Rarefied gas dynamics: fundamentals, simulations and micro flows

Why do Chinese alligators (Alligator sinensis) form bellowing choruses: A playback approach

Crocodilians are quite vocal relative to other reptile groups, and the alligators are among the most vocal of the crocodilians. The Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis, is usually solitary but engages in bellowing choruses in certain waters during the mating season. This paper reports the organization of Chinese alligator's bellowing choruses based upon field observations and playback experiments. Alligators of both genders engaged in the choruses, remaining immobile throughout and inclining toward bellowing synchronously (i.e., starting and finishing at about the same time). The choruses lasted about 10 min with abrupt onset and offset. Moreover, playback experiments revealed that both male and female alligators responded equally to bellowing stimuli from the same and opposite sexes and that none of the tested alligators approached the loudspeaker in spite of playback of male or female stimuli. These suggest that Chinese alligators. may not bellow to compete for or attract mates during the choruses. Instead, when their ecological behaviors, namely, dispersed inhabitation, multi-copulation, restricted mating season, etc., are considered, we hypothesize that they may synchronize bellows to enhance group detectability for assembling individuals into certain waters for subsequent copulations. (C) 2009 Acoustical Society of America. [DOI: 10.1121/1.3203667]

手性有机小分子催化烯胺不对称还原

手性胺是合成天然产物和手性药物的重要中间体，亚胺和烯胺的不对称催化还原是制备手性胺最直接有效的方式之一。手性有机小分子催化的亚胺不对称还原已取得了可喜的进展，但到目前为止，有机小分子催化的烯胺不对称还原，尤其是环状烯胺的不对称还原还少有报道。 本研究从手性叔丁基亚磺酰胺出发，设计并合成了一系列含有叔丁基亚磺酰基的新型脲类及硫脲类催化剂，并将其用于催化三氯硅烷对烯胺的不对称还原，尤其是1, 4-二氢吡啶酯类环状烯胺的不对称还原。通过对催化反应条件的优化，发现当添加1eq H2O时，反应收率和对映选择性明显提高，获得高达99% 的收率和88% ee，同时也取得了很好的非对映选择性（dr = 8:92）。首次实现了三氯硅烷对1, 4-二氢吡啶酯类环状烯胺的高立体选择性还原。 通过机理方面的研究，我们推测反应过程中可能是：首先，底物1, 4-二氢吡啶酯与催化剂形成氢键而被活化，当加入添加剂后，添加剂与三氯硅烷反应释放出一个质子，然后受活化的1, 4-二氢吡啶酯捕获该质子转变成更活泼的亚胺正离子的中间体。随后，在催化剂上的手性硫氧的活化下，三氯硅烷的负氢加成到受活化的亚胺正离子的中间体上，最后生成比较有利的反式产物1, 4, 5, 6-四氢吡啶乙酯。 Calalytic enantioselective reduction of imines and enamines represents one of the most straightforward and efficient methods for the preparation of chiral amines, which is an important class of intermediates for the synthesis of natural products and chiral drugs. Significant progresses have been made in organocatalytic enantioselective reduction of imines. However, asymmetric reduction of enamines, especially of cyclic enamines catalyzed by small organocatalysts has scarcely been reported. In this study, starting from chiral tert-butanesulfinamide, a series of structurally simple tert-butanesulfinyl urea and thiourea organocatalysts were developed and employed in asymmetric reduction of enamines by triclorosilane, particularly in the reduction of cyclic enamines such as Hantzsch 1, 4-dihydropyridines. During the optimization of reaction condictions, we found that the addition of one equivalent of H2O could significantly improve the yields and enatioselectivities. Under optimal condictions, 99% yield, up to 88% ee, and 8:92 diastereomeric ratio were obtained. Thus, we have for the first time realized the highly stereoselective reduction of Hantzsch 1, 4-dihydropyridines catalyzed by triclorosilane. As for the mechanism, we speculate that the Hantzsch 1, 4-dihydropyridine was firstly engaged with the catalyst through hydrogen bond. The proton released from the reaction of the additive and triclorosilane next added to one of the C=C bond to make an active iminium intermediate, which was then attacked by the nucleophlic hydrogen of HSiCl3 activated by the Lewis basic sulfinyl function of the catalyst to provide superior trans-1, 4, 5, 6-tetrahydropyridine products.

Preparation of novel silver-gold bimetallic nanostructures by seeding with silver nanoplates and application in surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Novel silver-gold bimetallic nanostructures were prepared by seeding with silver nanoplates in the absence of any surfactants. During the synthesis process, it was found that the frameworks of silver nanoplates were normally kept though the basal plane of silver nanoplates became rugged. The real morphology of these nanostructures depended on the molar ratio of gold ions to the seed particles. When the molar ratio of gold ions to silver atoms increased from 0.5 to 4, porous or branched silver-gold bimetallic nanostructures could be made. The growth mechanism was qualitatively discussed based on template-engaged replacement reactions and seed-mediated deposition reactions. Due to the unusual structures, they exhibited interesting optical properties. Moreover, they were shown to be an active substrate for surface-enhanced Raman scattering measurements.

