100 essential questions for the future of agriculture

Publication history: Accepted - 8 March 2023; Published online - 11 April 2023.The world is at a crossroad when it comes to agriculture. The global population is growing, and the demand for food is increasing, putting a strain on our agricultural resources and practices. To address this challenge, innovative, sustainable, and inclusive approaches to agriculture are urgently required. In this paper, we launched a call for Essential Questions for the Future of Agriculture and identified a priority list of 100 questions. We focus on 10 primary themes: transforming agri-food systems, enhancing resilience of agriculture to climate change, mitigating climate change through agriculture, exploring resources and technologies for breeding, advancing cultivation methods, sustaining healthy agroecosystems, enabling smart and controlled-environment agriculture for food security, promoting health and nutrition-driven agriculture, exploring economic opportunities and addressing social challenges, and integrating one health and modern agriculture. We emphasise the critical importance of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research that integrates both basic and applied sciences and bridges the gaps among various stakeholders for achieving sustainable agriculture. Key points Growing demand and resource limitations pose a critical challenge for agriculture, necessitating innovative and sustainable approaches. The paper identifies 100 priority questions for the future of agriculture, indicating current and future research directions. Sustainable agriculture depends on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research that harmonises basic and applied sciences and fosters collaboration among different stakeholders

3rd International Symposium for Intelligent Transportation and Smart City

This book presents research advances in intelligent transportation and smart cities in detail, mainly focusing on green traffic and urban utility tunnels, presented at the 3rd International Symposium for Intelligent Transportation and Smart City (ITASC) held at Tongji University, Shanghai, on May 19–20, 2017. It discusses a number of hot topics, such as the 2BMW system (Bus, Bike, Metro and Walking), transportation safety and environmental protection, urban utility design and application, as well as the application of BIM (Building Information Modeling) in city design. By connecting the theory and applications of intelligent transportation in smart cities, it enhances traffic efficiency and quality. The book gathers numerous selected papers and lectures, including contributions from respected scholars and the latest engineering advances, to provide guidance to researchers in the field of transportation and urban planning at universities and in related industries. The first conference in the ITASC series started in 2013 as a workshop of The International Symposium on Autonomous Decentralized System (ISADS), held in Mexico City, and the second was held in May 2015, in Tongji University, Shanghai

Anisotropic honeycomb stack metamaterials of graphene for ultrawideband terahertz absorption

Graphene aerogels have implied great potential for electromagnetic wave absorption. However, the investigation of their design for broadband absorption in the terahertz (THz) range remains insufficient. Here, we propose an anisotropic honeycomb stack metamaterial (AHSM) based on graphene to achieve ultrawideband THz absorption. The absorption mechanism is elucidated using the effective medium method, offering deeper physics insights. At low THz frequencies, the impedance matching from the air to the AHSM can be improved by reducing the chemical potential of graphene for high absorption. There is a suppression of absorption at the intermediate frequencies due to constructive interference, which can be avoided by shortening the sizes of honeycomb edges. With the aim to elevate absorption at high frequencies, one can increase the stack layer number to enhance multiple reflections and destructive interference within the metastructure. Based on the above principles, we design an AHSM that achieves a broadband absorbance of over 90 % from 1 THz to 10 THz. This absorption can tolerate a wide range of incident angles for both TE and TM wave excitations. Our research will provide a theoretical guide to future experimental exploration of graphene aerogels for THz metamaterial absorber applications

The Evolution of Organosilicon Precursors for Low-k Interlayer Dielectric Fabrication Driven by Integration Challenges

Since the application of silicon materials in electronic devices in the 1950s, microprocessors are continuously getting smaller, faster, smarter, and larger in data storage capacity. One important factor that makes progress possible is decreasing the dielectric constant of the insulating layer within the integrated circuit (IC). Nevertheless, the evolution of interlayer dielectrics (ILDs) is not driven by a single factor. At first, the objective was to reduce the dielectric constant (k). Reduction of the dielectric constant of a material can be accomplished by selecting chemical bonds with low polarizability and introducing porosity. Moving from silicon dioxide, silsesquioxane-based materials, and silica-based materials to porous silica materials, the industry has been able to reduce the ILDs’ dielectric constant from 4.5 to as low as 1.5. However, porous ILDs are mechanically weak, thermally unstable, and poorly compatible with other materials, which gives them the tendency to absorb chemicals, moisture, etc. All these features create many challenges for the integration of IC during the dual-damascene process, with plasma-induced damage (PID) being the most devastating one. Since the discovery of porous materials, the industry has shifted its focus from decreasing ILDs’ dielectric constant to overcoming these integration challenges. More supplementary precursors (such as Si–C–Si structured compounds), deposition processes (such as NH3 plasma treatment), and post porosity plasma protection treatment (P4) were invented to solve integration-related challenges. Herein, we present the evolution of interlayer dielectric materials driven by the following three aspects, classification of dielectric materials, deposition methods, and key issues encountered and solved during the integration phase. We aim to provide a brief overview of the development of low-k dielectric materials over the past few decades

Imprinted plasmonic measuring nanocylinders for nanoscale volumes of materials

Optical measurement of materials at the nanoscale is important for nanotechnology. Various plasmonic nanorulers have been studied for measuring nanoscale distance and orientation of materials, but they lack the capability to contain and measure nanoscale volumes, especially for liquid or soft materials. Here, we demonstrate the use of imprinted plasmonic volumetric nanocylinders, which act as nanoscale graduated cylinders and facilitate nanomaterial measurement via visible light. Our theoretical and experimental achievements illuminate a promising method for non-destructive, low-cost and fast measurement of material volume changes at the nanoscale, which will benefit the fields of analytical chemistry, nanofabrication and biomedical sensing

Imprinted plasmonic measuring nanocylinders for nanoscale volumes of materials

Optical measurement of materials at the nanoscale is important for nanotechnology. Various plasmonic nanorulers have been studied for measuring nanoscale distance and orientation of materials, but they lack the capability to contain and measure nanoscale volumes, especially for liquid or soft materials. Here, we demonstrate the use of imprinted plasmonic volumetric nanocylinders, which act as nanoscale graduated cylinders and facilitate nanomaterial measurement via visible light. Our theoretical and experimental achievements illuminate a promising method for non-destructive, low-cost and fast measurement of material volume changes at the nanoscale, which will benefit the fields of analytical chemistry, nanofabrication and biomedical sensing