56,738 research outputs found
Proto-Model of an Infrared Wide-Field Off-Axis Telescope
We develop a proto-model of an off-axis reflective telescope for infrared
wide-field observations based on the design of Schwarzschild-Chang type
telescope. With only two mirrors, this design achieves an entrance pupil
diameter of 50 mm and an effective focal length of 100 mm. We can apply this
design to a mid-infrared telescope with a field of view of 8 deg X 8 deg. In
spite of the substantial advantages of off-axis telescopes in the infrared
compared to refractive or on-axis reflective telescopes, it is known to be
difficult to align the mirrors in off-axis systems because of their asymmetric
structures. Off-axis mirrors of our telescope are manufactured at the Korea
Basic Science Institute (KBSI). We analyze the fabricated mirror surfaces by
fitting polynomial functions to the measured data. We accomplish alignment of
this two-mirror off-axis system using a ray tracing method. A simple imaging
test is performed to compare a pinhole image with a simulated prediction.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figure
GCN-RL Circuit Designer: Transferable Transistor Sizing with Graph Neural Networks and Reinforcement Learning
Automatic transistor sizing is a challenging problem in circuit design due to
the large design space, complex performance trade-offs, and fast technological
advancements. Although there has been plenty of work on transistor sizing
targeting on one circuit, limited research has been done on transferring the
knowledge from one circuit to another to reduce the re-design overhead. In this
paper, we present GCN-RL Circuit Designer, leveraging reinforcement learning
(RL) to transfer the knowledge between different technology nodes and
topologies. Moreover, inspired by the simple fact that circuit is a graph, we
learn on the circuit topology representation with graph convolutional neural
networks (GCN). The GCN-RL agent extracts features of the topology graph whose
vertices are transistors, edges are wires. Our learning-based optimization
consistently achieves the highest Figures of Merit (FoM) on four different
circuits compared with conventional black-box optimization methods (Bayesian
Optimization, Evolutionary Algorithms), random search, and human expert
designs. Experiments on transfer learning between five technology nodes and two
circuit topologies demonstrate that RL with transfer learning can achieve much
higher FoMs than methods without knowledge transfer. Our transferable
optimization method makes transistor sizing and design porting more effective
and efficient.Comment: Accepted to the 57th Design Automation Conference (DAC 2020); 6
pages, 8 figure
2D perovskite stabilized phase-pure formamidinium perovskite solar cells.
Compositional engineering has been used to overcome difficulties in fabricating high-quality phase-pure formamidinium perovskite films together with its ambient instability. However, this comes alongside an undesirable increase in bandgap that sacrifices the device photocurrent. Here we report the fabrication of phase-pure formamidinium-lead tri-iodide perovskite films with excellent optoelectronic quality and stability. Incorporation of 1.67 mol% of 2D phenylethylammonium lead iodide into the precursor solution enables the formation of phase-pure formamidinium perovskite with an order of magnitude enhanced photoluminescence lifetime. The 2D perovskite spontaneously forms at grain boundaries to protect the formamidinium perovskite from moisture and suppress ion migration. A stabilized power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20.64% (certified stabilized PCE of 19.77%) is achieved with a short-circuit current density exceeding 24 mA cm-2 and an open-circuit voltage of 1.130 V, corresponding to a loss-in-potential of 0.35 V, and significantly enhanced operational stability
Preparative Synthesis of dTDP-L-Rhamnose Through Combined Enzymatic Pathways
dTDP-L-rhamnose, an important precursor of O-antigen, was prepared on a large scale from dTMP by executing an one-pot reaction in which six enzymes are involved. Two enzymes, dTDP-4-keto-6-deoxy-D-glucose 3,5-epimerase and dTDP-4-keto-rhamnose reductase, responsible for the conversion of dTDP-4-keto-6-deoxy- D-glucose to dTDP-L-rhamnose, were isolated from their putative sequences in the genome of Mesorhizobium loti, functionally expressed in Escherichia coli, and their enzymatic activities were identified. The two enzymes were combined with an enzymatic process for dTDP-4- keto-6-deoxy-D-glucose involving TMP kinase, acetate kinase, dTDP-glucose synthase, and dTDP-glucose 4,6- dehydratase, which allowed us to achieve a preparative scale synthesis of dTDP-L-rhamnose using dTMP and glucose-1-phosphate as starting materials. About 82% yield of dTDP-L-rhamnose was obtained based on initial dTMP concentration at 20 mM dTMP, 1 mM ATP, 10 mM NADH, 60 mM acetyl phosphate, and 80 mM glucose-1- phosphate. From the reaction with 20 ml volume, approximately 180 mg of dTDP-L-rhamnose was obtained in an overall yield of 60% after two-step purification, that is, anion exchange chromatography and gel filtration for desalting. The purified product was identifiedbyHPLC, ESI-MS,andNMR,showingabout95%purity
Soluble species in aerosol and snow and their relationship at Glacier 1, Tien Shan, China
