These observations should dispel the previous notion that Zc (omega) is determined solely by parameters of the cochlea close to the stapes, and the notion that Zc (omega) is dominated by the helicotrema at low frequencies.     

A model cochlear partition involving longitudinal elasticity

This paper addresses the issue of longitudinal stiffness within the cochlea. A one-dimensional model of the cochlear partition is presented in which the resonant sections are coupled by longitudinal elastic elements. These elements functionally represent the aggregate mechanical effect of the connective tissue that spans the length of the organ of Corti. With the plate-like morphology of the cochlear partition in mind, the contribution of longitudinal elasticity to partition dynamics is appreciable, though weak and nonlinear. If the elasticity is considered Hookian then the nonlinearity takes a cubic form. Numerical solutions are presented that demonstrate the compressive nature of the partial differential nonlinear equations and their ability to produce realistic cubic distortion product otoacoustic emissions. Within the framework of this model, some speculations can be made regarding the dynamical function of the phalangeal processes, the sharpness of active cochlear mechanics, and the propogation of pathology along the partition.     

Model nuclear matter calculations in several Brueckner and Green's function theories

Model nuclear matter calculations are performed using two versions of the Brueckner theory (standard lowest order theory and a version with self-consistent “physical” onshell insertions in particle lines) and three Green's function theories (Λ ₀₀,Λ ₁₀ and Galitskii's ladder approximation). Ground state properties are derived using a strongs-wave nonlocal separable nucleon-nucleon potential. We investigate the differences between the results obtained using different theories, stemming from different treatment of the exclusion principle and of dispersive effects of the medium. The effect of the off-shell self-consistency in theΛ ₁₀ theory is found to be important.