Additional Background Research Articles

Use of zoohumus extracts in soybean cultivation under regulated agroecosystem conditions

A model experiment was conducted in the laboratory conditions of the climate chamber to study the effect of liquid extract of black soldier fly zoohumus prepared in different ways on the growth rates and germination of seeds of the early ripening soybean variety EN Argenta. The zoohumus suspension was used in all variants at a dose of 0.2% (2000 ppm). As an additional background, a complex fertilizer containing the necessary plant nutrients in the form of various mineral salts was added. Analysis of the experimental data showed that the highest percentage of plant germination was recorded in the variant with the introduced aqueous suspension of zoohumus without centrifugation and without sterilization, and amounted to 94%. Against the background of pure organic matter, an increase in shoot biomass by an average of 22% was recorded. However, here the variant with sterilization, but without centrifugation of the zoohumus suspension, stood out. Against the background of the organomineral environment, the weight and height of the plants were higher, but stagnation in growth was noted, probably due to oversaturation in the feeding regime and the formation of chelate complexes of prolonged absorption. Thus, an aqueous suspension of zoohumus obtained by sterilization without additional centrifugation is the best way to prepare samples of raw materials for further use in sterile experiments. Centrifugation reduces the amount of enzymes and nutritional compounds, which negatively affects the quality of the suspension, and additional sterilization releases an additional amount of low-molecular compounds into the environment, which can feed microorganisms.

The behavior patterns of giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) housed across 18 US zoos.

Interpreting animal behavior in the context of welfare can be inherently challenging given the limited behavior data available for many species housed in zoos. Describing common behavior patterns may help animal managers by providing additional background when assessing the individuals in their care. Although valuable, these efforts require a large, collaborative approach and have, consequently, been rare. Here, we share the behavior patterns of zoo-housed giraffes, an iconic and commonly housed megafauna in zoos. Behavior data were evaluated for 66 giraffes living across 18 AZA-accredited zoos using the ZooMonitor Community platform. Data were recorded during 10-minute observation sessions. Observations were conducted during daytime hours over the course of approximately one year at each zoo (mean total observed time per individual = 23.2 hr). The most common behaviors observed were feeding/ foraging behaviors, which accounted for 38.6% of the mean visible time budget across giraffes. Time spent in these behaviors varied by individual and ranged from 14.3% to 69.3% of visible time. Stereotypic behaviors occurred in all study individuals, with oral stereotypic behaviors being most common. Although prevalent, stereotypic behaviors varied considerably across giraffes, with some individuals exhibiting these behaviors only on a few occasions to an individual that exhibited these behaviors once every few minutes. This study provides a robust evaluation of giraffe behavior across zoos to present a picture of their common behavior patterns in managed care. We hope these multi-institutional behavior patterns can provide perspective to aid animal managers in evaluating giraffes in their care.

Future directions in transmasculine genital gender-affirming surgery: tissue substitutes and transplant.

The present study reviews contemporary literature focused on transplantation and tissue substitutes for the purposes of masculinizing genital gender affirming surgery. Additional background is provided for both topics to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the modern applications. Genitourinary vascularized composite allotransplantation has become a reality in recent years with several cases reported worldwide in cisgender men with promising reports of urinary and sexual function. A natural extension might be to apply these techniques to gender affirming surgery (GAS). Technical barriers include anatomic differences between vasculature supporting penoscrotal and vulvovaginal anatomy as well as size discrepancies between the corporal bodies which complicate the required anastomoses. Whether the smaller caliber of biologic female pelvic vasculature can support erection of a neophallus is another obstacle. Ethically, resource allocation, elective immunosuppression, society response to organ donation and gender identity, as well as the psychosocial safety of the patient given charged public opinion must all be considered.Tissue substitutes have long been used in urologic reconstruction but more recently applied to masculinizing gender affirmation surgery which has traditionally relied on autografting. The focus has been on restoring form and function to the donor site as well as facilitating treatment of urethral stricture and wound complications after phalloplasty. Furthermore, aesthetic applications have also been described, most recently for glans atrophy. The field of masculinizing gender affirmation surgery represents an exciting frontier for surgeons and patients alike. Given the relative nascency of the specialty and its propensity to draw techniques from various surgical disciplines there exists a unique opportunity for rapid innovation to overcome challenging problems posed by these complex procedures as evidenced by discussions around applying penile transplantation and the use of novel tissue grafting techniques.

