Origin of the Superconductivity in the Y-Sr-Ru-O and Y-Sr-Cu-O Systems

We report on the structural, magnetic, and Raman-scattering studies of double perovskite structure Sr2Y(Ru1-xCux)O6-d systems made by systematic synthesis processes with various numbers of doping concentrations and sintering temperatures. We observed different behaviors resulting from the different thermal treatments. In particular, superconductivity in Cu-doped Sr2YRuO6 has been observed only for partially melted ceramic materials. We show that superconductivity is associated with the 1:2:3 phase (YSr2Cu3Ot), similar to that of Y-Sr-Cu-O samples sintered at high temperature

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Modelling the Periodic Outbreak of Measles in Mainland China

In mainland China, measles infection reached the lowest level in 2012 but resurged again after that with a seasonally fluctuating pattern. To investigate the phenomenon of periodic outbreak and identify the crucial parameters that play in the transmission dynamics of measles, we formulate a mathematical model incorporating periodic transmission rate and asymptomatic infection with waning immunity. We define the basic reproduction number as the threshold value to govern whether measles infection dies out or not. Fitting the reported measles cases from 2013 to 2016 to our proposed model, we estimate the basic reproduction number R0 with immunization to be 1.0077. From numerical simulations, we conclude asymptomatic infection does not cause much new infections and the key parameters affecting the transmission of measles are vaccination rate, transmission rate, and recovery rate, which suggests the public to enhance vaccination and protection measures to reduce effective contacts between susceptible and infective individuals and treat infected individuals timely. To minimize the number of infected individuals at a minimal cost, we formulate an optimal control system to design optimal control strategies. Numerical simulations show the effectiveness of optimal control strategies and recommend us to implement the control strategies as soon as possible. In particular, enhancing vaccination is especially effective in lowering the initial outbreak and making disease recurrence less likely

The Early Age Hydration Products and Mechanical Properties of Cement Paste with Steel Slag Powder as Additive under Steam Curing Conditions

To explore the feasibility of the application of steel slag powder (SSP) in steam-cured precast concrete, 0% and 20% SSP were used to replace cement and prepare cement paste, and the early age performance of steam-cured (80 °C for 7 h and 7 d) SSP-blended cement paste, including different types and amounts of hydrates, the microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated and compared with those of 28 d standard-cured SSP sample. The results show that SSP addition promotes the generation of laminar C-S-H gels and granular C-S-H gels after an initial 7 h steam curing. Further extending the lasting time of 80 °C steam curing to 7 days favors the production of hydrogarnet and crystalline C-S-H, of which the amount of formation of hydrogarnet in SSP composite cement paste is less and the particle size is smaller than those in the control sample. However, steam curing increases the gap between the number of hydrates formed in SSP-blended cement paste and the control paste. The delayed hydration effect of SSP on cement offsets the promoting effect of steam curing on the hydration of cement; in consequence, the incorporation of SSP seems to be detrimental to the hydration of steam-cured cement paste

Efficient Removal of Hg⁰ from Flue Gas Using Sulfur Site-Rich CuIn₅S₈‑Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride Adsorbents: Performance, Kinetics, and Mechanism Study

Mercury emissions from coal combustion flue gas pose significant risks to ecosystems and human health. In this work, a novel adsorbent was developed for efficient removal of Hg0 from coal-fired flue gas. The adsorbent consisted of bimetallic sulfide CuIn5S8 with multiple active sulfur (S) sites incorporated into graphitic carbon nitride(g-C3N4). The resulting 20CuIn5S8/g-C3N4 (20CIS/CN) composite exhibited outstanding Hg0 removal capacity, achieving over 99% adsorption efficiency at temperatures of 80 and 120 °C. Even after continuous adsorption for more than 10 h, the adsorption efficiency remained at approximately 89%. At higher temperatures of 160 and 200 °C, the efficiency remained high at 97.56 and 89.11%, respectively. Importantly, the inhibitory effect of SO2 and NO in the flue gas on the Hg0 adsorption efficiency of 20CIS/CN was minimal. Adsorption capacity at adsorption equilibrium of 20CIS/CN (15.088 mg/g) was 14.2 times higher than that of a commercial activated carbon adsorbent (1.06 mg/g). The adsorption mechanism was investigated by density functional theory (DFT), revealing the stability of the In–S–Hg six-coordinated octahedral structure on the CuIn5S8(0 0 1) surface. Experimental, XPS, and Hg-TPD analyses supported the proposed mechanism, demonstrating the transformation of Hg0 into stable HgS through interaction with abundant reactive S sites on the CuIn5S8 surface. These findings highlight the exceptional adsorption capacity of 20CIS/CN composites and their potential as a replacement for traditional commercial adsorbents. The development of modified adsorbents with abundant S-active sites for efficient Hg0 adsorption in flue gas can contribute to effective environmental remediation strategies