Applications In Various Environments Research Articles

A Real‐Time Display Screen Based on Organohydrogel with Tunable Fluorescence

AbstractIn this study, a multi‐monomer organohydrogel network is fabricated based on radical polymerization. Acrylic acid (AA) and dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) are used as hydrophilic monomers, and methoxyethyl acrylate (MEA) serves as a hydrophobic monomer. To endow the organohydrogel with a photo‐responsive property, a fluorescent monomer, 1′‐acryloyl chloride‐3′,3′‐dimethyl‐6‐nitrospiropyran (SPMA) is added. Under ultraviolet (UV) and visible light irradiation, SPMA undergoes ring‐opening and ring‐closing isomerization reactions, respectively. This leads to enhanced and reduced fluorescence. This fluorescence tunability allows for the local regulation of fluorescence in the organohydrogel using a photomask. By employing UV and visible light, complex information can be repeatedly written and erased on the organohydrogel. Additionally, based on the interactions between dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and water within the system, the organohydrogel exhibits excellent anti‐freezing and water‐holding properties, allowing its use in low‐temperature environments and extended preservation time. The organohydrogel has precise information writing capabilities and is more difficult to falsify as an information encryption platform. This study provides guidance for future researchers to develop information writing capabilities with higher precision and broader applications in various environments using smart materials.

Hot-Dip Galvanizing Process and the Influence of Metallic Elements on Composite Coatings

The corrosion of steel materials has become a global issue, causing significant socio-economic losses and safety concerns. Hot-dip galvanizing is currently one of the most widely used steel anti-corrosion processes. With the rapid advancement of science and technology and emerging industries, the performance of pure galvanized products struggles to meet the demands of practical applications in various environments. Consequently, researchers have begun introducing various metals into the zinc solution to form high-performance alloy coatings. This article primarily explains the process flow of hot-dip galvanizing and the impact of metal elements such as Al, Mg, Sn, and Bi on the coating, as well as outlining the major issues currently faced by the hot-dip galvanizing process. The objective is to offer a more comprehensive introduction to those new to the field of hot-dip galvanizing and to provide theoretical insights for addressing production issues.

Physical and Chemical Properties of High-Temperature Silicone-Based Polymer Coatings Applied on Different Surface Roughnesses

High-temperature coatings play a crucial role in protecting surfaces exposed to extreme temperatures, corrosion, and other harsh environments. This paper focuses on the physical and chemical properties of solvent-borne and water-borne high-temperature silicone-based polymer coatings applied on two types of surface roughness of carbon steel plates. The corrosion protection performance of the coatings was characterized using a salt spray chamber, humidity chamber, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The physical properties of high-temperature coatings were determined using the Shore D hardness method and cross-cut adhesion tests. This study investigates the effects of different surface preparation methods on coating adhesion, which is considered to be a crucial property of organic coatings for corrosion protection durability. The thermal stability of the coating was tested using furnace cyclic testing. The results show that high-temperature coatings in general exhibit excellent thermal stability, high adhesion strength, and good resistance to warm and humid environments, except in the conditions of a salty atmosphere. This study reveals that coating performance is affected by the composition and surface preparation method. This study can be useful for coating manufacturers and researchers interested in understanding the physical and chemical properties of high-temperature coatings and their applications in various environments.

Influence of temperature on wettability of micro hierarchical rough surfaces: A three-dimensional thermodynamic model

Inspired by the micrometer-scale hierarchical microstructures on the surface of cicada wings, this paper presents a three-dimensional thermodynamic analytical model to comprehensively analyze the superhydrophobicity of rough surfaces with micro-hierarchical structures. Emphasis is placed on the variation of normalized free energy and free energy barrier as a function of apparent contact angle for different wettability states. The effect of temperature-dependent intrinsic contact angle on the intertransition between different wettability states is explored. Additionally, the model allows obtaining the equilibrium contact angle and contact angle hysteresis through corresponding calculations. Importantly, the present model elucidates the influence of the height of the micropillar of the paraboloid on the intertransition between different wettability states at a specific temperature. The geometrical parameters of a droplet in a certain environment, when it is in the final stable wettability state, can be designed based on this model. By conducting a thorough investigation into the effect of temperature on the contact angle of rough surfaces with micro-hierarchical structures, this study offers a fresh perspective for understanding the wettability behavior of droplets at the micrometer scale. Moreover, it provides a theoretical basis for designing rough surfaces with micro-hierarchical structures for application in various environments.