Latent classes of learners in people with type 2 diabetes, stratified by educational status: A cross-sectional study

ObjectiveResearch suggests that people with type 2 diabetes (PWT2D) exhibit different approaches to learning about disease-management. This study’s aims to identify distinct learner groups among PWT2D and stratify them by educational status (ES). MethodsCross-sectional data from 227 PWT2D, collected through 46 Likert-scale questions on learning behaviors, preferences, and attitudes, were analyzed using latent class analysis, to identify learner groups. Participants were recruited via healthcare practices in central Germany and a countrywide online survey. Group membership was displayed according to low, medium, and high ES, defined by years of schooling. ResultsFour learner groups were identified: casual, versatile, insecure, and theorist learners. Insecure learners accounted for almost half of all respondents in the low ES group (46 %), casual learners were most prevalent among PWT2D with a medium (27 %), versatile (34 %) and theorist (29 %) learners among those with a high ES. ConclusionThis study sheds light on learner groups among PWT2D, which differ by ES, suggesting social disparities in diabetes care. Further research is needed to validate these findings. Practice ImplicationsUnderstanding individual learning preferences and motivations is crucial for developing effective diabetes self-management trainings, which may involve providing additional background material for theorists and practical applications for insecure learners.

Integrating Digital Assistive Technologies Into Care Processes: Mixed Methods Study.

Current challenges in patient care have increased research on technology use in nursing and health care. Digital assistive technologies (DATs) are one option that can be incorporated into care processes. However, how the application of DATs should be introduced to nurses and care professionals must be clarified. No structured and effective education concepts for the patient-oriented integration of DATs in the nursing sector are currently available. This study aims to examine how a structured and guided integration and education concept, herein termed the sensitization, evaluative introduction, qualification, and implementation (SEQI) education concept, can support the integration of DATs into nursing practices. This study used an explanatory, sequential study design with a mixed methods approach. The SEQI intervention was run in 26 long-term care facilities oriented toward older adults in Germany after a 5-day training course in each. The participating care professionals were asked to test 1 of 6 DATs in real-world practice over 3 days. Surveys (n=112) were then administered that recorded the intention to use DATs at 3 measurement points, and guided qualitative interviews with care professionals (n=12) were conducted to evaluate the learning concepts and effects of the intervention. As this was a pilot study, no sample size calculation was carried out, and P values were not reported. The participating care professionals were generally willing to integrate DATs-as an additional resource-into nursing processes even before the 4-stage SEQI intervention was presented. However, the intervention provided additional background knowledge and sensitized care professionals to the digital transformation, enabling them to evaluate how DATs fit in the health care sector, what qualifies these technologies for correct application, and what promotes their use. The care professionals expressed specific ideas and requirements for both technology-related education concepts and nursing DATs. Actively matching technical support, physical limitations, and patients' needs is crucial when selecting DATs and integrating them into nursing processes. To this end, using a structured process such as SEQI that strengthens care professionals' ability to integrate DATs can help improve the benefits of such technology in the health care setting. Practical, application-oriented learning can promote the long-term implementation of DATs.

Tracking performances of the ePIC detector at the Electron-Ion Collider

The ePIC (electron–Proton/Ion Collider) experiment is a future facility at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) complex, located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA. It will use ∼70% longitudinally polarized beam of electrons, protons, and light ions to study their collisions to understand the properties of the quarks, gluons, and the strong force responsible for the formation of the nucleus. The layout of the central detector of the ePIC experiment is not symmetric along the beams axis consisting of barrel, forward, and backward detectors to achieve a wide pseudorapidity (|η|< 3.5) coverage. There are further far-forward and far-backward tracking detectors to measure the luminosity and reconstruct the particles and fragments for the study of the exclusive deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) processes. The experiment has a challenging environment due to the presence of the background radiations (synchrotron radiation, beam-gas interactions, minimum-bias events, etc.) which will produce additional background hits on the tracker. The synchrotron radiation is suppressed to some extent by coating the beampipe with a 5μm gold layer. The experiment uses state-of-the-art bent wafer-scale silicon monolithic active pixel sensors (MAPS) with a ∼5μs acquisition window, micro-pattern gas detector (MPGD) with a good time resolution (∼20–30ns), and time-of-flight detectors based on AC-LGAD sensors (time resolution ∼30ps). The timing information of each detector will play a crucial role in track finding and rejecting the background hits utilizing the 4-dimensional tracking (space, time) to ensure the excellent performance of the experiment. The article presents the expected tracking performance of the ePIC detector using the modular ePIC software stack for simulation, reconstruction, and analysis. The Geant4 toolkit is employed for full detector simulations, alongside DD4hep (Detector Description for High Energy Physics) for geometry definition and exchange. The reconstruction incorporates the JANA2 framework, in addition to the tracking and vertexing algorithms inherited from A Common Tracking Software (ACTS).

