光系统Ⅱ反应中心细胞色素b559结构和功能的研究

植物已经演化出多种保护其免受强光抑制和破坏的机制，从而使植物体在自然界能够应付复杂多变的光照环境。虽然人们早就确定Cyt b-559存在于PSII反应中心内，但目前对其性质与功能的认识还不充分。本工作的目的就是研究Cyt b-559天然分子特性，探讨其生理功能和存在的意义。取得了一些有新意的结果： 1、依据PSII反应中心分离纯化的原理，应用更有效的层析介质DEAE-Sephacel，我们设计了快速高效的从菠菜和水稻中分离纯化Cyt b-559的方法和流程，获得了高纯度的样品。它们在非变性胶电泳中具有相同的泳动性。蛋白组分的HPLC结果证明，纯化的Cyt b-559的确由两个亚基组成，α亚基和β亚基的分子量用我们设计的适合于分析小蛋白的Tricine—SDS—PAGE方法准确测定为9.4kDa和4.5kDa。 2、利用HPLC技术分析了纯化的Cyt b-559样品的色素组成，结果表明Cytb-559中含有Chl α而不含类胡萝卜素分子，这一结果通过吸收光谱和共振拉曼光谱的分析得到进一步地证明。通过等电聚焦方法分析了Cyt b-559的等电点，发现其亚基的等电点相差很大，全蛋白的等电点与...更多D1、D2蛋白的等电点也不相同，推测在体内生理pH条件下它们具有相反带电性而在PSII组装中发挥作用。 3、低温荧光光谱的检测结果表明，Cyt b-559的荧光发射峰位在563nm和666nm;首次证明Cyt b-559可以发出荧光和将电子传递给结合在其上的辅助叶绿素，但传递能力比较低故而导致其荧光特性与PSII反应中心的不相同。Cytb-559的紫外荧光光谱表明Trp残基位于其内部的疏水区域，证明Cyt b-559中的芳香族氨基酸可能在其功能的发挥中起一定作用。 4、通过MCD的分析，发现Cyt b-559中血红素的MCD信号在540—580nm和400—440nm波段，而且光谱形状和强度与PSII反应中心的相一致，说明PSII反应中心该范围内的MCD信号中有Cyt b-559的贡献。FTIR光谱的测定结果证明Cyt b-559血红素的配体是组氨酸，其二级结构中α-螺旋占了一半。此外，还比较了Cyt b-559和PSII反应中心的膜脂成分，发现两者有很大的相似性。不同植物来源的Cyt b-559在许多性质上都表现出高度一致，从一个侧面证明Cyt b-559在进化中的保守性。 5、PSll反应中心发生光破坏时，原初电子供体P680己受到严重破坏。我们发现，在光抑制的最初一段时间内，Cyt b-559吸收峰值发生变化：在受体侧光抑制的条件下，其吸收峰值先略有增加而后才下降，而在供体侧光抑制条件下则相反，说明 Cyt b-559对光抑制的发生非常敏感，可能在光抑制早期保护PSll反应中心。 6、纯化的Cyt b-559的组氨酸含量在照光前后没有显著的变化，说明 PSll反应中心内被破坏的组氨酸不属于Cyt b-559。PSll反应中心所含的组氨酸中有些可被DEPC修饰，但我们的实验结果表明DEPC不能修饰Cyt b-559的组氨酸。这可能有利于Cyt b-559保护功能的发挥。 7、我们观察到，在两种光抑制条件下，LP Cyt b-559光还原和 HP Cyt b-559光氧化具有对pH值的依赖性，说明Cyt b-559在光保护中的作用不仅与其高低电势态有关，而且与其质子化程度有联系。CCCP促进HP Cyt -559释放质子，从而维持循环电子传递。DCBQ和 DCMU在很低浓度时都抑制 Cyt b-559光还原，前者不影响Cyt b-559光氧化而后者在CCCP存在时也会抑制Cyt b-559光氧化。 8、Cyt b-559有定位PSll反应中心其它蛋白的锚蛋白的作用。黄化苗转绿实验证明在 HP Cyt b-559的含量增加超过 45％以后放氧活性开始逐渐增加。Cytb－559从低电势态到高电势态的转变是放氧复合物组装到PSll反应中心的关键步骤之一。在植物正常生长时，Cyt b-559与 P680的其它电于供体发生竟争，起到安全阀门的作用。 9、在逆境条件下，Cyt b-559具有保护PSll反应中心免受强光破坏而起到“分于开关”的作用。我们的实验表明，在室温条件下存在通过Cyt b-559的环式电子流，存在从氧化态LP Cyt b-559到还原态HP Cyt b-559的一个循环，其中的氧化还原变化与质子化／去质子化反应相连。通过与其它血红素蛋白的比较，我们推测 Cyt b-559“分子开关”的关键是：光抑制情况下，铁原子与远端His之间的疏水空穴被氧自由基占据后使得铁进入叶琳中央孔中，迫使近端HIS向叶琳平面位移，从而引起 Cyt b-559构象改变，使电势态发生转变。

