Recent Progress on Manganese-Based Nanostructures as Responsive MRI Contrast Agents

Manganese-based nanostructured contrast agents (CAs) entered the field of medical diagnosis through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) some years ago. Although some of these Mn-based CAs behave as classic T₁ contrast enhancers in the same way as clinical Gd-based molecules do, a new type of Mn nanomaterials have been developed to improve MRI sensitivity and potentially gather new functional information from tissues by using traditional T₁ contrast enhanced MRI. These nanomaterials have been designed to respond to biological environments, mainly to pH and redox potential variations. In many cases, the differences in signal generation in these responsive Mn-based nanostructures come from intrinsic changes in the magnetic properties of Mn cations depending on their oxidation state. In other cases, no changes in the nature of Mn take place, but rather the nanomaterial as a whole responds to the change in the environment through different mechanisms, including changes in integrity and hydration state. This review focusses on the chemistry and MR performance of these responsive Mn-based nanomaterials.     

Stability Analysis and Attractivity Results of a DC-DC Buck Converter

Using tools from set-valued and variational analysis, we propose a mathematical formulation for a power DC-DC Buck converter. We prove the existence of trajectories for the model. A stability and asymptotic stability results are established. The theoretical results are supported by some numerical simulations with a discussion about explicit and implicit schemes.     

BP neural network recognition algorithm for scour monitoring of subsea pipelines based on active thermometry

Scour monitoring is an important concern for subsea pipeline systems. The active-thermometry-based scour monitoring is based on the difference of heat transfer properties between sediment and sand, recognizes the surrounding media though temperature changing patterns during heating and cooling processes, and hence detects the free spans. Based on the scour monitoring system, a two-layer BP neural network was employed to process the monitoring data and achieved media recognition. The network's inputs were normalized temperature time histories. The network's outputs denoted different media: sediment and water. To validate the method, three experiments were conducted; one was used for training the network and the other two for testing. Also, the effect of noise on the network's performance was studied through simulation. The results demonstrated the feasibility and robustness of the neural network.     

New distance measures for classifying X-ray astronomy data into stellar classes

Advances in Data Analysis and Classification - The classification of the X-ray sources into classes (such as extragalactic sources, background stars,...) is an essential task in astronomy....     

On the difference spaces of almost convergent and strongly almost convergent double sequences

In this paper, we study the difference spaces \({\mathcal {F}}(\varDelta )\), \({\mathcal {F}}_0(\varDelta )\), \({\mathcal {[F]}}(\varDelta )\) and \({\mathcal {[F]}}_0(\varDelta )\) of double sequences obtained as the domain of four-dimensional backward difference matrix \(\varDelta \) in the spaces \({\mathcal {F}}\), \({\mathcal {F}}_{0}\), \({\mathcal {[F]}}\) and \({\mathcal {[F]}}_{0}\) of almost convergent, almost null, strongly almost convergent and strongly almost null double sequences; respectively. We examine general topological properties of those spaces and give some inclusion theorems. Furthermore, we deal with their dual spaces.

     

Enamines of 1,3-dimethylbarbiturates and their symmetrical palladium(II) complexes: synthesis,characterization and biological activity

Transition Metal Chemistry - Three 1,3-dimethylbarbiturate-enamine derivatives and their symmetrical palladium(II) complexes were prepared and characterized by spectroscopic methods. In addition,...     

A weighted differential hardy inequality on \mathop {AC}\limits^ \circ (I)

A weighted differential Hardy inequality is examined on the set of locally absolutely continuous functions vanishing at the endpoints of an interval. Some generalizations of the available results and sharper estimates for the best constant are obtained.