A low-power 1-GHz super-regenerative transceiver with time-sharedPLL control

A low-power transceiver for ISM applications in the 868-MHz band has been integrated in a 0.8-μm BiCMOS technology. The receiver part is based on the super-regenerative principle. The system includes two time-shared control loops, one for the selectivity and sensitivity control and one for the frequency control (PLL). The receiver with its PLL draws 3.6 mW for a sensitivity of -105 dBm and the emitter current consumption is 6 mA for a 0-dBm output power. A 2.4-V operation voltage allow the use of a two-batteries solution     

Highly regio- and chemoselective palladium(0)-mediated allylic substitution of difunctional allylic halides with phenols

An efficient Pd(0)-mediated, base-assisted reaction of phenols with difunctionalised allylic halides results in the formation of coupled products in good yields. The reactions proceed with excellent stereo-, regio- and chemocontrol. An appropriately functionalised Weinreb amide, synthesised by this methodology, undergoes halogen-lithium exchange and subsequent intramolecular 1,2-carbonyl addition/elimination to give an advanced macrocyclic intermediate with potential use in the synthesis of likonide B.     

Gold nano-popcorn-based targeted diagnosis, nanotherapy treatment, and in situ monitoring of photothermal therapy response of prostate cancer cells using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death among the American male population, and the cost of treating prostate cancer patients is about $10 billion/year in the United States. Current treatments are mostly ineffective against advanced-stage prostate cancer and are often associated with severe side effects. Driven by these factors, we report a multifunctional, nanotechnology-driven, gold nano-popcorn-based surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) assay for targeted sensing, nanotherapy treatment, and in situ monitoring of photothermal nanotherapy response during the therapy process. Our experimental data show that, in the presence of LNCaP human prostate cancer cells, multifunctional popcorn-shaped gold nanoparticles form several hot spots and provide a significant enhancement of the Raman signal intensity by several orders of magnitude (2.5 × 10(9)). As a result, it can recognize human prostate cancer cells at the 50-cells level. Our results indicate that the localized heating that occurs during near-infrared irradiation can cause irreparable cellular damage to the prostate cancer cells. Our in situ time-dependent results demonstrate for the first time that, by monitoring SERS intensity changes, one can monitor photothermal nanotherapy response during the therapy process. Possible mechanisms and operating principles of our SERS assay are discussed. Ultimately, this nanotechnology-driven assay could have enormous potential applications in rapid, on-site targeted sensing, nanotherapy treatment, and monitoring of the nanotherapy process, which are critical to providing effective treatment of cancer.     

Bis(triphenylphosphine)palladium(II)succinimide as a precatalyst for Suzuki cross-coupling—subtle effects exerted by the succinimide ligand

A new palladium(II) precatalyst for Suzuki cross-coupling of aryl halides and organoboronic acids has been identified, namely bis(triphenylphosphine)palladium(II)succinimide [(Ph₃P)₂Pd(N-Succ)₂] 2. The precatalyst is easily prepared from palladium(0) precursors, such as (Ph₃P)₄Pd or Pd₂dba₃·CHCl₃/Ph₃P and succinimide, is air, light and moisture stable, and may be employed with a variety of substrates to give the cross-coupled products, in good yields and in reasonable time, at relatively low catalyst loadings.     

An integrated region-, boundary-, shape-based active contour for multiple object overlap resolution in histological imagery

