N-Bridged Acyclic Trimeric Poly-Cyclodiphosphazanes: Highly Tuneable Cyclodiphosphazane Building Blocks

We have synthesized a completely new family of acyclic trimeric cyclodiphosphazane compounds comprising NH, NⁱPr, N^tBu and NPh bridging groups. In addition, the first NH-bridged acyclic dimeric cyclophosphazane has been produced. The trimeric species display highly tuneable characteristics so that the distance between the terminal N(H)R moieties can be readily modulated by the steric bulk present in the bridging groups (ranging from ≈6 to ≈10 Å). Moreover, these species exhibit pronounced topological changes when a weak non-bonding NH⋅⋅⋅π aryl interaction is introduced. Finally, the NH-bridged chloride binding affinities have been calculated and benchmarked along with the existing experimental data available for monomeric cyclodiphosphazanes. Our results underscore these species as promising hydrogen bond donors for supramolecular host–guest applications.     

Non-Stationary Complementary Non-Uniform Sampling (NOSCO NUS) for Fast Acquisition of Serial 2D NMR Titration Data

NMR spectroscopy offers unique benefits for ligand binding studies on isotopically labelled target proteins. These benefits include atomic resolution, direct distinction of binding sites and modes, a lowest detectable affinity limit, and function independent setup. Yet, retracing protein signal assignments from apo to holo states to derive exact dissociation constants and chemical shift perturbation amplitudes (for ligand docking and structure-based optimization) requires lengthy titration series of 2D heteronuclear correlation spectra at variable ligand concentration that may exceed the protein's lifetime and available spectrometer time. We present a novel method to overcome this critical limitation, based on non-stationary complementary non-uniform sampling (NOSCO NUS) combined with a robust particle swarm optimization algorithm. We illustrate its potential in two challenging studies with very distinct protein sizes and binding affinities, showing that NOSCO NUS can reduce measurement times by an order of magnitude to make such highly informative NMR titration studies more broadly feasible.     

Sensing cytochrome P450 1A1 activity by a resorufin-based isoform-specific fluorescent probe

Cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1), a heme-containing monooxygenase, is of particular importance for human health because of its vital roles in the metabolic activation of pro-carcinogenic compounds to the carcinogens. Deciphering the relevance of CYP1A1 to human diseases and screening of CYP1A1 modulators require reliable tool(s) for probing this key enzyme in complex biological matrices. Herein, a practical and ultrasensitive fluorescence-based assay for real-time sensing CYP1A1 activities in biological systems has been developed, via designing an isoform-specific fluorogenic sensor for CYP1A1 (CHPO). The newly developed fluorogenic substrate for CYP1A1 has been carefully investigated in terms of specificity, sensitivity, precision, quantitative linear range and the anti-interference ability. The excellent selectivity, strong anti-interference ability and fast response kinetics, making the practicability of CHPO-based CYP1A1 activity assay is better than that of most reported CYP1A1 activity assays. Furthermore, CHPO has been successfully used for imaging CYP1A1 activities in living cells and human tissues, as well as for high-throughput screening of CYP1A1 inhibitors using tissue preparations as enzyme sources. Collectively, this study provided a practical fluorogenic sensor for real-time sensing CYP1A1 in complex biological systems, which would strongly facilitate the investigations on the relevance of CYP1A1 to human diseases and promote high-throughput screening of CYP1A1 modulators for biomedical applications.     

Assessment of the risk of infectious aerosols leaking to the environment from BSL-3 laboratory HEPA air filtration systems using model bacterial aerosols

To assess the risk of infectious bacterial aerosols leaking to the environment, the filtration efficiency of a biosafety level 3 （BSL-3） laboratory high-efficiency particulate （HEPA） filter was investigated using the aerosolized bacteria Serratia marcescens. The aerosol size was measured using an Andersen sampler. Eight first stage HEPA filters （numbered 1-87 were distributed in contaminated labs and exhausts from each of the first stage HEPA filters were aggregated and filtered through one second stage HEPA filter before being released to the environment. In total, 8 first-stage and I second-stage HEPA filters from the BSL-3 air purification system were analyzed. No S. marcescens was detected in first stage filters 1,2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 and the second stage HEPA filter. The filtration efficiencies against aerosolized S. marcescens were 〉99.9999%. First stage filter numbers 3 and 6 had filtration efficiencies of 99.9825% and 99.9906% respectively. When filter number 3 was replaced by a new filter and the bracket for filter number 6 was sealed, no aerosolized S. marcescens was detected in the filtered air. Our work suggests that the BSL-3 laboratory HEPA filter air purification system is effective against bacterial aerosols, with little to no bacterial leakage into the environment.     