Bias-dependent recovery time of all-optical resonant nonlinearity in InGaAsP/InGaAsP MQW waveguide

We have investigated a resonant refractive nonlinearity in a semiconductor waveguide by measuring intensity dependent phase shifts and bias-dependent recovery times. The measurements were performed on an optimized 750-μm-long AR coated buried heterostructure MQW p-i-n waveguide with a bandedge at 1.48 μm. Figure 1 shows the experimental arrangement. The mode-locked color center laser was tuned to 50 meV beyond the bandedge and 8 ps pulses with peak incident power up to 57 W were coupled into the waveguide. Some residual bandtail absorption remains at this wavelength and this is sufficient to cause carriers to be photogenerated and these give rise to a refractive nonlinearity, predominantly by plasma and bandfilling effects. A Fabry-Perot interferometer is used to measure the spectrum of the light which exits the waveguide. The nonlinearity within the guide causes self phase modulation (SPM) of the light and a study of the spectrum allows information to be recovered on the magnitude and recovery time of the nonlinear phase shift with a reasonable degree of accuracy. SPM spectra were recorded for a variety of pulse energies coupled into he unbiased waveguide. Figure 2 shows the resultant phase shift measured from the SPM spectra as a function of pulse energy. The relationship is a linear one, indicating that no saturation of the nonlinearity occurs for coupled pulse energies up to 230 pJ. A π phase shift, the minimum necessary for an all-optical switch, is obtained for a coupled pulse energy of 57 pJ while the maximum phase shift, 4 π, was measured for 230 pJ. The SPM spectra were highly asymmetric with pulse energy shifted to higher frequencies. Such spectra are characteristic of a slow, negative nonlinearity. This relatively slow speed is expected for the unbiased guide as the recovery time will be of the order of the recombination time of the photogenerated electrons, about 1 ns for InGaAsP material. In order to reduce the recovery time of the nonlinearity, it is necessary to remove the photogenerated carriers from the waveguide by a process other than recombination. One such technique is to apply a reverse bias to the waveguide in order to sweep the carriers out. Figure 3 shows the effect on the recovery time of the nonlinearity of applying reverse bias to the waveguide for 230 pJ coupled power. The recovery time was reduced from one much longer than the length of the pulse, estimated to be about 1 ns, at zero bias to 18 ± 3 ps for a bias voltage greater than -4 V. This compares with a value of 24 ps obtained in a bulk waveguide.

Evaluation of two-phase induction motor drives for low-cost applications

An experimental evaluation of small two-phase induction motor drives operating with different inverter topologies is described. Results show that a PWM-based four-switch inverter, having only low-side switches is attractive for high-speed low-cost applications where speeds greater than those that can be obtained using single phase induction motors are required.

Analytic model for turn off in the silicon-on-insulator LIGBT

Lateral insulated gate bipolar transistors (LIGBTs) in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) show a unique turn off characteristic when compared to junction-isolated RESURF LIGBTs or vertical IGBTs. The turn off characteristic shows an extended `terrace' where, after the initial fast transient characteristic of IGBTs due to the loss of the electron current, the current stays almost at the same value for an extended period of time, before suddenly dropping to zero. In this paper, we show that this terrace arises because there is a value of LIGBT current during switch off where the rate of expansion of the depletion region with respect to the anode current is infinite. Once this level of anode current is approached, the depletion region starts to expand very rapidly, and is only stopped when it reaches the n-type buffer layer surrounding the anode. Once this happens, the current rapidly drops to zero. A quasi-static analytic model is derived to explain this behaviour. The analytically modelled turn off characteristic agrees well with that found by numerical simulation.

