Scalable and High-Performance Radiative Cooling Fabrics through an Electrospinning Method

Reduction in human body temperature under hot conditions is a subject of extensive research. Radiative cooling fabrics have attracted considerable attention because the material reduces body temperature without any energy input, saving both energy and the environment. Researchers have been exploring effective and scalable preparation methods for radiative cooling fabrics. Herein, we employed the electrospinning method to prepare a radiative cooling fabric comprising the poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropene) nanofiber and SiO2 nanoparticles. The fabric had a reflectivity exceeding 0.97 in the solar band and an emissivity of over 0.94 within the atmospheric window. The material achieved a radiative cooling effect of 15.9 °C under direct sunlight using a testing device built in-house. The method is simple and scalable and uses abundant and inexpensive raw materials; the technique can help promote the widespread adoption of radiative cooling fabrics

Autonomous Molecular Structure Imaging with High-Resolution Atomic Force Microscopy for Molecular Mixture Discovery

Due to its single-molecule sensitivity, high-resolution atomic force microscopy (HR-AFM) has proved to be a valuable and uniquely advantageous tool to study complex molecular mixtures, which hold promise for developing clean energy and achieving environmental sustainability. However, significant challenges remain to achieve the full potential of the sophisticated and time-consuming experiments. Automation combined with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) is key to overcoming these challenges. Here we present Auto-HR-AFM, an AI tool to automatically collect HR-AFM images of petroleum-based mixtures. We trained an instance segmentation model to teach Auto-HR-AFM how to recognize features in HR-AFM images. Auto-HR-AFM then uses that information to optimize the imaging by adjusting the probe-molecule distance for each molecule in the run. Auto-HR-AFM is the initial tool that will lead to fully automated scanning probe microscopy (SPM) experiments, from start to finish. This automation will allow SPM to become a mainstream characterization technique for complex mixtures, an otherwise unattainable target

Effects of Fatigue on Driving Performance Under Different Roadway Geometries: A Simulator Study

<div><p><b>Objective:</b> This article examines the effects of fatigue on driving performance under different roadway geometries using a driving simulator.</p><p><b>Methods:</b> Twenty-four participants each completed a driving scenario twice: while alert and while experiencing fatigue. The driving scenario was composed of straight road segments and curves; there were 6 curves with 3 radius values (i.e., 200, 500, and 800 m) and 2 turning directions (i.e., left and right). Analysis was conducted on driving performance measures such as longitudinal speed, steering wheel movements, and lateral position.</p><p><b>Results:</b> Results confirmed that decremental changes in driving performance due to fatigue varied among road conditions. On straight segments, drivers’ abilities to steer and maintain lane position were impaired, whereas on curves we found decremental changes in the quality of longitudinal speed as well as steering control and keeping the vehicle in the lane. Moreover, the effects of fatigue on driving performance were relative to the radius and direction of the curve. Fatigue impaired drivers’ abilities to control the steering wheel, and the impairment proved more obvious on curves. The degree varied significantly as the curve radius changed. Drivers tended to drive closer to the right side due to fatigue, and the impairment in maintaining lane position became more obvious as the right-turn curve radius decreased.</p><p><b>Conclusions:</b> Driver fatigue has detrimental effects on driving performance, and the effects differ under different roadway geometries.</p></div

Prediction of Chinese drivers’ intentions to park illegally in emergency lanes: An application of the theory of planned behavior

<p><b>Objective:</b> Illegal parking in emergency lanes (paved highway shoulders) is becoming a serious road safety issue in China. The aim of this study was to (1) examine the utility of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) extended with descriptive norms, past behavior, facilitating and deterring circumstances, sensation seeking, and invulnerability in predicting Chinese drivers’ intentions toward illegal emergency lane parking; (2) investigate whether respondents’ demographic characteristics would impact their views toward the behavior and predictive patterns of intentions; and (3) identify significant predictors of intentions.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> In this cross-sectional study, eligible respondents were all qualified Chinese drivers. A self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect data, including demographic information, descriptive norms, past behavior, facilitating and deterring circumstances, sensation-seeking, and scenario-based invulnerability combined with TPB constructs. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs), and a series of hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were conducted in SPSS.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> A total of 435 qualified drivers (234 males and 201 females) with a mean age of 35.2 years (SD =10.3) were included in analysis. The descriptive analysis showed that most participants reported weak intentions (<i>M</i> = 2.35) to park illegally in emergency lanes with negative attitude (<i>M</i> = 3.19), low perceived support (<i>M</i> = 2.91), and high control (<i>M</i> = 5.08) over the behavior. The model succeeded in explaining 64% of the variance in intentions for the whole sample, and principal TPB components accounted for 21% of variance in intentions after demographic variables were controlled for. MANOVAs revealed that significant differences of respondents’ opinions toward illegal emergency lane parking were only found between better educated drivers (with college education background) and less-educated ones. Separate regression analyses revealed that the predictive pattern of better educated participants also differed significantly from that of less-educated ones.</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b> The study revealed that perceived behavioral control, past behavior, facilitating circumstance, and invulnerability emerged as consistently significant predictors of Chinese drivers’ intentions to park illegally in emergency lanes. Findings of this study may have some practical implications in developing multifaceted interventions or education processes for illegal emergency lane parking in China.</p

