Growth mechanism and gas-sensing characteristics of organic-additive-free zinc oxide of various shapes

Zinc oxide is widely used in gas sensors, solar cells, and photocatalysts because of its wide bandgap and exciton binding energy of 60 meV in various metal oxides. To use ZnO as a gas sensor, it is necessary to synthesize it with surface defects and a large specific surface area. In this study, hydrothermal synthesis without surfactants was employed to obtain organic-additive-free ZnO. For morphology control, we varied the ratio of the hydroxide ion concentration to the zinc ion concentration. To confirm the growth mechanism of ZnO, we performed X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy analyses. Raman spectroscopy and photoluminescence measurements were performed to analyze the surface properties. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method and probe stations were used to measure the specific surface area and sensitivity of the gas sensor, respectively. The results confirmed that flower-shaped ZnO is the most suitable gas-sensing material.     

一种基于全变分技术和Lp伪范数的椒盐噪声去除方法

针对传统各向同性全变分（Isotropy total variation，ITV）去噪算法容易导致图像边缘模糊、不易保持图像细节信息等问题，提出一种基于L _p 伪范数和各向同性全变分的图像去噪方法。该方法将L _p 伪范数代替ITV模型中的L ₁范数，利用交替方向乘子算法（Alternating direction method of multipliers, ADMM）将能量泛函拆解成若干个子问题，并将差分算子视为卷积算子；然后引入卷积定理和快速傅里叶变换(Fast Fourier transform, FFT)提高算法运算效率；最后通过Matlab进行仿真实验，运用图像质量的客观和主观评价方法进行评价分析。结果表明，本文方法能够较好地保留图像的边缘特性，有效提升去噪效果。     

The control of paracetamol particle size and surface morphology through crystallisation in a spray dryer

The parameters governing the crystallisation of paracetamol using various conventional techniques has been extensively studied, however the factors influencing the drug crystallisation using spray drying is not as well understood. The aim of this work was to investigate the crystallisation of an active pharmaceutical ingredient through evaporative crystallisation using a spray dryer to study the physicochemical properties of the drug and to use semi-empirical equations to gain insight into the morphology and particle size of the dried powder. Paracetamol solutions were spray dried at various inlet temperatures ranging from 60 °C to 120 °C and also from a series of inlet feed solvent compositions ranging from 50/50% v/v ethanol/water to 100% ethanol and solid-state characterisation was done. The size and morphology of the dried materials were altered with a change in spray drying parameters, with an increase in inlet temperature leading to an increase in particle Sauter mean diameter (from 3.0 to 4.4 µm) and a decrease in the particle size with an increase in ethanol concentration in the feed (from 4.6 to 4.4 µm) as a result of changes in particle density and atomised droplet size. The morphology of the dried particles consisted of agglomerates of individual crystallites bound together into larger semi-spherical agglomerates with a higher tendency for particles having crystalline ridges to form at higher ethanol concentrations of the feed.     

A mechanism informed neural network for predicting machining deformation of annular parts

Controlling machining deformation of annular parts is crucial for ensuring the performance of high value products and equipment. For example, during manufacturing of critical parts in aircrafts and spacecrafts, accurate prediction of machining deformation is the basis for guiding the formulation of deformation control strategies. However, due to the complexity of the machining deformation of annular parts, existing methods still have limitations in accurate prediction. To this end, this paper proposes a mechanism informed neural network (MINN) to predict machining deformation of annular parts. MINN is realized by establishing the dual sub-networks structure and using enhanced loss functions with the consideration of the deformation mechanism model characteristics of annular parts. The deformation was decomposed into the axisymmetric portion and the non-axisymmetric portion according to the deformation superposition principle, and modeled separately based on the thin-shell theory and Fourier series. Experiment results showed that the proposed method could predict the machining deformation of annular parts more accurately and stably with a small amount of training data, compared with previous methods.     

Evaluation of particle recovery from microalgae

Coccoliths are micro-structured biomineral particles found in cell protective covering layers of coccolithophore species. They are mainly composed of CaCO₃ and their individual crystal entities are arranged in such a way that they construct complex and unique structures. This complexity is found down to the individual particle level and appears to have promising properties to offer. This study focuses on the essential step prior to any kind of implementation, which is the recovery of the material. It summarizes cleaning protocols found in literature, compares them for the first time for the same freshly cultivated material and addresses challenges that still need to be overcome. Further, it highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the best cleaning protocols, suggests optimizations with promising results and uses size distribution measurements to analyse the recovery efficiency. To that end, further characterization techniques, new for coccoliths, are introduced and used to improve our current knowledge of the particles behaviour.     

一种酰胺类沥青乳化剂的制备及性能研究

首先通过脂肪酸与酸酐反应，得到多元羧酸中间体，再将其与改性多乙烯多胺经过一系列反应合成一种酰胺类沥青乳化剂，采用傅里叶红外光谱对乳化剂结构进行表征。实验室对比测试了自制乳化剂与进口乳化剂的表面活性及其所制乳化沥青的性能。结果表明：两种乳化剂制备乳化沥青的各项性能指标均可满足微表处施工技术要求，且自制乳化剂具有较高的固含量和较好的储存稳定性，乳化沥青8 min即可破乳，用于微表处养护可快速开放交通；自制乳化剂价格仅为进口乳化剂的76.4%左右，应用前景良好。     

Eliciting and measuring hesitance in decision-making

Hesitance is an innate human psychological phenomenon pervasive in our daily life. Although it is very complex and still not fully understood, there have been many studies related to this interesting topic. In this study, we proposed two fundamental problems about hesitance: the first is the generating problem, which is related to how to elicit hesitance information from human thinking; the second is the measuring problem, which is related to how to devise effective and reasonable methods to measure hesitance degrees from given hesitance information. With these two fundamental questions, we first discussed and analyzed several examples in real life involving hesitance, showing that it can indeed be recorded and represented. Then we roughly classified the hesitance information into two major classes: static hesitance and dynamic hesitance. Some simple and interesting methods were proposed to elicit hesitance, and more reasonable methods were proposed to measure the hesitance degree from the two classes of hesitance information. All methods that have been discussed in this study try to avoid complexity in every aspect while reserving strictness and reasonability; therefore, the present study provides suitable information for practitioners with different backgrounds.     

基于多尺度结构特征的快速异源图像匹配

针对异源图像提出一种基于多尺度密集结构特征的快速匹配算法。算法首先利用Gabor滤波器逐像素提取图像中的结构响应,再根据主方向响应对多尺度结构特征融合,然后使用快速傅里叶变换在频域计算各特征分量图像之间的卷积,最后将卷积生成的系数矩阵求和计算出图像之间的相似性并选择相似性最大位置作为匹配结果输出。本文算法能有效适应异源图像间的非线性灰度变化和噪声干扰问题。测试使用可见光、红外、雷达图像组成的异源图像数据集对本文算法和现有算法进行测试比较,结果表明:本文算法的平均误匹配率最低,并且计算速度有明显优势。