10-Gbits/s all-optical 3R regeneration and format conversion using a gain-switched DFB laser

A strain-compensated multiple quantum well device is used as a DFB laser, this has been optimized for low jitter gain switched operation at 10 GHz. The signal is transmitted down 80 km of standard fiber then amplified, filtered and polarization controlled before being injected into a DFB laser. The purpose of this regeneration process is to gain switch the DFB with the extracted clock signal in order to retime the converted signal. This process also simultaneously converts the input NRZ format to an output RZ data to format and results in a signal whose optical power and extinction ratio are considerably improved by the regeneration process.

Bimesogenic liquid crystals: New materials for high performance flexoelectric and blue phase displays

In this paper we will describe new bimesogenic nematic liquid crystals that have high flexoelectro-optic coefficients (e/K),of the order of 1.5 CN 1 m-1, high switching angles, up to 100° and fast response times, of the order of 100μs or less. We will describe devices constructed, using the ULH texture that may be switched to the optimum angle of 45° for a birefringence based device with the fields of 4Vμm-1 over a wide temperature range. Such devices use an "in plane" optical switching mode, have gray scale capability and a wide viewing angle. We will describe devices using the USH or Grandjean texture that have an optically isotropic "field off" black state, uses "in plane" switching E fields, to give an induced birefringence phase device, with switching times of the order of 20μs. We will briefly describe new highly reflective Blue Phase devices stable over a 50V temperature range in which an electric field is used to switch the reflection from red to green, for example. Full RGB reflections may be obtained with switching times of a few milliseconds. Finally we will briefly mention potential applications including high efficiency RGB liquid crystal laser sources. © 2006 SID.

Low-cost, scalable optical packet switching networks with multi-wavelength labels

We propose a self-forwarding packet-switched optical network with bit-parallel multi-wavelength labels. We experimentally demonstrate transmission of variable-length optical packets over 80 km of fiber and switching over a 1×4 multistage switch with two stages. © 2007 Optical Society of America.

An experimental semi-active anti-roll system

The use of anti-roll bars to provide additional roll stiffness and therefore to reduce the trade-off between ride and rollover performance has previously been studied. However, little work has been carried out to investigate the benefits of a switchable roll stiffness. Such a semi-active anti-roll system has the ability to have a low roll stiffness during straight-ahead driving for improved ride performance and high roll stiffness during cornering for improved roll performance. Modelling of such a system is conducted and the model is validated against a semi-active anti-roll system fitted to an experimental vehicle. Experimental and theoretical investigations are used to investigate the performance of such a system with several different strategies employed to switch to the high-stiffness state. The use of an air suspension on the vehicle to roll into corners is also investigated, as is the possibility of exploiting the road layout by allowing the vehicle to be in a low-roll-stiffness configuration during a corner, and then to switch to the high-roll-stiffness configuration midcorner, hence 'locking in' a roll angle. The best rollover performance improvement that was achieved was 12.5 per cent. © IMechE 2008.

High tilt angle FLC SLM for optical interconnects

The use of high tilt angle FLC SLM for optical interconnects was discussed. The transmissive SLM was designed as a 320×1 pixels glass SLM with 20 μm pitch pixels and 2 μm pixel deadspace. The SLM was fabricated using standard class 100 cleanroom facilities to make a glass on glass 1D SLM. The results show that a N×N optical switch can be built using the two-hologram architecture.

Control of Arabidopsis flowering: the chill before the bloom.

The timing of the floral transition has significant consequences for reproductive success in plants. Plants gauge both environmental and endogenous signals before switching to reproductive development. Many temperate species only flower after they have experienced a prolonged period of cold, a process known as vernalization, which aligns flowering with the favourable conditions of spring. Considerable progress has been made in understanding the molecular basis of vernalization in Arabidopsis. A central player in this process is FLC, which blocks flowering by inhibiting genes required to switch the meristem from vegetative to floral development. Recent data shows that many regulators of FLC alter chromatin structure or are involved in RNA processing.

