Ultrasmooth and Photoresist‐Free Micropore‐Based EGaIn Molecular Junctions: Fabrication and How Roughness Determines Voltage Response

In molecular electronics, it is critical to minimize the sources that can result in defective electrodes, such as contaminations related to the fabrication process (photoresist and organic residues) or roughening of the electrode during etching, because these defects hamper the formation of well‐organized molecular structures. Junctions based on micropores are desirable as they are scalable, but micropores are not fabricated on ultrasmooth template‐stripped electrodes, and may suffer from stray capacitances and leakage currents across the insulating matrix. A method is reported to fabricate micropores in AlO_x on template‐stripped Au based on a two‐step etch process so that the Au surface is not in direct contact with photoresistance during the fabrication process. These junctions do not suffer from stray capacitances or leakage currents, enable temperature variable measurements down to 8.5 K, have excellent current retention characteristics, and are stable for at least 2 months. By analyzing the normalized differential conductance curves and detailed comparison against junctions with cone‐shaped tips of EGaIn and EGaIn stabilized in a through‐hole in polydimethylsiloxane, how the surface roughness of top electrodes affects the effective contact area, influences the symmetry of the response of the junctions, and how the electrical characteristics scale with molecular length are established.     

CMOS-Compatible Electronic–Plasmonic Transducers Based on Plasmonic Tunnel Junctions and Schottky Diodes

To develop methods to generate, manipulate, and detect plasmonic signals by electrical means with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible materials is essential to realize on-chip electronic–plasmonic transduction. Here, electrically driven, CMOS-compatible electronic–plasmonic transducers with Al–AlO_X–Cu tunnel junctions as the excitation source of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) and Si–Cu Schottky diodes as the detector of SPPs, connected via plasmonic strip waveguides of Cu, are demonstrated. Remarkably, the electronic–plasmonic transducers exhibit overall transduction efficiency of 1.85 ± 0.03%, five times higher than previously reported transducers with two tunnel junctions (metal–insulator–metal (MIM)–MIM transducers) where SPPs are detected based on optical rectification. The result establishes a new platform to convert electronic signals to plasmonic signals via electrical means, paving the way toward CMOS-compatible plasmonic components.     

Redispersion Microreactor System for Phase Transfer‐Catalyzed Esterification

An interdigital mixer‐redispersion capillary assembly was applied to prevent the liquid‐liquid bubbly flow coalescence in microreactors. The redispersion capillary consisted of 1‐mm‐long 0.25 mm inner‐diameter constrictions, placed every 0.50 m along the channel length. The system was tested on the phase transfer‐catalyzed esterification to produce benzyl benzoate. The application of constrictions to prevent coalescence resulted in a better reproducibility and higher conversion compared to a capillary without constrictions. The bubbly flow generated by the interdigital mixer‐redispersion capillary assembly was found to be independent of the redispersion capillary inner diameters (0.50 and 0.75 mm) while being highly dependent on the flow rates. By controlling the total flow rate and the aqueous‐to‐organic ratio, the bubbly flow surface‐to‐volume ratio could be increased up to 230 700 m²m^–3. Compared to the conventional phase transfer‐catalyzed esterification, the continuous operation in the interdigital mixer‐redispersion capillary assembly eliminated the use of solvents and bases, removing an energy‐intensive step of distillation while increasing process safety.     

Are Fischer–Tropsch waxes good feedstocks for fluid catalytic cracking units?

The potential of a highly paraffinic Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) wax as a feedstock for Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) has been evaluated. A once-through microriser reactor was used to mimic realistic FCC conditions. FTS waxes are indeed attractive feedstocks for FCC. As a result of its high paraffinicity an interesting spectrum of products can be obtained by tuning process conditions and catalyst formulations. A high gasoline fraction (70 wt%) with an apparent high-quality motor octane number can be obtained. Also a relatively good diesel is expected. Due to the absence of sulfur and nitrogen in the feed extremely clean transportation fuels can be obtained that are additionally low on aromatics. The combination of an equilibrium catalyst with a steam-deactivated ZSM-5 additive yields high amounts of propene (16 wt%), isobutene (7 wt%) and n-C₄-olefins (8 wt%).     

