Sodium Biphenyl as Anolyte for Sodium-Seawater Batteries

Sodium-based battery systems have recently attracted increasing research interest due to the abundant resources employed. Among various material candidates for the negative electrode, sodium metal provides the highest capacity of theoretically 1165 mAh g(-1) and a very low redox potential of -2.71 versus the standard hydrogen electrode. However, the high reactivity of sodium metal toward the commonly used electrolytes results in severe side reactions, including the evolution of gaseous decomposition products, and, in addition, the risk of dendritic sodium growth, potentially causing a disastrous short circuit of the cell. Herein, the use of sodium biphenyl (Na-BP) as anolyte for the Na-seawater batteries (Na-SWB) is investigated. The catholyte for the open-structured positive electrode is natural seawater with sodium cations dissolved therein. Remarkably, the significant electronic and ionic conductivities of the Na-BP anolyte enable a low overpotential for the sodium deposition upon charge, allowing for high capacity and excellent capacity retention for 80 cycles in full Na-SWB. Additionally, the Na-BP anolyte suppresses gas evolution and dendrite growth by forming a homogeneous surface layer on the metallic negative electrode

Press-pulse: a novel therapeutic strategy for the metabolic management of cancer

Background A shift from respiration to fermentation is a common metabolic hallmark of cancer cells. As a result, glucose and glutamine become the prime fuels for driving the dysregulated growth of tumors. The simultaneous occurrence of “Press-Pulse” disturbances was considered the mechanism responsible for reduction of organic populations during prior evolutionary epochs. Press disturbances produce chronic stress, while pulse disturbances produce acute stress on populations. It was only when both disturbances coincide that population reduction occurred. Methods This general concept can be applied to the management of cancer by creating chronic metabolic stresses on tumor cell energy metabolism (press disturbance) that are coupled to a series of acute metabolic stressors that restrict glucose and glutamine availability while also stimulating cancer-specific oxidative stress (pulse disturbances). The elevation of non-fermentable ketone bodies protect normal cells from energy stress while further enhancing energy stress in tumor cells that lack the metabolic flexibility to use ketones as an efficient energy source. Mitochondrial abnormalities and genetic mutations make tumor cells vulnerable metabolic stress. Results The press-pulse therapeutic strategy for cancer management is illustrated with calorie restricted ketogenic diets (KD-R) used together with drugs and procedures that create both chronic and intermittent acute stress on tumor cell energy metabolism, while protecting and enhancing the energy metabolism of normal cells. Conclusions Optimization of dosing, timing, and scheduling of the press-pulse therapeutic strategy will facilitate the eradication of tumor cells with minimal patient toxicity. This therapeutic strategy can be used as a framework for the design of clinical trials for the non-toxic management of most cancers

Meaningful Gameplay Design and the Effect on Eudaimonic and Hedonic Gaming Experience

Past research has looked into meaningfulness in video game narratives, as well as meaningful play. However, more empirical studies are needed to understand the mechanisms of meaningful play. This paper first investigates how the design of game dialogues may enable meaningfulness in video games (eudaimonic gaming experience) and how it relates to game enjoyment (hedonic gaming experience). Second, it also examines how meaningful play influences prosocial attitudes toward culturally different outgroups. A pre-posttest experiment of a management game was conducted with 174 adult participants. Participants were randomly assigned to either a game with moral scenarios or one without. Results showed that participants who played the game with moral decision-making perceived a higher level of meaningfulness and game enjoyment. No significant relationship was found between perceived meaningfulness and intergroup perceptions

Eight Years of Face Recognition Research: Reproducibility, Achievements and Open Issues

Automatic face recognition is a research area with high popularity. Many different face recognition algorithms have been proposed in the last thirty years of intensive research in the field. With the popularity of deep learning and its capability to solve a huge variety of different problems, face recognition researchers have concentrated effort on creating better models under this paradigm. From the year 2015, state-of-the-art face recognition has been rooted in deep learning models. Despite the availability of large-scale and diverse datasets for evaluating the performance of face recognition algorithms, many of the modern datasets just combine different factors that influence face recognition, such as face pose, occlusion, illumination, facial expression and image quality. When algorithms produce errors on these datasets, it is not clear which of the factors has caused this error and, hence, there is no guidance in which direction more research is required. This work is a followup from our previous works developed in 2014 and eventually published in 2016, showing the impact of various facial aspects on face recognition algorithms. By comparing the current state-of-the-art with the best systems from the past, we demonstrate that faces under strong occlusions, some types of illumination, and strong expressions are problems mastered by deep learning algorithms, whereas recognition with low-resolution images, extreme pose variations, and open-set recognition is still an open problem. To show this, we run a sequence of experiments using six different datasets and five different face recognition algorithms in an open-source and reproducible manner. We provide the source code to run all of our experiments, which is easily extensible so that utilizing your own deep network in our evaluation is just a few minutes away