BDS dual-frequency carrier phase multipath hemispherical map model and its application in real-time deformation monitoring

The BDS multipath delay error is highly related to the surrounding monitoring environment, which cannot be eliminated or mitigated by applying the double difference observation model. In the actual monitoring environment, due to the complexity of the BDS constellation, it is difficult for existing algorithms to consider GEO, IGSO, MEO and other different orbital types of satellites for real-time and efficient multipath error reduction. Therefore, we propose a novel BDS dual-frequency multipath error reduction method for real deformation monitoring for BDS considering various satellite orbit types. This method extracts the single error residual of each satellite based on the assumption of “zero mean” and divides the appropriate grid density of GEO and IGSO/MEO, respectively, to construct a dual-frequency multipath hemispherical map model suitable for BDS satellites with different orbital types. This method can realize the multipath error elimination of the observed values of different orbits and different frequencies. The results of simulation experiments and real deformation monitoring data demonstrate that this method can effectively eliminate low-frequency multipath delay errors in the observation domain and coordinate domain. After multipath correction, the precision of the horizontal coordinates and height coordinates are 1.7 mm and 4.6 mm. The precision of the horizontal coordinate and height coordinate is increased by 50% and 60%, respectively. The fixed rate of ambiguity increased by 5–7%.</p

Ultrahigh-Purity Vanadyl Petroporphyrins

Petroporphyrins contribute to many of the challenges encountered when producing, transporting, and refining heavy crude oil and bitumen. They are the source of heavy metals that poison catalysts and may facilitate the aggregation, deposition, and emulsion formation exhibited by asphaltenes. Here, they are extracted and enriched to ultrahigh purities from several sources: an Athabasca bitumen, a Canadian northern tier crude oil, and a North American heavy crude oil. Our motivation is to produce usable quantities that can be characterized and used in model studies to understand the molecular structure of asphaltenes and to probe asphaltene–petroporphyrin intermolecular interactions, in the bulk and at interfaces. Extraction is performed in a Soxhlet apparatus. The porphyrin-rich extract is then further purified using extrography (on silica-packed columns) and chromatography (on alumina-packed columns). The process yields purified petroporphyrins in unprecedented quantities (>100 mg). These purified petroporphyrins can be further refined to ultrahigh purities (>85% petroporphyrin by weight) using temperature and centrifugation to fractionate them into more and less soluble fractions. Petroporphyrins are characterized by ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry (time of flight and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance). The majority of the petroporphyrins are simple etioporphyrin (407 nm Soret band) or deoxophylloerythroetioporphyrin (410 nm Soret band) types, but some are more functionalized compounds with highly broadened and shifted Soret bands

Alignment of genomic DNA upstream sequences.

<p>Aligned DNA ranges approximately 210 nucleotides upstream of the predicted transcription start (indicated by a box and a black triangle). The red triangle indicates <i>A. ventricosus</i> MiSp upstream sequence. The translation start ATG codons, and the conserved motifs CACG and TATA are boxed. The sequences shown are the following: NimFlag, <i>N. inaurata madagascariensis</i> flagelliform (Flag) spidroin gene, upstream (GenBank accession no. AF218623S1); NimMaSp2, <i>N. inaurata madagascariensis</i> major ampullate spidroin 2-like gene (GenBank accession no. DQ059135); LhMaSp1, <i>L. hesperus</i> major ampullate spidroin 1 (GenBank accession no. EF595246) and 2 (GenBank accession no. EF595245) genes; LgMaSp1, <i>L. geometricus</i> major ampullate spidroin 1-like gene (GenBank accession no. DQ059133S1); AtMaSp2, <i>A. trifasciata</i> major ampullate spidroin 2 gene (GenBank accession no. DQ059136S1); AvMiSp, <i>A. ventricosus</i> minor ampullate spidroin gene (GenBank accession no. JX513956).</p

Architectures of <i>A. ventricosus</i> MiSp, <i>A. trifasciata</i> MaSp2, <i>Nephila</i> Flag, <i>L. hesperus</i> MaSp1 and MaSp2 genes.

<p>Arrangement of exons (red) interrupted by introns (grey light green) in the spidroin genes. Due to the huge variability in size the lengths of the different segments are not drawn to scale.</p

Primers used for intron identification.

<p>Primers used for intron identification.</p

Kyte and Doolittle hydropathicity plots for <i>A. ventricosus</i> MiSp.

<p>Positive scores indicate hydrophobicity. NT = N-terminal region, RT =  repetitive region, S =  spacer and CT =  C-terminal region.</p