Effect of air annealing on the optical properties and luminescence performance of Ce:YAG ceramics for light-emitting diodes at different Ce concentrations

(Y_1-x%Ce_x%)₃Al₅O₁₂ (x = 0.2,0.4,0.6,0.8,1.0) transparent ceramics were fabricated by vacuum sintering technology, followed by air annealing at different temperatures. Transmittance of ceramics, valence of cerium, and luminescent properties with varying annealing temperatures are studied in detail. The negative effect of Ce³⁺ oxidation induced by annealing gets increasingly evident when Ce concentration increases. Collaborating Ce:YAG ceramics with InGaN blue chips, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with superior performance were constructed. The relationships between Ce concentration, annealing temperature, and luminous flux of LEDs are elucidated, showing that the optimized annealing temperature of Ce:YAG ceramics decreases from 1200 °C to 900 °C as Ce concentration increases from 0.2 at% to 1.0 at%. The luminous fluxes of optimized LEDs increase by ～10 % compared with that of unannealed LEDs.     

A state-of-the-art review on the elaboration of fish gelatin as bioactive packaging: Special emphasis on nanotechnology-based approaches

BackgroundThe last decade has noticed the expansion of green materials, which aims to reduce the human impact on the environment. Green polymers are clearly tendency subdivision of this stream and numerous bio-sourced plastics have been developed. Recent research has further focused on the development of new bio-based materials such as edible/biodegradable films for food products.Scope and approachFish gelatin (FG), a protein with recreatable reserve, biodegradability, and processability, has a remarkable potential in bio-packaging. However, there have been noticeable issues concerning the use of FG as packing material, including its low mechanical strength, poor moisture stability, and poor water barrier properties. This paper aims to review the state-of-the-art in development of FG-based films and highlights how they play a crucial role in modifying the properties of such films. Various types of nanofillers that have been included into FG to fabricate bio-nanocomposite films, such as nanoclays (montmorillonite, sepiolite), polysaccharide nanofillers (nanowhiskers/nanofibers), metal ions (silver, copper) and metal oxides nanoparticles (ZnO, TiO₂) are reviewed.Key findings and conclusionsCross-linking is a promising technique to improve the performance and applicability of FG-based biomaterials, particularly respecting their water sensitivity, which hinders many of their potential uses as food contact materials. Bio-nanocomposite technology may help to make high-performance materials with extra bio-functional properties, and it is anticipated to be a dynamic research in the future. In general, more research is required to ameliorate application processes of FG films, especially physical aspects, to be suitable for bio-packaging application.     

First demonstration of photoelectrochemical water splitting by commercial W–Cu powder metallurgy parts converted to highly porous 3D WO3/W skeletons

Hydrogen evolution through photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting by tungsten oxide-based photoanodes, as a stable and environmental-friendly material with moderate band gap, has attracted significant interest in recent years. The performance of WO₃ photoanode could be hindered by its poor oxygen evolution reaction kinetics and high charge carrier recombination rate. Additionally, scalable and cost-effective commercial procedure to prepare nanostructured electrodes is still challenging. We present, for the first time, a novel and scalable method to fabricate highly efficient self-supported WO₃/W nanostructured photoanodes from commercial W–Cu powder metallurgy (P/M) parts for water splitting. The electrodes were prepared by electrochemical etching of Cu networks followed by hydrothermal growth of WO₃ nanoflakes. Interconnected channels of W skeleton provided high active surface area for the growth of WO₃ nanoflakes with a thickness of ~40 nm and lateral dimension of ~250 nm. The optimized photoelectrode having 35% interconnected porosity exhibited an impressive current density of 4.36 mA cm⁻² comprising a remarkable photocurrent of 1.71 mA cm⁻² at 1.23 V vs. RHE under 100 mW cm⁻² simulated sunlight. This achievement is amongst the highest reported photocurrents for WO₃ photoelectrodes with tungsten substrate reported so far. Impedance and Mott-Schottky analyses evidenced fast charge transfer, low recombination rate, and accelerated O₂ detachment provided by optimum 3D porous WO₃/W electrode. Due to the nature of the commercial P/M parts and low-temperature hydrothermal processing, the procedure is cost-effective and scalable which can pave a new route for the fabrication of highly porous and efficient water splitting electrodes.     

Flotation performance and adsorption mechanism of novel 1-(2-hydroxyphenyl)hex-2-en-1-one oxime flotation collector to malachite

A novel collector 1-(2-hydroxyphenyl)hex-2-en-1-one oxime (HPHO) was synthesized from 2-hydroxy acetophenone and butyraldehyde. Its flotation performance and adsorption mechanism to malachite were investigated by flotation test, zeta potential, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis techniques. Compared with benzohydroxamic acid (BA), 1-(2-hydroxyphenyl)ethan-1-one oxime (HPEO) and sodium isobutyl xanthate (SIBX), HPHO exhibited excellent collecting power to malachite without additional reagents, such as Na₂S regulator and methyl isobutyl carbinol (MIBC) frother. Results of zeta potential indicated that HPHO was coated on malachite surfaces through a chemisorption process. FTIR and XPS data gave clear evidence for the formation of Cu–oxime complex on malachite surfaces after HPHO adsorption through the linkage between C=C, –OH, N–OH group and Cu species.     