Active contours and active shape models (ASM) have been widely employed in image segmentation. A major limitation of active contours, however, is in their 1) inability to resolve boundaries of intersecting objects and to 2) handle occlusion. Multiple overlapping objects are typically segmented out as a single object. On the other hand, ASMs are limited by point correspondence issues since object landmarks need to be identified across multiple objects for initial object alignment. ASMs are also are constrained in that they can usually only segment a single object in an image. In this paper, we present a novel synergistic boundary and region-based active contour model that incorporates shape priors in a level set formulation with automated initialization based on watershed. We demonstrate an application of these synergistic active contour models using multiple level sets to segment nuclear and glandular structures on digitized histopathology images of breast and prostate biopsy specimens. Unlike previous related approaches, our model is able to resolve object overlap and separate occluded boundaries of multiple objects simultaneously. The energy functional of the active contour is comprised of three terms. The first term is the prior shape term, modeled on the object of interest, thereby constraining the deformation achievable by the active contour. The second term, a boundary-based term detects object boundaries from image gradients. The third term drives the shape prior and the contour towards the object boundary based on region statistics. The results of qualitative and quantitative evaluation on 100 prostate and 14 breast cancer histology images for the task of detecting and segmenting nuclei and lymphocytes reveals that the model easily outperforms two state of the art segmentation schemes (geodesic active contour and Rousson shape-based model) and on average is able to resolve up to 91% of overlapping/occluded structures in the images.     

Phase Transfer Catalysed N-Monoalkylation of Amino Anthraquinones

1-Alkylaminoanthraquinones ( 2 a-f) and 1,4-bisalkylaminoanthraquinones ( 4 a-c) were prepared from aminoanthraquinones ( 1,3 ) by alkylation with alkyl sulphate/alkyl halide in presence of powdered sodium hydroxide, potassium carbonate and phase transfer catalyst.     

Top-down design methodology of a multi-bit continuous-time delta–sigma modulator

Transistor-level simulation of complex systems involving analog and digital parts is a time-consuming task. The growing interaction of analog and digital devices calls for the use of top-down design methodologies, resulting in behavioral modeling at different levels of abstraction. In this article, an advanced design methodology using a combination of behavioral models and transistor-level models is presented. This methodology is very interesting for complex mixed-signal IC design, improving the design flexibility and reducing the simulation time. To validate the proposed methodology, a continuous-time delta–sigma modulator based on a high-speed low-resolution quantizer is modeled, taking into account their nonidealities such as excess loop delay, clock jitter and feedback DAC element mismatch. The main features of the multi-bit quantizer are 3-bit resolution with 4 GHz sampling rate and FOM of about 7 pJ/conv. This modulator samples signals at high-IF, performing directly the analog-to-digital conversion in the modern RF front-end receivers.     

Transition‐Metal‐Catalyzed Direct Arylation of (Hetero)Arenes by C?H Bond Cleavage

The area of transition‐metal‐catalyzed direct arylation through cleavage of C? H bonds has undergone rapid development in recent years, and is becoming an increasingly viable alternative to traditional cross‐coupling reactions with organometallic reagents. In particular, palladium and ruthenium catalysts have been described that enable the direct arylation of (hetero)arenes with challenging coupling partners—including electrophilic aryl chlorides and tosylates as well as simple arenes in cross‐dehydrogenative arylations. Furthermore, less expensive copper, iron, and nickel complexes were recently shown to be effective for economically attractive direct arylations.     

HiperLAN 5.4-GHz low-power CMOS synchronous oscillator

A 5.4-GHz 0.25-μm very-large-scale-integration CMOS synchronous oscillator (SO) is proposed in this paper, which is designed to act as a local oscillator for HiperLAN systems. The advantage of using such an oscillator in a double-loop frequency synthesizer is demonstrated. The design strategy leading to an optimized SO with regards to its synchronization range is described. A test chip is presented, which provides a 150-MHz synchronization range and a -97-dBc/Hz phase noise at 10-kHz offset from the 5-GHz carrier, while consuming only 5 mA from a 2.5-V supply     

Strong enhancement and extinction of single harmonic intensity in the mid- and end-plateau regions of the high harmonics generated in weakly excited laser plasmas

Strong intensity enhancement or extinction of some single harmonics is observed in high-harmonic generation from 48 fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses propagating through preformed low-excited laser-produced plasmas of various materials (GaAs, Cr, InSb, stainless steel). The intensities of some of the harmonics in the mid- and end-plateau regions vary from ~23-fold enhancement to near disappearance compared with those of the neighboring ones. It is also shown that the observed intensity enhancement (or extinction) can be varied by controlling the chirp of the driving laser radiation.