The influence of pressure on the acoustic cavitation in saturated CO2-expanded N,N-dimethylformamide

CO₂-expanded organic solvent is a kind of important fluid medium and has broad applications in chemical industry, environmental protection and other fields. Ultrasonic cavitation in gas expanded liquids (GXLs) is conducive to enhancing mass transfer and producing many exciting phenomena. In this paper, the ultrasonic cavitations and streaming in the saturated CO₂-expanded liquid N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) at 4.2 MPa and 5.2 MPa are observed by a high-speed camera. The cavitation intensity and time trace of pressure pulses are recorded using a PZT hydrophone. The influences of gas–liquid equilibrium pressure and ultrasonic power on the cluster dynamics of transient and stable cavitation are examined. The excess molar enthalpies required for CO₂ dissociation from DMF are calculated by Peng-Robinson equations of state and the change of surface free energy of CO₂-expanded DMF is predicted. The results show that the excess enthalpy of the mixture is one of the key factors to control ultrasonic cavitation at high pressurized conditions, while the surface tension is the key factor for low pressure. As the increase of applied ultrasonic power, the formation and collapsing frequency of bubble clusters increases, and the amplitude and cyclic frequency of pressure pulse are enhanced. The transient cavitation intensity increases as it reaches a maximum value at a certain ultrasonic power and then decreases. The change trends of stable cavitation intensity under different pressures are basically same. It can be concluded from the evidence that ultrasonic cavitation in CO₂-expanded DMF is affected by the combined effect of compression and substitution: compression depresses the nucleation and growth of bubbles, while the high solubility of CO₂ in DMF is conducive to the generation of bubbles in cavitation.     

Multivariate optimization and comparison between conventional extraction (CE) and ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) of carotenoid extraction from cashew apple

Carotenoids are an essential component of cashew and can be used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, natural pigment, food additives, among other applications. The present work focuses on optimizing and comparing conventional and ultrasound-assisted extraction methods. Every optimization step took place with a 1:1 (w:w) mixture of yellow and red cashew apples lyophilized and ground in a cryogenic mill. A Simplex-centroid design was applied for both methods, and the solvents acetone, methanol, ethanol, and petroleum ether were evaluated. After choosing the extractor solvent, a central composite design was applied to optimize the sample mass (59–201 mg) and extraction time (6–34 min). The optimum conditions for the extractor solvent were 38% acetone, 30% ethanol, and 32% petroleum ether for CE and a mixture of 44% acetone and 56% methanol for UAE. The best experimental conditions for UAE were a sonication time of 19 min and a sample mass of 153 mg, while the CE was 23 min and 136 mg. Comparing red and yellow cashews, red cashews showed a higher carotenoid content in both methodologies. The UAE methodology was ca. 21% faster, presented a more straightforward composition of extracting solution, showed an average yield of superior carotenoid content in all samples compared to CE. Therefore, UAE has demonstrated a simple, efficient, fast, low-cost adjustment methodology and a reliable alternative for other applications involving these bioactive compounds in the studied or similar matrix.     

Micron-sized particle separation with standing surface acoustic wave—Experimental and numerical approaches

Traditional cell/particle isolation methods are time-consuming and expensive and can lead to morphology disruptions due to high induced shear stress. To address these problems, novel lab-on-a-chip-based purification methods have been employed. Among various methods introduced for the separation and purification of cells and synthetics particles, acoustofluidics has been one of the most effective methods. Unlike traditional separation techniques carried out in clinical laboratories based on chemical properties, the acoustofluidic process relies on the physical properties of the sample. Using acoustofluidics, manipulating cells and particles can be achieved in a label-free, contact-free, and highly biocompatible manner. To optimize the functionality of the platform, the numerical study should be taken into account before conducting experimental tests to save time and reduce fabrication expenses. Most current numerical studies have only considered one-dimensional harmonic standing waves to simulate the acoustic pressure distribution. However, one-dimensional simulations cannot calculate the actual acoustic pressure distribution inside the microchannel due to its limitation in considering longitudinal waves. To address this limitation, a two-dimensional numerical simulation was conducted in this study. Our numerical simulation investigates the effects of the platform geometrical and operational conditions on the separation efficiency. Next, the optimal values are tested in an experimental setting to validate these optimal parameters and conditions. This work provides a guideline for future acoustofluidic chip designs with a high degree of reproducibility and efficiency.     

Solution processed Al-doped ZnO and its performance in dye sensitized solar cells

Al-doped ZnO rods of nanometer to sub-micrometer size range have been successfully synthesized by a simple yet cost-effective solution processed sonochemical technique. Systematic XRD analysis established the solid solubility limit for Al in the ZnO lattice to be ca. 3 mol% at an elevated annealing temperature of 800 °C. The secondary ZnAl₂O₄ phase appears with increasing dopant concentrations and at lower annealing temperatures. Significant variations in the optoelectronic properties are induced by modifications in the surface defects of ZnO rods as a result of Al doping. As a consequence, an improved fill factor (FF) of 74.78 and 75.76% with a conversion efficiency (η) of 1.59 and 1.79% have been achieved for the fabricated DSSC devices made of the 800 °C annealed ZnO rods doped by 1 and 3 mol% Al, respectively.     