One-pot synthesis and characterization of novel silver-gold bimetallic nanostructures with hollow interiors and bearing nanospikes

One-pot preparation of shell-type silver-gold bimetallic nanostructures with hollow interiors and bearing nanospikes, based on colloid seed-engaged replacement reaction and colloid-mediated deposition reactions, has been reported. Heating-induced evolution of Ag-Au bimetallic nanoshells can lead to spontaneous production of nanospikes on the colloid surface. The hollow interior structure and bimetallic nature of the as-prepared colloids are characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-vis spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

Algal biotechnology industries and research activities in China

In old China there were very few people engaged in the study of the algae, but in new China, freshwater and marine algae are studied by over one hundred old and new phycologists. There is now an algal biotechnology industry consisting of an aquaculture industry, producing large amounts of the seaweeds Laminaria, Porphyra, Undaria, Gracilaria, eucheumoids, and the microalgae Dunaliella and Spirulina. There is also a phycocolloid industry, producing algin, agar and carrageenan; an industry producing chemicals and drugs, such as iodine, mannitol, phycocyanin, beta -carotene, PSS (propylene glycol alginate sulfate) and FPS (fucose-containing sulfated polysaccharides) and an industry producing food, feed and fertilizer. The Laminaria cultivation industry produces about 900,000 t dry Laminaria, probably the largest producer in the world and 13,000 t algin, undoubtedly one of the largest algin producer in the world.

从有缆遥控水下机器人到自治水下机器人

文章给出了水下机器人的定义 ,依据定义进行了分类 ,简要回顾了几类重要水下机器人的进展 ,指出了无人无缆自治水下机器人 (AUVs)是当今水下机器人研究与开发的热点 ,介绍了最近 2 0年沈阳自动化研究所与国内外有关单位合作 ,在水下机器人领域从无人有缆遥控水下机器人 (ROVs)到AUVs的研究开发工作 ,它从一个侧面反映了我国在这一领域的进展情况。

通过语言任务和功能磁共振成像研究人类小脑功能

Since the 19th century, people have long believed that the function of cerebellum was restricted to fine motor control and modulation. In the past two decades, however, more and more studies challenged this traditional view. While the neuroanatomy of the cerebellum from cellular to system level has been well documented, the functions of this neural organ remain poorly understood. This study, including three experiments, attempted to further the understanding of cerebellar functions from different viewpoints. Experiment One used the parametric design to control motor effects. The activation in cerebellum was found to be associated with the difficulty levels of a semantic discrimination task, suggesting the involvement of the cerebellum in higher level of language functions. Moreover, activation of the right posterior cerebellum was found to co-vary with that of the frontal cortex. Experiment Two adopted the cue-go paradigm and event-related design to exclude the effects of phonological and semantic factors in a mental writing task. The results showed that bilateral anterior cerebellum and cerebral motor regions were significantly activated during the task and the hemodynamic response of the cerebellum was similar to those of the cerebral motor cortex. These results suggest that the cerebellum participates in motor imagination during orthographic output. Experiment Three investigated the learning process of a verb generation task. While both lateral and vermis cerebellum were found to be activation in the task, each was correlated a separate set of frontal regions. More importantly, activations both in the cerebellum and frontal cortex decreased with the repetition of the task. These results indicate that the cerebellum and frontal cortex is jointly engaged in some functions; each serves as a part of a single functional system. Taken these findings together, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1.The cerebellum is not only involved in functions related to speech or articulation, but also participates in the higher cognitive functions of language. 2.The cerebellum participates in various functions by supporting the corresponding regions in cerebral cortex, but not directly executes the functions as an independent module. 3.The anterior part of cerebellum is related to motor functions, whereas the posterior part is involved in cognitive functions. 4.While the motor functions rely on the engagement of both sides of the cerebellar hemispheres, the higher cognitive functions mainly depend on the right cerebellum.

Chiral separation of enantiomers of amino acid derivatives by high-performance liquid chromatography on a norvancomycin-bonded chiral stationary phase

A novel norvancomycin-bonded chiral stationary phase (NVC-CSP) was synthesized by using the chiral selector of norvancomycin. The chiral separation of enantiomers of several dansyl-amino acids by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in the reversed-phase mode is described. The effects of some parameters, such as organic modifier concentration, column temperature, pH and flow rate of the mobile phase, on the retention and enantioselectivity were investigated. The study showed that ionic, as well as hydrophobic interactions were engaged between the analyte and macrocycle in this chromatographic system. Increasing pH of buffers usually improved the chiral resolution for dansyl-alpha-amino-n-butyric acid (Dns-But), dansyl-methionine (Dns-Met) and dansyl-threonine (Dns-Thr), but not for dansyl-glutamic acid (Dns-Glu) which contains two carboxylic groups in its molecular structure. The natural logarithms of selectivity factors (In alpha) of all the investigated compounds depended linearly on the reciprocal of temperature (1/T), most processes of enantioseparation were controlled enthalpically. Interestingly, the process of enantioseparation for dansyl-threonine was enthalpy-controlled at pH of 3.5, while at pH of 7.0, it was entropy-controlled according to thermodynamic parameters Delta(R,S)DeltaHdegrees and Delta(R,S)DeltaSdegrees afforded by Van't Hoff plots. In order to get baseline separation for all the solutes researched, norvancomycin was also used as a chiral mobile phase additive. In combination with the NVC-CSP remarkable increases in enanselectivity were observed for all the compounds, as the result of a "synergistic" effect. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.