The Impact of Research Culture on Mental Health & Diversity in STEM

The onset of COVID-19, coupled with the finer lens placed on systemic racial disparities within our society, has resulted in increased discussions around mental health. Despite this, mental health struggles in research are still often viewed as individual weaknesses and not the result of a larger dysfunctional research culture. Mental health interventions in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academic community often focus on what individuals can do to improve their mental health instead of focusing on improving the research environment. In this paper, we present four aspects of research that may heavily impact mental health based on our experiences as research scientists: bullying and harassment; precarity of contracts; diversity, inclusion, and accessibility; and the competitive research landscape. Based on these aspects, we propose systemic changes that institutions must adopt to ensure their research culture is supportive and allows everyone to thrive.     

Bjarni Jónsson’s contributions in algebra: an addendum

Normal categories are pointed categorical counterparts of 0-regular varieties, i.e., varieties where each congruence is uniquely determined by the equivalence class of a fixed constant 0. In this paper, we give a new axiomatic approach to normal categories, which uses self-dual axioms on a functor defined using subobjects of objects in the category. We also show that a similar approach can be developed for 0-regular varieties, if we replace subobjects with subsets of algebras containing 0.     

Ce-promoted Fe–Cu–ZSM-5 catalyst: SCR-NO activity and hydrothermal stability

Research on Chemical Intermediates - Fe–Cu–ZSM-5 and Ce–Fe–Cu–ZSM-5 solids prepared using solid-state ion exchange method (SSIE) were tested in the NH3–SCR of NO...     

Stiffness and hysteretic energy loss of a reinforced-concrete shear wall

A static, cyclic test of one of the largest reinforced concrete shear walls to be investigated in a laboratory is reported. The test was performed to study the dynamic characteristics (stiffness and hysteretic energy loss) of the shear wall. Very sensitive displacement gages are needed to measure the small deformations. The large forces required to load the structure make the test results susceptible to deformation of the support fixture. With these concerns in mind, instrumentation and data-reduction methods were developed that could separate model deformations from displacements caused by support motion. Also, model displacements were separated into shear and bending components. Results showed that prior to cracking, overall stiffness as well as the individual components of stiffness are accurately predicted by mechanics of materials beam theory that accounts for shear deformation. Equivalent viscous damping ratios that were determined from the hysteretic energy before and after cracking were similar.     

Optimization of STEM-HAADF Electron Tomography Reconstructions by Parameter Selection in Compressed Sensing Total Variation Minimization-Based Algorithms

A novel procedure to optimize the 3D morphological characterization of nanomaterials by means of high angle annular dark field scanning-transmission electron tomography is reported and is successfully applied to the analysis of a metal- and halogen-free ordered mesoporous carbon material. The new method is based on a selection of the two parameters (μ and β) which are key in the reconstruction of tomographic series by means of total variation minimization (TVM). The parameter-selected TVM reconstructions obtained using this approach clearly reveal the porous structure of the carbon-based material as consisting of a network of parallel, straight channels of ≈6 nm diameter ordered in a honeycomb-type arrangement. Such an unusual structure cannot be retrieved from a TVM 3D reconstruction using default reconstruction values. Moreover, segmentation and further quantification of the optimized 3D tomographic reconstruction provide values for different textural parameters, such as pore size distribution and specific pore volume that match very closely with those determined by macroscopic physisorption techniques. The approach developed can be extended to other reconstruction models in which the final result is influenced by parameter choice.     

Low glass transition temperature polymer electrolyte prepared from ionic liquid grafted polyethylene oxide

In this contribution, we report a new type of poly (ionic liquids) prepared by imidazolium ionic liquids directly grafting onto polyethylene oxide backbone. Different molecular weights of poly (ionic liquids) are obtained with a low glass transition temperature up to ?14 °C. The materials as polymer electrolyte achieve a high conductivity around 10^?5 S cm^?1 at 30 °C and close to 10^?3 S cm^?1 at 90 °C. High viscosity up to 4000 Pa s at room temperature would minimize the electrolytes leaking in electrochemical devices. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2014 , 52, 2104–2110