Chemical durability and surface alteration of lanthanide zirconates (A2Zr2O7: A = La-Yb)

Chemical durability of lanthanide zirconates (A₂Zr₂O₇) (A = La-Yb) under near-field environments is important for evaluating their application as potential nuclear waste forms. In this work, A₂Zr₂O₇ (A = La-Yb) are synthesized by spark plasma sintering with controlled microstructure and their chemical durability are evaluated in a nitric acid solution (pH = 1). Scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis reveals an amorphous passivation film either enriched with Zr or lanthanide. The complex chemistry of the passivation films can be correlated with a transition in corrosion mechanisms from a preferential release of lanthanide in La₂Zr₂O₇ to a preferential release of Zr in Er₂Zr₂O₇ and Yb₂Zr₂O₇. These results suggest a dominant mechanism of incongruent dissolution and surface reorganization for the formation of passivation films. Strong correlations are identified between the leaching rates and cation ionic size, ionic potential, electronegativity differences between A-site cation and Zr, and bonding valence sum of oxygen, suggesting important impacts of structural and bonding characteristics in controlling chemical durability of lanthanide zirconates.     

从蚕的生命到艺术：中国古代生命观的哲学表达

中国考古出土的蚕业实物及蚕的艺术形象比较丰富,蚕的艺术形象如蚕纹、陶蚕蛹、牙雕蚕、玉石蚕、铜蚕、金蚕等,可统称为"蚕的模拟形态"。对蚕的模拟形态的功用,已有的诸多解释都有待完善。研究表明,蚕的模拟形态或艺术形象表达的功用或为饰品,或为装饰图案,或有待进一步考究。但无论哪种功用,用"蚕"这一形象都蕴含了特有的用意。通过对中国古代生命观的考察,文章认为蚕的艺术形象折射出相应的中国古代哲学生命观,即中国古人追求的死而复生、生生不息、羽化成仙、长乐无极等观念。     

Exploring the feasibility of green hydrogen production using excess energy from a country-scale 100% solar-wind renewable energy system

When planning large-scale 100% renewable energy systems (RES) for the year 2050, the system capacity is usually oversized for better supply-demand matching of electrical energy since solar and wind resources are highly intermittent. This causes excessive excess energy that is typically dissipated, curtailed, or sold directly. The public literature shows a lack of studies on the feasibility of using this excess for country-scale co-generation. This study presents the first investigation of utilizing this excess to generate green hydrogen gas. The concept is demonstrated for Jordan using three solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, and hybrid PV-wind RESs, all equipped with Lithium-Ion battery energy storage systems (ESSs), for hydrogen production using a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) system. The results show that the PV-based system has the highest demand-supply fraction (>99%). However, the wind-based system is more favorable economically, with installed RES, ESS, and PEM capacities of only 23.88 GW, 2542 GWh, and 20.66 GW. It also shows the highest hydrogen annual production rate (172.1 × 10³ tons) and the lowest hydrogen cost (1.082 USD/kg). The three systems were a better option than selling excess energy directly, where they ensure annual incomes up to 2.68 billion USD while having payback periods of as low as 1.78 years. Furthermore, the hydrogen cost does not exceed 2.03 USD/kg, which is significantly lower than the expected cost of hydrogen (3 USD/kg) produced using energy from fossil fuel-based systems in 2050.     

Bioecology of macrobenthic communities in the microtidal monsoonal Kodungallur–Azhikode Estuary,southwest coast of India

A comprehensive study of the macrobenthic communities in the Kodungallur–Azhikode Estuary (KAE) was conducted during 2009–2011 period. A total of 18,846 organisms were collected, with 60% being malacostracans, followed by polychaetes (20%), molluscs (9%) and ‘others’ group (11%). A total of 79 species in 71 genera belonging to 49 families were identified, with 33 spp. being polychaetes, 26 spp. being malacostracans, 11 spp. being molluscs and 9 spp. being in the ‘others’ group. A single species of opportunistic amphipod (Americorophium triaeonyx) comprised more than 62.05% of the total numerical abundance of macrobenthos. The other dominant species were Obelia bidentata, Arcuatula senhousia, Cirolana fluviatilis, Prionospio cirrifera and Capitella sp. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) results indicated environmental parameters such as water column salinity, turbidity, sediment Eh, substratum type, chlorophyll‐a concentration, depth and organic matter in sediment were the significant factors influencing the distribution of macrobenthic species in the KAE. The present study provides baseline information for future KAE benthic studies.     

Adaptive fuzzy control for nontriangular form systems with time-varying full-state constraints

This article investigates an adaptive fuzzy tracking control problem for a class of nontriangular form systems with asymmetric time-varying full state constraints. Unknown functions are approximated by the fuzzy logic systems. A domination approach is employed to tackle the nontriangular form structure. Time-varying asymmetric barrier Lyapunov functions (ABLFs) are adopted to ensure full-state constraints satisfaction. Based on the backstepping technique and time-varying ABLFs, an adaptive controller is proposed and guarantees that all the signals in the closed-loop system are ultimately bounded and the time-varying full state constraints are met. Simulation examples are presented to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

A computer aided design method for car form and its application based on shape parameters

In the early design stage, automotive modeling should both meet the requirements of aesthetics and engineering. Therefore, a vehicle CAD (computer aided design) model that can be easily adjusted by feedbacks is necessary. Based on CE-Bézier surface, this paper presents a set of algorithms for parametric segmentation and fairing surface generation in a car model. This model is defined by a simplified automotive template and relevant control points, shape parameters and segmentation parameters, which can be modified to alter the car form efficiently. With this model and the corresponding adjustment method, more than fifty various vehicle models are established in this research according to different parameters. And two methods for calculating similarity index between car models are constructed, which are suitable for brand design trend analysis and modelling design decisionmaking.     

郭庄煤业选煤厂振动筛筛选形式的优化研究

针对郭庄煤业选煤厂振动筛振动筛分方式可靠性差、筛分效率低下、物料筛分率低的难题,本文提出了三种新的振动筛分方案,对不同筛分方案的实际应用效果进行了分析。结果表明三移动一摆动的振动筛分方式对物料的综合分散度最高,稳定性好,该筛分方案已在郭庄煤业选煤厂煤炭筛分过程中得到了全面的应用。     

Novel DDoS Feature Representation Model Combining Deep Belief Network and Canonical Correlation Analysis

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks launch more and more frequently and are more destructive. Feature representation as an important part of DDoS defense technology directly affects the efficiency of defense. Most DDoS feature extraction methods cannot fully utilize the information of the original data, resulting in the extracted features losing useful features. In this paper, a DDoS feature representation method based on deep belief network (DBN) is proposed. We quantify the original data by the size of the network flows, the distribution of IP addresses and ports, and the diversity of packet sizes of different protocols and train the DBN in an unsupervised manner by these quantified values. Two feedforward neural networks (FFNN) are initialized by the trained deep belief network, and one of the feedforward neural networks continues to be trained in a supervised manner. The canonical correlation analysis (CCA) method is used to fuse the features extracted by two feedforward neural networks per layer. Experiments show that compared with other methods, the proposed method can extract better features.