Preparation and Characterization of Solid Electrolyte Doped With Carbon Nanotubes and its Preliminary Application in NO2 Gas Sensors

In this work, a solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) doped with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was used as a gas sensing material for a NO2 gas sensor. The electrolytes consisted of the ionic liquids (ILs) and CNTs, which were immobilized in a poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) matrix. The SPE membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The experimental results show that the addition of an appropriate amount of CNTs can appropriately improve the electrochemical performance of the SPE membrane. It was shown that NO2 gas sensors with an appropriate amount of CNTs added to their SPEs had a higher gas sensitivity than those with SPE containing no CNTs. When the mass ratio of PVDF, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), IL, and CNT was 1:4:1:0.08, the SPE showed the best gas sensitivity, and its sensitivity is 0.00275 V/ppm

Digital Twin Based User-Centric Resource Management for Multicast Short Video Streaming

Multicast short video streaming (MSVS) can effectively reduce network traffic load by delivering identical video sequences to multiple users simultaneously. The existing MSVS schemes mainly rely on the aggregated video requests to reserve bandwidth and computing resources, which cannot satisfy users' diverse and dynamic service requirements, particularly when users' swipe behaviors exhibit spatiotemporal fluctuation. In this paper, we propose a user-centric resource management scheme based on the digital twin (DT) technique, which aims to enhance user satisfaction as well as reduce resource consumption. Firstly, we design a user DT (UDT)-assisted resource reservation framework. Specifically, UDTs are constructed for individual users, which store users' historical data for updating multicast groups and abstracting useful information. The swipe probability distributions and recommended video lists are abstracted from UDTs to predict bandwidth and computing resource demands. Parameterized sigmoid functions are leveraged to characterize multicast groups' user satisfaction. Secondly, we formulate a joint non-convex bandwidth and computing resource reservation problem which is transformed into a convex piecewise problem by utilizing a tangent function to approximately substitute the concave part. A low-complexity scheduling algorithm is then developed to find the optimal resource reservation decisions. Simulation results based on the real-world dataset demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms benchmark schemes in terms of user satisfaction and resource consumption.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure

A Color Gamut Description Algorithm for Liquid Crystal Displays in CIELAB Space

Because the accuracy of gamut boundary description is significant for gamut mapping process, a gamut boundary calculating method for LCD monitors is proposed in this paper. Within most of the previous gamut boundary calculation algorithms, the gamut boundary is calculated in CIELAB space directly, and part of inside-gamut points are mistaken for the boundary points. While, in the new proposed algorithm, the points on the surface of RGB cube are selected as the boundary points, and then converted and described in CIELAB color space. Thus, in our algorithm, the true gamut boundary points are found and a more accurate gamut boundary is described. In experiment, a Toshiba LCD monitor's 3D CIELAB gamut for evaluation is firstly described which has regular-shaped outer surface, and then two 2D gamut boundaries (CIE- * * boundary and CIE- * * boundary) are calculated which are often used in gamut mapping process. When our algorithm is compared with several famous gamut calculating algorithms, the gamut volumes are very close, which indicates that our algorithm's accuracy is precise and acceptable

Direct-Current Generator Based on Dynamic Water-Semiconductor Junction with Polarized Water as Moving Dielectric Medium

There is a rising prospective in harvesting energy from water droplets, as microscale energy is required for the distributed sensors in the interconnected human society. However, achieving a sustainable direct-current generating device from water flow is rarely reported, and the quantum polarization principle of the water molecular remains uncovered. Herein, we propose a dynamic water-semiconductor junction with moving water sandwiched between two semiconductors as a moving dielectric medium, which outputs a sustainable direct-current voltage of 0.3 V and current of 0.64 uA with low internal resistance of 390 kilohm. The sustainable direct-current electricity is originating from the dynamic water polarization process in water-semiconductor junction, in which water molecules are continuously polarized and depolarized driven by the mechanical force and Fermi level difference, during the movement of the water on silicon. We further demonstrated an encapsulated portable power-generating device with simple structure and continuous direct-current voltage, which exhibits its promising potential application in the field of wearable electronic generators

