Material Discrimination in Nanoparticle Hetero-Aggregates by Analysis of Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy Images

Hetero-contacts are interfaces between different materials at the nanoscale leading to novel functional properties. In hetero-aggregates, primary particles of at least two different materials are mixed at primary particle or cluster level. Double flame spray pyrolysis (DFSP) is a versatile technique for the controlled synthesis of such materials. Characterization of hetero-aggregates by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) requires acquisition and evaluation of many aggregate images in order to derive statistically significant results. Usually, STEM energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) is used to acquire elemental maps providing the material distribution of the primary particles within hetero-aggregates. However, the acquisition of a single EDXS map takes up to several minutes. For this reason, determination of material types of primary particles from the intensity in high-angle annular dark field STEM images alone is desirable. These images can be acquired within a couple of seconds. In the present work, a method is suggested which allows for achieving this objective. It can be applied to distinguish materials with a significant difference in their atomic number and hence sufficient material contrast in the STEM images.     

A real-time monitoring approach for bivariate event data

Early detection of changes in the frequency of events is an important task in many fields, such as disease surveillance, monitoring of high-quality processes, reliability monitoring, and public health. This article focuses on detecting changes in multivariate event data by monitoring the time-between-events (TBE). Existing multivariate TBE charts are limited because they only signal after an event occurred for each of the individual processes. This results in delays (i.e., long time-to-signal), especially when we are interested in detecting a change in one or a few processes with different rates. We propose a bivariate TBE chart, which can signal in real-time. We derive analytical expressions for the control limits and average time-to-signal performance, conduct a performance evaluation and compare our chart to an existing method. Our findings showed that our method is an effective approach for monitoring bivariate TBE data and has better detection ability than the existing method under transient shifts and is more generally applicable. A significant benefit of our method is that it signals in real-time and that the control limits are based on analytical expressions. The proposed method is implemented on two real-life datasets from reliability and health surveillance.     

Adaptive multimode transmission in wireless sensor networks with energy harvesting

Limited energy has always been an important factor restricting the development of wireless sensor networks. The unbalanced energy consumption of nodes will accelerate the death of some nodes. To solve the above problems, an adaptive routing algorithm for energy collection sensor networks based on distributed energy saving clustering (DEEC) is proposed. In each hop of data transmission, the optimal mode is adaptively selected from four transmission modes: single-hop cooperative, multi-hop cooperative, single-hop non-cooperative and multi-hop non-cooperative, so as to reduce and balance the energy consumption of nodes. The performance of the proposed adaptive multi-mode transmission method and several benchmark schemes are evaluated and compared by computer simulation, where a few performance metrics such as the network lifetime and throughput are adopted. The results show that, the proposed method can effectively reduce the energy consumption of the network and prolong the network lifetime; it is superior to various benchmark schemes.     

光纤传输速度干涉仪

介绍一种用多模光纤传输入射和反射激光的速度干涉仪，阐述了这种干涉仪的原理和结构，并将其与传统的速度干涉仪进行比较。给出了用这种干涉仪测量电爆管的弹丸速度和钨样品在铁飞片冲击压缩下的自由面速度的实验装置和结果。文中最后总结了这种干涉仪的性能及特点。     

两跨输电线非线性主共振响应分析

研究两跨输电线非线性共振响应问题,应用Hamilton变分原理推导了两跨输电线的振动微分方程以及对应的边界条件。利用Galerkin离散方法和多尺度法,得到了单模态主共振响应。研究结果表明:幅频响应曲线表现出软、硬弹簧性质,随着外激励幅值的增大,输电线系统响应由软弹簧性质向硬弹簧性质转换;系统阻尼减小或外激励幅值增大时,系统幅值个数也随之发生变化,表现出多值和跳跃现象。     

Direct Imaging of Octahedral Distortion in a Complex Molybdenum Vanadium Mixed Oxide

Complex Mo,V‐based mixed oxides that crystallize in the orthorhombic M1‐type structure are promising candidates for the selective oxidation of small alkanes. The oxygen sublattice of such a complex oxide has been studied by annular bright field scanning transmission electron microscopy. The recorded micrographs directly display the local distortion in the metal oxygen octahedra. From the degree of distortion we are able to draw conclusions on the distribution of oxidation states in the cation columns at different sites. The results are supported by X‐ray diffraction and electron paramagnetic resonance measurements that provide integral details about the crystal structure and spin coupling, respectively.     

