NICE 2023 Zero-shot Image Captioning Challenge

In this report, we introduce NICE project\footnote{\url{https://nice.lgresearch.ai/}} and share the results and outcomes of NICE challenge 2023. This project is designed to challenge the computer vision community to develop robust image captioning models that advance the state-of-the-art both in terms of accuracy and fairness. Through the challenge, the image captioning models were tested using a new evaluation dataset that includes a large variety of visual concepts from many domains. There was no specific training data provided for the challenge, and therefore the challenge entries were required to adapt to new types of image descriptions that had not been seen during training. This report includes information on the newly proposed NICE dataset, evaluation methods, challenge results, and technical details of top-ranking entries. We expect that the outcomes of the challenge will contribute to the improvement of AI models on various vision-language tasks.Comment: Tech report, project page https://nice.lgresearch.ai

Application of deep eutectic solvents in biomass pretreatment and conversion

Biomass is renewable, abundant, cheap, biocompatible, and biodegradable materials and has been used to produce chemicals, materials, energy, and fuels. However, most of the biomass, especially most of the biomass polymers are not soluble in common solvents, which hinders their pretreatment and conversion. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are environmental-friendly, cheap, and highly tunable, with high solubility, which renders them potential applications in biomass pretreatment and conversion. They could be used as solvents or catalysts and so on. This paper intends to review the application of DESs for the pretreatment of biomass and conversion of biomass to value-added products. We focus on the following topics related to biomass and DESs: (1) DESs for the pretreatment of biomass; (2) DESs for the dissolution and separation of biomass or extraction of chemicals from biomass; (3) DESs for biomass conversion; (4) Drawbacks, and recyclability of DESs for pretreatment and conversion of biomass. Keywords: Deep eutectic solvents, Biomass, Pretreatment, Conversio

Revisiting greenness of ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents

Green solvents are one of the hot topics of green chemistry. Ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are deemed as green solvents to a certain extent, and they have been applied in many areas, such as dissolution, separation, catalysis, electrochemistry and material synthesis. However, the greenness of ILs and DESs should be revisited because more and more evidences have shown that they are not always green. In this perspective, besides the reported merits, the disadvantages and problems of some ILs and DESs, such as instability, volatility, hygroscopicity, toxicity, flammability, regenerability, cost, energy consumption and impurities are discussed. Moreover, 13 strategies to avoid the disadvantages of ILs and DESs and to increase the greenness are proposed. Comparison of the greenness of ILs and DESs is further conducted. This perspective provides some new viewpoints on the greenness of ILs and DESs

Comprehensive Investigation on the Thermal Stability of 66 Ionic Liquids by Thermogravimetric Analysis

The thermal stabilities of 66 ionic liquids (ILs) were investigated using the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) method. Isothermal TGA studies on the ILs showed that ILs exhibit decomposition at temperatures lower than the onset decomposition temperature (<i>T</i>_onset), which is determined from ramped temperature TGA experiments. Thermal decomposition kinetics of ILs was analyzed using pseudo-zero-order rate expression and their activation energy was obtained. Parameter <i>T</i>_0.01/10h, the temperature at which 1% mass loss occurs in 10 h, was used to evaluate the long-term thermal stability of ILs. The thermal stability of the ILs was classified to five levels according to <i>T</i>_onset. The ILs thermal stability is dependent on the structure of ILs, i.e., cation modification, cation and anion type. The correlations between the stability and the hydrophilicity of ILs were discussed. Finally, the thermal stabilities of acetate-based ILs, amino acid ILs, and dicyanamide ILs were analyzed

A Simple Strategy for the Simultaneous Determination of Dopamine, Uric Acid, L-Tryptophan and Theophylline Based on a Carbon Nano-Onions Modified Electrode

In this work, carbon nano-onions (CNOs) with particle sizes of 5–10 nm were prepared by the multi-potential step method. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy characterize the effective synthesis of CNOs. CNOs/GCEs were prepared by depositing the prepared CNOs onto glassy carbon electrodes (GCEs) by a drop-coating method. Examination of the electrocatalytic activity of the CNOs/GCE sensor by simultaneously detecting dopamine (DA), uric acid (UA), L-tryptophan (Trp) and theophylline (TP) using a differential pulse voltammetry technique. The results showed that the linear ranges of DA, UA, Trp and TP were DA 0.01–38.16 μM, UA 0.06–68.16 μM, Trp 1.00–108.25 μM, and TP 8.16–108.25 μM, and the detection limits (S/N = 3) were 0.0039 μM, 0.0087 μM, 0.18 μM and 0.35 μM, respectively. The CNOS/GCE sensor had good stability and could be used for the detection of actual samples

Comparison of the a Priori COSMO-RS Models and Group Contribution Methods: Original UNIFAC, Modified UNIFAC(Do), and Modified UNIFAC(Do) Consortium

A comparison of the performances of the COSMO-SAC, COSMO-RS­(Ol), original UNIFAC, modified UNIFAC­(Do), and modified UNIFAC­(Do) Consortium for activity coefficients at infinite dilution and binary VLE data is presented. The σ-profiles used in performing COSMO-SAC and COSMO-RS­(Ol) calculations were taken from the published σ-profile database VT 2005. The predicted results were compared with the experimental data stored in the Dortmund Data Bank and analyzed with respect to the types of components in the mixture. The results show that the UNIFAC models based on experimental data are superior to the a priori COSMO-RS models

An Environmentally Benign Cycle To Regenerate Chitosan and Capture Carbon Dioxide by Ionic Liquids

A new cycle platform has been built to provide an efficient method for biomass utilization and greenhouse gas control simultaneously via the interplay of interactions between ionic liquids (ILs), chitosan, and CO₂. All samples, including chitosan/IL solutions, chitin/IL solutions, and pure ILs, were employed to perform experiments on CO₂ capture/release. The results indicated that chitosan with a high degree of deacetylation can capture CO₂ in a nearly 2:1 stoichiometry. In the meantime, different mechanisms of chitosan regeneration from acetate-based ILs and others were explored. For the acetate-based ILs, ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy implied the formation of new species of [imida⁺–COO^–] after the chemical CO₂ capture, while only the changes of volume expansion and solvatochromic UV–vis parameters can give rise to chitosan regeneration for the ILs with less basic anions. In addition, raw chitosan was used to demonstrate the cycle by selective capture of CO₂ and precipitation from [Bmim]­OAc using compressed CO₂