Neutrino mass hierarchy and lepton flavor mixing

In the standard model of particle physics there are three species of neutrinos whose masses were originally assumed to be zero. But the discovery of solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillations indicates that neutrinos are massive and lepton flavors are mixed. In this brief review we first give an overview of our current knowledge about the neutrino mass spectrum and lepton flavor mixing angles, and then comment on the seesaw mechanisms which allow us to understand the origin of tiny neutrino masses. We pay particular attention to the nearly tri-bi-maximal neutrino mixing pattern and the Friedberg-Lee symmetry to derive it. A relatively promising possibility of detecting hot and warm neutrino dark matter in the Universe will also be discussed.     

Instruction to Authors

Dear Sir/Madam: With the authorization and approval of the General Administration of Press and Publications of China, the journal Progress in Natural Science will continue its publication.We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your encouragement and contribution in the past.However,your further support and assistance in the future would be also very much appreciated.     

Instruction to Authors

Dear Sir/Madam: With the authorization and approval of the General Administration of Press and Publications of China, the journal Progress in Natural Science will continue its publication.We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your encouragement and contribution in the past.However,your further support and assistance in the future would be also very much appreciated.     

The Teacher and The Student in the Art of The Teaching

How could we have a effective teaching?We,as teachers,always think about this question and always hope to have better experiences to supple- ment us.The art of teaching lies in the teaching of the teacher and the studying of the students.During this course, a teacher's quality will be re- garded as an important factor in the art of teaching which we have to think over and discuss.Of course,the factors of students will be undoubtedly tak- en into consideration because of their significance.HereⅠwould like to sunmaarize the following points to improve our teaching effect.     

Instruction to Authors

Dear Sir/Madam: With the authorization and approval of the General Administration of Press and Publications of China, the journal Progress in Natural Science will continue its publication.We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your encouragement and contribution in the past.However,your further support and assistance in the future would be also very much appreciated. The contents of the journal Progress in Natural.Science(monthly publication,English edition) were     

Instruction to Authors

Dear Sir/Madam: With the authorization and approval of the General Administration of Press and Publications of China, the journal Progress in Natural Science will continue its publication.We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your encouragement and contribution in the past.However,your further support and assistance in the future would be also very much appreciated. The contents of the journal Progress in Natural Science(monthly publication,English edition) were covering the most recent ach...     

On indexing in the Web of Science and predicting journal impact factor

We discuss what document types account for the calculation of the journal impact factor （JIF） as published in the Journal Citation Reports （JCR）. Based on a brief review of articles discussing how to predict JIFs and taking data differences between the Web of Science （WoS） and the JCR into account, we make our own predictions. Using data by cited-reference searching for Thomson Scientific＇s WoS, we predict 2007 impact factors （1Fs） for several journals, such as Nature, Science, Learned Publishing and some Library and Information Sciences journals. Based on our colleagues＇ experiences we expect our predictions to be lower bounds for the official journal impact factors. We explain why it is useful to derive one＇s own journal impact factor.     

Estimation of Cloud Node Acquisition Waseem Ahmed and Yongwei Wu简

Over the past decade, there has been a paradigm shift leading consumers and enterprises to the adoption of cloud computing services. Even though most cases are still in the early stages of transition, there has been a steady increase in the implementation of the pay-as-you-go or pay-as-you-grow models offered by cloud providers. Whether applied as an extension of virtual infrastructure, software, or platform as a service, many users are still challenged by the estimation of adequate resource allocation and the wide variations in pricing. Customers require a simple method of predicting future demand in terms of the number of nodes to be allocated in the cloud environment. In this paper, we review and discuss existing methodologies for estimating the demand for cloud nodes and their corresponding pricing policies. Based on our review, we propose a novel approach using the Hidden Markov Model to estimate the acquisition of cloud nodes.     

