Novel Nd–Mo co-doped SnO2/α-WO3 electrochromic materials (ECs) for enhanced smart window performance

In an urbanized city, about a third of total electrical consumption is allocated for indoor lighting and air conditioning system in residential and commercial buildings. The majority of the worldwide energy generation comes from burning of non-renewable fossil fuel which is not sustainable in the long run. The use of smart windows technology may catalyze the effort to reduce energy consumption of building and houses. More than 50% of heat entering a building through windows originate from the solar radiation in the near infrared (NIR) region. This candidate smart window material must exhibit dual-band (visible and NIR) modulation that allows selective modulation of NIR heat without affecting visible light transmission. A good electrochromic material in this respect should possess high visible light transmission, high NIR modulation, fast switching between colored and bleached state, and good stability over prolonged usage. In this work, we propose a novel Nd–Mo co-doped SnO₂/α-WO₃ electrochromic materials (ECs). As compared to the traditional SnO₂/α-WO₃ ECs, our Nd–Mo co-doped SnO₂/α-WO₃ ECs exhibits up to 90% visible light transparency (at λ = 600 nm), 62% NIR modulation (at wavelength 1200 nm), high coloration efficiency (~200 cm² C^?1), fast switching time with only 31% electrochromic performance drop (vs 59% of undoped sample) after up to 1000 reversible cyclic test. The enhanced electrochromic performance comes from the presence of Nd–Mo co-dopants that limit the trapping of Li + ion within α-WO₃ framework, reduce the extent of crystallization of α-WO₃ layer and enhancement of the electronic conductivity by transferring their excess electron to the conduction band of the SnO_2. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present composition of ECs offers one of the better candidate materials for electrochromic to be used as thermal management layers on smart windows application.     

Extraction and purification of Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs): application of Thermoseparating aqueous two-phase extraction

Being biodegradable, non-toxic and renewable as well as having similar or better properties than commercial plastics, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) can be a potential game changer in the polymer industry. Although viewed as a sustainable alternative to petrochemicals due to its biodegradability, PHAs are plagued with low commercial value due to their high production and recovery costs. Having the benefits of providing a mild environment for bioseparation, being environment-friendly and scalable, together with it its distinctive thermoseparating properties and ease of recyclability, thermoseparating-based aqueous two-phase extraction (ATPE) has provided the eco-friendly and economical solution to the PHA dilemma. ATPE-influencing factors such as types of thermoseparating polymer, concentration of phase-forming components, pH, and effect of centrifugation were investigated. Under the condition of 14 wt/wt% of EOPO 3900 concentration, 14 wt/wt% of ammonium sulfate concentration and pH 6 without the needs for extra centrifugation steps, a recovery yield and a purification factor of up to 72.2% and 1.61 fold can be achieved with the copolymers which can be recycled and reused twice. Thermoseparating ATPE has thus been proven to be a powerful primary purification tool for PHAs.     

Surface waves and atomic force microscope probe-particle near-field coupling: discrete dipole approximation with surface interaction

Evanescent waves on a surface form due to the collective motion of charges within the medium. They do not carry any energy away from the surface and decay exponentially as a function of the distance. However, if there is any object within the evanescent field, electromagnetic energy within the medium is tunneled away and either absorbed or scattered. In this case, the absorption is localized, and potentially it can be used for selective diagnosis or nanopatterning applications. On the other hand, scattering of evanescent waves can be employed for characterization of nanoscale structures and particles on the surface. In this paper we present a numerical methodology to study the physics of such absorption and scattering mechanisms. We developed a MATLAB implementation of discrete dipole approximation with surface interaction (DDA-SI) in combination with evanescent wave illumination to investigate the near-field coupling between particles on the surface and a probe. This method can be used to explore the effects of a number of physical, geometrical, and material properties for problems involving nanostructures on or in the proximity of a substrate under arbitrary illumination.     

A hybrid model for improving response time in distributed data mining

This paper presents a hybrid distributed data mining (DDM) model for optimization of response time. The model combines a mobile agent approach with client server strategies to reduce the overall response time. The hybrid model proposes and develops accurate a priori estimates of the computation and communication components of response time as the costing strategy to support optimization. Experimental evaluation of the hybrid model is presented.     

Growth of 1‐eV GaNAsSb‐based photovoltaic cell on silicon substrate at different As/Ga beam equivalent pressure ratios

We report the performance of 1‐eV GaNAsSb‐based photovoltaic samples grown on a Si substrate using molecular beam epitaxy at different As/Ga beam equivalent pressure (BEP) ratios. The light current–voltage curve and spectral response of the samples were measured. The sample grown at an As/Ga BEP ratio of 10 showed the highest energy conversion efficiency with an open circuit voltage (V_OC) of 0.529 V and a short circuit current density of 17.0 mA/cm². This measured V_OC is the highest ever reported value in GaNAsSb 1‐eV photovoltaic cell, resulting in the lowest ever reported E_g/q‐V_OC of 0.50 eV. The increase in the As/Ga BEP ratio also resulted in an increase in the bandgap‐voltage offset value (E_g/q‐V_OC) and a decrease in quantum efficiency up to As/Ga BEP ratio of 18. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Designing syntactic pattern classifiers using vector quantizationand parametric string editing

We consider a fundamental inference problem in syntactic pattern recognition (PR). We assume that the system has a dictionary which is a collection of all the ideal representations of the objects in question. To recognize a noisy sample, the system compares it with every element in the dictionary based on a nearest-neighbor philosophy, using three standard edit operations: substitution, insertion, and deletion, and the associated primitive elementary edit distances d(.,.). In this paper, we consider the assignment of the inter-symbol distances using the parametric distances. We show how the classifier can be trained to get the optimal parametric distance using vector quantization in the meta-space. In all our experiments, the training was typically achieved in a very few iterations. The subsequent classification accuracy we obtained using this single-parameter scheme was 96.13%. The power of the scheme is evident if we compare it to 96.67%, which is the accuracy of the scheme which uses the complete array of inter-symbol distances derived from a knowledge of all the confusion probabilities.     

Generation of an antibody to HLA-G in transgenic mice and demonstration of the tissue reactivity of this antibody

A method was devised to generate antibodies against the non-classical class I HLA-G antigen. This consisted of immunising HLA-A2/beta 2m double transgenic mice with HLA-G transfected into mouse Ltk- cells. A polyclonal antibody was obtained which appears to be specific for HLA-G. The staining pattern of this antibody was restricted solely to all populations of extravillous trophoblast. No fetal tissues reacted with this antibody, including those where HLA-G mRNA has been demonstrated, such as fetal eye, thymus and liver. This study confirms that HLA-G is a trophoblast-specific protein, although it remains a possibility that the technique of immunohistology is not sufficiently sensitive to detect low level HLA-G antigen expression in non-trophoblast tissues.     

Optimizing ANN models with PSO for predicting short building seismic response

The present study aimed to optimize the artificial neural network (ANN) with one of the well-established optimization algorithms called particle swarm optimization (PSO) for the problem of ground...     

Changes in soil organic matter indices following 32?years of different wheat production management practices in semi-arid South Africa

Soil organic matter (SOM) degradation is common in semi-arid regions due to frequent and intensive cultivation, removal of crop residues after harvesting and warmer environmental conditions. Therefore, we evaluated the effects of long-term wheat production management practices on organic matter content of a Plinthosol in semi-arid South Africa. The treatments included two methods of straw management (unburned and burned), three methods of tillage (no-tillage, stubble mulch and ploughing) and two methods of weeding (chemical and mechanical). Soil samples were collected in 2010 at various depths and analysed for soil organic carbon (SOC), soil total nitrogen (STN) and soil total sulfur (STS) as organic matter indices. Treatments where straw was not burned had greater STN and STS, but lower SOC levels than those where straw was burned. No-tillage had higher SOC levels than the stubble mulch and ploughing treatments only in the 0?C50?mm soil layer. Below 100?mm soil depth, higher SOC levels were recorded in the ploughed plots. No-tillage and stubble mulch enhanced STN throughout the soil profile compared to ploughing. Ploughing and stubble mulch treatments had greater STS levels than no-tillage treatments in the upper 250?mm soil layer, and STS in the 0?C450?mm soil layer was higher in mechanically weeded plots than in chemically weeded plots. Treatment combinations also showed some significant interactions on these indices, but lack of consistency made it difficult to single out the combination that was superior to others. However, to maintain or improve SOM of this Plinthosol priority should be given to no-tillage and stubble mulch management practices. Wheat grain yields over the 32?years trial period were significantly influenced by straw management and tillage methods, but not by weeding methods.