2,032 research outputs found
Carbon Nanotube-Polymer Composites for Energy Storage Applications
Renewable energy has attracted growing attention due to energy crisis and environmental concern. The renewable power is featured by its intermittent and fluctuating nature, which requires large-scale electrical energy storage devices for dispatch and integration. Among the current energy storage technologies (e.g., pumped hydro, fly-wheel, compressed air, superconducting magnet, electrochemical systems), electrochemical storage technologies or batteries that reversely convert electrical energy into chemical energy demonstrate extremely great potential in the stationary and transportation applications. Scale determines the device type. Redox flow batteries (RFBs), as one of the large-scale types, are capable of complying with power station. Meanwhile, portable smart electronic devices promote the development of small-scale energy storage systems, such as Li-ion batteries and supercapacitors. With delicate device configuration, materials play critical roles on pursuing advancing performance, in terms of electrode, current collector, and separator. Carbon nanotube (CNT)/polymer composites exhibit promising potentials in the above key entities, which integrate the merits of conductivity, mechanical strength, flexibility, and cost. Therefore, this chapter is devoted to the design and application of carbon nanotube/polymer composites in different kinds of energy storage systems
Non-classical non-Gaussian state of a mechanical resonator via selectively incoherent damping in three-mode optomechanical systems
We theoretically propose a scheme for the generation of a non-classical
single-mode motional state of a mechanical resonator (MR) in the three-mode
optomechanical systems, in which two optical modes of the cavities are linearly
coupled to each other and one mechanical mode of the MR is optomechanically
coupled to the two optical modes with the same coupling strength
simultaneously. One cavity is driven by a coherent laser light. By properly
tuning the frequency of the weak driving field, we obtain engineered
Liouvillian superoperator via engineering the selective interaction Hamiltonian
confined to the Fock subspaces. In this case, the motional state of the MR can
be prepared into a non-Gaussian state, which possesses the sub-Poisson
statistics although its Wigner function is positive.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Cost-effectiveness analysis of malaria rapid diagnostic test in the elimination setting
BACKGROUND: As more and more countries approaching the goal of malaria elimination, malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) was recomendated to be a diagnostic strategy to achieve and maintain the statute of malaria free, as it’s less requirments on equipment and experitise than microscopic examination. But there are very few economic evaluations to confirm whether RDT was cost-effective in the setting of malaria elimination. This research aimed to offer evidence for helping decision making on malaria diagnosis strategy. METHODS: A cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted to compare RDT with microscopy examination for malaria diagnosis, by using a decision tree model. There were three strategies of malaria diagnostic testing evaluated in the model, 1) microscopy, 2) RDT, 3) RDT followed by microscopy. The effect indicator was defined as the number of malaria cases treated appropriately. Based on the joint perspective of health sector and patient, costs data were collected from hospital information systems, key informant interviews, and patient surveys. Data collection was conducted in Jiangsu from September 2018 to January 2019. Epidemiological data were obtained from local malaria surveillance reports. A hypothetical cohort of 300 000 febrile patients were simulated to calculate the total cost and effect of each strategy. One-way, two-way, and probabilistic sensitivity analysis were performed to test the robustness of the result. RESULTS: The results showed that RDT strategy was the most effective (245 cases) but also the most costly (United States Dollar [USD] 4.47 million) compared to using microscopy alone (238 cases, USD 3.63 million), and RDT followed by microscopy (221 cases, USD 2.75 million). There was no strategy dominated. One-way sensitivity analysis reflected that the result was sensitive to the change in labor cost and two-way sensitivity analysis indicated that the result was not sensitive to the proportion of falciparum malaria. The result of Monte Carlo simulation showed that RDT strategy had higher effects and higher cost than other strategies with a high probability. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to microscopy and RDT followed by microscopy, RDT strategy had higher effects and higher cost in the setting of malaria elimination
