Crystallographic report: Bis[bis(N,N‐dibenzyldithiocarbamato)cadmium(II)]

The centrosymmetric structure of {Cd[S₂CN(CH₂Ph)₂]₂}₂ features both bridging and chelating dithiocarbamate ligands so that a square pyramidal S₅ coordination geometry results. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inside Front Cover: Three‐Dimensionally Ordered Gold Nanocrystal/Silica Superlattice Thin Films Synthesized via Sol–Gel Self‐Assembly (Adv. Funct. Mater. 7/2006)

The synthesis of three‐dimensionally ordered, transparent gold‐nanocrystal (NC)/silica superlattice thin films using the self‐assembly (by spin‐coating) of water‐soluble gold nanocrystal micelles and soluble silica is reported by Fan and co‐workers on p. 891. The robust, 3D NC/silica superlattice films are of interest for the development of collective optical and electronic phenomena, and, importantly, for the integration of NC arrays into device architectures. Nanocrystals and their ordered arrays hold many important applications in fields such as catalysis, surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy based sensors, memory storage, and electronic and optical nanodevices. Herein, a simple and general method to synthesize ordered, three‐dimensional, transparent gold nanocrystal/silica superlattice thin films by self‐assembly of gold nanocrystal micelles with silica or organosilsesquioxane by spin‐coating is reported. The self‐assembly process is conducted under acidic sol–gel conditions (ca. pH 2), ensuring spin‐solution homogeneity and stability and facilitating the formation of ordered and transparent gold nanocrystal/silica films. The monodisperse nanocrystals are organized within inorganic host matrices as a face‐centered cubic mesostructure, and characterized by transmission electron spectroscopy and X‐ray diffraction.     

Measurement-based TFRC: improving TFRC in heterogeneous mobile networks

As a well-known multimedia stream transport protocol, TFRC provides smooth transfer rate under stable network conditions, and achieves good fairness to TCP. However, it is not flexible in heterogeneous mobile networks because the available bandwidth varies rapidly. This paper proposes a measurement based TFRC (MBTFRC) protocol, which uses passive bandwidth measurements at the receiver to improve the flexibility of TFRC. In addition, a window-based EWMA filter with two weights is used to achieve stability and fairness simultaneously. Simulation results verify the flexibility, stability and fairness of MBTFRC.     

Comment on "Outage Probability Analysis of a MIMO Relay Channel with Orthogonal Space-Time Block Codes"

We point out that a simpler expression could be derived for the outage probability considered by Chalise and Vandendorpe (2008). As a result, the computation of confluent hypergeometric function of two variables is not needed and the required computational effort is significantly reduced.     

Metallothionein as a biomarker for mercury in tissues of rat fed orally with cinnabar

Cinnabar, as one of the most widely used mineral drugs in traditional Chinese medicines, has been proven to have prominent curative effects in clinical use for more than 2000 years. But the safety and toxicity of the drug has been under constant debate in clinic usage. Metallothionein (MT) contains about 30% of cysteine in the molecule, and plays an important detoxification role against heavy metals. In this study, it was used as a biomarker to assess mercurial accumulation in rats fed orally with cinnabar. After feeding rats with cinnabar by gastric gavage at different dosages and at different times, the distribution of heavy metals (including mercury, copper and zinc) and MT was investigated among rat tissues, including liver, kidney, heart, brain, testis and blood. Metals and MT determinations were carried out using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) and a modified mercury saturation assay technique respectively. The results indicated that mercury was easily accumulated in the tissues of rats exposed to cinnabar, especially in kidney. For example: at a feeding dosage of 5 g kg^?1 (bw) for 4 weeks, the mercury concentrations in kidney were 13, 8.7, 21.6 and 26 times those in liver, testis, brain and heart respectively; and at 2.5 g kg^?1 (bw) for 2 weeks, the mercury concentrations in kidney were 21, 2.1, 3 and 21 times those in liver, testis, brain and heart respectively. In addition, mercury in kidney and liver of all cinnabar groups was significantly higher than that of the control group (P < 0.01). A high positive correlation observed between MT concentrations and mercury levels in both liver and kidney (R² = 0.9299, P < 0.02 for liver; R² = 0.9923, P < 0.0008 for kidney) indicated that MT could be used as a biomarker for mercury in tissues. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

等厚双层涂层材料受集中力作用的平面问题理论解

界面应力的正确评价是分析薄膜涂层材料力学特性的难题之一。利用镜像点法和Dirichlet等值性原理，本文推导了等厚双层薄膜涂层材料受表面集中力作用的平面问题理论解。该显式理论解是以固定在各镜像点上的局部坐标系下的Goursat应力函数的形式给出的。对应于高阶镜像点的应力函数，可通过递推的方法，从对应于低阶镜像点的应力函数求得，而且也易于计算机编程。随着镜像点阶数的增大，它与界面的距离也越来越大，因而相对应的应力函数对界面应力的影响越来越小。最后的算例表明，只需考虑前面有限个镜像点，便可获得足够精度的解。该理论解可作为格林函数，以求解复杂问题的理论解，也可用作边界元法的基本解，提高数值计算的精度和效率。     

Flow-injection spectrophotometric determination of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole in pharmaceuticals and urine.

A rapid and sensitive flow-injection spectrophotometric method is proposed for the determination of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole. This method is based on the diazotization of sulfonamide with sodium nitrite, and a coupling reaction of the diazo-compound with alpha-naphthylamine. The optimum experimental conditions are obtained by using the controlled and weighted centroid simplex method. The linear ranges for the determination of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole are 0.2-20 microg ml(-1) and 0.1-20 microg ml(-1), and their detection limits are 0.06 microg ml(-1) and 0.05 microg ml(-1), respectively, and the sampling frequency is 130 samples per hour. The method has been used to determine sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole in pharmaceuticals and urine without separation. The results are in agreement with those obtained by a high-performance liquid chromatograph technique at the 95% confidence level.     

De Bruijn cycles for covering codes

A de Bruijn covering code is a q‐ary string S so that every q‐ary string is at most R symbol changes from some n‐word appearing consecutively in S. We introduce these codes and prove that they can have size close to the smallest possible covering code. The proof employs tools from field theory, probability, and linear algebra. Included is a table of the best known bounds on the lengths of small binary de Bruijn covering codes, up to R = 11 and n = 13, followed by several open questions in this area. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2004     

一种基于代价函数和模糊熵的图像分割方法

提出了一种基于代价函数和模糊熵的图像分割方法.该方法先用代价函数最小化法对退化的图像作预处理,之后,利用模糊熵作进一步的处理.实验结果表明:新方法和一般的阈值分割方法相比,不但分割图像的错分率较小,而且图像的视觉效果也有较大的改善.