Soft photon heating: a semi-analytic framework and applications to 21-cm cosmology

ABSTRACT The presence of an abundant population of low-frequency photons at high redshifts (such as a radio background) can source leading order effects on the evolution of the matter and spin temperatures through rapid free–free absorptions. This effect, known as soft photon heating, can have a dramatic impact on the differential brightness temperature, $\Delta T_{\rm b}$, a central observable in 21-cm cosmology. Here, we introduce a semi-analytic framework to describe the dynamics of soft photon heating, providing a simplified set of evolution equations and a useful numerical scheme which can be used to study this generic effect. We also perform quasi-instantaneous and continuous soft photon injections to elucidate the different regimes in which soft photon heating is expected to impart a significant contribution to the global 21-cm signal and its fluctuations. We find that soft photon backgrounds produced after recombination with spectral index $\gamma \gt 3.0$ undergo significant free–free absorption, and therefore this heating effect cannot be neglected. The effect becomes stronger with steeper spectral index, and in some cases the injection of a synchrotron-like spectrum ($\gamma = 3.6$) can suppress the amplitude of $\Delta T_{\rm b}$ relative to the standard model prediction (where an additional radio background is absent), making the global 21-cm signal even more difficult to detect in these scenarios.

Court Navigators and Opportunities for Disseminating Overdose Prevention Strategies.

Objective. Describe how navigator programs from three New England states (Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts) function to connect individuals using court services to community-based treatment and services. Hypothesis. Implementation science frameworks can be used to analyze how multiple court programs function to inform replication and address gaps in the use of overdose prevention strategies. Method. The Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) Implementation informed semi-structured interviews as part of an exploratory mixed-methods analysis of court navigator programs. Analysis of interviews based on the TIDieR and administrative data on client contacts (n = 436) were analyzed. A subsample of clients with additional background information (n = 249) was used to examine court navigator recommendations. Results. The TIDieR revealed court navigator programs shared basic intervention characteristics but varied dramatically by resources and organization contexts. Nearly half (46.5%) of clients were self-referred and more than two-thirds (69.1%) approved follow-up but varied by program. Of those allowing follow-up, more than one-third (35.7%) had previously experienced an overdose. Court navigators were significantly more likely to refer clients with a history of overdose to locations where they can receive naloxone (the opioid overdose antidote) though only one program had naloxone on hand. Conclusion. Navigators are employed by community organizations with access to courthouses to provide resources to those passing through. These efforts can be implemented to support linkages to treatment and services but there is a significant gap in the allocation of overdose prevention strategies in court settings and court navigator programs have the potential to address this unmet need.

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION AMONG SENIOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SERBIA

The primary aim of this research is to examine to what degree communication apprehension is present among senior elementary school students and to investigate whether levels of communication apprehension as reported by participants differ along various external and internal factors. A total of 267 participants attending the fifth, sixth and seventh grades of elementary school took part in the research. Communication apprehension was investigated with an 8-item foreign language communication apprehension scale and additional background questions concerning one internal and six external factors. The findings suggest that communication apprehension exists among elementary school students to a moderate degree and that there are statistically significant differences in terms of gender, final grade in English, final average grade, attending private lessons and a perceived importance of learning English.

A Panchromatic Study of the X-Ray Binary Population in NGC 300 on Subgalactic Scales

The population-wide properties and demographics of extragalactic X-ray binaries (XRBs) correlate with the star formation rates (SFRs), stellar masses (M ⋆), and environmental factors (such as metallicity, Z) of their host galaxy. Although there is evidence that XRB scaling relations (L X/SFR for high-mass XRBs (HMXBs) and L X/M ⋆ for low-mass XRBs) may depend on metallicity and stellar age across large samples of XRB-hosting galaxies, disentangling the effects of metallicity and stellar age from stochastic effects, particularly on subgalactic scales, remains a challenge. We use archival X-ray through IR observations of the nearby galaxy NGC 300 to self-consistently model the broadband spectral energy distribution and examine radial trends in its XRB population. We measure a current (<100 Myr) SFR of 0.18 ± 0.08 M⊙ yr−1 and stellar mass M ⋆ = (2.15−0.14+0.26)×109 M⊙. Although we measure a metallicity gradient and radially resolved star formation histories that are consistent with the literature, there is a clear excess in the number of X-ray sources below ∼1037 erg s−1 that are likely a mix of variable XRBs and additional background active galactic nuclei. When we compare the subgalactic L X/SFR ratios as a function of Z to the galaxy-integrated L X-SFR-Z relationships from the literature, we find that only the regions hosting the youngest (≲30 Myr) HMXBs agree with predictions, hinting at time evolution of the L X–SFR–Z relationship.

