Distributed algorithm for mixed equilibrium problems with event-triggered strategy

Neural Computing and Applications - A new iterative method based on the event-triggered strategy for finding a solution to a mixed equilibrium problem (MEP) is introduced in this paper. The target...     

Designing Metallic and Insulating Nanocrystal Heterostructures to Fabricate Highly Sensitive and Solution Processed Strain Gauges for Wearable Sensors

All‐solution processed, high‐performance wearable strain sensors are demonstrated using heterostructure nanocrystal (NC) solids. By incorporating insulating artificial atoms of CdSe quantum dot NCs into metallic artificial atoms of Au NC thin film matrix, metal–insulator heterostructures are designed. This hybrid structure results in a shift close to the percolation threshold, modifying the charge transport mechanism and enhancing sensitivity in accordance with the site percolation theory. The number of electrical pathways is also manipulated by creating nanocracks to further increase its sensitivity, inspired from the bond percolation theory. The combination of the two strategies achieves gauge factor up to 5045, the highest sensitivity recorded among NC‐based strain gauges. These strain sensors show high reliability, durability, frequency stability, and negligible hysteresis. The fundamental charge transport behavior of these NC solids is investigated and the combined site and bond percolation theory is developed to illuminate the origin of their enhanced sensitivity. Finally, all NC‐based and solution‐processed strain gauge sensor arrays are fabricated, which effectively measure the motion of each finger joint, the pulse of heart rate, and the movement of vocal cords of human. This work provides a pathway for designing low‐cost and high‐performance electronic skin or wearable devices.     

Determination of the acidic properties of carboxylated carbocatalysts in an acid-catalyzed ring-opening reaction using kinetic profiling

The acid-catalyzed ring-opening reaction of styrene oxide was used as a probe reaction for evaluating the acidic properties of carboxylated carbocatalysts. Significant discrepancies in the initial reaction rates were normalized using the total number of carboxyl groups, and demonstrated that the average catalytic activities of the carboxyl moieties on the carbocatalysts differed. Comparisons between the apparent activation energy E _a and the pre-exponential factor A, derived from Arrhenius analysis, demonstrated that A varied more significantly, and therefore had a more significant effect on the reaction rates than E _a. The variation in the calculated pKa values of the carboxyl groups was attributed to the electronic effects of the nitro groups. This hypothesis was supported by the temperature programmed desorption profiles of nitrogen monoxide ions.

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Abrasion-Resistant and Enhanced Super-Slippery Flush Toilets Fabricated by a Selective Laser Sintering 3D Printing Technology

Flush toilets waste a significant amount of water every day due to the unavoidable adhesions between human waste and the toilet surfaces. Super-slippery surfaces can repel complex fluids and various viscoelastic solids, however, are easily broken by mechanical abrasions. Herein, the fabrication of an abrasion-resistant super-slippery flush toilet (ARSFT) is reported using a selective laser sintering 3D printing technology. Unlike traditional super-slippery surfaces with limited thicknesses which can be easily worn away, the powder-sintered strategy endows the ARSFT not only with a self-supporting 3D complex shape but also with a porous structure that can accommodate considerable lubricants for an abrasion-resistant super-slippery property. As a result, the as-prepared ARSFT remains clean after contacting with various liquids such as milk, yogurt, highly sticky honey, and starch gel mixed congee, demonstrating excellent repellence to complex fluids. Besides liquids, the ARSFT exhibits a high resistance to sticky synthetic feces. Notably, even after being abraded to 1,000 cycles of abrasion using sandpaper, the ARSFT maintains its record-breaking super-slippery capability. The concept of the 3D-printed object with a superior abrasion-resistant slippery ability will improve the development of super-slippery materials and further save water consumption in the human society.     

Peptidyl Virus-Like Nanovesicles as Reconfigurable “Trojan Horse” for Targeted siRNA Delivery and Synergistic Inhibition of Cancer Cells

The self-assembly of peptidyl virus-like nanovesicles (pVLNs) composed of highly ordered peptide bilayer membranes that encapsulate the small interfering RNA (siRNA) is reported. The targeting and enzyme-responsive sequences on the bilayer's surface allow the pVLNs to enter cancer cells with high efficiency and control the release of genetic drugs in response to the subcellular environment. By transforming its structure in response to the highly expressed enzyme matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP-7) in cancer cells, it helps the siRNA escape from the lysosomes, resulting in a final silencing efficiency of 92%. Moreover, the pVLNs can serve as reconfigurable “Trojan horse” by transforming into membranes triggered by the MMP-7 and disrupting the cytoplasmic structure, thereby achieving synergistic anticancer effects and 96% cancer cell mortality with little damage to normal cells. The pVLNs benefit from their biocompatibility, targeting, and enzyme responsiveness, making them a promising platform for gene therapy and anticancer therapy.     

Morphological Models for the Collapse of Area Features in Digital Map Generalization

Collapse is an essential operation for the manipulation of area features in digital data generalization. This operation can be categorized into two types: complete collapse and partial collapse. The former is composed of another two types: area-to-point and area-to-line collapse. In this paper, a set of algebraic models built upon the operators in mathematical morphology is described for the area-to-line collapse and partial collapse operations. For the area-to-line collapse operation, a modified skeleton algorithm is presented. For the partial collapse operation, a procedure is designed which consists of a set of operations, i.e., the skeletonization, separation of areal and linear parts, simplification of areas and an overlay operation. These models are tested using real map data sets.     

改革实践教学模式、培养学生综合能力──增设给水排水专业质量检测实习的体会

对给排水专业在优化专业教学体系,深化专科教学模式及教学内容改革中,实施的四次大型综合性实践教学,进行了认真总结．经过改变随课跟进的实验教学旧模式,在教学计划中增设了“水质指标综合测试与水质评价”实习内容使分散的教学实验得以“水质监测与评价”为骨架,有机穿插在实践教学中,为专科学校培养复合应用型人才,进行了有益的探索与实践,并获得较好效果．     

The first measurement of an absolute surface concentration of reaction intermediates in ethylene hydrogenation

The first measurement of a turnover rate with respect to surface intermediate concentration in a high pressure heterogeneous catalytic reaction is reported. By using infrared-visible sum frequency generation to study the hydrogenation of ethylene on Pt(111), it was found that the surface concentration of -bonded ethylene, the key reaction intermediate, represented approximately 4% of a monolayer. Thus the absolute turnover rate per surface adsorbed ethylene molecule is 25 times faster than the rate measured per platinum atom. To explain these results, we propose a model of weakly adsorbed ethylene intermediates reacting on atop sites.     

An improved method for voice pathology detection by means of a HMM-based feature space transformation

This paper presents new a feature transformation technique applied to improve the screening accuracy for the automatic detection of pathological voices. The statistical transformation is based on Hidden Markov Models, obtaining a transformation and classification stage simultaneously and adjusting the parameters of the model with a criterion that minimizes the classification error. The original feature vectors are built up using classic short-term noise parameters and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients. With respect to conventional approaches found in the literature of automatic detection of pathological voices, the proposed feature space transformation technique demonstrates a significant improvement of the performance with no addition of new features to the original input space. In view of the results, it is expected that this technique could provide good results in other areas such as speaker verification and/or identification.