Precipitating spinel into precursor glass and its assistance in crystallization

The crystallization phenomena of spinel in CaO-MgO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂-Fe₂O₃ glass have received much attention due to the particular role in preparation of glass-ceramic materials, which represent an effective option to manage hazardous waste. In this study, both preliminary spinel and secondary spinel were precipitated in the precursor glass. The formation of these spinel was meticulously assessed by a combination of X-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy. The structure of the microenvironment in the precursor glass was characterized by Raman spectrums. These advanced techniques highlight the potential for one-step crystallization of the glass. The investigation, which focused on one-step crystallization, demonstrated the growth of pyroxene on spinel accompanying a migration of chromium. The results also show the microstructure of the obtained glass-ceramic was very dependent on the heat-treat temperature. This study not only unambiguously reveals the precipitation mechanisms of spinel but also provides more documentation for one-step crystallization in the glass-ceramics field.     

Effect of the cultivation mode on red pigments production from Monascus ruber

In submerged cultures performed in chemically defined fermentation medium containing glucose and glutamate, the growth and production of water‐soluble red pigments and citrinin by the filamentous fungus Monascus ruber were studied under various carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratios. The specific production of the red pigments was optimal at a glucose/glutamate ratio of about 10 and then steadily decreased at higher C/N ratio. In contrast, the production of the mycotoxin increased with increased C/N with an optimum in the range of 30–45. In a fed‐batch mode, it was also found that the production of pigments was not favoured in fed‐batch mode by feeding the medium with glucose while keeping the C/N ratio lower than 10. This low production likely resulted from concurrent high accumulation of L‐malic acid that was reported to inhibit this production. In contrast, this mode of cultivation was rather favourable for the production of the mycotoxin.     

Mining citizen emotions to estimate the urgency of urban issues

Crowdsourcing technology offers exciting possibilities for local governments. Specifically, citizens are increasingly taking part in reporting and discussing issues related to their neighborhood and problems they encounter on a daily basis, such as overflowing trash-bins, broken footpaths and lifts, illegal graffiti, and potholes. Pervasive citizen participation enables local governments to respond more efficiently to these urban issues. This interaction between citizens and municipalities is largely promoted by civic engagement platforms, such as See-Click-Fix, FixMyStreet, CitySourced, and OpenIDEO, which allow citizens to report urban issues by entering free text describing what needs to be done, fixed or changed. In order to develop appropriate action plans and priorities, government officials need to figure out how urgent are the reported issues. In this paper we propose to estimate the urgency of urban issues by mining different emotions that are implicit in the text describing the issue. More specifically, a reported issue is first categorized according to the emotions expressed in it, and then the corresponding emotion scores are combined in order to produce a final urgency level for the reported issue. Our experiments use the SeeClickFix hackathon data and diverse emotion classification algorithms. They indicate that (i) emotions can be categorized efficiently with supervised learning algorithms, and (ii) the use of citizen emotions leads to accurate urgency estimates. Further, using additional features such as the type of issue or its author leads to no further accuracy gains.     

Environmentally friendly synthesis and photopolymerization of acrylated methyl ricinoleate for biomedical applications

In this study, we aimed to develop an efficient synthesis and photopolymerization of acrylated methyl ricinoleate (AMR) for biomedical applications. During the first step of the synthesis, methyl ricinoleate (MR) and boric acid were esterified via azeotropic distillation in toluene. Afterward, MR–boric acid ester was acrylated with acrylic acid at 165 °C via a boric acid ester acidolysis reaction. The bulk photopolymerization of AMR was performed in the presence of the photoinitiator 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenyl acetophenone (DMPA) under 365 nm UV irradiation. Even with the use of 0.4% DMPA, a 35% monomer conversion was achieved within 30 min. Moreover, AMR, the plant-oil-based monomer, was also copolymerized with N-isopropyl acrylamide to obtain thermoresponsive hydrogels on the glass surface for biomedical applications. The synthesized materials were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, ¹H-NMR spectroscopy, and thermal characterization via thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry techniques. The surfaces were characterized by FTIR and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDS) spectroscopy. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47969.     