基于LabVIEW的多点串联光纤传感系统设计

设计了一种远程多点光纤传感系统用于大范围对象测量,其结构为一个本地控制节点通过双向光纤链路串联所有远端传感节点。在本地控制节点共享光源、光电检测器等光电器件,并结合虚拟仪器实现数据处理电路;而远端传感节点仅包含敏感元件、无源光器件构成的光路,并能直接实现时分复用。以3节点系统的甲烷气体检测为例进行实验和计算,结果证明该方案能够有效工作,通过循环检测可使首个传感节点的相对误差降至0．2％以下。     

A tree-structured DFT filter bank based spectrum detector for estimation of radio channel edge frequencies in cognitive radios

Cognitive Radio (CR) aims to provide efficient spectrum utilization in spectrum scarce wireless environments. One of the key CR functionalities is the spectrum sensing, which allows CRs to monitor the electromagnetic spectrum and detect unused bands of spectrum. Wideband spectrum sensing needs to be employed for better spectrum opportunity detection and interference avoidance both in the case of commercial and military applications. Accurate sensing needs to be employed for blocker detection in commercial systems such as LTE for the design of transmit/receive path. In military radios, the challenge lies in the robust detection of the location of the center frequencies and bandwidths of individual radio channels in the wideband input signal. In this paper, an energy detector based on tree-structured discrete Fourier transform based filter bank (TDFTFB) is proposed for detecting the edges of the channels in the spectrum. The proposed method is compared with the conventional wavelets based method for complexity and performance. The design example and simulations show that the gate count resource utilization of the proposed detection scheme is 22.9% lesser than the wavelets method at the cost of a slight degradation (0.5%) in detection accuracy. Over-the-air tests performed using Universal Software Radio Peripheral 2 (USRP2) and MATLAB/SIMULINK showed that the present method is not input specific whereas the conventional wavelet based approach depends on the spectral location of the input.     

多功能复合材料结构状态感知系统

由于具有比强度和比刚度高、可设计性强等优点,先进复合材料正在逐步成为新一代民用飞机的主要结构材料。为了充分利用复合材料的优越性能,有必要研发一种与复合材料结构集成一体的多功能传感系统,以使复合材料结构可以"感觉"和"思考"自身状态。本文提出一种类似于人体神经系统的多功能传感器网络系统,将不同功能的传感器有机结合起来,并与复合材料结构永久集成于一体,用来感知结构应变、温度、湿度、气动压力等参量,并监测发生在结构上的外界撞击及内部损伤。利用这一新概念设计和制造的未来复合材料结构可以提供多种模式的综合信息,从而使之具有智能传感、环境适应等多种功能。本文同时也讨论了发展这样一种多功能结构状态感知系统所面临的挑战与有关解决途径。     

The use of GC×GC/TOF MS with multivariate analysis for the characterization of foodborne pathogen bacteria profiles

The cellular fatty acid profiles of eight strains of Bacillus, Staphylococcus, and Enterobacteriacae (Escherichia coli and Salmonella) were analyzed by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry. A novel template method was developed to standardize the raw two-dimensional gas chromatography retention data through the use of a chemical indexing mixture. Analyte retention coordinates were normalized in the primary dimension with respect to a series of n-alkanes (Kovats index) and in the secondary dimension with respect to a series of aromatic hydrocarbons (Lee index). Fatty acid profiles extracted from the templates were compared by multidimensional scaling and principal component analysis. Differences in the profiles of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria were observed, and a series of heterogeneous mixtures comprising different fractions (containing one Gram-positive and one Gram-negative bacteria strain) were also distinguished from their homogeneous constituents.     

Image decoding optimization based on compressive sensing

Transform-based image codec follows the basic principle: the reconstructed quality is decided by the quantization level. Compressive sensing (CS) breaks the limit and states that sparse signals can be perfectly recovered from incomplete or even corrupted information by solving convex optimization. Under the same acquisition of images, if images are represented sparsely enough, they can be reconstructed more accurately by CS recovery than inverse transform. So, in this paper, we utilize a modified TV operator to enhance image sparse representation and reconstruction accuracy, and we acquire image information from transform coefficients corrupted by quantization noise. We can reconstruct the images by CS recovery instead of inverse transform. A CS-based JPEG decoding scheme is obtained and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed methods significantly improve the PSNR and visual quality of reconstructed images compared with original JPEG decoder.     

相位差法波前传感系统自身误差的分析及消除方法

 针对附加像差为离焦的情况,对焦面位置误差、离焦量误差、图像对准误差以及图像噪声等因素带来的波前传感误差进行了数值模拟,并给出了确定焦面位置、对准焦面图像和离焦面图像、精确计算分光比、确定离焦量以及处理图像噪声的方法。使得传感结果的均方根误差分别由0.088 8λ,0.059 0λ,0.128 4λ,4.170 6λ,0.152 6λ降为0.002 1λ,0.002 1λ,0.002 1λ,0.002 1λ,0.029 2λ。结果表明:这些方法可以有效地减小传感误差,大大提高了传感精度,为相位差法的实际应用提供了重要的技术支持。