Synthesis of Ultrasmall Cu2 O Nanocubes and Octahedra with Tunable Sizes for Facet-Dependent Optical Property Examination.

Size-tunable small to ultrasmall Cu2 O nanocubes and octahedra are synthesized in aqueous solution without the introduction of any surfactant. These nanocrystals provide strong evidence of the existence of facet-dependent optical absorption properties of Cu2 O nanoparticles, showing nanocubes always have a more redshifted absorption band than that of octahedra having a similar volume by about 15 nm.

Formation of Silver Rhombic Dodecahedra, Octahedra, and Cubes through Pseudomorphic Conversion of Ag2O Crystals with Nitroarene Reduction Activity.

Using ethanol as a co-solvent, relatively small-sized Ag2O octahedra (∼645 nm in opposite corner distance) and rhombic dodecahedra (∼540 and 655 nm in opposite face distance) were synthesized in aqueous solutions. Ag2O cubes synthesized in an aqueous solution have an edge length of ∼425 nm. Band gaps of these crystals have been obtained, revealing the presence of facet-dependent light absorption properties. The Ag2O rhombic dodecahedra, octahedra, and cubes were treated with ammonia borane in ethanol at 50 °C for just 10 min to pseudomorphically convert to Ag polyhedra of the corresponding morphologies. Transmission electron microscopy characterization confirms that the Ag cubes, octahedra, and rhombic dodecahedra are bound by the {100}, {111}, and {110} faces, respectively. The Ag rhombic dodecahedra, available for the first time, showed more superior catalytic activity toward 4-nitroaniline reduction at 50 °C than Ag octahedra and cubes, and gave 100% product yield after 1 h of reaction. This work demonstrates the value of forming Ag rhombic dodecahedra, exposing {110} surfaces that may be useful in other organic transformations.

Facet-Dependent Electrical Conductivity Properties of Silver Oxide Crystals.

Ag2 O cubes, truncated octahedra, rhombic dodecahedra, and rhombicuboctahedra were synthesized in aqueous solution. Two tungsten probes were brought into contact with a single particle for electrical conductivity measurements. Strongly facet-dependent electrical conductivity behaviors have been observed. The {111} faces are most conductive. The {100} faces are moderately conductive. The {110} faces are nearly non-conductive. When electrodes contacted two different facets of a rhombicuboctahedron, asymmetrical I-V curves were obtained. The {111} and {110} combination gives the best I-V curve expected for a p-n junction with current flowing in one direction through the crystal but not in the opposite direction. Density of states (DOS) plots for varying number of different lattice planes of Ag2 O match with the experimental results, suggesting that the {111} faces are most electrically conductive. The thicknesses of the thin surface layer responsible for the facet-dependent properties of Ag2 O crystals have been determined.

An effective and efficient compression algorithm for ECG signals with irregular periods.

This paper presents an effective and efficient preprocessing algorithm for two-dimensional (2-D) electrocardiogram (ECG) compression to better compress irregular ECG signals by exploiting their inter- and intra-beat correlations. To better reveal the correlation structure, we first convert the ECG signal into a proper 2-D representation, or image. This involves a few steps including QRS detection and alignment, period sorting, and length equalization. The resulting 2-D ECG representation is then ready to be compressed by an appropriate image compression algorithm. We choose the state-of-the-art JPEG2000 for its high efficiency and flexibility. In this way, the proposed algorithm is shown to outperform some existing arts in the literature by simultaneously achieving high compression ratio (CR), low percent root mean squared difference (PRD), low maximum error (MaxErr), and low standard derivation of errors (StdErr). In particular, because the proposed period sorting method rearranges the detected heartbeats into a smoother image that is easier to compress, this algorithm is insensitive to irregular ECG periods. Thus either the irregular ECG signals or the QRS false-detection cases can be better compressed. This is a significant improvement over existing 2-D ECG compression methods. Moreover, this algorithm is not tied exclusively to JPEG2000. It can also be combined with other 2-D preprocessing methods or appropriate codecs to enhance the compression performance in irregular ECG cases.

Synthesis of Diverse Ag2O Crystals and Their Facet-Dependent Photocatalytic Activity Examination.

Sub- to micrometer-sized Ag2O cubes, great rhombicuboctahedra, cuboctahedra, corner-truncated octahedra, octahedra, and rhombic dodecahedra have been synthesized at room temperature using simple molar ratios of NH4NO3, NaOH, and AgNO3 solutions with a short reaction time. In addition, tuning the concentration of NH3 in the solution can provide more particle morphologies including edge- and corner-truncated cubes, small rhombicuboctahedra, and edge-truncated octahedra to enrich Ag2O shape diversity. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra indicate surface composition of various crystals as pure Ag2O. Diffuse reflectance spectra have been used to determine the band gap of Ag2O cubes. Ag2O cubes, octahedra, and rhombic dodecahedra having the same total particle surface area were used for facet-dependent photocatalytic activity comparison in the degradation of methyl orange. Cubes are comparably highly active for this reaction, while octahedra and rhombic dodecahedra give moderate and low catalytic activities, respectively. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements confirm this reactivity order. Although all Ag2O samples show significant etching during photocatalysis, metallic silver is not produced.

A wavelet-based approximation of surface coil sensitivity profiles for correction of image intensity inhomogeneity and parallel imaging reconstruction.

We evaluate a wavelet-based algorithm to estimate the coil sensitivity modulation from surface coils. This information is used to improve the image homogeneity of magnetic resonance imaging when a surface coil is used for reception, and to increase image encoding speed by reconstructing images from under-sampled (aliased) acquisitions using parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods for higher spatiotemporal image resolutions. The proposed algorithm estimates the spatial sensitivity profile of surface coils from the original anatomical images directly without using the body coil for additional reference scans or using coil position markers for electromagnetic model-based calculations. No prior knowledge about the anatomy is required for the application of the algorithm. The estimation of the coil sensitivity profile based on the wavelet transform of the original image data was found to provide a robust method for removing the slowly varying spatial sensitivity pattern of the surface coil image and recovering full FOV images from two-fold acceleration in 8-channel parallel MRI. The results, using bi-orthogonal Daubechies 97 wavelets and other members in this family, are evaluated for T1-weighted and T2-weighted brain imaging.