Simultaneous sampling of aerosol (n = 20) and snow (n = 114) was made at Glacier 1, Tien Shan, between May 19 and June 29, 1996. Similar temporal patterns of some major ion (calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, chloride, and sulfate) concentrations between snow and aerosol show that snow chemistry basically reflects changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere. This gives us confidence in the reconstruction of past atmospheric change using some snow data. There are no significant correlations between aerosol and snow samples for ammonium and nitrate. This suggests that post-depositional and/or post-collection processes may alter ammonium and nitrate concentrations in snow. The fact that the measured cations in aerosol and snow always exceed the measured anions suggests that the atmosphere is alkaline over Glacier 1, Tien Shan. In aerosol and snow samples, calcium is the dominant cationic species, with sulfate and presumed carbonate being the dominant anions. There is a very good inverse relationship (r = 0.96) between the equivalence ratio of calcium to sulfate and the ratio of ammonium to sulfate in aerosols, but this relationship does not hold for snow. This further suggests that post depositional and/or post collection processes exert important controls on ammonium concentrations in snow. Although melt-freeze cycles might increase the concentration of all crustal species through progressive dissolution of dust, these cycles seem most important for magnesium and carbonate
Melittin restores proteasome function in an animal model of ALS
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a paralyzing disorder characterized by the progressive degeneration and death of motor neurons and occurs both as a sporadic and familial disease. Mutant SOD1 (mtSOD1) in motor neurons induces vulnerability to the disease through protein misfolding, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative damage, cytoskeletal abnormalities, defective axonal transport- and growth factor signaling, excitotoxicity, and neuro-inflammation
Microscopic Description of Band Structure at Very Extended Shapes in the A ~ 110 Mass Region
Recent experiments have confirmed the existence of rotational bands in the A
\~ 110 mass region with very extended shapes lying between super- and
hyper-deformation. Using the projected shell model, we make a first attempt to
describe quantitatively such a band structure in 108Cd. Excellent agreement is
achieved in the dynamic moment of inertia J(2) calculation. This allows us to
suggest the spin values for the energy levels, which are experimentally
unknown. It is found that at this large deformation, the sharply down-sloping
orbitals in the proton i_{13/2} subshell are responsible for the irregularity
in the experimental J(2), and the wave functions of the observed states have a
dominant component of two-quasiparticles from these orbitals. Measurement of
transition quadrupole moments and g-factors will test these findings, and thus
can provide a deeper understanding of the band structure at very extended
shapes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figures, final version accepted by Phys. Rev. C as a
Rapid Communicatio
Cryptanalysis of CIKS-128 and CIKS-128H Suitable for Intelligent Multimedia and Ubiquitous Computing Systems
Recently, data-dependent permutations (DDP) that are very suitable for intelligent multimedia and ubiquitous computing systems have been introduced as a new cryptographic primitive for the design of fast encryption systems. The CIKS-128 and CIKS-128H block ciphers are the typical examples of DDP-based encryption algorithms. In this paper, we show that CIKS-128 and CIKS-128H are vulnerable to related-key differential attacks. We first describe how to construct their full-round related-key differential characteristics with high probabilities and then we exploit them to break the full-round CIKS-128 and CIKS-128H with 2^44, and 2^48 data/time complexities, respectively
Excitonic energy transfer in light-harvesting complexes in purple bacteria
Two distinct approaches, the Frenkel-Dirac time-dependent variation and the
Haken-Strobl model, are adopted to study energy transfer dynamics in
single-ring and double-ring light-harvesting systems in purple bacteria. It is
found that inclusion of long-range dipolar interactions in the two methods
results in significant increases in intra- or inter-ring exciton transfer
efficiency. The dependence of exciton transfer efficiency on trapping positions
on single rings of LH2 (B850) and LH1 is similar to that in toy models with
nearest-neighbor coupling only. However, owing to the symmetry breaking caused
by the dimerization of BChls and dipolar couplings, such dependence has been
largely suppressed. In the studies of coupled-ring systems, both methods reveal
interesting role of dipolar interaction in increasing energy transfer
efficiency by introducing multiple intra/inter-ring transfer paths.
Importantly, the time scale (~4ps) of inter-ring exciton transfer obtained from
polaron dynamics is in good agreement with previous studies. In a double-ring
LH2 system, dipole-induced symmetry breaking leads to global minima and local
minima of the average trapping time when there is a finite value of non-zero
dephasing rate, suggesting that environment plays a role in preserving quantum
coherent energy transfer. In contrast, dephasing comes into play only when the
perfect cylindrical symmetry in the hypothetic system is broken. This study has
revealed that dipolar interaction between chromophores may play an important
part in the high energy transfer efficiency in the LH2 system and many other
natural photosynthetic systems.Comment: 14 pages 9 figure
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