Nitrogen-Rich Perylene Nanosheet Enhanced Bismaleimide Resin

The low toughness of bismaleimide resin (BMI) hinders its application in the aerospace field. In order to improve the strength and toughness of BMI resin simultaneously, this study proposes to introduce perylene-dicyandiamide (P-DCD) nanosheets with an ultra-s rigid conjugated planar structure into the polymer matrix of bismaleimide resin through hydrogen bonding and cross-linking to construct modified composites. The research results showed that the modified cured composites exhibited excellent mechanical properties, with a significant increase in impact strength of 135.8%, flexural strength and flexural modulus of 87.1% and 44.6%, respectively. The thermal properties of the resin were maintained before and after modification, with the glass transition temperature (Tg) of 284.0 ˚C and decomposition temperature > 520 ˚C. Meanwhile, the strengthening and toughening mechanism of the bismaleimide-based system modified by additive P-DCD were also explored. The results showed that the functional group of dicyandiamide in nanosheets and the hydrogen bonding effect in P-DCD synergically increased the cross-linking network and compatibility between P-DCD and the matrix resin

Gene and Pathway-Based Analysis: Second Wave of Genome-wide Association Studies

Despite great success of GWAS in identification of common genetic variants associated with complex diseases, the current GWAS have focused on single SNP analysis. However, single SNP analysis often identifies a number of the most significant SNPs that account for only a small proportion of the genetic variants and offers limited understanding of complex diseases. To overcome these limitations, we propose gene and pathway-based association analysis as a new paradigm for GWAS. As a proof of concept, we performed a comprehensive gene and pathway-based association analysis for thirteen published GWAS. Our results showed that the proposed new paradigm for GWAS not only identified the genes that include significant SNPs found by single SNP analysis, but also detected new genes in which each single SNP conferred small disease risk, but their joint actions were implicated in the development of diseases. The results also demonstrated that the new paradigm for GWAS was able to identify biologically meaningful pathways associated with the diseases which were confirmed by gene-set rich analysis using gene expression data

Receiver-Initiated Handshaking MAC Based on Traffic Estimation for Underwater Sensor Networks

In underwater sensor networks (UWSNs), the unique characteristics of acoustic channels have posed great challenges for the design of medium access control (MAC) protocols. The long propagation delay problem has been widely explored in recent literature. However,the long preamble problem with acoustic modems revealed in real experiments brings new challenges to underwater MAC design. The overhead of control messages in handshaking-based protocols becomes significant due to the long preamble in underwater acoustic modems. To address this problem, we advocate the receiver-initiated handshaking method with parallel reservation to improve the handshaking efficiency. Despite some existing works along this direction, the data polling problem is still an open issue. Without knowing the status of senders, the receiver faces two challenges for efficient data polling: when to poll data from the sender and how much data to request. In this paper, we propose a traffic estimation-basedreceiver-initiated MAC(TERI-MAC)to solve this problem with an adaptive approach. Data polling in TERI-MAC depends on an online approximation of traffic distribution. It estimates the energy efficiency and network latency and starts the data request only when the preferred performance can be achieved. TERI-MAC can achieve a stable energy efficiency with arbitrary network traffic patterns. For traffic estimation, we employ a resampling technique to keep a small computation and memory overhead. The performance of TERI-MAC in terms of energy efficiency, channel utilization, and communication latency is verified in simulations. Our results show that, compared with existing receiver-initiated-based underwater MAC protocols, TERI-MAC can achieve higher energy efficiency at the price of a delay penalty. This confirms the strength of TERI-MAC for delay-tolerant applications

Receiver-Initiated Handshaking MAC Based On Traffic Estimation for Underwater Sensor Networks

In underwater sensor networks (UWSNs), the unique characteristics of acoustic channels have posed great challenges for the design of medium access control (MAC) protocols. The long propagation delay problem has been widely explored in recent literature. However, the long preamble problem with acoustic modems revealed in real experiments brings new challenges to underwater MAC design. The overhead of control messages in handshaking-based protocols becomes significant due to the long preamble in underwater acoustic modems. To address this problem, we advocate the receiver-initiated handshaking method with parallel reservation to improve the handshaking efficiency. Despite some existing works along this direction, the data polling problem is still an open issue. Without knowing the status of senders, the receiver faces two challenges for efficient data polling: when to poll data from the sender and how much data to request. In this paper, we propose a traffic estimation-based receiver-initiated MAC (TERI-MAC) to solve this problem with an adaptive approach. Data polling in TERI-MAC depends on an online approximation of traffic distribution. It estimates the energy efficiency and network latency and starts the data request only when the preferred performance can be achieved. TERI-MAC can achieve a stable energy efficiency with arbitrary network traffic patterns. For traffic estimation, we employ a resampling technique to keep a small computation and memory overhead. The performance of TERI-MAC in terms of energy efficiency, channel utilization, and communication latency is verified in simulations. Our results show that, compared with existing receiver-initiated-based underwater MAC protocols, TERI-MAC can achieve higher energy efficiency at the price of a delay penalty. This confirms the strength of TERI-MAC for delay-tolerant applications

A nickel pyridine-selenolate complex for the photocatalytic evolution of hydrogen from aqueous solutions

Abstract(#br)A nickel pyridine-selenolate complex, [Ni(4,4′-dmbpy)(2-pySe) 2 ] ( 1 , where 4,4′-dmbpy = 4,4′-dimethyl-2,2′-bipyridine, and 2-pySe = pyridine-2-selenolate), has been synthesized, and investigated for photocatalytic production of H 2 from aqueous solution. Electrochemical studies show that the nickel complex 1 can efficiently electrocatalyze H 2 evolution from weakly acidic solutions. Under visible-light irradiation (λ > 420 nm), the complex 1 displays impressive H 2 evolution activity with a TON of 1340 (based on a catalyst) in a noble-metal-free system, which contains fluorescein (Fl) as photosensitizer and triethylamine (TEA) as sacrificial electron donor in acetonitrile-water solution. It should be noted that complex 1 is the rare example of nickel pyridine-selenolate complex as molecular photocatalyst for water reduction

Metropolitan all-pass and inter-city quantum communication network

We have demonstrated a metropolitan all-pass quantum communication network in field fiber for four nodes. Any two nodes of them can be connected in the network to perform quantum key distribution (QKD). An optical switching module is presented that enables arbitrary 2-connectivity among output ports. Integrated QKD terminals are worked out, which can operate either as a transmitter, a receiver, or even both at the same time. Furthermore, an additional link in another city of 60 km fiber (up to 130 km) is seamless integrated into this network based on a trusted relay architecture. On all the links, we have implemented protocol of decoy state scheme. All of necessary electrical hardware, synchronization, feedback control, network software, execution of QKD protocols are made by tailored designing, which allow a completely automatical and stable running. Our system has been put into operation in Hefei in August 2009, and publicly demonstrated during an evaluation conference on quantum network organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on August 29, 2009. Real-time voice telephone with one-time pad encoding between any two of the five nodes (four all-pass nodes plus one additional node through relay) is successfully established in the network within 60km.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, 2 table