Synthesis and characterization of bifunctional terbium complex-based nanoparticles

Novel bifunctional terbium complex-based nanoparticles were developed using a modified Stber method and a layer-by-layer assembly process. A magnetic core of Fe3O4 nanoparticles was coated with a silica shell to form the first layer. Then a ternary Tb3+ complex (TESPPA-Tb), which acted as a luminescent marker, was covalently bound to the silica surface by stable Si-O-Si bonds. The TESPPA monomer was synthesized by binding pyridine 2,6-dicarboxylic acid to 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, which was used as a ligand for coordination with the Tb3+ ions. An outer shell of silica was applied to the nanoparticles to allow for versatility with surface functionalization. The nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, ultravioletvisible spectroscopy, vibration sample magnetometer, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The bifunctional nanoparticles exhibited favorable superparamagnetic behavior and photoluminescence properties of Tb3+. These nanoparticles have potential applications in biolabeling, bioseparation, immunoassays, and pathogenic diagnosis.     

Research and Reflection: Potential Impact on the Professional Development of Undergraduate Occupational Therapy Students

In occupational therapy education in South Africa, community service (CS) focuses learning opportunities during fieldwork placements. CS therefore enabled the researcher to utilise successive small scale research projects to guide learning of students during fieldwork while simultaneously developing the occupational therapy service at a residential care facility. This community setting provided a powerful environment through which research, in combination with opportunities for reflection, contributed to nurturing skills needed by these future health professionals. A technical action research (AR) approach incorporated AR cycles and opportunities for structured reflection. Therefore situations were created for the students to embrace experiential learning. Experiential learning in the form of anticipatory reflection, reflection-in-action, reflection on reflection and retrospective reflection impacted on the quality of the students’ work. Besides encouraging unique leaning opportunities for students when engaging in research during their fieldwork placement, engagement in AR cycles simultaneously improved service delivery to residents in the facility. Key benefits of this investigation were that fieldwork education utilising AR cycles within a CS situation promoted students to identify voids in their theoretical background as well as practice skills; to apply reflective practice that could contribute to their personal and professional development; and to utilize learning opportunities optimally. Despite positive gains showed by this study, the role of power relations between the researcher as fieldwork educator and the students prohibited the AR cycles from being more emancipatory in nature and should be addressed in follow-up studies.     

Multilevel Innovation in Remote Networked Schools

Small remote rural schools in Quebec face an ongoing challenge to provide similar quality educational services than bigger schools. Since 2002, the Remote Network Schools (RNS) initiative afforded schools the opportunity to reinvent their practice by using online tools to experience collaborative learning activities with other remote schools. Teachers and students experienced quality learning and demonstrated agency by implementing the RNS in their context. Measures include: diversity of learning activities, quality of online classroom interactions, changes in teacher beliefs, and shifts in teacher and student roles. Our results show that it is a viable operating method for such schools and that other schools could contemplate implementing such innovative practices.     

Redundant and unique roles of coronin proteins in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dictyostelium</Emphasis>

Dictyostelium discoideum harbors a short (CRN12) and a long coronin (CRN7) composed of one and two beta-propellers, respectively. They are primarily present in the cell cortex and cells lacking CRN12 (corA ⁻) or CRN7 (corB ⁻) have defects in actin driven processes. We compared the characteristics of a mutant cell line (corA ⁻ /corB ⁻) lacking CRN12 and CRN7 with the single mutants focusing on cytokinesis, phagocytosis, chemotaxis and development. Cytokinesis, uptake of small particles, and developmental defects were not enhanced in the corA ⁻ /corB ⁻ strain as compared to the single mutants, whereas motility and phagocytosis of yeast particles were more severely impaired. It appears that although both proteins affect the same processes they do not act in a redundant manner. Rather, they often act antagonistically, which is in accordance with their proposed roles in the actin cytoskeleton where CRN12 acts in actin disassembly whereas CRN7 stabilizes actin filaments and protects them from disassembly.     

Texture preserving denoising method combining total variation and wavelet shrinkage

In this paper,we propose a new image denoising method that combines total variation(TV) method and wavelet shrinkage. In our method,a noisy image is decomposed into subbands of LL,LH,HL,and HH in wavelet domain. LL subband contains the low frequency coefficients along with less noise,which can be easily eliminated using TV-based method. More edges and other detailed information like textures are contained in the other three subbands,and we propose a shrinkage method based on the local variance to extract th...     

A communication security protocol of mobile agent system

The security issues of mobile agent system have embarrassed its widespread implementation. The paper analyses communication security threats and countermeasures of mobile agent system and proposes a communication security protocol of mobile agent system. It provides multifactor authentication, encryption transmission, and integrity protection of mobile agent.     

An equivalency condition of nonsingularity in nonlinear semidefinite programming

<正> In this paper,an equivalency condition of nonsingularity in nonlinear semidefinite programming,which can be viewed as a generalization of the equivalency condition of nonsingularity for linearsemidefinite programming,is established under certain conditions of convexity.     

Integral-type tests for goodness-of-fit

<正> A family of integral-type goodness-of-fit tests is investigated.This family includes someexisting tests,such as the Cramér-von Mises test and Anderson-Darling test,etc.The asymptoticdistributions of the tests in the family under the null and local alternative hypotheses are established.The almost sure convergence under a fixed underlying distribution is obtained.Furthermore,simulationsare conducted to compare the powers of the tests in the family.Simulation results show that fordifferent alternatives,the more powerful tests are different,and the parameter λ has great influence onthe tests in small sample cases.     

一种新型的荷叶仿生网架结构体系探讨

文章利用仿生学原理，借鉴王莲荷叶脉络的结构构成形式，结合钢结构仿生设计理念，提出了新型的网架结构——荷叶脉络网架结构，为基于仿生学的钢结构设计提供新的思路。     

浅谈沥青混凝土路面施工技术与质量的控制

作者根据几年来从事沥青路面施工的工作体验出发,针对沥青混凝土面层施工中各个环节的工艺技术与质量控制要点进行了阐述,并对特殊路段的处理进行了说明,尤其是接缝的处理和碾压.