Pauli topological subsystem codes from Abelian anyon theories

We construct Pauli topological subsystem codes characterized by arbitrary two-dimensional Abelian anyon theories--this includes anyon theories with degenerate braiding relations and those without a gapped boundary to the vacuum. Our work both extends the classification of two-dimensional Pauli topological subsystem codes to systems of composite-dimensional qudits and establishes that the classification is at least as rich as that of Abelian anyon theories. We exemplify the construction with topological subsystem codes defined on four-dimensional qudits based on the $\mathbb{Z}_4^{(1)}$ anyon theory with degenerate braiding relations and the chiral semion theory--both of which cannot be captured by topological stabilizer codes. The construction proceeds by "gauging out" certain anyon types of a topological stabilizer code. This amounts to defining a gauge group generated by the stabilizer group of the topological stabilizer code and a set of anyonic string operators for the anyon types that are gauged out. The resulting topological subsystem code is characterized by an anyon theory containing a proper subset of the anyons of the topological stabilizer code. We thereby show that every Abelian anyon theory is a subtheory of a stack of toric codes and a certain family of twisted quantum doubles that generalize the double semion anyon theory. We further prove a number of general statements about the logical operators of translation invariant topological subsystem codes and define their associated anyon theories in terms of higher-form symmetries.Comment: 67 + 35 pages, single column forma

Team One Carbon Catcher Design Report

Overview The burning of fossil fuels largely contributes to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The US Department of Transportation alone contributed almost 6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2018 (EIA). Due to this, this report proposes recycling captured CO2 into a base for cleaner burning fuel in order to reduce emissions from the transportation industry and many others, which has the potential to impact many areas. Extraction of atmospheric CO2 is possible through a membrane filtration system based on traditional nitrogen generation. The passive filtration system autonomously separates the CO2 from other air components, thereby reducing energy consumption. The system's working sensors and actuators utilize similar energy saving strategies, such as distributing cloud-computing services over multiple servers and mainframes to reduce computing power. The movement of air is directed by a scalable fan device, which is presented as a modular design to allow customization of fan parts to specific size and installation requirements. As an integrated device, Team 1’s Carbon Catcher operates with a high efficiency in order to maximize the commercial opportunity of converting captured CO2 into cleaner fuel while also reducing CO2 emissions and the greenhouse effect. Goal The goal of Team 1’s Carbon Catcher project proposal is to design a cost-effective, scalable, and modular atmospheric carbon dioxide removal system that is capable of being utilized in a range of urban environments and may fit a variety of different customer requirements or requests

Prioritising Health in Mobility Planning:Assessing Health and co-benefits in European Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans

Transport can influence health both positively and negatively through various detrimental and beneficial pathways. Transport policies that promote health offer major environmental and economic co-benefits and are critical for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To date, few studies have empirically examined the degree to which health goals and outcomes have been incorporated into urban mobility plans. This work assesses how much health is addressed in current Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs), including the extent to which: i) health and its various aspects like health equity are highlighted, ii) transport pathways to health and their associated health outcomes are made explicit, and iii) health is operationalised into targets and KPIs and the health-rationale of various actions and measures is elaborated. A three-step method is used: i) developing a health dictionary and a policy analysis checklist, ii) conducting a quantitative text analysis on a dataset of 230 SUMPs, and iii) performing a detailed qualitative analysis of a purposive sample of 13 SUMPs across Europe. The findings show that while health is often touched upon, and its prominence seems to be increasing, SUMPs miss out on the opportunity to embrace mobility as a driver of health promotion. The link between transport and equity, and social and mental wellbeing is not frequently discussed. Detailed targets and key performance indicators (KPIs) for several health pathways are scarce or missing, as are the health rationale and health outcomes for proposed measures. Overwhelmingly SUMPs’ health aspirations are concerned with minimising detrimental impacts of transport on health, primarily from traffic injuries and to a lesser extent from air pollution. Health related concepts such as accessibility and active travel feature prominently but are not seen as an opportunity to enhance health. It is recommended to highlight the role of transport policy not only in reducing adverse health effects, but also as an opportunity for health enhancement.</div

