Multiproxy study of anthropogenic and climatic changes in the last two millennia from a small mire in central Poland

The Żabieniec kettle-hole is the first peatland in central Poland analysed quantitatively with four biotic proxies (plant macrofossils, pollen, testate amoebae and chironomids) in order to reconstruct past environmental change. Palaeoecological data were supported by historical and archaeological records. We focused on autogenic vegetation change and human impact in relation to climatic effects. The aims of our study were: (a) to describe the development history of the mire during the last 2000 years, (b) to date and reconstruct the anthropogenic land-use changes, and (c) to discuss a possible climatic signal in the peat archive. The combination of proxies revealed dramatic shifts that took place in the peatland since the Roman Period. Żabieniec was a very wet telmatic habitat until ca AD 600. Then the water table declined and the site transformed into a Sphagnum-dominated mire. This dry shift took place mainly during the Early Medieval Period. Human impact was gradually increasing and it was particularly emphasized by deforestation since AD 1250 (beginning of the Late Medieval Period). Consequently, surface run-off and aeolian transport from the exposed soils caused the eutrophication of the mire. Furthermore, chironomids and testate amoebae reveal the beginning of a wet shift ca AD 1350. Openness considerably increased in the Late Medieval and the Modern Periods. The highest water table during the last 1000 years was recorded between AD 1500 and 1800. This wet event is connected with deforestation but it could be also associated with the Little Ice Age. Our study shows plant succession in the Żabieniec peatland, which can be explained with the recent landscape transformation. However, such changes are also possibly linked with the major climatic episodes during the last two millennia, such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age

Metal-support interaction and charge distribution in ceria-supported Au particles exposed to CO

Understanding how reaction conditions affect metal-support interactions in catalytic materials is one of the most challenging tasks in heterogeneous catalysis research. Metal nanoparticles and their supports often undergo changes in structure and oxidation state when exposed to reactants, hindering a straightforward understanding of the structure-activity relations using only ex situ or ultrahigh vacuum techniques. Overcoming these limitations, we explored the metal-support interaction between gold nanoparticles and ceria supports in ultrahigh vacuum and after exposure to CO. A combination of in situ methods (on powder and model Au/CeO2 samples) and theoretical calculations was applied to investigate the gold/ceria interface and its reactivity toward CO exposure. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements rationalized by first-principles calculations reveal a distinctly inhomogeneous charge distribution, with Au+ atoms in contact with the ceria substrate and neutral Au0 atoms at the surface of the Au nanoparticles. Exposure to CO partially reduces the ceria substrate, leading to electron transfer to the supported Au nanoparticles. Transferred electrons can delocalize among the neutral Au atoms of the particle or contribute to forming inert Auδ− atoms near oxygen vacancies at the ceria surface. This charge redistribution is consistent with the evolution of the vibrational frequencies of CO adsorbed on Au particles obtained using diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy

A Tree-structure Convolutional Neural Network for Temporal Features Exaction on Sensor-based Multi-resident Activity Recognition

With the propagation of sensor devices applied in smart home, activity recognition has ignited huge interest and most existing works assume that there is only one habitant. While in reality, there are generally multiple residents at home, which brings greater challenge to recognize activities. In addition, many conventional approaches rely on manual time series data segmentation ignoring the inherent characteristics of events and their heuristic hand-crafted feature generation algorithms are difficult to exploit distinctive features to accurately classify different activities. To address these issues, we propose an end-to-end Tree-Structure Convolutional neural network based framework for Multi-Resident Activity Recognition (TSC-MRAR). First, we treat each sample as an event and obtain the current event embedding through the previous sensor readings in the sliding window without splitting the time series data. Then, in order to automatically generate the temporal features, a tree-structure network is designed to derive the temporal dependence of nearby readings. The extracted features are fed into the fully connected layer, which can jointly learn the residents labels and the activity labels simultaneously. Finally, experiments on CASAS datasets demonstrate the high performance in multi-resident activity recognition of our model compared to state-of-the-art techniques.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) as a tool for identification of combustion products : application to black layers in speleothems

The present study deals with the application of High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) to dark layers, occurring in the speleothems of Domica Cave (Slovakia). Chemical pre-treatment was necessary for sample purification and the effective extraction of carbon soot. For purposes of comparison, soot aggregates obtained from laboratory experiments on the combustion of beech wood and collected from a diesel engine also were studied. HRTEM analyses of combustion products permit a distinction to be made between soot aggregates that originated in different combustion processes. The diameter of spherical, primary particles depends on the conditions of combustion, notably temperature. Burning in diesel engines produces soot with relatively small, primary particles (diameter dp = 34 ± 4 nm). Primary, spherical particles of soot aggregates, obtained from the combustion of beech wood, were larger (diameter dp = 42 ± 5 nm). The diameters of primary particles of soot separated from Domica flowstones (samples DOM1 and DOM2) were similar to the wood samples (dp = 50 ± 9 nm). Another type of carbonaceous particle, obtained in the combustion process, had a spherical shape, but the diameter of about 50–500 nm was significantly larger than that of soot. Analyses performed on two samples (DOM S1 and DOM S2) confirmed that the black laminae owed their colour to particles, formed during wood combustion and later retained in the speleothems

