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The invention is directed to a copolymer comprising at least three types of monomeric units, said three types of monomeric units comprising: a temperature-sensitive unit, a hydrophilic unit, and a hydrophobic unit comprising at least one pH-sensitive moiety; wherein said hydrophobic monomeric unit is derived from a copolymerizable unsaturated fatty acid.

In an electro-optic device, a stack structure including a first silicon layer of a first conductivity type and a second silicon layer of a second conductivity type has a rib waveguide shape so as to form an optical confinement area, and a slab portion of a rib waveguide includes an area to which a metal electrode is connected. The slab portion in the area to which the metal electrode is connected is thicker than a surrounding slab portion. The area to which the metal electrode is connected is set so that a range of a distance from the rib waveguide to the area to which the metal electrode is connected is such that when the distance is changed, an effective refractive index of the rib waveguide in a zeroth-order mode does not change.

A method of modifying a substrate for deposition of charged particles thereon, the method comprising the steps of: providing a substrate that is incapable of bonding to a polyelectrolyte coating that has a charge that is opposite to the charge of the particles that are to be deposited thereon; modifying the surface of the substrate to provide a layer of silicon thereon or therein; and coating the silicon layered surface of the substrate with the polyelectrolyte coating, the polyelectrolyte coating containing functional groups that are capable of forming bonds with said silicon layer and wherein said polyelectrolyte coating enables a substantially even distribution of said charged particles to be deposited thereon.

A copolymer defines interconnected pores and comprises polymerized monomers. The monomers comprise a first monomer more hydrophilic than 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), and a second monomer as hydrophilic as, or less hydrophilic than, HEMA. In a method of forming a polymer, a bicontinuous microemulsion comprising water, a surfactant, and a combination of monomers copolymerizable for forming a porous copolymer is provided. The combination of monomers comprises the first and second monomers. The monomers in the bicontinuous microemulsion are polymerized to form the porous copolymer. The first monomer may comprise N-vinylpyrrolidone (NVP) or methacrylic acid (MAA). The second monomer may comprise HEMA or methyl methacrylate (MMA).

A process for forming a composite film on a substrate comprises providing a suspension comprising an ionised polymer and functionalised carbon nanotubes in a solvent, at least partially immersing the substrate and a counterelectrode in the suspension, and applying a voltage between the substrate and the counterelectrode so as to form the composite film on the substrate. Electrical charges on the polymer and on the nanotubes have the same sign and the voltage is applied such that the charge on the substrate has the opposite sign to the charge on the polymer and the nanotubes.

A covalently crosslinked hydrogel comprises a) three or more divalent poly(alkylene oxide) chains P? covalently linked at respective first end units to a branched first core group C?, b) three or more divalent poly(alkylene oxide) chains P? covalently linked at respective first end units to a branched second core group C?, the chains P? comprising respective second end units which are covalently linked to between 0% and 100% of respective second end units of chains P? by divalent linking groups L?, and c) at least one pendant cationic block copolymer chain A?-B?. A?-B? comprises i) a divalent block A? comprising a poly(alkylene oxide) backbone chain having an end unit covalently linked to a second end unit of one of the chains P? by a divalent linking group L?, and ii) a monovalent block B? comprising a first repeat unit, the first repeat unit comprising a backbone carbonate group and a cationic side chain group.

A biodegradable block copolymer is disclosed, comprising a hydrophilic block derived from a polyether alcohol; and a hydrophobic block comprising a first repeat unit derived by ring opening polymerization of a first cyclic carbonyl monomer initiated by the polyether alcohol, the first repeat unit comprising a side chain moiety comprising a functional group selected from the group consisting of i) urea groups and ii) mixtures of urea groups and carboxylic acid groups. No side chain of the hydrophobic block comprises a covalently bound biologically active material. The block copolymer self-assembles in water forming micelles suitable for sequestering a biologically active material by a non-covalent interaction, and the block copolymer is 60% biodegraded within 180 days in accordance with ASTM D6400.

The present invention provides new ferroelectric ceramic materials which can be sintered at a temperature lower than that of the conventional ferroelectric ceramic materials and upon sintering, devices formed of the new ferroelectric ceramic materials possesses excellent piezoelectric properties which are suitable for many industrial applications. The ferroelectric ceramic material includes a composition with a general formula of wPb(Ni1/3Nb2/3)O3-xPb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3-yPb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-zPbZrO3-(1-w-x-y-z)PbTiO3, in which 0<w<1, 0<x<1, 0@y<1, 0<z<1, w+x+y+z<1, and 0.5@w+x+y. A method of preparing a ferroelectric ceramic material includes preparing MgNb2O6, ZnNb2O6 and NiNb2O6 powder precursors, mixing the precursors with PbO, TiO2 and ZrO2 to form a mixture and calcining the mixture.

A system and method for processing brain signals in a BCI system. The method of processing brain signals in a BCI system includes the steps of processing the brain signals for control state detection to determine if a subject intends to use the BCI system; and processing the brain signals for command recognition if the control state detection method determines that the subject intends to use the BCI system.

A method for encoding a digital signal into a scalable bitstream comprising quantizing the digital signal, and encoding the quantized signal to form a core-layer bitstream, performing an error mapping based on the digital signal and the core-layer bitstream to remove information that has been encoded into the core-layer bitstream, resulting in an error signal, bit-plane coding the error signal based on perceptual information of the digital signal, resulting in an enhancement-layer bitstream, wherein the perceptual information of the digital signal is determined using a perceptual model, and multiplexing the core-layer bitstream and the enhancement-layer bitstream, thereby generating the scalable bitstream. A method for decoding a scalable bitstream into a digital signal comprising de-multiplexing the scalable bitstream into a core-layer bitstream and an enhancement-layer bitstream, decoding and de-quantizing the core-layer bitstream to generate a core-layer signal, bit-plane decoding the enhancement-layer bitstream based on perceptual information of the digital signal, and performing an error mapping based on the bit-plane decoded enhancement-layer bitstream and the de-quantized core-layer signal, resulting in an reconstructed transformed signal, wherein the reconstructed transformed signal is the digital signal.