Study on maximum power point tracking of photovoltaic array in irregular shadow

Traditional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) methods can hardly find global maximum power point (MPP) because output characteristics curve of photovoltaic (PV) array may have multi local maximum power points in irregular shadow, and thus easily fall into the local maximum power point. To address this drawback, Considering that sliding mode variable structure (SMVS) control strategy have such advantages as simple structure, fast response and strong robustness, and P&O method have the advantages of simple principle and convenient implementation, so a new algorithm combining SMVS control method and P&O method is proposed, besides, PI controller is applied to reduce system chattering caused by switching sliding surface. It is applied to MPPT control of PV array in irregular shadow to solve the problem of multi-peak optimization in partial shadow. In order to verity the rationality of the proposed algorithm, the experimental circuit is built, which achieves MPPT control by means of the proposed algorithm and P&O method. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional P&O algorithm, the proposed algorithm can fast track the global MPP, tracking speed increases by 60% and the relative error decreased by 20%. Moreover, the system becomes more stable near the MPP, the fluctuations of output power is greatly reduced, and thus make full use of solar energy.     

基于学生群体心理测试系统的设计

心理测试的根本目的是为了让人们在测试过程中，产生某些特定行为，即个体对测试题目的反应，并根据这些行为反应来推论其相应的心理特性。在一定程度上帮助我们了解人类的心理活动，并从中得到帮助。因此，本文对基于学生群体心理测试系统的设计进行深入研究。     

ECG heart beat classification method based on modified ABC algorithm

Electrocardiogram is the most commonly used tool for the diagnosis of cardiologic diseases. In order to help cardiologists to diagnose the arrhythmias automatically, new methods for automated, computer aided ECG analysis are being developed. In this paper, a Modified Artificial Bee Colony (MABC) algorithm for ECG heart beat classification is introduced. It is applied to ECG data set which is obtained from MITBIH database and the result of MABC is compared with seventeen other classifier's accuracy.In classification problem, some features have higher distinctiveness than others. In this study, in order to find higher distinctive features, a detailed analysis has been done on time domain features. By using the right features in MABC algorithm, high classification success rate (99.30%) is obtained. Other methods generally have high classification accuracy on examined data set, but they have relatively low or even poor sensitivities for some beat types. Different data sets, unbalanced sample numbers in different classes have effect on classification result. When a balanced data set is used, MABC provided the best result as 97.96% among all classifiers.Not only part of the records from examined MITBIH database, but also all data from selected records are used to be able to use developed algorithm on a real time system in the future by using additional software modules and making adaptation on a specific hardware.     

A new catalyst based on a nickel(II) complex of diiminodiphosphine for hydrogen evolution and oxidation

Based on that hydrogen energy is widely used in fuel cells, we focus our interests on the design and research of new complexes that catalyze the reaction in both directions, such as hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs) and hydrogen oxidation reactions (HORs). A highly efficient catalyst for both hydrogen evolution and oxidation, based on a nickel(II) complex, [Ni-en-P₂](ClO₄)₂, has been designed and provided by the reaction of Ni(ClO₄)₂ with N,N′-bis[o-(diphenylphosphino)benzylidene]ethylenediamine (en-P₂) in our group. Its structure has been determined by X-ray diffraction. [Ni-en-P₂](ClO₄)₂ can electro-catalyze hydrogen evolution both from acetic acid and a neutral buffer (pH 7.0) with a turnover frequency (TOF) of 204 and 1327 mol of hydrogen per mole of catalyst per hour (H₂/mol catalyst/h) under an overpotential (OP) of 914.6 mV and 836.6 mV, respectively. [Ni-en-P₂](ClO₄)₂ also can electro-catalyze hydrogen oxidation with a TOF of 111.7 s⁻¹ under an OP of 330 mV. The results can be attributed to that [Ni^II-en-P₂](ClO₄)₂ has three good reversible redox waves at 1.01 (Ni^III/II), −0.79 (Ni^II/I) and −1.38 V (Ni^I/0) versus Fc^+/0, respectively. We hope these findings can afford a new method for the design of electrocatalysts for both H₂ evolution and H₂ oxidation.     

Effects of anion and cation doping on the thermoelectric properties of n-type PbS

The PbCl_xS_1-x and Pb_1-xBi_xS (x? =?0–0.05) bulks were fabricated with a facile method of hydrothermal synthesis and microwave sintering, and the effect of anionic and cationic donors on the thermoelectric performance of PbS was investigated. Although Cl^? and Bi³⁺ both effectively improved the thermoelectric properties of n-type PbS, more excellent thermoelectric performance was obtained from Cl^? doped samples because of higher electrical property and lower thermal conductivity at higher temperature (T? >?600?K). The thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) reaches 1.04 for PbCl_0.015S_0.985 at 800?K and increases with temperature increasing without sign of saturation, which is probably the highest value ever reported for single-phase polycrystalline n-type PbS. The results also indicate that the hydrothermal synthesis and microwave sintering can realize anion doping as well as cation doping for n-type PbS at low cost, and PbS should be a robust alternative for PbTe thermoelectric materials.