Improved charge transport and trap-state distribution in donor–acceptor-type semiconducting copolymer with a fluoropolymer dielectric film

This study presents a p-type doping method for donor–acceptor-type conjugated semiconducting copolymer-based field-effect transistors (FETs) with a fluoropolymer dielectric film. The polymeric FET, which initially comprises a non-polar polymer dielectric layer (poly (methyl methacrylate), PMMA), shows ambipolar behavior owing to the well-balanced electron-accepting and -donating properties of the cyclopentadithiophene (CDT) and pyridyl-2,1,3-thiadiazole (PTz)-based conjugated polymer backbone system. However, when combined with an amorphous fluoropolymer (CYTOP) dielectric layer, the FET device exhibits that their ambipolar behavior remarkably changes to a high-performance p-type FET; the hole mobility enhanced by a factor of ~3 and the threshold voltage significantly shifted from −29 V to −12 V. The density of trap states in the CDT-PTz-based polymeric FETs with a CYTOP dielectric layer, which was estimated from the temperature-dependent transfer characteristics, was narrower and shallower than that of polymeric FETs with a PMMA dielectric layer. As such, it can be inferred that the deep-trap states are filled with additional doped charges from the surface polarization induced by the fluorinated dielectrics at the semiconductor-dielectric interface.     

Inverse Bremsstrahlung absorption coefficient in inhomogeneous plasma with nonextensive electron velocity distribution and Tsallis exponential electron density profile

Inverse bremsstrahlung (collisional) absorption of the laser beam is studied in plasma with a generalized (q-nonextensive) electron velocity distribution and some kind of generalized electron density profile. It is shown that for some values of parameters designating the q-nonextensive electron velocity distribution function and its generalized density profile, the calculated absorption coefficient reduces to the already known cases with Maxwellian velocity distribution with linear and exponential density profiles.     

Optimal Randomness for Stochastic Configuration Network (SCN) with Heavy-Tailed Distributions

Stochastic Configuration Network (SCN) has a powerful capability for regression and classification analysis. Traditionally, it is quite challenging to correctly determine an appropriate architecture for a neural network so that the trained model can achieve excellent performance for both learning and generalization. Compared with the known randomized learning algorithms for single hidden layer feed-forward neural networks, such as Randomized Radial Basis Function (RBF) Networks and Random Vector Functional-link (RVFL), the SCN randomly assigns the input weights and biases of the hidden nodes in a supervisory mechanism. Since the parameters in the hidden layers are randomly generated in uniform distribution, hypothetically, there is optimal randomness. Heavy-tailed distribution has shown optimal randomness in an unknown environment for finding some targets. Therefore, in this research, the authors used heavy-tailed distributions to randomly initialize weights and biases to see if the new SCN models can achieve better performance than the original SCN. Heavy-tailed distributions, such as Lévy distribution, Cauchy distribution, and Weibull distribution, have been used. Since some mixed distributions show heavy-tailed properties, the mixed Gaussian and Laplace distributions were also studied in this research work. Experimental results showed improved performance for SCN with heavy-tailed distributions. For the regression model, SCN-Lévy, SCN-Mixture, SCN-Cauchy, and SCN-Weibull used less hidden nodes to achieve similar performance with SCN. For the classification model, SCN-Mixture, SCN-Lévy, and SCN-Cauchy have higher test accuracy of 91.5%, 91.7% and 92.4%, respectively. Both are higher than the test accuracy of the original SCN.     

Calibration Invariance of the MaxEnt Distribution in the Maximum Entropy Principle

The maximum entropy principle consists of two steps: The first step is to find the distribution which maximizes entropy under given constraints. The second step is to calculate the corresponding thermodynamic quantities. The second part is determined by Lagrange multipliers’ relation to the measurable physical quantities as temperature or Helmholtz free energy/free entropy. We show that for a given MaxEnt distribution, the whole class of entropies and constraints leads to the same distribution but generally different thermodynamics. Two simple classes of transformations that preserve the MaxEnt distributions are studied: The first case is a transform of the entropy to an arbitrary increasing function of that entropy. The second case is the transform of the energetic constraint to a combination of the normalization and energetic constraints. We derive group transformations of the Lagrange multipliers corresponding to these transformations and determine their connections to thermodynamic quantities. For each case, we provide a simple example of this transformation.     

Transient Dynamics in the Random Growth and Reset Model

A mean-field type model with random growth and reset terms is considered. The stationary distributions resulting from the corresponding master equation are relatively easy to obtain; however, for practical applications one also needs to know the convergence to stationarity. The present work contributes to this direction, studying the transient dynamics in the discrete version of the model by two different approaches. The first method is based on mathematical induction by the recursive integration of the coupled differential equations for the discrete states. The second method transforms the coupled ordinary differential equation system into a partial differential equation for the generating function. We derive analytical results for some important, practically interesting cases and discuss the obtained results for the transient dynamics.     

抵消Wigner-Ville分布交叉项的窄带运动声源无源测速

利用声波的多普勒频移可以对窄带运动声源进行单传感器无源测速,其性能很大程度上取决于能否精确地估计出声波的瞬时频率.Wigner-Ville分布虽然时频分辨率高,但存在交叉项干扰,很少被直接用于瞬时频率估计。对此,提出了抵消Wigner-Ville分布交叉项的单传感器窄带声源无源测速方法。利用交叉项与声源速度的关系构造一个抵消项,引入到Wigner-Ville分布中,通过对声源速度估计值进行迭代更新,使抵消项与交叉项相位相反,从而约掉交叉项。经实测噪声数据验证,对一辆以6.07 m/s匀速运动的卡车(信噪比约为29 dB)测速误差为0.1 m/s,运行时间为4.6 s,对一架以28.90 m/s匀速运动的直升机(信噪比约为16 dB)测速误差为0.46 m/s,运行时间为1.2 s,均优于匹配Wigner变换和多普勒线性调频小波变换测速方法.