A class of non-precious metal composite catalysts for fuel cells

Fuel cells, as devices for direct conversion of the chemical energy of a fuel into electricity by electrochemical reactions, are among the key enabling technologies for the transition to a hydrogen-based economy. Of several different types of fuel cells under development today, polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) have been recognized as a potential future power source for zero-emission vehicles. However, to become commercially viable, PEFCs have to overcome the barrier of high catalyst cost caused by the exclusive use of platinum and platinum-based catalysts in the fuel-cell electrodes. Here we demonstrate a new class of low-cost (non-precious metal)/(heteroatomic polymer) nanocomposite catalysts for the PEFC cathode, capable of combining high oxygen-reduction activity with good performance durability. Without any optimization, the cobalt-polypyrrole composite catalyst enables power densities of about 0.15 W cm(-2) in H2-O2 fuel cells and displays no signs of performance degradation for more than 100 hours. The results of this study show that heteroatomic polymers can be used not only to stabilize the non-precious metal in the acidic environment of the PEFC cathode but also to generate active sites for oxygen reduction reaction.     

A small-molecule screen in C. elegans yields a new calcium channel antagonist

Small-molecule inhibitors of protein function are powerful tools for biological analysis and can lead to the development of new drugs. However, a major bottleneck in generating useful small-molecule tools is target identification. Here we show that Caenorhabditis elegans can provide a platform for both the discovery of new bioactive compounds and target identification. We screened 14,100 small molecules for bioactivity in wild-type worms and identified 308 compounds that induce a variety of phenotypes. One compound that we named nemadipine-A induces marked defects in morphology and egg-laying. Nemadipine-A resembles a class of widely prescribed anti-hypertension drugs called the 1,4-dihydropyridines (DHPs) that antagonize the alpha1-subunit of L-type calcium channels. Through a genetic suppressor screen, we identified egl-19 as the sole candidate target of nemadipine-A, a conclusion that is supported by several additional lines of evidence. egl-19 encodes the only L-type calcium channel alpha1-subunit in the C. elegans genome. We show that nemadipine-A can also antagonize vertebrate L-type calcium channels, demonstrating that worms and vertebrates share the orthologous protein target. Conversely, FDA-approved DHPs fail to elicit robust phenotypes, making nemadipine-A a unique tool to screen for genetic interactions with this important class of drugs. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of nemadipine-A by using it to reveal redundancy among three calcium channels in the egg-laying circuit. Our study demonstrates that C. elegans enables rapid identification of new small-molecule tools and their targets.     

Cell death in the nervous system

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease trigger neuronal cell death through endogenous suicide pathways. Surprisingly, although the cell death itself may occur relatively late in the course of the degenerative process, the mediators of the underlying cell-death pathways have shown promise as potential therapeutic targets.     

New weighting factors assignment of evidence theorybased one vidence distance

1.INTRODUCTION Dempster Shafertheoryiswidelyusedinmanyfields suchasinformationfusionanddecision making[1,2].Anditisaverysimpleandstraightforwardwayofex tendingclassicalprobabilitytheory.However,Demp ster’scombinationoperatorisapoorsolutionforthe managementoftheconflictbetweenthevariousinfor mationsourcesatthenormalizationstep.Severalau thorshavecriticizeditandsomehaveproposedother solutions[3,4].InRef.[4],Lefevrehaspointedout thatthecoreofalotofmodifiedmethodistheassign mentoftheconfli…     

Study on the accuracy of comprehensive evaluating method based on fuzzy set theory

1.INTRODUCTION Thecomplexinformationsystemsprojectsdevelopers andmanagersneedfeedbackonthequalityofwork productstocontrolprojectactivitiesandtoimprove productquality.Itisnecessarythatappropriateeval uatingmethodsbeusedincomplexinformationsys temsevaluation.Accordingtothedatawecollected,theevaluat ingmethodshadbeendevelopedinthelastforty years[1].Agoodmanynewmethodshaveappeared,suchascomprehensivegrading,expertsdiscussion,cost benefitanalysis,analytichierarchyprocess,data envelopmentanalys…     

An improved multidisciplinary feasible method using DACE approximation approach

1.INTRODUCTION Themultidisciplinarydesignoptimization(MDO)is anapproachwhichimprovesandspeedsupthedesign process,andlowersthedesigncostofcomplexand coupledengineeringsystems[1,2],Themainfactor thatresultsinthecomplexityofMDOistheinterdis ciplinarycoupling.Thegeneralstrategytohandlethe couplingisdecompositionofthecomplexsysteminto sub systems,eachpertainingtothephysicalphe nomenonorcomponent,andtop systemwhichpre servesthecouplingsbetweenthesub systems.How ever,algorithmsbasedondecomposi…     

An automatic scheme to construct Snort rules from honeypots data

1.INTRODUCTION Intrusiondetectioncanbebroadlydividedintotwo categories[1]:anomalydetectionandmisusedetec tion.Anomalydetectionsystemsdetectdeviationsin activityfromnormalprofiles.References[1～3]give anexampleofthisapproach.Anomalydetectioncan beusedtodetectunknownattacks,butitcannotde tectintrusionsaccuratelyandmayinvolveacertain rateoffalsealarms.Whilemisusedetectionsystems detectattacksbyfindingtheactivitiesmatchedwith attacksignatures,whicharedrawnfromknownat tacksandstoredinadatabase…     

Design for the simulation of space based information network

1 .INTRODUCTIONNewcommunication network si mulations are nee-dedin space based networkto demonstrate ensuingadvances in global operations and distributed re-source management . Theseinclude full-scale si mu-lation of networking, protocols ,information dis-tribution,and display to lead tointegrated demon-strations of full-scale land-,air-,sea-,and space-based network having explicit modelling of net-work dynamics ,inter-satellite links (ISLs) , up-downlinks ( UDLs) ,schedulers ,protocols …     

Dynamic weighted voting for multiple classifier fusion:a generalized rough set method

1 .INTRODUCTIONMultiple classifier fusion or combination has prov-enitself a powerful tool for achieving high classifi-cation accuracy with moderately discri minatingclassifiers .If only output class labels are availablethe voting fusion[1]is often used as a decisionlevelfusion. However ,the main drawback of the votingfusion is that all classifiers are considered equallyreliable and this maylead to a confident decisiontobe changed by a less reliable classifier . A possibleway of overcomin…     

Parameterized design of nonlinear feedback controllers for servo positioning systems

1 .INTRODUCTIONServo positioning systems are universal in industrialenvironment , where fast and precise positioning iscritical for higher productivity and better quality .Linear control technologies have been playing anactive role for this purpose , while nonlinear con-trol is relatively naive and is now meticulouslyfinding applications in the real world. However ,asmart combination of linear and nonlinear controltechniques , which takes full advantage of bothtechniques ,can lead to a mor…