基于RSI的工业机器人开放式控制系统设计

为提高工业机器人的柔性化及智能化水平,同时满足数据的实时共享、监控,使控制系统具有可扩展性与可移植性,设计了一种基于x86平台和RSI的工业机器人开放式控制系统。引入RSI后可载入应用程序包,实现PC工控机与KUKA机器人系统的实时性数据交换。运用模块化设计思路,针对硬件系统,制定软件系统平台的各功能模块,配合Windows操作系统的数据处理能力,在保证工业机器人实时性的前提下,实现了功能的扩展性和增减性。该系统在KUKA工业机器人力反馈实验平台上进行了可行性验证,试验表明,此开放式控制系统的实时响应性良好,满足预期控制要求。     

The effects of the energy price reform on households consumption in Iran

The substantial subsidizing of energy prices over the years has led to high energy consumption, inefficiencies, fiscal pressures, and environmental problems in Iran. To address the increasing socio-economic problems associated with the energy subsidies, the government embarked on an aggressive energy price reform through which energy subsidies were removed and cash handouts were given to all households in 2010. In this paper, I analyze the effectiveness of the energy price reform in Iran by estimating energy demand elasticities for households in different income groups. I apply a two-stage consumer optimization model and estimate the system of energy expenditures shares using the household budget survey data for the period 2001–2008. The results show that the overall price elasticities of demand are small, but income elasticities are close to one. The results also indicate heterogeneous responses to energy price and income changes in different income groups. Specifically, the urban households show stronger response to price changes, but rural households, particularly mid-income households, to income changes. These findings suggest that the current policy of price increases would not solely be able to reduce energy consumption and, therefore, it should be geared towards increasing energy efficiency through a series of price and non-price measures.     

Efficient framework for mobile walkthrough application

The past few years have witnessed a dramatic growth in the number and variety of graphics intensive mobile applications, which allow users to interact and navigate through large scenes such as historical sites, museums and virtual cities. These applications support many clients and impose a heavy requirement on network resources and computational resources. One key issue in the design of cost efficient mobile walkthrough applications is the data transmission between servers and mobile client devices. In this paper, we propose an effective progressive mesh transmission framework that stores and divide scene objects into different resolutions. In this approach, each mobile device progressively receives and processes only the object’s details matching its display resolution which improves the overall system’s response time and the user’s perception. A fine grained cache mechanism is used to keep the most frequently requested objects’ details in the device memory and consequently reduce the network traffic. Experiments, in simulated and real world environment, are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework under various settings of the virtual scene and mobile device configuration. Experimental results show that the proposed framework can improve the walkthrough system performance in mobile devices, with a relatively small overhead.     

基于CapsNet的汉字字形表征模型

提出基于胶囊神经网络(CapsNet)的汉字字形表征模型,通过表征汉字字形中的部件实现汉字字形的表征.首先,对任一汉字字形生成所有部件类别的表征向量.然后,根据部件存在概率,利用基于欧氏距离的离群点检测,选取相应的部件表征向量.最后,由选出的部件表征向量组成该汉字的字形表征.实验表明,文中模型在仅经过部件字形训练的情况下,即可有效识别汉字部件,同时自动生成汉字字形的有效表征.     

地质聚合反应制团对低品位铜矿石高压辊破碎—生物浸出的影响

为使团聚体在酸性条件下保持稳定并提高浸出效率，对高压辊磨机破碎后的低品位铜矿石进行了地质聚合反应制团后的生物浸出研究。考察了地质聚合物凝胶对浸矿微生物氧化活性的影响，以及原料、团聚体和粗颗粒矿石在柱浸中的表现，并借助核磁共振波谱（NMR）和扫描电子显微镜（SEM）分析技术研究了团聚体的性质。结果表明：经高压辊磨机破碎的矿石制团后浸出，66 d浸出率为61%，而粗颗粒矿石在相同时间内浸出率仅为28%；地质聚合物凝胶不会减弱微生物的氧化活性；原料经制团后渗透性显著提高且团聚体在柱浸时能长时间保持稳定；地质聚合物凝胶的形成是团聚体在酸性条件下稳定的原因，且矿石颗粒以地质聚合反应团聚后，颗粒间仍存在有大量的孔隙和裂纹而利于浸出。高压辊磨机破碎后的低品位铜矿石经地质聚合反应制团后生物浸出可使得低品位铜矿石的提取更加高效，并被期望在堆浸中得到应用。