Natural and artificial light-harvesting systems utilizing the functions of carotenoids

Carotenoids are essential pigments in natural photosynthesis. They absorb in the blue–green region of the solar spectrum and transfer the absorbed energy to (bacterio-)chlorophylls, and so expand the wavelength range of light that is able to drive photosynthesis. This process is an example of singlet–singlet energy transfer and so carotenoids serve to enhance the overall efficiency of photosynthetic light reactions. Carotenoids also act to protect photosynthetic organisms from the harmful effects of excess exposure to light. In this case, triplet–triplet energy transfer from (bacterio-)chlorophyll to carotenoid plays a key role in this photoprotective reaction. In the light-harvesting pigment–protein complexes from purple photosynthetic bacteria and chlorophytes, carotenoids have an additional role, namely the structural stabilization of those complexes. In this article we review what is currently known about how carotenoids discharge these functions. The molecular architecture of photosynthetic systems will be outlined to provide a basis from which to describe the photochemistry of carotenoids, which underlies most of their important functions in photosynthesis. Then, the possibility to utilize the functions of carotenoids in artificial photosynthetic light-harvesting systems will be discussed. Some examples of the model systems are introduced.     

Novel sponge-like molecularly imprinted mesoporous silica material for selective isolation of bisphenol A and its analogues from sediment extracts

Bisphenol A (BPA) imprinted sponge mesoporous silica was synthesized using a combination of semi-covalent molecular imprinting and simple self-assembly process. The molecularly imprinted sponge mesoporous silica (MISMS) material obtained was characterized by FT-IR, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurements. The results show that the MISMS possessed a large specific surface area (850.55 m² g⁻¹) and a highly interconnected 3-D porous network. As a result, the MISMS demonstrated a superior specific adsorption capacity of 169.22 μmol g⁻¹ and fast adsorption kinetics (reaching equilibrium within 3 min) for BPA. Good class selectivity for BPA and its analogues (bisphenol F, bisphenol B, bisphenol E and bisphenol AF) was also demonstrated by the sorption experiment. The MISMS as solid-phase extraction (SPE) material was then evaluated for isolation and clean-up of these bisphenols (BPs) from sediment samples. An accurate and sensitive analytical method based on the MISMS–SPE coupled with HPLC–DAD has been successfully established for simultaneous determination of five BPs in river sediments with detection limits of 0.43–0.71 ng g⁻¹ dry weight (dw). The recoveries of BPs for lyophilizated sediment samples at two spiking levels (50 and 500 ng g⁻¹ dw for each BP) were in the range of 75.5–105.5% with RSD values below 7.5%.     

Recent progresses on solution-processed silver nanowire based transparent conducting electrodes for organic solar cells

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are considered as a future alternative for conventional silicon based solar cells, owing to their low cost, ease of production and high-throughput. The transparent conducting electrode (TCE) is a fundamental component of OPVs. Traditionally, indium tin oxide (ITO) has been mainly utilized as a TCE in OPV applications due to its relatively high transparency and low sheet resistance. However, increasing demand for the optoelectronic devices has led to large fluctuations in ITO prices in the past decade and ITO is known to account more than 50% of the total cost of OPV devices. Thus, it is believed that development of solution-processable alternative materials is of great importance in reducing the cost of OPVs. Numerous materials, including silver nanowires, carbon nanotubes, graphene and conducting polymers, have been offered as replacements for ITO. This article reviews recent progress on fabrication of TCE via solution based coating techniques of silver nanowires (Ag NWs). In addition, performance of the Ag NWs based TCE in OPVs is summarized. Finally, we explore the future outlook for Ag NWs based TCE at the end of the review.