New nanomolar negative modulators of AMPA receptors

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Time reversal acoustic communication receivers: DSP implementation and fast channel estimation

A communication system is implemented on digital signal processors (DSPs) for the underwater acoustic environment. The implemented receiver uses time reversal multi-channel combining followed by a single-channel decision feedback equalizer. Periodic channel estimation is employed to track the channel fluctuations. These techniques are used to mitigate time-varying inter-symbol interference, which is the main challenge in the underwater acoustic channel at operating frequencies greater than 10 kHz. Various optimization tasks are performed to reduce the receiver computational complexity. A fast implementation of the matching pursuit algorithm is tested on the DSP platform. Its performance, in terms of accuracy and run-time, is compared with that of the basic matching pursuit algorithm. Experimental results of the transmission and demodulation of binary phase-shift keying signals at three different symbol rates were obtained in the local Delaware Bay. The low bit error rates demonstrate the effectiveness of our implementation.     

Magneto-Galvanic Resonances in Hollow Cathode Discharge Lamps

The galvanic behavior of a hollow cathode discharge versus an external weak magnetic field is investigated. The application of this field leads to disordering of the self-aligned states, which is detected as a resonance in the discharge current, named the magneto-galvanic signal. A correlation magneto-galvanic signal–operating voltage-current point is established and attributed to Penning ionization. The contribution of the metastable Ne I 1 s₅ to the magneto-galvanic resonance is also verified.     

D-admissible hybrid control of a class of singular systems

This paper mainly studies the problem of designing a hybrid state feedback D-admissible controller for a class of linear and nonlinear singular systems. Based on the relationship between singular discrete systems and singular delta operator systems, several necessary and sufficient conditions for a linear singular delta operator system to be D-admissible (i.e. regular, causal and all finite poles lie in a prescribed circular region) with different representations are derived. Then, the existence conditions and explicit expressions of a desirable D-admissible controller are given by means of matrix inequalities and strict linear matrix inequalities, respectively. We further extend the obtained results to singular delta operator systems with Lipschitz nonlinear perturbations, and the design methods of hybrid controller are presented for the nonlinear case as well. Finally, numerical examples as well as simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical outcomes obtained in the paper.     

Blind separation of fluorescence spectra using sparse non‐negative matrix factorization on right hand factor

Sparse non‐negative matrix factorization on right side factor (SNMF/R) has better performance in feature extraction than non‐negative matrix factorization. In this work, SNMF/R was first used to separate the overlapped three‐dimensional fluorescence spectra of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons mixtures in pure water, lake water, and river water, respectively. It is found that the similarity coefficients between the acquired three‐dimensional spectra and the corresponding reference spectra with random initials are all above 0.80; the recognition rate of SNMF/R is higher than that of PARAFAC and non‐negative matrix factorization algorithms, especially in the case of lake water and river water samples. In addition, SNMF/R does not need any initialization scheme designing during spectra separation. These results demonstrate that SNMF/R is an appropriate algorithm to separate the overlapped fluorescence spectra of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in aquatic environment accurately and effectively. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preparation of Li2SnO3 and its application in lithium‐ion batteries

Tin‐based oxide Li₂SnO₃ has been synthesized by a hydrothermal route as negative material for lithium‐ion batteries. The microstructure and electrochemical properties of the as‐synthesized materials were investigated by some characterizations means and electrochemical measurements. The as‐synthesized Li₂SnO₃ is a porous rod, which is composed of many uniform and regular nano‐flakes with a size of 50–60 nm. Li₂SnO₃ also displays an electrochemical performance with high capacity and good cycling stability (510.2 mAh g^?1 after 50 cycles at a current density of 60 mA g^?1 between 0.0 V and 2.0 V verusus Li/Li⁺). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Salinity Controlled Vesicle Formation and Growth in Aqueous Mixture of Aerosol OT/Triton X‐100

Mixed vesicles can be formed spontaneously from aqueous mixture of the double‐tailed anionic surfactant sodium bis(2‐ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate (AOT) and the nonionic surfactant octylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol (Triton X‐100) under the inducement of salt, the formation mechanism of which should be attributed to the compression of salt on the electric bilayers of the head groups. The stability and the polydispersity of the vesicles are superior to single‐component AOT vesicles, which can be proved by the TEM image and visual observation. The vesicle region was presented in a pseudo‐ternary diagram of AOT/TX‐100/brine. The size of the vesicle was measured using dynamic light scattering. It is found that the vesicle size increases with the salinity but decreases with the content of TX‐100 in the mixture at the same salinity. Especially, the vesicle size is independent of the surfactant concentration at fixed salinity.     

Tunable negative index metamaterial employing in-plane switching mode at terahertz frequencies

We analysed the response of a tunable liquid crystal metamaterial transducer in the terahertz frequency range. Tunability of scattering parameters is achieving by an in-plane switching (IPS) effect. The metamaterial structure is based on Ω-shape resonators. A full-wave analysis technique based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method was performed using the QuickWave 3D electromagnetic solver. Terahertz transmission properties of the metamaterial structure can be controlled by the director of the liquid crystal layer. The effective refractive index for operation frequency varies from negative to positive values. A novel approach to switching of metamaterial transducer by IPS mode is presented.     

Alignment of liquid crystals induced by a photopolymerized self‐assembled film

An alignment film derived from a photopolymerized self‐assembled film may be used to orient nematic liquid crystals after irradiating the film with linearly polarized UV (LPUV). A photosensitive cationic amphiphile was first synthesized containing two double bonds and which could be polymerized by UV. A layer‐by‐layer self‐assembled multilayer film was next prepared in an aqueous solution of the cationic amphiphile and poly(sodium 4‐styrenesulphonate); the UV‐Vis spectra showed that each layer of the LBL multilayer film was uniform. When the film was irradiated by LPUV, the photosensitive double bonds underwent [2+2] cycloaddition along the vector direction of LPUV. The polarized UV‐Vis absorption spectra also provided evidence that the film was anisotropic, i.e. the photopolymerization was along a certain direction. The anisotropic film was used as an alignment layer for nematic liquid crystals, and observations under a polarizing microscope indicated that the alignment of the liquid crystals was good, as expected, and that the orientation direction of the liquid crystals was always perpendicular to the electric vector of the irradiating LPUV.     

Dynamic output feedback consensus of continuous‐time networked multiagent systems

This article addresses the dynamic output feedback consensus problem of continuous‐time networked multiagent systems. Both a fixed topology and Markovian switching topologies are considered. The consensus algorithms are on the base of the output information of each agent's itself and its neighbors. Some sufficient conditions for consensus of multiagent systems are obtained in forms of bilinear matrix inequalities. The algorithm based on the homotopy continuation method is given to compute the feasible controller gains. Numerical simulations are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed results. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 20: 35–42, 2015