Preparation of (Pb,Ba)TiO3 powders and highly oriented thin films by a sol-gel process

Solid solution Pb1-xBaxTiO3, with particular emphasis on Pb0.5Ba0.5TiO3, was prepared using a sol-gel process incorporating lead acetate trihydrate, barium acetate, and titanium isopropoxide as precursors, acetylacetone (2,4 pentanedione) as a chelating agent, and ethylene glycol as a solvent. The synthesis procedure was optimized by systematically varying acetylacetone: Ti and H2O:Ti molar ratios and calcination temperature. The resulting effects on sol and powder properties were studied using thermogravimetric analysis/differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis, and x-ray diffraction (XRD). Crystallization of the perovskite structure occurred at a temperature as low as 450 °C. Thin films were prepared by spin coating on (100) MgO. Pyrolysis temperature and heating rate were varied, and the resultant film properties investigated using field-emission scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and XRD. Under optimized conditions, highly oriented films were obtained at a crystallization temperature of 600 °C

The Space Experiment of the Exo-ecosystem

The experiment of exo-ecosystem and the exploration of extraterrestrial habitability aims to explore the adaptation of terrestrial life in space conditions for the manned space program and the future interstellar migration, which shows great scientific significance and public interests. By our knowledge the early life on Earth, archaea and extremophile have the ability to adapt to extreme environmental conditions and can potentially habitat in extraterrestrial environments. Here we proposed a design and framework for the experiment on exo-ecosystem and extraterrestrial habitability. The conceptual approach involves building an ecosystem based on archaea and extremophiles in a simulated extraterrestrial environment, with a focus on assessing the exobiological potential and adaptability of terrestrial life forms in such conditions through controlled experiments. Specifically, we introduce the Chinese Exo-Ecosystem Space Experiment (CHEESE), which investigates the survivability and potential for sustained growth, reproduction, and ecological interactions of methanogens under simulated Mars and Moon environments using the China Space Station (CSS) as a platform. We highlight that the space station provides unique yet relatively comprehensive conditions for simulating extraterrestrial environments. In conclusion, space experiments involving exo-ecosystems could pave the way for long-term human habitation in space, ensuring our ability to sustain colonies and settlements beyond Earth while minimizing our ecological impact on celestial bodies

Bilaterally Combined Electric and Acoustic Hearing in Mandarin-Speaking Listeners: The Population With Poor Residual Hearing

The hearing loss criterion for cochlear implant candidacy in mainland China is extremely stringent (bilateral severe to profound hearing loss), resulting in few patients with substantial residual hearing in the nonimplanted ear. The main objective of the current study was to examine the benefit of bimodal hearing in typical Mandarin-speaking implant users who have poorer residual hearing in the nonimplanted ear relative to those used in the English-speaking studies. Seventeen Mandarinspeaking bimodal users with pure-tone averages of 80 dB HL participated in the study. Sentence recognition in quiet and in noise as well as tone and word recognition in quiet were measured in monaural and bilateral conditions. There was no significant bimodal effect for word and sentence recognition in quiet. Small bimodal effects were observed for sentence recognition in noise (6%) and tone recognition (4%). The magnitude of both effects was correlated with unaided thresholds at frequencies near voice fundamental frequencies (F0s). A weak correlation between the bimodal effect for word recognition and unaided thresholds at frequencies higher than F0s was identified. These results were consistent with previous findings that showed more robust bimodal benefits for speech recognition tasks that require higher spectral resolution than speech recognition in quiet. The significant but small F0-related bimodal benefit was also consistent with the limited acoustic hearing in the nonimplanted ear of the current subject sample, who are representative of the bimodal users in mainland China. These results advocate for a more relaxed implant candidacy criterion to be used in mainland China

SKoPe3D: A Synthetic Dataset for Vehicle Keypoint Perception in 3D from Traffic Monitoring Cameras

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have revolutionized modern road infrastructure, providing essential functionalities such as traffic monitoring, road safety assessment, congestion reduction, and law enforcement. Effective vehicle detection and accurate vehicle pose estimation are crucial for ITS, particularly using monocular cameras installed on the road infrastructure. One fundamental challenge in vision-based vehicle monitoring is keypoint detection, which involves identifying and localizing specific points on vehicles (such as headlights, wheels, taillights, etc.). However, this task is complicated by vehicle model and shape variations, occlusion, weather, and lighting conditions. Furthermore, existing traffic perception datasets for keypoint detection predominantly focus on frontal views from ego vehicle-mounted sensors, limiting their usability in traffic monitoring. To address these issues, we propose SKoPe3D, a unique synthetic vehicle keypoint dataset generated using the CARLA simulator from a roadside perspective. This comprehensive dataset includes generated images with bounding boxes, tracking IDs, and 33 keypoints for each vehicle. Spanning over 25k images across 28 scenes, SKoPe3D contains over 150k vehicle instances and 4.9 million keypoints. To demonstrate its utility, we trained a keypoint R-CNN model on our dataset as a baseline and conducted a thorough evaluation. Our experiments highlight the dataset's applicability and the potential for knowledge transfer between synthetic and real-world data. By leveraging the SKoPe3D dataset, researchers and practitioners can overcome the limitations of existing datasets, enabling advancements in vehicle keypoint detection for ITS.Comment: Accepted to IEEE ITSC 202

Participatory Agricultural Humanities for the new Ruralism Tea-Community Revitalization In Taiwan

This paper examines the most effective ways of engaging urban citizens to appreciate rural villages and agriculture traditions. Pondering on experiences of rural revitalization experiments in Asian societies, this paper proposes the concept of “participatory agricultural humanities.” Participatory agricultural humanities are tools and processes engaging citizens into eco-friendly farming and land related works or events. Based on action research and qualitative research methods, we have been working with peri-urban and rural communities in Taiwan since 2009. Only embracing agricultural humanities as our values, we could re-establish eco-friendly rural developments with biodiversity and cultural diversity as a whole.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: agricultural humanities, rural revitalization, participation, new ruralis

Shaping Cultural and Creative Space: Beijing as a case study

Supported by research and policy reform, China’s creative and cultural industries have seen explosive growth in recent years and this rapid expansion is anticipated to have an unprecedented and far-reaching influence on the future of the country and its economy. Researchers from Cultural Development Institute (CDI) based at The Communication University of China (CUC) and The College of Fine Arts (COFA) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) present recently generated data and discuss Beijing as a case study to provide an informed overview of the recent proliferation of art parks and creative clusters in the city

An Iterative Learning Control Design Method for Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems with Unknown Iteration-Varying Parameters and Control Direction

An iterative learning control (ILC) scheme is designed for a class of nonlinear discrete-time dynamical systems with unknown iteration-varying parameters and control direction. The iteration-varying parameters are described by a high-order internal model (HOIM) such that the unknown parameters in the current iteration are a linear combination of the counterparts in the previous certain iterations. Under the framework of ILC, the learning convergence condition is derived through rigorous analysis. It is shown that the adaptive ILC law can achieve perfect tracking of system state in presence of iteration-varying parameters and unknown control direction. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is verified by simulations