Nuclear Science Technology and Nano Science Technology

Nuclear science and technology can play a unique role in nano-science and technology, due to its nuclear characteristics and properties. In many cases nuclear science and technology can acquire intriguing results to help solve some basic scientific problems in nano science and technology, which are often difficult or even impossible for non-nuclear routes. In this review some latest achievements made in this aspect will be selectively introduced with the emphasis on the work done in our laboratory. The work includes （1） nuclear reactions for synthesis of novel nanornaterials; （2） nuclear spectroscopy for characterization of nanomaterials; and （3） nuclear analytical techniques for study of nanoeafety and nanotoxicology. Some practical examples to demonstrate the roles of nuclear science and technology will be briefly described.     

Is there an anatomical endophenotype for neurodevelopmental disorders？ A review of dual disorder anatomical likelihood estimation （ALE） meta-analyses of grey matter volumes

The term "neurodevelopmental disorder" broadly encompasses conditions thought to arise early in development and includes schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism among others. These conditions share a number of genetic and environmental risk factors postulated to lead to common difficulties in socio-emotional processing, communication and cognitive function. The alternative position is that, while the same traits are affected across these conditions, the nature or direction in which they are modified may be distinct. MRI studies provide a rapidly expanding and rich database which we propose can be used to contribute to this debate. Anatomical likelihood estimation (ALE) is a method of meta-analysis applied to voxel-based MRI studies. We have adapted this method to explore the extent to which schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and autism share a common brain structural phenotype. We will review this work here and discuss whether there is sufficient other evidence to justify a common framework for further research into the inter-relatedness of such conditions.     

Fourier analysis for discontinuous Galerkin and related methods

In this paper we review a series of recent work on using a Fourier analysis technique to study the sta- bility and error estimates for the discontinuous Galerkin method and other related schemes. The advantage of this approach is that it can reveal instability of certain ＂bad＂＇ schemes; it can verify stability for certain good schemes which are not easily amendable to standard finite element stability analysis techniques; it can provide quantitative error comparisons among different schemes; and it can be used to study superconvergence and time evolution of errors for the discontinuous Galerkin method. We will briefly describe this Fourier analysis technique, summarize its usage in stability and error estimates for various schemes, and indicate the advantages and disadvantages of this technique in comparison with other finite element techniques.     

Advances in the regulation and crosstalks of phytohormones

Various mutants defective in phytohormone biosynthesis and signaling pathways have been identified and characterized recently. Functional analysis of corresponding genes has greatly enriched our knowledge of phytohormone biosynthesis, transport, and signal transduction. Moreover, identification of phytohormone receptors and dissection of cross-talks among phytohormones allow us to elucidate the molecular basis of actions of phytohormones. The recent comprehensive work on the regulation of the biosynthesis, transport and signaling of phytohormones will help us to understand phytohormone actions in plant growth and development and their potential application in crop improvement. In this review, we summarize the latest work about phytohormones actions and highlight some common issues in this field.     

Environmental chemical stressors as epigenome modifiers: a new horizon in assessment of toxicological effects

In eukaryotic cells, chromatin transformation from euchromatin into heterochromatin as a means of controlling gene expression and replication has been known as the ‘‘accessibility hypothesis' '. The interplay of epigenetic changes including histone modifications, DNA methylation, RNA interference(RNAi) and other func- tional epigenetic components are intricate. It is believed that these changes are well-programmed, inherited and can be modified by environmental contaminant stressors. Environmentally-driven epigenetic alterations during development, e.g. embryonic, foetal or neonatal stage, may influence disease susceptibility in adulthood. Therefore, understanding how epigenome modifications develop in response to environmental chemicals and, how epigenetic-xenobiotic interactions influence human health will shed new insights into gene-environment interactions in the epidemiology of several diseases including cancer. In this review, we consider studies of chemical modifiers including nutritional and xenobiotic effects on epigenetic components in vitro or in vivo. By examining the most-studied epigenome modifications and how their respective roles are interlinked, we highlight the central role of xenbiotic- modified epigenetic mechanisms. A major requirement will be to study and understand effects following environmentally-relevant exposures. We suggest that the study of epigenetic toxicology will open up new opportunities to devise strategies for the prevention or treatment of at-risk populations.     

