Crosses, Hammers, And Sickles: Sino-vatican Relations Between 1949 And 1989

In July 2011, Pope Benedict XVI publicly condemned the ordination of Father Paul Lei Shiyin as Bishop, an appointment the Vatican had not previously approved. The conflict between Beijing and the Holy See over the appointment of Chinese bishops dates back to 1951, when China and Vatican broke diplomatic relations. This paper questions why the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China failed to establish normal relations between 1949 and 1989. The literature on the diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Holy See is sparse. Beatrice Leung’s monograph SinoVatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority 1976-1986 is the most authoritative account of SinoVatican relations after 1949. Leung analyzes the major developments of Beijing-Vatican relations in terms of a clash of authority between the Pope and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Consolidation behavior of bulk amorphous glasses and foils: The effect of current on devitrification kinetics

We present the application of dynamic loading and rapid heating as controlling parameters for the spark plasma sintering of an ultra-high hardness and highly corrosion resistant Fe-based amorphous alloy (Fe49.7Cr17.7Mn1.9W1.6B15.2C3.8Si2.4), such that sintering temperature and time can be used as independent variables for devitrification. We develop two types of in situ composites using the dynamic loading strategy and characterize the density, phase development, and microstructure. We also develop and characterize ex situ composites by adding various crystalline powders to the amorphous metal powders and explore possible effects of particle size, volume fraction, and type of crystalline phase (W or Ta) on the design strategy. From this, we propose a devitrification processing map that facilitates designing in situ and ex situ BMG composites. In situ composites (formed by devitrification) or ex situ composites (formed by addition of a reinforcement phase) can facilitate improvement in toughness of these materials. In addition, we will describe the consolidation response of amorphous metal foils of similar compositions as listed above. The samples show unique microstructural features associated with the current flow and sparking in the material during processing

Neural Dysfunction Underlying Working Memory Processing at Different Stages of the Illness Course in Schizophrenia:A Comparative Meta-analysis

Schizophrenia (SCZ), as a chronic and persistent disorder, exhibits working memory deficits across various stages of the disorder, yet the neural mechanisms underlying these deficits remain elusive with inconsistent neuroimaging findings. We aimed to compare the brain functional changes of working memory in patients at different stages: clinical high risk (CHR), first-episode psychosis (FEP), and long-term SCZ, using meta-analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. Following a systematic literature search, fifty-six whole-brain task-based fMRI studies (15 for CHR, 16 for FEP, 25 for long-term SCZ) were included. The separate and pooled neurofunctional mechanisms among CHR, FEP and long-term SCZ were generated by Seed-based d Mapping toolbox. The CHR and FEP groups exhibited overlapping hypoactivation in the right inferior parietal lobule, right middle frontal gyrus, and left superior parietal lobule, indicating key lesion sites in the early phase of SCZ. Individuals with FEP showed lower activation in left inferior parietal lobule than those with long-term SCZ, reflecting a possible recovery process or more neural inefficiency. We concluded that SCZ represent as a continuum in the early stage of illness progression, while the neural bases are inversely changed with the development of illness course to long-term course

A novel coupling method for unresolved CFD-DEM modeling

In CFD-DEM (computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method) simulations particles are considered Lagrangian point particles. The details of the flow near the particle surface are therefore not fully resolved. When the particle scale is larger than the resolved flow scale, the coupling between the CFD model and the DEM model is critical. An effective coupling scheme should minimize the risk of artificial influences on the results from choices of numerical parameters in implementations and consider efficiency and robustness. In this work, a novel coupling method is developed. The method includes both the smoothing of the particle data and the sampling of the gas phase quantities. The smoothing employs the diffusion-based method. The gas sampling method can reconstruct the filtered fluid quantities at the particle center. The sampling method is developed based on the diffusion-based method with higher efficiency. The new method avoids mesh searching and it can be easily implemented in parallel computing. The developed method is validated by the simulation of a forced convection experiment for a fixed bed with steel spheres. With the well-posed grid-independent coupling scheme, the simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental measurements. The coupling effects and the computational cost are discussed in detail

Control4D: Dynamic Portrait Editing by Learning 4D GAN from 2D Diffusion-based Editor