Preparation of the manufacture of the ITER correction coils

The ITER correction coils (CC) include three sets of six coils each, distributed symmetrically around the tokamak and inserted between the toroidal field (TF) and the poloidal field (PF) coils. Each pair of coils located on opposite sides with respect to the plasma is series connected with polarity such to produce asymmetric fields. These superconducting coils use a cable-in-conduit conductor, insulated, wound into multiple pancakes and inserted inside an austenitic stainless steel case. The requirements and the main features of the design are presented and the selected options reviewed in terms of their criticality in achieving the specified tolerances. The requested qualification trials are identified and reports the results obtained so far.     

Age-related increase in the fraction of CD27-CD4+ T cells and IL-4 production as a feature of CD4+ T cell differentiation in vivo

The influence of ageing on phenotype and function of CD4+ T cells was studied by comparing young (19-28 years of age) and aged (75-84 years of age) donors that were selected using the SENIEUR protocol to exclude underlying disease. An age-related increase was observed in the relative number of memory cells, not only on the basis of a decreased CD45RA and increased CD45RO expression, but also on the basis of a decrease in the fraction of CD27+CD4+ T cells. Our observation that the absolute number of CD45RO+CD4+ T cells was increased, while absolute numbers of CD27-CD4+ T cells remained unchanged in aged donors, indicates that the latter subset does not merely reflect the size of the CD45RO+CD4+ T cell pool. The increased fraction of memory cells in the aged was functionally reflected in an increased IL-4 production and T cell proliferation, when cells were activated with the combination of anti-CD2 and anti-CD28, whereas IL-2 production was comparable between both groups. No differences were observed with respect to proliferative T cell responses or IL-2 production using plate-bound anti-CD3 or phytohaemagglutinin (PHA). The observation that IL-4 production correlated with the fraction of memory cells in young donors but not in aged donors suggests different functional characteristics of this subset in aged donors.     

Some incentives and contraints of scientific performance in economics

Spangenberg, et al. have tested hypotheses concerning' facilitators and inhibitors of scientific performance in Dutch economics. In order to examine the external validity of the findings, a comparison is made with large scale empirical studies conducted in two other countries. In order to examine the convergent validity of the overall performance measure, the relationship with other scientometric indicators is inspected. In order to test the robustness of their univariate and multivariate tests, multiple regressions were performed on three criteria: scientific productivity, citation impact, and individual performance index.     

Global hand pose estimation by multiple camera ellipse tracking

Immersive virtual environments with life-like interaction capabilities have very demanding requirements including high-precision motion capture and high-processing speed. These issues raise many challenges for computer vision-based motion estimation algorithms. In this study, we consider the problem of hand tracking using multiple cameras and estimating its 3D global pose (i.e., position and orientation of the palm). Our interest is in developing an accurate and robust algorithm to be employed in an immersive virtual training environment, called “Virtual GloveboX” (VGX) (Twombly et al. in J Syst Cybern Inf 2:30–34, 2005), which is currently under development at NASA Ames. In this context, we present a marker-based, hand tracking and 3D global pose estimation algorithm that operates in a controlled, multi-camera, environment built to track the user’s hand inside VGX. The key idea of the proposed algorithm is tracking the 3D position and orientation of an elliptical marker placed on the dorsal part of the hand using model-based tracking approaches and active camera selection. It should be noted that, the use of markers is well justified in the context of our application since VGX naturally allows for the use of gloves without disrupting the fidelity of the interaction. Our experimental results and comparisons illustrate that the proposed approach is more accurate and robust than related approaches. A byproduct of our multi-camera ellipse tracking algorithm is that, with only minor modifications, the same algorithm can be used to automatically re-calibrate (i.e., fine-tune) the extrinsic parameters of a multi-camera system leading to more accurate pose estimates.     

The biological feasibility and social context of gene-edited,caffeine-free coffee

Food Science and Biotechnology - Coffee, especially the species Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora, is one of the world’s most consumed beverages. The consumer demand for caffeine-free...     

热轧机的新型冷却系统

介绍了奥钢联的新型热轧冷却技术方案,比较了不同冷却方案的特点。先进自动化系统保证了最佳冷却制度的实现。