Charge transport in organic semiconductors: From incoherent to coherent

Quantum decoherence in organic charge transport is a complicated but crucial topic. In this paper, several theoretical approaches corresponding to it, from incoherent to coherent, are comprehensively reviewed. We mainly focus on the physical insight provided by each theory and extent of its validity. The aim of this review is to clarify some contentious issues and elaborate on the promising perspectives provided by different approaches. The device model approaches based on both continuous and discretized treatments of the transporting layer will be first discussed. The prominent focus of this review will be devoted to the dynamic disorder model and its variants considering that it is the most promising approach to tackle charge transport problems in organic materials. We will also address other theories such as the variational method.     

The boundary processing of wavelet based image compression

When an image, which is decomposed by bi-orthogonal wavelet bases, is reconstructed, some information will be lost at the four edges of the image. At the same time,artificial discontinuities will be introduced. We use a method called symmetric extension to solve the problem. We only consider the case of the two-band filter banks, and the results can be applied to M-band filter banks. There are only two types of symmetric extension in analysis phrase, namely the whole-sample symmetry (WS), the half-sample symmetry(HS), while there are four types of symmetric extension in synthesis phrase, namely the WS, HS, the whole-sample anti-symmetry (WA), and the half-sample anti-symmetry(HA) respectively. We can select the exact type according to the image length and the filter length, and we will show how to do these. The image can be perfectly reconstructed without any edge effects in this way. Finally, simulation results are reported.     

Unique synthesis of graphene-based materials for clean energy and biological sensing applications

Graphene has unique physical properties,and a variety of proof-of-concept devices based on graphene have been demonstated.A prerequisite for the application of graphene is its production in a controlled manner because the number of graphene layers and the defects in these layers significantly influence transport properties.In this paper,we briefly review our recent work on the controlled synthesis of graphene and graphene-based composites,the development of methods to characterize graphene layers,and the use of graphene in clean energy applications and for rapid DNA sequencing.For example,we have used Auger electron spectroscopy to characterize the number and structure of graphene layers,produced single-layer graphene over a whole Ni film substrate,synthesized well-dispersed reduced graphene oxide that was uniformly grafted with unique gold nanodots,and fabricated graphene nanoscrolls.We have also explored applications of graphene in organic solar cells and direct,ultrafast DNA sequencing.Finally,we address the challenges that graphene still face in its synthesis and clean energy and biological sensing applications.     

Design of Smart Polymer-Protein Conjugates and Smart Magnetic Nanoparticles for Use in Microfluidic Diagnostic Assays

1 Results In this talk,I will describe the design,synthesis and application of smart polymers for use in microfluidic diagnostic devices.We are synthesizing a variety of temperature- and pH-responsive polymers using RAFT living free radical polymerization techniques.This allows us to control molecular weight and to achieve a narrow MW distribution of the polymers. Furthermore,RAFT polymers have reactive end groups that are used to conjugate the polymers to proteins.We are also using those groups to bind and coat the smart polymers onto the surfaces of polymeric or magnetic nanoparticles.We have applied UV graft co-polymerization techniques to coat the channel surfaces in the microfluidic devices with the smart polymers.The smart polymers we work with include temperature-responsive polymers such as poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) or PNIPAAm and pH-responsive polymers such as poly(propylacrylic acid) or PPAA.We are synthesizing random,block and graft copolymers of these compositions as well.     

Recent development in quantum communication

In this review article,we will review the recent process of quantum communications.In the past decades,there are many developments in quantum communication,for instance,quantum key distribution,quantum teleportation,quantum secure direct communication,deterministic secure quantum communication,quantum secret sharing and so on.And we focus our attention on the recent developments in quantum communication protocols.