Recent years have witnessed considerable achievements in editing images with text instructions. When applying these editors to dynamic scene editing, the new-style scene tends to be temporally inconsistent due to the frame-by-frame nature of these 2D editors. To tackle this issue, we propose Control4D, a novel approach for high-fidelity and temporally consistent 4D portrait editing. Control4D is built upon an efficient 4D representation with a 2D diffusion-based editor. Instead of using direct supervisions from the editor, our method learns a 4D GAN from it and avoids the inconsistent supervision signals. Specifically, we employ a discriminator to learn the generation distribution based on the edited images and then update the generator with the discrimination signals. For more stable training, multi-level information is extracted from the edited images and used to facilitate the learning of the generator. Experimental results show that Control4D surpasses previous approaches and achieves more photo-realistic and consistent 4D editing performances. The link to our project website is https://control4darxiv.github.io.Comment: The link to our project website is https://control4darxiv.github.i

Historical development and novel concepts on electrolytes for aqueous rechargeable batteries

In battery systems, aqueous electrolytes are superior in ionic conductivity, interfacial wettability, safety and environmentally benign compared to organic liquids, polymers, inorganic solid-state and ionic liquid electrolytes

A symmetric direct ammonia fuel cell using ternary NiCuFe alloy embedded in a carbon network as electrodes

Recently, due to the high energy density of ammonia, low source-to-tank energy cost and carbon free fuel, low-temperature direct ammonia fuel cells (DAFCs) have attracted extensive attention and play an important role in ammonia economy. In DAFCs, Pt-based materials have been the most studied electrocatalysts for the anodic ammonia oxidation reaction (AOR) and cathodic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) over the past decade. However, the high cost of precious metal has markedly inhibited the large-scale application of DAFCs. Herein, a bifunctional material of ternary Ni4Cu5Fex (x = 0, 0.5, 1, 3, 5) alloy embedded in a carbon network was prepared by a simple solvothermal approach, and showed superior activity and durability towards both AOR and ORR. The excellent bifunctional catalytic activity of the Ni4Cu5Fe1/C sample was analyzed by experimental and calculational methods. Utilizing the bifunctional activities of this alloy, a symmetric DAFC was assembled with Ni4Cu5Fe1/C as both the anode and cathode, with a commercial anion exchange membrane (AEM) as electrolyte. The symmetric DAFC-Ni4Cu5Fe1/C showed a maximum current density of 67 mA cm−2 at 80 °C. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on a symmetric DAFC. This work not only reports a new AOR/ORR bifunctional catalyst, but also moves towards the development of low-cost DAFCs with simple structure

An efficient symmetric electrolyzer based on bifunctional perovskite catalyst for ammonia electrolysis

Ammonia is a natural pollutant in wastewater and removal technique such as ammonia electro‐oxidation is of paramount importance. The development of highly efficient and low‐costing electrocatalysts for the ammonia oxidation reaction (AOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) associated with ammonia removal is subsequently crucial. In this study, for the first time, the authors demonstrate that a perovskite oxide LaNi0.5Cu0.5O3‐δ after being annealed in Ar (LNCO55‐Ar), is an excellent non‐noble bifunctional catalyst towards both AOR and HER, making it suitable as a symmetric ammonia electrolyser (SAE) in alkaline medium. In contrast, the LNCO55 sample fired in air (LNCO55‐Air) is inactive towards AOR and shows very poor HER activity. Through combined experimental results and theoretical calculations, it is found that the superior AOR and HER activities are attributed to the increased active sites, the introduction of oxygen vacancies, the synergistic effect of B‐site cations and the different active sites in LNCO55‐Ar. At 1.23 V, the assembled SAE demonstrates ≈100% removal efficiency in 2210 ppm ammonia solution and >70% in real landfill leachate. This work opens the door for developments towards bifunctional catalysts, and also takes a profound step towards the development of low‐costing and simple device configuration for ammonia electrolysers

Devitrification behavior and interface microstructure of Ni-based amorphous metal during spark plasma sintering

We present a detailed study of the devitrification behavior of five Ni-based amorphous metal foils of different compositions, consolidated using spark plasma sintering (SPS) or pressureless sintering. Samples of approximately 5 mm thickness and 20 mm in diameter were prepared by stacking layers of amorphous foil on top of each other. The sintering temperatures were based on the crystallization temperatures (Tx) for each sample as determined from differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Through detailed X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) measurements and DSC analysis, we observed that the width of the 100% diffraction peak decreased with increasing temperature. The changes in FWHM with temperature correspond to similar exothermic crystallization reaction stages observed in DSC analysis. In addition, differences in crystallization kinetics were noticed for samples sintered by SPS versus samples sintered in ambient atmosphere using an external heat source (free sintering). Microstructure analysis of the samples by scanning electron microscopy shows the extent of sintering between the foil layers and bonding mechanisms with different sintering methods. Unique morphologies with positive effect on foil bonding were observed when consolidating foils using SPS