Single-grain luminescence and combined U-series/ESR dating of the early Upper Palaeolithic Lagar Velho Rock Shelter, Leiria, Portugal

The existing radiocarbon (14C) dating framework for Lagar Velho is broadly consistent but provides limited constraint on several geoarchaeological complexes (GCs) and does not favour detailed chronological comparisons across all sectors of the site; including the stratigraphically disconnected child burial complex in the east area and the broader archaeological sequence in the central-west area. In this study, we undertake a complementary chronological assessment of Lagar Velho Rock Shelter using single-grain quartz OSL, single-grain quartz TT-OSL and combined U-series/ESR dating of fossil teeth, with the aim of establishing more comprehensive reconstructions of archaeological events and placing the human occupation sequence in a firmer regional climatic context. Expanding on the original chronological study, we also compare the published 14C datasets against widely used sample quality indicators (i.e., organic preservation and contamination proxies) to ensure reliable comparisons with our new luminescence and combined U-series/ESR ages. Eight 14C samples pass our combined chronological and stratigraphic hygiene criteria and are included in the final dating evaluations. Ten of the twelve optical dating samples produce homogeneous equivalent dose (De) datasets indicative of suitable daylight exposure. The replicate single-grain TT-OSL De datasets exhibit more pronounced scatter, consistent with enhanced potential for insufficient bleaching of TT-OSL residual doses in some karst settings. The fossil enamel samples dated using U-series/ESR span relatively low natural dose ranges, necessitating the inclusion of maximum dose (Dmax)-adjusted dose response curve fitting and additional background noise subtraction to avoid De biases of up to 13%. Stratigraphically consistent ages (n = 26) spanning the full archaeological infill sequence are obtained using the four different dating methods, providing a robust interpretive framework and underscoring the significant role of single-grain OSL and combined U-series/ESR dating for refining early Upper Palaeolithic histories of Iberia. Bayesian modelling of the combined chronological dataset reveals a site accumulation history spanning 35,750–23,440 cal. BP and provides improved age constraints on all GCs; particularly the al, bs, tc, gs and ls deposits that were previously undated or imprecisely constrained. The age of the child burial complex is refined to 29,410–28,280 cal. BP, potentially occurring within Greenland Interstadial 4. Comparison of the modelled GC ages from the east and west-central areas enables improved temporal correlations of depositional events across stratigraphically disconnected sectors of the site. This analysis suggests that the child burial complex and the Late Gravettian occupation are statistically indistinguishable based on current dating evidence. The new dating assessments reveal three periods of human occupation at Lagar Velho: the Late Gravettian (including the shorter duration child burial event) 31.6–26.0 ka from the end of Heinrich Stadial (HS) 3 until the emergence of HS2; the Terminal Gravettian 26.5–24.5 ka coinciding with HS2; and the Middle Solutrean 25.2–23.4 ka extending from HS2 to the end of Greenland Stadial 3. The timing of these occupations during late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 and early MIS 2 highlights the significance of central western Portugal for supporting regional human populations during periods when much of Europe was experiencing extreme cold, aridity and expanded glacial coverage.

StegoDCF: A New Covert Channel for Smart Grids Utilizing the Channel Access Procedure in Wi-Fi Networks

Wi-Fi networks within the smart grid play a vital role in enabling communication between smart meters and data collectors. They are also frequently used in automation and metering, distribution control and monitoring, and distribution protection. However, a significant challenge arises from the uncertainty surrounding the genuine identity of data recipients. In this paper, we propose an efficient and novel covert channel that leverages the IEEE 802.11 DCF to transmit data requiring a high level of security. It is also the world’s first covert channel supporting quality of service (QoS). Our protocol was implemented and tested in the ns-3 simulator, achieving very high-performance results. Its performance remains robust even under saturated network conditions with additional background traffic generated by other stations. This covert channel presents a novel approach to securely transmitting large amounts of QoS data within the smart grid.

