Effects of Adsorbed Polyaniline on Redox Process on MoO3 Surface

The effects exhibited by adsorbed conducting polyaniline on the redox process on a molybdenum oxide surface were studied. Thermogravimetric results indicate a 4% polyaniline deposition. Cyclic voltammograms of the adsorbed polymer on MoO3 show that polyaniline exerts remarkable effects on the molybdenum blue oxidation-reduction process, with oxidation and reduction potentials of 0.33 and 0.18 V, respectively. This effect strongly enhances the electrode response, and can be used as an important tool in qualitative and/or quantitative determinations of molybdenum in solution as well as in any substrate. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.     

Supershell structure in alkali metal nanowires

Nanowires are formed by indenting and subsequently retracting two pieces of sodium metal. Their cross section gradually reduces upon retraction and the diameters can be obtained from the conductance. In previous work we have demonstrated that when one constructs a histogram of diameters from large numbers of indentation-retraction cycles such histograms show a periodic pattern of stable nanowire diameters due to shell structure in the conductance modes. Here, we report the observation of a modulation of this periodic pattern, in agreement with predictions of a supershell structure.     

增加折叠电流保护的电路

对许多需要数安培供电电流的应用而言，三端输出可调线性稳压器有易用．低成本和完全片上过载保护等特点，如美国国家半导体公司的LM317。增加数个元器件可以使三端稳压器具备一种高速度的短路限流能力，从而提高可靠性。限流器可将最大输出电流限制在一个安全的恒定水平IMAX上，避免稳压器的损坏。当出现一个故障状况时，传输晶体管上的功耗近似于VIN×IMAX。要让设计的稳压器能承受过载，就需要谨慎地选择元器件的额定值（经常是留了过大的余地），除非可以在故障发生时降低或折叠（foldback）输出电流。     

Quantum mechanics: cleaning up metaphysical baggage

The dynamic electronic structure of atoms and molecules can be directly observed by means of the (e, 2e) reaction, which measures the distribution of energies and momenta of two electrons in coincidence after a knockout reaction initiated by an electron beam of known momentum incident on a molecular gas target. The molecular state for each event is identified by the electron separation energy. The recoil momentum for each event is known from the difference of measured initial and final momenta. It has been verified that values of this momentum are equal under suitable conditions to the momentum of the electron in the target immediately before knockout. Thus the spherically-averaged electron momentum distribution for each molecular orbital is measured. This is directly related to molecular orbitals calculated by the methods of quantum chemistry. Properties obtained by this method for different types of molecules are discussed.     

Ultrafast long-wavelength photodetectors fabricated onlow-temperature InGaAs on GaAs

The authors report the first successful demonstration of a metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector (MSMPD) fabricated on low-temperature InGaAs grown on GaAs by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) for long-wavelength fiber optic applications. Interdigitated MSMPDs with finger widths and spacings of 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 μm were tested using a femtosecond pulsed laser and high-speed electrooptic sampling. A FWHM pulsed response of 2 and 1.3 ps was measured for low-temperature In _0.25Ga_0.75As and In_0.35Ga_0.65As, respectively. The latter is the fastest response reported to data for a photodetector capable of detection to wavelengths as long as 1.3 μm     

Asymptotic Bias and Variance of Conventional Bispectrum Estimates for 2-D Signals

In this paper, we derive the asymptotic bias and variance of conventional bispectrum estimates of 2-D signals. Two methods have been selected for the estimation: the first one – the indirect method – is the Fourier Transform of the weighted third order moment, while the second one – the direct method – is the expectation of the Fourier component product. Most of the developments are known for 1-D signals and the first contribution of this paper is the rigorous extension of the results to 2-D signals. The calculation of the bias of the direct method is a totally original contribution. Nevertheless, we did all calculations (bias and variance) for both method in order to be able to compare the results. The second contribution of this paper consists of the comparison of the theoretical bispectrum estimate bias and variance with the measured bias and variance for two 2-D signals. The first studied signal is the output of a non-minimal phase linear system driven by a non-symmetric noise. The second signal is the output of a non-linear system with Gaussian input data. In order to assess the results, we performed the comparison for both methods with different sets of parameters. We show that the maximum bias coefficient is the one of the 1-D case multiplied by the dimensionality of the signal for both methods. We also show that the estimate variance coefficient is the 1-D case coefficient with a power equal to the signal dimensionality.Received October 21, 2002; Revised December 2003; Accepted March 25, 2004; First Online Version published in December 2004     

Identification of a set of genes showing regionally enriched expression in the mouse brain

Background

We have recorded responses from single neurons in murine visual cortex to determine the effectiveness of the input from the two murine cone photoreceptor mechanisms and whether there is any unique selectivity for cone inputs at this higher region of the visual system that would support the possibility of colour vision in mice. Each eye was stimulated by diffuse light, either 370 (strong stimulus for the ultra-violet (UV) cone opsin) or 505 nm (exclusively stimulating the middle wavelength sensitive (M) cone opsin), obtained from light emitting diodes (LEDs) in the presence of a strong adapting light that suppressed the responses of rods.

Results

Single cells responded to these diffuse stimuli in all areas of striate cortex. Two types of responsive cells were encountered. One type (135/323 – 42%) had little to no spontaneous activity and responded at either the on and/or the off phase of the light stimulus with a few impulses often of relatively large amplitude. A second type (166/323 – 51%) had spontaneous activity and responded tonically to light stimuli with impulses often of small amplitude. Most of the cells responded similarly to both spectral stimuli. A few (18/323 – 6%) responded strongly or exclusively to one or the other spectral stimulus and rarely in a spectrally opponent manner.

Conclusion

Most cells in murine striate cortex receive excitatory inputs from both UV- and M-cones. A small fraction shows either strong selectivity for one or the other cone mechanism and occasionally cone opponent responses. Cells that could underlie chromatic contrast detection are present but extremely rare in murine striate cortex.     

连续波锁模Pr3+:YLF激光器

本文报导了采用氩离子激光器来泵浦Pr³⁺:YLF晶体,应用声光调制器实现了主动锁模;同时应用振动─高反射平面镜也实现了被动锁模,两种锁模均得到了ps光脉冲.据作者了解这是这种晶体材料的第一次锁模运转.     

Solution of sparse quasi-square rectangular systems by Gaussian elimination

We present a general method for the linear least-squares solutionof overdetermined and underdetermined systems. The method isparticularly efficient when the coefficient matrix is quasi-square,that is when the number of rows and number of columns is almostthe same. The numerical methods for linear least-squares problemsand minimum-norm solutions do not generally take account ofthis special characteristic. The proposed method is based onLU factorization of the original quasi-square matrix A, assumingthat A has full rank. In the overdetermined case, the LU factorsare used to compute a basis for the null space of A^T. The right-handside vector b is then projected onto this subspace and the least-squaressolution is obtained from the solution of this reduced problem.In the case of underdetermined systems, the desired solutionis again obtained through the solution of a reduced system.The use of this method may lead to important savings in computationaltime for both dense and sparse matrices. It is also shown inthe paper that, even in cases where the matrices are quite small,sparse solvers perform better than dense solvers. Some practicalexamples that illustrate the use of the method are included.