Amorphous 1-D nanowires of calcium phosphate/pyrophosphate : A demonstration of oriented self-growth of amorphous minerals

Amorphous inorganic solids are traditionally isotropic, thus, it is believed that they only grow in a non-preferential way without the assistance of regulators, leading to the morphologies of nanospheres or irregular aggregates of nanoparticles. However, in the presence of (ortho)phosphate (Pi) and pyrophosphate ions (PPi) which have synergistic roles in biomineralization, the highly elongated amorphous nanowires (denoted ACPPNs) form in a regulator-free aqueous solution (without templates, additives, organics, etc). Based on thorough characterization and tracking of the formation process (e.g., Cryo-TEM, spherical aberration correction high resolution TEM, solid state NMR, high energy resolution monochromated STEM-EELS), the microstructure and its preferential growth behavior are elucidated. In ACPPNs, amorphous calcium orthophosphate and amorphous calcium pyrophosphate are distributed at separated but close sites. The ACPPNs grow via either the preferential attachment of ∼2 nm nanoclusters in a 1-dimension way, or the transformation of bigger nanoparticles, indicating an inherent driving force-governed process. We propose that the anisotropy of ACPPNs microstructure, which is corroborated experimentally, causes their oriented growth. This study proves that, unlike the conventional view, amorphous minerals can form via oriented growth without external regulation, demonstrating a novel insight into the structures and growth behaviors of amorphous minerals

An Analysis of the Sensitivity of Proteogenomic Mapping of Somatic Mutations and Novel Splicing Events in Cancer

Improvements in mass spectrometry (MS)-based peptide sequencing provide a new opportunity to determine whether polymorphisms, mutations, and splice variants identified in cancer cells are translated. Herein, we apply a proteogenomic data integration tool (QUILTS) to illustrate protein variant discovery using whole genome, whole transcriptome, and global proteome datasets generated from a pair of luminal and basal-like breast-cancer-patient-derived xenografts (PDX). The sensitivity of proteogenomic analysis for singe nucleotide variant (SNV) expression and novel splice junction (NSJ) detection was probed using multiple MS/MS sample process replicates defined here as an independent tandem MS experiment using identical sample material. Despite analysis of over 30 sample process replicates, only about 10% of SNVs (somatic and germline) detected by both DNA and RNA sequencing were observed as peptides. An even smaller proportion of peptides corresponding to NSJ observed by RNA sequencing were detected (<0.1%). Peptides mapping to DNA-detected SNVs without a detectable mRNA transcript were also observed, suggesting that transcriptome coverage was incomplete (∼80%). In contrast to germline variants, somatic variants were less likely to be detected at the peptide level in the basal-like tumor than in the luminal tumor, raising the possibility of differential translation or protein degradation effects. In conclusion, this large-scale proteogenomic integration allowed us to determine the degree to which mutations are translated and identify gaps in sequence coverage, thereby benchmarking current technology and progress toward whole cancer proteome and transcriptome analysis

A method for preparing the pH-responsive superhydrophobic paper with high stability

In this paper, a simple method for preparing high stability superhydrophobic paper with pH-induced wettability transition was proposed. Firstly, the pH-responsive monomer 2- (dimethylamino) ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA), the silicon-containing crosslinking monomer 3-trimethoxysilyl propyl methacrylate (TSPM) and the fluorine-containing monomer hexafluorobutyl methacrylate (HFMA) were polymerized to prepare the pH-responsive polymer PHFMA-PTSPM-PDMAEMA. Afterwards, the amino-modified SiO _2 was grafted onto the polymer to provide roughness and then coated on the paper to prepare the superhydrophobic paper with pH-responsive properties. Further research found that the modified paper prepared by this method not only has strong stability and transparency, but also can realize the reversible regulation of superhydrophobic & lipophilic and super-oleophobic & hydrophilic properties under different pH-induction, and it has important application value in the field of oil-water separation in industrial applications