High-performance flexural fatigue of carbon nanotube yarns

Carbon nanotube yarns （CNTY） possess good specific strength and specific conductivity. As such, their potential for commercial applications is significant. Fatigue performance is a significant consideration in yarn/wire applications. In this study, the flexural fatigue performance of CNTY spun from super-aligned carbon nanotube arrays was investigated using a reversed bending test. The results showed that CNTY exhibited excellent resistance to pure flexural fatigue, significantly outperforming stainless steel wire; CNTY failed where a combination of flexural fatigue and tension-tension fatigue had special hollow fracture morphology, and CNTY resistance remained fundamentally unchanged in the combination fatigue process.     

On-chip natural assembly of silicon photonic bandgap crystals.

Photonic bandgap crystals can reflect light for any direction of propagation in specific wavelength ranges. This property, which can be used to confine, manipulate and guide photons, should allow the creation of all-optical integrated circuits. To achieve this goal, conventional semiconductor nanofabrication techniques have been adapted to make photonic crystals. A potentially simpler and cheaper approach for creating three-dimensional periodic structures is the natural assembly of colloidal microspheres. However, this approach yields irregular, polycrystalline photonic crystals that are difficult to incorporate into a device. More importantly, it leads to many structural defects that can destroy the photonic bandgap. Here we show that by assembling a thin layer of colloidal spheres on a silicon substrate, we can obtain planar, single-crystalline silicon photonic crystals that have defect densities sufficiently low that the bandgap survives. As expected from theory, we observe unity reflectance in two crystalline directions of our photonic crystals around a wavelength of 1.3 micrometres. We also show that additional fabrication steps, intentional doping and patterning, can be performed, so demonstrating the potential for specific device applications.     

Superconductivity in CaCuO2 as a result of field-effect doping.

Understanding the doping mechanisms in the simplest superconducting copper oxide-the infinite-layer compound ACuO2 (where A is an alkaline earth metal)-is an excellent way of investigating the pairing mechanism in high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors more generally. Gate-induced modulation of the carrier concentration to obtain superconductivity is a powerful means of achieving such understanding: it minimizes the effects of potential scattering by impurities, and of structural modifications arising from chemical dopants. Here we report the transport properties of thin films of the infinite-layer compound CaCuO2 using field-effect doping. At high hole- and electron-doping levels, superconductivity is induced in the nominally insulating material. Maximum values of Tc of 89 K and 34 K are observed respectively for hole- and electron-type doping of around 0.15 charge carriers per CuO2. We can explore the whole doping diagram of the CuO2 plane while changing only a single electric parameter, the gate voltage.     

The origin of spontaneous activity in the developing auditory system

Spontaneous activity in the developing auditory system is required for neuronal survival as well as the refinement and maintenance of tonotopic maps in the brain. However, the mechanisms responsible for initiating auditory nerve firing in the absence of sound have not been determined. Here we show that supporting cells in the developing rat cochlea spontaneously release ATP, which causes nearby inner hair cells to depolarize and release glutamate, triggering discrete bursts of action potentials in primary auditory neurons. This endogenous, ATP-mediated signalling synchronizes the output of neighbouring inner hair cells, which may help refine tonotopic maps in the brain. Spontaneous ATP-dependent signalling rapidly subsides after the onset of hearing, thereby preventing this experience-independent activity from interfering with accurate encoding of sound. These data indicate that supporting cells in the organ of Corti initiate electrical activity in auditory nerves before hearing, pointing to an essential role for peripheral, non-sensory cells in the development of central auditory pathways.     

金沙江流域月径流时间序列的混沌分析

在介绍重构相空间技术的主要定量指标(关联维数D2和柯尔莫奇诺夫熵)的基础上,以长江上游金沙江流域小黄瓜园站和蔡家村站的月径流时间序列为例详细说明了求取时间序列中的混沌特征数的方法;并且采用主分量分析(PCA分布)方法进一步验证了两个站的径流序列具有混沌特性.得到金沙江流域径流序列的预测年限不应超过7～9个月,为金沙江流域径流预测提供了科学的依据.     

Alcohol dehydrogenase 2 is a major hepatic enzyme for human retinol metabolism

The metabolism of all-trans- and 9-cis-retinol/ retinaldehyde has been investigated with focus on the activities of human, mouse and rat alcohol dehydrogenase 2 (ADH2), an intriguing enzyme with apparently different functions in human and rodents. Kinetic constants were determined with an HPLC method and a structural approach was implemented by in silico substrate dockings. For human ADH2, the determined K_m values ranged from 0.05 to 0.3 μM and k_cat values from 2.3 to 17.6 min⁻¹, while the catalytic efficiency for 9-cis-retinol showed the highest value for any substrate. In contrast, poor activities were detected for the rodent enzymes. A mouse ADH2 mutant (ADH2Pro47His) was studied that resembles the human ADH2 setup. This mutation increased the retinoid activity up to 100-fold. The K_m values of human ADH2 are the lowest among all known human retinol dehydrogenases, which clearly support a role in hepatic retinol oxidation at physiological concentrations. Received 12 October 2006; received after revision 6 December 2006; accepted 8 January 2007     

二甲基醚发动机HCCI燃烧与排放的计算

构建了可应用于均质充量压燃（HCCI）发动机的二甲基醚（DME）详细化学反应动力学M燃烧模型,该模型包含97种物种和457个基元反应．拓展M模型的应用范围,分析了DME发动机HCCI条件下关键基元反应和重要物种随曲轴转角的变化关系,获得了DME氧化反应的主要历程．研究了NOx的生成机理,结果表明NOx排放中NO生成量达到最大值后出现“冻结”现象,NO2与N2O最终排放浓度极少且受缸内温度影响不大．随着缸内温度的增加,NOx排放中NO所占比例逐渐增加．基于化学反应速率及敏感度分析,得到了DME发动机HCCI燃烧的NO排放主要受扩大Zeldovich机理和N2O途径控制．     

Activation of ataxia telangiectasia muted under experimental models and human Parkinson’s disease

In the present study we demonstrated that neurotoxin MPP⁺-induced DNA damage is followed by ataxia telangiectasia muted (ATM) activation either in cerebellar granule cells (CGC) or in B65 cell line. In CGC, the selective ATM inhibitor KU-55933 showed neuroprotective effects against MPP⁺-induced neuronal cell loss and apoptosis, lending support to the key role of ATM in experimental models of Parkinson’s disease. Likewise, we showed that knockdown of ATM levels in neuroblastoma B65 cells using an ATM-specific siRNA attenuates the phosphorylation of retinoblastoma protein without affecting other cell-cycle proteins involved in the G₀/G₁ cell-cycle phase. Moreover, we demonstrated DNA damage, in human brain samples of PD patients. These findings support a model in which MPP⁺ leads to ATM activation with a subsequent DNA damage response and activation of pRb. Therefore, this study demonstrates a new link between DNA damage by MPP⁺ and cell-cycle re-entry through retinoblastoma protein phosphorylation.