Phase identification of nanometric precipitates in AlSi9Cu alloy after remelting by laser beam

The aim of presented paper is an investigation of the structure changes in AlSi9Cu alloy after remelting by a laser beam. Scanning transmission electron microscopy was applied for structure characterization and precipitates phase identification. In the raw material, precipitates were larger and during remelting such precipitates were dissolved and very fast crystallization came next. Observed precipitates are generally uniform: in size, shape, and chemical composition. Generally, after remelting precipitates are not uniformly distributed in the whole sample but areas with dense, nanometric precipitates are common. Numerous volumes with elongated Ti precipitates, identified as Ti(Al_{1-x}Si_{x})₃, were found. Observed precipitate can strongly affect material properties (even in a case of law Ti concentration) because it may act as a crystal nucleus for other phases

Carbon Nanomaterials from Carbon Monoxide Using Nickel and Cobalt Catalysts

Two catalysts, nickel and cobalt, supported on MgO were used for carbon nanomaterials deposition by CO disproportionation. The syntheses were performed at 795 and 900 K in the hydrogen atmosphere. The resulting products were investigated using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Although in the literature carbon nanofibres are expected to form in the hydrogen presence, we obtained carbon nanotubes, which were multiwall and twisted with the outer diameter of 10-120 nm and the tube length up to 10 μm

Phase identification of nanometric precipitates in Al-Si-Cu aluminum alloy by HR-STEM investigations

Aluminium recycling is cost-effective and beneficial for the environment. It is expected that this trend will continue in the future, and even will steadily increase. The consequence of the use of recycled materials is variable and difficult to predict chemical composition. This causes a significant reduction in the production process, since the properties of produced alloy are determined by the inicrostructure and the presence of precipitates of other phases. For this reason, the type and order of formation of precipitates were systematically investigated in recent decades. These studies involved, however, only the main systems (Al-Cu. Al-Mg-Si, Al-Cu-Mg, Al-Mg-Si-Cu), while more complex systems were not analysed. Even trace amounts of additional elements can significantly affect the alloy inicrostructure and composition of precipitates formed. This fact is particularly important in the case of new technologies such as laser surface treatment. As a result of extremely high temperature and temperature changes after the laser remelting large amount of precipitates are observed. Precipitates are nanometric in size and have different morphology and chemical composition. A full understanding of the processes that occur during the laser remelting requires their precise but also time effectively phase identification, which due to the diversity and nanometric size, is a major research challenge. This work presents the methodology of identification of nanometer phase precipitates in the alloy AlSi9Cu, based on the simultaneous TEM imaging and chemical composition analysis using the dispersion spectroscopy using the characteristic X-ray. Verification is performed by comparing the simulation unit cell of the identified phase with the experimental high-resolution image

Wpływ czasu mielenia na mikrostrukturę kompozytów o osnowie stopu aluminium 6061 wytworzonych przez mechaniczne stopowanie

The aim of this work is to determine the effect of manufacturing conditions, especially milling time, on the microstructure and crystallite size of a newly developed nanostructural composite material with the aluminium alloy matrix reinforced with halloysite nanotubes. Halloysite, being a clayey mineral of volcanic origin, is characterized by high porosity and large specific surface area. Thus it can be used as an alternative reinforcement in metal matrix composite materials. In order to obtain this goal, composite powders with fine microstructures were fabricated using high-energy mechanical alloying, cold compacting and hot extrusion techniques. The obtained composite powders of aluminium alloy reinforced with 5, 10 and 15 wt% of halloysite nanotubes were characterized with SEM, TEM and XRD analysis. It has been proven that the use of mechanical alloying leads to a high degree of deformation, which, coupled with a decreased grain size below 100 nm and the dispersion of the refined reinforcing particles–reinforces the material very well.Celem niniejszej pracy było określenie wpływu warunków wytwarzania, w szczególności czasu mielenia, na strukturę i wielkość krystalitów nowo opracowanych nanostrukturalnych materiałów kompozytowych o osnowie stopów aluminium wzmacnianych nanorurkami haloizytowymi. Haloizyt, będący minerałem ilastym pochodzenia wulkanicznego, charakteryzuje się dużą porowatością, dużą powierzchnią właściwą, i może stanowić alternatywne wzmocnienie metalowych materiałów kompozytowych. W tym celu przy użyciu wysokoenergetycznego mechanicznego stopowania w młynie kulowym wytworzono rozdrobnione i trwale połączone proszki kompozytowe, które następnie poddano zagęszczaniu na zimno i wyciskaniu na gorąco. Tak opracowane materiały kompozytowe o udziale masowym haloizytowego wzmocnienia 5, 10, 15% zbadano metodami skaningowej i transmisyjnej mikroskopii elektronowej oraz rentgenowskiej analizy fazowej. Stwierdzono, że wywołane mechanicznym stopowaniem silne odkształcenie plastyczne i zmniejszenie rozmiaru ziarna poniżej 100 nm oraz dyspersja haloizytowych cząstek wzmacniających wpłynęła na znaczne umocnienie materiałów kompozytowych