Influence of structure on the optical limiting properties of nanotubes

We investigate the role of carbon nanotubes structure on their optical limiting properties. Samples of different and well-characterized structural features are studied by optical limiting and pump-probe experiments. The influence of the diameter's size on the nano-object is demonstrated. Indeed, both nucleation and growth of gas bubbles are expected to be sensitive to diameter

Fast response and high sensitivity ZnO/glass surface acoustic wave humidity sensors using graphene oxide sensing layer.

We report ZnO/glass surface acoustic wave (SAW) humidity sensors with high sensitivity and fast response using graphene oxide sensing layer. The frequency shift of the sensors is exponentially correlated to the humidity change, induced mainly by mass loading effect rather than the complex impedance change of the sensing layer. The SAW sensors show high sensitivity at a broad humidity range from 0.5%RH to 85%RH with < 1 sec rise time. The simple design and excellent stability of our GO-based SAW humidity sensors, complemented with full humidity range measurement, highlights their potential in a wide range of applications.This work was supported by NSFC (Nos. 61274037, 61274123, and 61474099) and the Zhejiang Provincial NSF (Nos. Z11101168 and LR12F04001). The authors also would like to acknowledge the financial support by the Innovation Platform of Micro/Nano devices and Integration System, Zhejiang University. TH wishes to acknowledge funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering. YX thanks the award from China Scholarship Council (CSC), Scholarship of Cyber Innovation Joint Research Center, Support by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014XZZX006), and Fellowship from Churchill College at University of Cambridge.This is the final published version of the article. It originally appeared at http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/141126/srep07206/full/srep07206.html

Parameter Selection of Oscillator Resonant Circuit Based on Stochastic Differential Equation

Because the choice of oscillator resonant circuit parameters depends mostly on experience, we propose nonlinear differential equations to describe an oscillator based on an equivalent circuit of the oscillator and then to describe the internal electrical noise of the oscillator by introducing a stochastic term that establishes a nonlinear stochastic differential equation to analyse the oscillator\u27s behavior. For optimization of the oscillator resonant circuit parameters, first, we used Advanced Design System (simulation software of the Agilent company) to verify the conclusion, and then, using a 10MHz Pierce crystal oscillator, provided experimental evidence

Model Adaptation with Synthetic and Real Data for Semantic Dense Foggy Scene Understanding

This work addresses the problem of semantic scene understanding under dense fog. Although considerable progress has been made in semantic scene understanding, it is mainly related to clear-weather scenes. Extending recognition methods to adverse weather conditions such as fog is crucial for outdoor applications. In this paper, we propose a novel method, named Curriculum Model Adaptation (CMAda), which gradually adapts a semantic segmentation model from light synthetic fog to dense real fog in multiple steps, using both synthetic and real foggy data. In addition, we present three other main stand-alone contributions: 1) a novel method to add synthetic fog to real, clear-weather scenes using semantic input; 2) a new fog density estimator; 3) the Foggy Zurich dataset comprising $3808$ real foggy images, with pixel-level semantic annotations for $16$ images with dense fog. Our experiments show that 1) our fog simulation slightly outperforms a state-of-the-art competing simulation with respect to the task of semantic foggy scene understanding (SFSU); 2) CMAda improves the performance of state-of-the-art models for SFSU significantly by leveraging unlabeled real foggy data. The datasets and code are publicly available.Comment: final version, ECCV 201

Exploration of hyperfine interaction between constituent quarks via eta productions

In this work, the different exchange freedom, one gluon, one pion or Goldstone boson, in constituent quark model is investigated, which is responsible to the hyperfine interaction between constituent quarks, via the combined analysis of the eta production processes, $\pi^{-}p\rightarrow\eta n$ and $\gamma p\rightarrow\eta p$. With the Goldstone-boson exchange, as well as the one-gluon or one-pion exchange, both the spectrum and observables, such as, the differential cross section and polarized beam asymmetry, are fitted to the suggested values of Particle Data Group and the experimental data. The first two types of exchange freedoms give acceptable description of the spectrum and observables while the one pion exchange can not describe the observables and spectrum simultaneously, so can be excluded. The experimental data for the two processes considered here strongly support the mixing angles for two lowest S11 sates and D13 states as about -30 and 6 degree respectively.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 4 table

Whole genome sequencing of a banana wild relative Musa itinerans provides insights into lineage-specific diversification of the Musa genus

Crop wild relatives are valuable resources for future genetic improvement. Here, we report the de novo genome assembly of Musa itinerans, a disease-resistant wild banana relative in subtropical China. The assembled genome size was 462.1 Mb, covering 75.2% of the genome (615.2Mb) and containing 32, 456 predicted protein-coding genes. Since the approximate divergence around 5.8 million years ago, the genomes of Musa itinerans and Musa acuminata have shown conserved collinearity. Gene family expansions and contractions enrichment analysis revealed that some pathways were associated with phenotypic or physiological innovations. These include a transition from wood to herbaceous in the ancestral Musaceae, intensification of cold and drought tolerances, and reduced diseases resistance genes for subtropical marginally distributed Musa species. Prevalent purifying selection and transposed duplications were found to facilitate the diversification of NBS-encoding gene families for two Musa species. The population genome history analysis of M. itinerans revealed that the fluctuated population sizes were caused by the Pleistocene climate oscillations, and that the formation of Qiongzhou Strait might facilitate the population downsizing on the isolated Hainan Island about 10.3 Kya. The qualified assembly of the M. itinerans genome provides deep insights into the lineage-specific diversification and also valuable resources for future banana breeding

Experimental and model estimates of the contributions from biogenic monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes to secondary organic aerosol in the southeastern United States

Atmospheric organic aerosol (OA) has important impacts on climate and human health but its sources remain poorly understood. Biogenic monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes are important precursors of secondary organic aerosol (SOA), but the amounts and pathways of SOA generation from these precursors are not well constrained by observations. We propose that the less-oxidized oxygenated organic aerosol (LO-OOA) factor resolved from positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis on aerosol mass spectrometry (AMS) data can be used as a surrogate for fresh SOA from monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes in the southeastern US. This hypothesis is supported by multiple lines of evidence, including lab-in-the-field perturbation experiments, extensive ambient ground-level measurements, and state-of-the-art modeling. We performed lab-in-the-field experiments in which the ambient air is perturbed by the injection of selected monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes, and the subsequent SOA formation is investigated. PMF analysis on the perturbation experiments provides an objective link between LO-OOA and fresh SOA from monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes as well as insights into the sources of other OA factors. Further, we use an upgraded atmospheric model and show that modeled SOA concentrations from monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes could reproduce both the magnitude and diurnal variation of LO-OOA at multiple sites in the southeastern US, building confidence in our hypothesis. We estimate the annual average concentration of SOA from monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes in the southeastern US to be roughly 2µgm^(−3)