Investigating conversational dynamics in triads: Effects of noise, hearing impairment, and hearing aids.

Communication is an important part of everyday life and requires a rapid and coordinated interplay between interlocutors to ensure a successful conversation. Here, we investigate whether increased communication difficulty caused by additional background noise, hearing impairment, and not providing adequate hearing-aid (HA) processing affected the dynamics of a group conversation between one hearing-impaired (HI) and two normal-hearing (NH) interlocutors. Free conversations were recorded from 25 triads communicating at low (50 dBC SPL) or high (75 dBC SPL) levels of canteen noise. In conversations at low noise levels, the HI interlocutor was either unaided or aided. In conversations at high noise levels, the HI interlocutor either experienced omnidirectional or directional sound processing. Results showed that HI interlocutors generally spoke more and initiated their turn faster, but with more variability, than the NH interlocutors. Increasing the noise level resulted in generally higher speech levels, but more so for the NH than for the HI interlocutors. Higher background noise also affected the HI interlocutors' ability to speak in longer turns. When the HI interlocutors were unaided at low noise levels, both HI and NH interlocutors spoke louder, while receiving directional sound processing at high levels of noise only reduced the speech level of the HI interlocutor. In conclusion, noise, hearing impairment, and hearing-aid processing mainly affected speech levels, while the remaining measures of conversational dynamics (FTO median, FTO IQR, turn duration, and speaking time) were unaffected. Hence, although experiencing large changes in communication difficulty, the conversational dynamics of the free triadic conversations remain relatively stable.

Overview of knowledge reasoning for knowledge graph

Knowledge graphs are large-scale semantic networks that considerably impact knowledge representation. Mining hidden knowledge from existing data, including triplet knowledge reasoning, is a primary objective of knowledge graphs. With the development of Neural Network (NN) and Deep Learning (DL), the interpretability of triplet knowledge reasoning gradually decreases; furthermore, what machines learn is not actual reasoning but digital reasoning shortcuts. To solve this problem, more background knowledge needs to be introduced into knowledge graphs: causal graphs can offer valuable causal logic knowledge for reasoning; temporal quadruples can provide essential temporal distribution details; and commonsense graphs can furnish pertinent commonsense understanding to support reasoning. In recent years, many scholars have incorporated additional background knowledge into knowledge graphs to construct more complex reasoning mechanisms. This paper reviews the basic concepts and definitions of knowledge reasoning and the reasoning methods used for knowledge graphs. Specifically, we dissect the reasoning methods into four categories: triplet reasoning, causal inference, temporal inference, and commonsense reasoning. Finally, we discuss the remaining challenges and research opportunities related to knowledge graph reasoning.

Definite example of negative entropy production in the Rolie Poly model

While it is known that the Rolie Poly model is not guaranteed to be thermodynamically consistent, definite examples of a thermodynamically inconsistent prediction have not yet been published. Additionally, the source of the problem (and its historical context) may not be widely known. This work provides additional background information and a definite example of negative entropy production in an experimentally relevant flow, including a discussion of the implications in terms of an experimentally measurable quantity like recoverable strain.

Near-infrared thin-film electroluminescent device from ZnGa2O4:Cr3+ on silicon wafer

This study systematically investigated the Cr3+-doped ZnGa2O4 electroluminescent (EL) device, demonstrating the emission of near-infrared (NIR) light. The ZnGa2O4:Cr3+ film was prepared by a facile and cost-effective method within all-air atmosphere processes. It consists of a naturally grown amorphous SiOx and an optically active ZnGa2O4:Cr3+ layer. Under a sinusoidal voltage waveform, the device emits an NIR spectrum without the need for additional background gas or other implantation methods. The proposed mechanism suggests that light generation occurs through hot electrons released from the amorphous SiOx layer, injected into the active layer, leading to impact-ionization. The optical characteristics of the EL device are presented, and its response to applied polarities is thoroughly investigated. Finally, given the cost-effectiveness of our EL device preparation, this proposed research is of considerable importance for advancing the development of EL devices in silicon photonics.

