4,300 research outputs found
Preparation of TiO2 nanotube/nanoparticle composite particles and their applications in dye-sensitized solar cells
Efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells [DSSCs] was enhanced by combining the use of TiO2 nanotubes [TNTs] and nanoparticles. TNTs were fabricated by a sol-gel method, and TiO2 powders were produced through an alkali hydrothermal transformation. DSSCs were constructed using TNTs and TiO2 nanoparticles at various weight percentages. TNTs and TiO2 nanoparticles were coated onto FTO glass by the screen printing method. The DSSCs were fabricated using ruthenium(II) (N-719) and electrolyte (I3/I3-) dyes. The crystalline structure and morphology were characterized by X-ray diffraction and using a scanning electron microscope. The absorption spectra were measured using an UV-Vis spectrometer. The incident photocurrent conversion efficiency was measured using a solar simulator (100 mW/cm2). The DSSCs based on TNT/TiO2 nanoparticle hybrids showed better photovoltaic performance than cells made purely of TiO2 nanoparticles
Tailoring Low-field Strain Properties of [0.97Bi1/2(Na0.78K0.22)1/2TiO3-0.03LaFeO3]-Bi1/2(Na0.82K0.18)1/2TiO3 Lead-Free Relaxor/Ferroelectric Composites
We investigated the effect of Bi1/2(Na0.82K0.18)1/2TiO3 (BNKT) modification on the ferroelectric and electric-field-induced strain (EFIS) properties of lead-free 0.97Bi1/2(Na0.82K0.18)1/2TiO3-0.03LaFeO3 (BNKTLF) ceramics as a function of BNKT content (x= 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, and 1). BNKT-modified BNKTLF powders were synthesized using a conventional solid-state reaction method. As the BNKT content x increased from 0 to 1 the normalized electric-field-induced strain (Smax/Emax) was observed to increase at relatively low fields, i.e., below the poling field. Moreover, BNKTLF-30BNKT showed about 460 pm/V as low as at 3 kV/mm, which is a considerably high value among the lead-free systems reported so far. Consequently, it was confirmed that ceramic-ceramic composite, a mixture of an ergodic relaxor matrix and embedded ferroelectric seeds, is a salient way to make lead-free piezoelectrics practical with enhanced EFIS at low field as well as less hysterical.ope
Trustworthiness-Driven Graph Convolutional Networks for Signed Network Embedding
The problem of representing nodes in a signed network as low-dimensional
vectors, known as signed network embedding (SNE), has garnered considerable
attention in recent years. While several SNE methods based on graph
convolutional networks (GCN) have been proposed for this problem, we point out
that they significantly rely on the assumption that the decades-old balance
theory always holds in the real-world. To address this limitation, we propose a
novel GCN-based SNE approach, named as TrustSGCN, which corrects for incorrect
embedding propagation in GCN by utilizing the trustworthiness on edge signs for
high-order relationships inferred by the balance theory. The proposed approach
consists of three modules: (M1) generation of each node's extended ego-network;
(M2) measurement of trustworthiness on edge signs; and (M3)
trustworthiness-aware propagation of embeddings. Furthermore, TrustSGCN learns
the node embeddings by leveraging two well-known societal theories, i.e.,
balance and status. The experiments on four real-world signed network datasets
demonstrate that TrustSGCN consistently outperforms five state-of-the-art
GCN-based SNE methods. The code is available at
https://github.com/kmj0792/TrustSGCN.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 9 table
An efficient method for visualization and growth of fluorescent Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae in planta
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Xanthomonas oryzae </it>pv. <it>oryzae</it>, the causal agent of bacterial blight disease, is a serious pathogen of rice. Here we describe a fluorescent marker system to study virulence and pathogenicity of <it>X. oryzae </it>pv. <it>oryzae</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A fluorescent <it>X. oryzae </it>pv. <it>oryzae </it>Philippine race 6 strain expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) (PXO99<sub>GFP</sub>) was generated using the <it>gfp </it>gene under the control of the neomycin promoter in the vector, pP<it>neo</it>-<it>gfp</it>. The PXO99<sub>GFP</sub>strain displayed identical virulence and avirulence properties as the wild type control strain, PXO99. Using fluorescent microscopy, bacterial multiplication and colonization were directly observed in rice xylem vessels. Accurate and rapid determination of bacterial growth was assessed using fluoremetry and an Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbant Assay (ELISA).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results indicate that the fluorescent marker system is useful for assessing bacterial infection and monitoring bacterial multiplication <it>in planta</it>.</p
- …