Debris flow mitigation by using biopolymers as a soil stabilizer

Towards rising the attention to the use of green materials in geotechnical applications, this study aims to introduce carrageenan as a new environment-friendly polymer for slope surface stabilization. A set of experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the biopolymer-treated soil to form a resistant surface against the surface erosion and debris flow. samples were tested by changing a variety of effective parameters including biopolymer content, moisture content, curing time, soil type, and durability under wet- dry cycles. Kaolinite soil along with river sand in different combinations were employed and treated by various biopolymer proportions to optimize the biopolymer and soil parameters. Subsequently, the optimum mixture of each biopolymer-treated soil was subjected to 5 cycles of wetting and drying. A broad microstructural study by performing FTIR analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images was conducted and an analytical model was developed to clarify how biopolymer stabilize the slope surface. The results confirm the successful performance of carrageenan in connecting soil grains, increasing mechanical strength and durability of soil against surface erosion. It can be concluded that carrageenan can be considered as a sustainable alternative to conventional materials such as cement and lime

Chemotion ELN : an Open Source electronic lab notebook for chemists in academia

The development of an electronic lab notebook (ELN) for researchers working in the field of chemical sciences is presented. The web based application is available as an Open Source software that offers modern solutions for chemical researchers. The Chemotion ELN is equipped with the basic functionalities necessary for the acquisition and processing of chemical data, in particular the work with molecular structures and calculations based on molecular properties. The ELN supports planning, description, storage, and management for the routine work of organic chemists. It also provides tools for communicating and sharing the recorded research data among colleagues. Meeting the requirements of a state of the art research infrastructure, the ELN allows the search for molecules and reactions not only within the user’s data but also in conventional external sources as provided by SciFinder and PubChem. The presented development makes allowance for the growing dependency of scientific activity on the availability of digital information by providing Open Source instruments to record and reuse research data. The current version of the ELN has been using for over half of a year in our chemistry research group, serves as a common infrastructure for chemistry research and enables chemistry researchers to build their own databases of digital information as a prerequisite for the detailed, systematic investigation and evaluation of chemical reactions and mechanisms

Widespread occurrences of variably crystalline C-13-depleted graphitic carbon in banded iron formations

Almost all evidence for the oldest traces of life on Earth rely on particles of graphitic carbon preserved in rocks of sedimentary protolith. Yet, the source of carbon in such ancient graphite is debated, as it could possibly be non-biological and/or non-indigenous in origin. Here we describe the co-occurrence of poorly crystalline and crystalline varieties of graphitic carbon with apatite in ten different and variably metamorphosed banded iron formations (BIF) ranging in age from 1,800 to >3,800 Myr. In Neoarchean to Palaeoproterozoic BIF subjected to low-grade metamorphism, C-13-depleted graphitic carbon occurs as inclusions in apatite, and carbonate and arguably represents the remineralisation of syngenetic biomass. In BIF subjected to high-grade metamorphism, C-13-depleted graphite co-occurs with poorly crystalline graphite (PCG), as well as apatite, carbonate, pyrite, amphibole and greenalite. Retrograde minerals such as greenalite, and veins cross-cutting magnetite layers contain PCG. Crystalline graphite can occur with apatite and orthopyroxene, and sometimes it has PCG coatings. Crystalline graphite is interpreted to represent the metamorphosed product of syngenetic organic carbon deposited in BIF, while poorly crystalline graphite was precipitated from C-O-H fluids partially sourced from the syngenetic carbon, along with fluid-deposited apatite and carbonate. The isotopic signature of the graphitic carbon and the distribution of fluid-deposited graphite in highly metamorphosed BIF is consistent with carbon in the fluids being derived from the thermal cracking of syngenetic biomass deposited in BIF, but, extraneous sources of carbon cannot be ruled out as a source for PCG. The results here show that apatite + graphite is a common mineral assemblage in metamorphosed BIF. The mode of formation of this assemblage is, however, variable, which has important implications for the timing of life's emergence on Earth. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe