Social Mental Shaping: Modelling the Impact of Sociality on the Mental States of Autonomous Agents

This paper presents a framework that captures how the social nature of agents that are situated in a multi-agent environment impacts upon their individual mental states. Roles and social relationships provide an abstraction upon which we develop the notion of social mental shaping . This allows us to extend the standard Belief-Desire-Intention model to account for how common social phenomena (e.g. cooperation, collaborative problem-solving and negotiation) can be integrated into a unified theoretical perspective that reflects a fully explicated model of the autonomous agent's mental state.     

Viscosity of nonelectrolyte liquid mixtures. III Binary mixtures of methyl methacrylate with hydrocarbons,haloalkanes, and alkylamines

Measurements of the viscosity and the density are reported for 14 binary mixtures of methyl methacrylate (MMA) with hydrocarbons, haloalkanes, and alkylamines at 303.15 K. The viscosity data have been correlated with equations of Grunberg and Nissan, of McAllister, and of Auslaender. Furthermore, excess viscosity In and excess Gibbs energy of activationG* ^E of viscous flow have been calculated and have been used to predict molecular interactions occurring in present binary mixtures. The results show the existence of specific interactions in MMA + aromatic hydrocarbons, MMA + haloalkanes, and MMA + primary amines.     

An Efficient Intercalation Supramolecular Structure for Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction to Ethylene Under Visible Light

Photocatalytic CO₂ reduction (CO₂PR) into multi-carbon products (especially C₂H₄) is a highly attractive route for global carbon cycle, however, which is seriously limited by sluggish C-C coupling kinetics and competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and so on. Herein, the fabrication of a novel supramolecular assembly of NiAl-Fe-TCPP is reported by intercalating iron porphyrin (Fe-TCPP) into NiAl-layered double hydroxide (NiAl-LDH), and the resultant NiAl-Fe-TCPP exhibit superior catalytic performance on CO₂PR to C₂H₄ under visible light irradiation in presence of photosensitizer. A high C₂H₄ selectivity up to 93.4% in the carbon-containing products with the production rate as high as 24.7 µmol h⁻¹ can be achieved over NiAl-Fe-TCPP. The ex/in situ X–ray absorption spectoscopy (XAS) indicates that the electron transfer between NiAl-LDH and Fe-TCPP can promote the generation of low-valence of Fe sites, resulting in the efficient production of C₂H₄. The spin-polarized density functional theory (DFT) calculations find that the synergistic mechanism that CO₂ molecules are activated to CO on NiAl-LDH and then spilled to Fe-TCPP and coupled to COCHO^#, which is further reduced to C₂H₄, are feasible in the perspective of Gibbs free energy. Moreover, the strong host-guest interactions between NiAl-LDH and Fe-TCPP lead to the promoted photocatalytic activity and superior cycle stability.     

A Lotus-Petiole-Inspired Hierarchical Design with Hydrophilic/Hydrophobic Management for Enhanced Solar Water Purification

Solar-driven vapor generation offers an affordable and sustainable approach to solve global freshwater scarcity. Creating interfacial solar evaporators capable of increasing water production rates matching human water requirements is highly desirable but challenging due to the slow water transportation dynamics and unavoidable oil-fouling. Herein, a bio-inspired lotus-petiole-mimetic microstructured graphene/poly(N-acryloyl glycinamide) solar evaporator with integrated hydrophilic and hydrophobic microregions is developed. Through accurate control of the supramolecular interactions, the optimized solar evaporator incorporating unique structural features and wettability shows high light harvesting, enhanced water activation, and reduced energy demand for water vaporization, enabling a groundbreaking comprehensive performance along evaporation rate up to 3.4 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ and energy conversion efficiency of ≈93% under one sun irradiation (1 kW m⁻²). Molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the abundant hydrogen bonding sites of the polymeric networks can thermodynamically modulate the escape behavior of water molecules. Notably, neither decrease in evaporation rate nor fouling on solar evaporators is observed during the prolonged purification process toward nano/submicrometer emulsions, oily brines, actual seawater, and domestic wastewater. This study provides distinctive insights into water evaporation behaviors at a molecular level and pioneers a rational strategy to design high-yield freshwater-generation systems for wastewater containing complex contaminants.     

Suppressing Thermal Migration by Fine-Tuned Metal-Support Interaction of Iron Single-Atom Catalyst for Efficient ORR

Atomically dispersed iron–nitrogen–carbon (Fe N C) catalysts have sparked great interest by virtue of the highly active isolated FeN₄ sites. The catalysts with pyrolysis treatment usually induce inevitable FeN₄ sites agglomeration, leading to fast degradation in catalytic activity. Herein, a pre-coordinated protection strategy is proposed to eliminate the aggregation of Fe atoms by suppressing the thermal migration during the pyrolysis process. To this end, the S atom is introduced into the graphitic support by enhancing the metal-support interaction. The proposed atomic structure is revealed by multiple advanced characterizations including Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and theoretical calculations. By employing S atom into the structure, the center atom Fe is oxidized to a higher valence, improving the bonding energy with the graphitic support, which accordingly endows catalyst anti-sintering capacity and improved catalytic activity. Compared to commercial Pt/C and the reported catalyst with secondary pyrolysis, the proposed catalysts exhibit enhanced ORR activity in alkaline media (E_1/2 = 0.91 V). This work provides a new avenue toward optimizing and improving ORR performance of atomically dispersed Fe catalysts.     