Why Privacy-Preserving Protocols Are Sometimes Not Enough: A Case Study of the Brisbane Toll Collection Infrastructure

The use of Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) systems is on the rise, as these systems have a significant impact on reducing operational costs. Toll service providers (TSPs) access various information, including drivers' IDs and monthly toll fees, to bill drivers. While this is legitimate, such information could be misused for other purposes violating drivers' privacy, most prominent, to infer drivers' movement patterns. To this end, privacy-preserving ETC (PPETC) schemes have been designed to minimize the amount of information leaked while still allowing drivers to be charged. We demonstrate that merely applying such PPETC schemes to current ETC infrastructures may not ensure privacy. This is due to the (inevitable) minimal information leakage, such as monthly toll fees, which can potentially result in a privacy breach when combined with additional background information, such as road maps and statistical data. To show this, we provide a counterexample using the case study of Brisbane's ETC system. We present two attacks: the first, being a variant of the presence disclosure attack, tries to disclose the toll stations visited by a driver during a billing period as well as the frequency of visits. The second, being a stronger attack, aims to discover cycles of toll stations (e.g., the ones passed during a commute from home to work and back) and their frequencies. We evaluate the success rates of our attacks using real parameters and statistics from Brisbane's ETC system. In one scenario, the success rate of our toll station disclosure attack can be as high as 94%. This scenario affects about 61% of drivers. In the same scenario, our cycle disclosure attack can achieve a success rate of 51%. It is remarkable that these high success rates can be achieved by only using minimal information as input, which is, e.g., available to a driver's payment service provider or bank, and by following very simple attack strategies without exploiting optimizations. As a further contribution, we analyze how the choice of various parameters, such as the set of toll rates, the number of toll stations, and the billing period length, impact a driver's privacy level regarding our attacks.

Background-Aware Classification Activation Map for Weakly Supervised Object Localization.

Weakly supervised object localization (WSOL) relaxes the requirement of dense annotations for object localization by using image-level annotation to supervise the learning process. However, most WSOL methods only focus on forcing the object classifier to produce high activation score on object parts without considering the influence of background locations, causing excessive background activations and ill-pose background score searching. Based on this point, our work proposes a novel mechanism called the background-aware classification activation map (B-CAM) to add background awareness for WSOL training. Besides aggregating an object image-level feature for supervision, our B-CAM produces an additional background image-level feature to represent the pure-background sample. This additional feature can provide background cues for the object classifier to suppress the background activations on object localization maps. Moreover, our B-CAM also trained a background classifier with image-level annotation to produce adaptive background scores when determining the binary localization mask. Experiments indicate the effectiveness of the proposed B-CAM on four different types of WSOL benchmarks, including CUB-200, ILSVRC, OpenImages, and VOC2012 datasets.

Numerical simulation of the equatorial plasma bubble: the effect of seeding by the vertical winds and random background noise perturbations

A wide variety of small-amplitude waves widely exist in the ionosphere and have significant effects on the evolution of equatorial plasma bubbles. In this paper, we simulated equatorial plasma bubbles (EPB) seeded by vertical neutral wind perturbations with wavelengths of 125 km and 250 km, and compared the morphology characteristics of plasma bubble structures with those under random noise perturbations in the background density. The numerical results showed that both vertical winds and random background noise perturbations can contribute to the growth of plasma bubbles, and the perturbations under additional random background noise can promote the growth of the plasma bubble structures faster. Additionally, several processes of the nonlinear behavior of bifurcated EPB structures, including bifurcation, pinching, and small-scale turbulent structures, were successfully obtained. Our simulation captured supersonic flows within the low-density plasma structures characterized by vertical velocities of about 1.5 km/s, which is consistent with experimental studies found in the literature.

Producing ZnO films that exhibited near-infrared (NIR) luminescence with a templated design procedure

ZnO thin films with near-infrared emission (NIR) were fabricated with pulsed laser deposition (PLD) under vacuum conditions. No additional background gas, or other implantation method (such as nitrogen- or electron-implantation) was required to achieve NIR radiation from the fabricated ZnO thin films. This was done with the aid of a transmission electron microscope (TEM) copper grid, used as a mask on top of the substrate. It is hypothesized that high energy particles impact on the surface of the sample and this causes defects in the ZnO film due to the configuration of the laser-target-sample positions. This leads to the observed NIR emission. Furthermore, the thin films were characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), photoluminescence (PL). The thin films displayed unique optical properties. Their PL spectra had three broad emissions located across the ultraviolet (UV), visible and NIR regions. The NIR emission was produced despite the samples being prepared in a vacuum, unlike previous work where such emission has only been reported for ZnO nanostructures grown by thermal evaporation in an oxygen or argon atmosphere.