Effects of Early Intervention With Maternal Fecal Bacteria and Antibiotics on Liver Metabolome and Transcription in Neonatal Pigs
The establishment of a stable bacterial flora in early life is associated with host metabolism. Studies of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and antibiotics on neonatal pig mainly focused on intestinal development and mucosal immunity, but the information on metabolism is lacking. The objective of this study was to investigate the responses of metabolome and transcriptome in the livers of neonatal piglets that were orally inoculated with maternal fecal bacteria suspension and amoxicillin (AM) solution. Five litters of Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire neonatal piglets were used as five replicates and nine piglets in each litter were randomly assigned to the control (CO), AM or FMT groups. Neonatal piglets in three groups were fed with 3 mL saline (0.9%), AM solution (6.94 mg/mL) or fecal bacteria suspension (>109/mL), respectively, on days 1–6. At the age of 7 and 21 days, one piglet from each group in each litter was sacrificed, and the serum and liver were collected for analysis. The RNA sequencing analysis showed that the mRNA expressions of arachidonate 12-lipoxygenase (ALOX12), acetyl-CoA acyltransferase 2 (ACAA2), cytochrome P450 family 1 subfamily A member 2 (CYP1A2), glutamic–pyruvic transaminase 2 (GPT2) and argininosuccinate synthase 1 (ASS1) were downregulated (P < 0.05) by AM on day 7, and that the mRNA expressions of arachidonate 15-lipoxygenase (ALOX15), CYP1A2 and GPT2 were downregulated (P < 0.05) by FMT on day 7. GC-MS analysis showed that AM and FMT treatments mainly affected fatty acid metabolism and amino acid metabolism on days 7 and 21. AM and FMT both reduced (P < 0.05) the blood levels of triglycerides and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) on day 7. AM reduced (P < 0.05) the blood level of cholesterol on day 21, and FMT reduced the blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL-C on day 21. These results indicate that early intervention with FMT or AM can reduce fatty acid oxidative catabolism and amino acid biosynthesis of neonatal piglets, which provides a reference for regulation host metabolism through early intervention in animal production and even human health
Evolutionary legacy of a forest plantations tree species (Pinus armandii):Implications for widespread afforestation
A van der Waals pn heterojunction with organic/inorganic semiconductors
van der Waals (vdW) heterojunctions formed by two-dimensional (2D) materials
have attracted tremendous attention due to their excellent electrical/optical
properties and device applications. However, current 2D heterojunctions are
largely limited to atomic crystals, and hybrid organic/inorganic structures are
rarely explored. Here, we fabricate hybrid 2D heterostructures with p-type
dioctylbenzothienobenzothiophene (C8-BTBT) and n-type MoS2. We find that
few-layer C8-BTBT molecular crystals can be grown on monolayer MoS2 by vdW
epitaxy, with pristine interface and controllable thickness down to monolayer.
The operation of the C8-BTBT/MoS2 vertical heterojunction devices is highly
tunable by bias and gate voltages between three different regimes: interfacial
recombination, tunneling and blocking. The pn junction shows diode-like
behavior with rectifying ratio up to 105 at the room temperature. Our devices
also exhibit photovoltaic responses with power conversion efficiency of 0.31%
and photoresponsivity of 22mA/W. With wide material combinations, such hybrid
2D structures will offer possibilities for opto-electronic devices that are not
possible from individual constituents.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
SDF-Pack: Towards Compact Bin Packing with Signed-Distance-Field Minimization
Robotic bin packing is very challenging, especially when considering
practical needs such as object variety and packing compactness. This paper
presents SDF-Pack, a new approach based on signed distance field (SDF) to model
the geometric condition of objects in a container and compute the object
placement locations and packing orders for achieving a more compact bin
packing. Our method adopts a truncated SDF representation to localize the
computation, and based on it, we formulate the SDF minimization heuristic to
find optimized placements to compactly pack objects with the existing ones. To
further improve space utilization, if the packing sequence is controllable, our
method can suggest which object to be packed next. Experimental results on a
large variety of everyday objects show that our method can consistently achieve
higher packing compactness over 1,000 packing cases, enabling us to pack more
objects into the container, compared with the existing heuristics under various
packing settings
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