Impedance control is tuned to multiple directions of movement

Humans are able to learn tool-handling tasks, such as carving, demonstrating their competency to make and vary the direction of movements in unstable environments. It has been shown that when a single reaching movement is repeated in unstable dynamics, the central nervous system (CNS) learns an impedance internal model to compensate for the environment instability. However, there is still no explanation for how humans can learn to move in various directions in such environments. In this study, we investigated whether and how humans compensate for instability while learning two different reaching movements simultaneously. Results show that when performing movements in two different directions, separated by a 35° angle, the CNS was able to compensate for the unstable dynamics. After adaptation, the force was found to be similar to the free movement condition, but stiffness increased in the direction of instability, specifically for each direction of movement. Our findings suggest that the CNS either learned an internal model generalizing over different movements, or alternatively that it was able to switch between specific models acquired simultaneously. © 2008 IEEE.

Compact holographic optical interconnections using nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulators

In a fibre-optic communication network, the wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) technique enables an expansion of the data-carrying capacity of optical fibres. This can be achieved by transmitting different channels on a single optical fibre, with each channel modulating a different wavelength. In order to access and manipulate these channels at a node of the network, a compact holographic optical switch is designed, modelled, and constructed. The structure of such a switch consists of a series of optical components which are used to collimate the beam from the input, de-multiplex each individual wavelength into separated channels, manipulate the separated channels, and reshape the beam to the output. A spatial light modulator (SLM) is crucial in this system, offering control and flexibility at the channel manipulation stage, and providing the ability to redirect light into the desired output fibre. This is achieved by the use of a 2-D analogue phase computer generated hologram (CGH) based on liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technology. © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Impedance control is selectively tuned to multiple directions of movement

Humans are able to learn tool-handling tasks, such as carving, demonstrating their competency to make movements in unstable environments with varied directions. When faced with a single direction of instability, humans learn to selectively co-contract their arm muscles tuning the mechanical stiffness of the limb end point to stabilize movements. This study examines, for the first time, subjects simultaneously adapting to two distinct directions of instability, a situation that may typically occur when using tools. Subjects learned to perform reaching movements in two directions, each of which had lateral instability requiring control of impedance. The subjects were able to adapt to these unstable interactions and switch between movements in the two directions; they did so by learning to selectively control the end-point stiffness counteracting the environmental instability without superfluous stiffness in other directions. This finding demonstrates that the central nervous system can simultaneously tune the mechanical impedance of the limbs to multiple movements by learning movement-specific solutions. Furthermore, it suggests that the impedance controller learns as a function of the state of the arm rather than a general strategy. © 2011 the American Physiological Society.

Hybrid model predictive control applied to switching control of burner load for a compact marine boi

This paper discusses the application of hybrid model predictive control to control switching between different burner modes in a novel compact marine boiler design. A further purpose of the present work is to point out problems with finite horizon model predictive control applied to systems for which the optimal solution is a limit cycle. Regarding the marine boiler control the aim is to find an optimal control strategy which minimizes a trade-off between deviations in boiler pressure and water level from their respective setpoints while limiting burner switches.The approach taken is based on the Mixed Logic Dynamical framework. The whole boiler systems is modelled in this framework and a model predictive controller is designed. However to facilitate on-line implementation only a small part of the search tree in the mixed integer optimization is evaluated to find out whether a switch should occur or not. The strategy is verified on a simulation model of the compact marine boiler for control of low/high burner load switches. It is shown that even though performance is adequate for some disturbance levels it becomes deteriorated when the optimal solution is a limit cycle. Copyright © 2007 International Federation of Automatic Control All Rights Reserved.

Adaptive lenses based on polarization modulation

We present and demonstrate a technique for producing a high-speed variable focus lens using a fixed birefringent lens and a ferroelectric liquid crystal cell as a polarization switch. A calcite lenses with ordinary and extraordinary focal lengths of 109mm and 88mm respectively, was used to demonstrate focus switching at frequencies of up to 3kHz. Two identical lenses and a single liquid crystal were also used to demonstrate zoom.