分子束研究气体分子在表面吸脱附动力学

分子束技术与表面电子谱、气体质谱分析技术相结合,形成分子束-表面散射谱,它是研究气体-表面相互作用动力学的有力工具.它的主要突破在于从分子(原子)量度来揭示诸如表面吸附、脱附、催化、腐蚀和能量适应等气体-表面作用过程.本文首先概述了表面吸附、脱附过程及类型,接着叙述了本实验室自行研制的分子束-表面散射装置的总体设计及用来研究表面吸脱附的实验技术.最后举例说明分子束技术在研究表面吸脱附中的应用.     

Fluid–Solid Interaction in Particle-Laden Flows

Using a laser-Doppler split-phase measuring technique, the rates of fluctuation in horizontal and vertical directions of pipe flow containing solid particles were observed. Employing these observations the effect of particles on flow turbulence was analyzed and a formula for determining the initial condition of particles restraining the flow turbulence in the mainstream region was developed. The mechanisms affecting the energy loss of flow were then analyzed.     

Managing peer-to-peer networks with human tactics in social interactions

Small-world phenomena have been observed in existing peer-to-peer (P2P) networks which has proved useful in the design of P2P file-sharing systems. Most studies of constructing small world behaviours on P2P are based on the concept of clustering peer nodes into groups, communities or clusters. However, managing additional multilayer topology increases maintenance overhead, especially in highly dynamic environments. In this paper, we present Social-like P2P systems (Social-P2Ps) for object discovery by self-managing P2P topology with human tactics in social networks. In Social-P2Ps, queries are routed intelligently even with limited cached knowledge and node connections. Unlike community-based P2P file-sharing systems, we do not intend to create and maintain peer groups or communities consciously. In contrast, each node connects to other peer nodes with the same interests spontaneously by the result of daily searches.     

Modification of allelopathic effects ofp-coumaric acid on morning-glory seedling biomass by glucose,methionine, and nitrate

Studies of allelopathy have emphasized primarily the identification and quantification of phytotoxins in soils, with only limited attention directed toward how organic (carbon) and inorganic constituents (nutrients) in the soil may modify the action of such phytotoxins. In the present study, increasing carbon (C) levels (up to 108g C/g soil) supplied as glucose, phenylalanine, orp-hydroxybenzoic acid did not alter morning-glory biomass, but similar C levels supplied as leucine, methionine, orp-coumaric acid were inversely related to morning-glory biomass. Similar joint action and multiplicative analyses were used to describe morning-glory biomass response to various C sources and to generate dose isolines for combinations ofp-coumaric acid and methionine at two NO₃-N levels and for combinations ofp-coumaric acid and glucose at one NO₃-N level. Methionine, glucose, and NO₃-N treatments influenced the inhibitory action ofp-coumaric acid on biomass production of morning-glory seedlings. For example, results from the multiplicative analysis indicated that a 10% inhibition of morning-glory biomass required 7.5gp-coumaric acid/g soil, while the presence of 3.68g methionine/g soil thep-coumaric acid concentration required for 10% inhibition was only 3.75g/ g soil. Similar response trends were obtained forp-coumaric acid and glucose. The higher NO₃-N (14 vs. 3.5g/g) treatments lowered the methionine and increased thep-coumaric acid concentrations required for 10% inhibition of morning-glory biomass. These results suggested that allelopathic interactions in soil environments can be a function of interacting neutral substances (e.g., glucose), promoters (e.g., NO₃-N), and/or inhibitors (e.g., methionine andp-coumaric acid) of plant growth.The use of trade names in this publication does not imply endorsement by the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service of products named, nor criticism of similar ones not mentioned.     

A force-sensorless approach to collision detection based on virtual powers

A collision detection approach for torque-controlled manipulators is proposed to detect and isolate a collision in an unknown environment without using external sensors. A set of artificial indexes physically representing instantaneous powers are introduced. A contact link can be detected and isolated by finding the smallest power index based on full knowledge of the link parameters. However, it is difficult to precisely obtain the link parameters. Therefore, we propose a robust way in which the collision detection and isolation processes are separated. A collision can be detected by comparing a power-based index with a unique threshold, and a contact link can be isolated by comparing power indexes without any additional threshold. The statistical simulation results using a 6 degree of freedom (DOF) spatial manipulator show the performance of the proposed approach in an ideal situation. Furthermore, the statistical experimental results using the 2- and 3-DOF planar manipulators validate the robustness of the proposed approach.