Experimental Assessment of the Mechanical Performance of Graphene Nanoplatelets Coated Polymers

This study presents the effect of spray‐coated graphene nanoplatelets on the mechanical response of various polymers to cyclic loadings. The substrates material (three polymers) and the coating (various numbers of coating layers) are assessed. The experimental results suggest that the compressive stiffness, compressive modulus, damping, and energy dissipation of the samples coated with graphene nanoplatelets improve with respect to the uncoated samples. The outcomes of this experimental research highlight the feasibility of utilizing films of graphene nanoplatelets to improve the mechanical properties of polymers for vibration isolation, foreseeing application in various environments, for instance, in buildings and infrastructures (bridges, railways) for seismic and acoustic isolation.

Investigation of improved Bifunctional electrocatalytic HER and OER performances of Lanthanum Molybdate supported Graphene oxide composite in Acidic and Alkaline media

Developing low-cost and high-performance emergent bifunctional electrocatalysts (ECs) is crucial to catalyze the overall electrocatalytic water-splitting. In this work, Lanthanum Molybdate (LaM) in the graphene oxide (GO) surface to develop its electrocatalytic applications in various environments is designed and presented. LaM/GO ECs could enhance the HER catalytic efficiency with a less overpotential of −0.21 V and less Tafel slope value of 81 mV dec−1 at an optimum current density of 10 mA cm−2 on typical acid media. Also, the less Tafel slope of 186 mV dec−1 and less overpotential (0.56 V) for catalyzing OER in alkaline media signifies its bifunctional electrocatalytic HER and OER activity. Moreover, it could exhibit admirable durability after 5000 cycles in both alkaline and acidic media. The outstanding bifunctional electrochemical activity of LaM/GO might be accredited to the novel construction method and benefits of LaM not only facilitates electron transfer but also interacts with the GO layer surface to make a synergic catalytic effect and might offer a large electrochemical surface area. Hence, this present work could be prolonged to propose and fabricate these sequence composites with the advantage of bifunctional catalysts for practical water-splitting applications.

Semantic Proximity Update of GNSS/INS/VINS for Seamless Vehicular Navigation Using Smartphone Sensors

The advancement of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have enabled a wide range of applications based on smartphones. However, the existing navigation methods using these low-cost MEMS sensors cannot provide acceptable information for location-based applications in various environments. Their technical limitations, such as severe signal attenuation, reflections, blockages, error accumulation, and low quality of images degrade the performance of GNSS, INS, and camera. To mitigate these limitations, especially in indoor vehicle navigation, we first analyze the performance of the existing fusion algorithm, then we propose Semantic Proximity Update (SPU) based on a pre-trained model of real-time object detection to enhance the integration of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Inertial Navigation System (INS) and Visual Inertial Navigation System (VINS). SPU consists of the detection of geo-referenced objects and the relative movement to infer the absolute position. The proposed INS/GNSS/VINS/SPU can maintain long-term acceptable accuracy regardless of the indoor/outdoor environment. It only requires the use of smartphone sensors; thus, this scheme has no additional cost for users. Experimental results indicated that the errors of this scheme in horizontal positioning and three-dimensional positioning were 51.6% and 86.8% lower, respectively than those of a conventional integration.

Crash Frequency Minimization with Severity Mitigation in Road Geometric Design Using Chance Constraint Programming Optimization

Crash frequency and crash severity are two major aspects of transportation safety. In this paper, we propose a decision-making scheme combining statistical analysis and optimization modeling to be used in transportation safety study. We conduct a safety analysis, a travel speed analysis, and an optimization analysis to develop a two-stage decision scheme to minimize crash frequency while mitigating crash severity, using data collected in urban environments in Lincoln, Nebraska. In the safety analysis and the travel speed analysis, we study the impact of lane width and other related road geometric design parameters on annual crash frequency and vehicle travel speed using count models and linear regression models, respectively. In the optimization analysis, the proposed two-stage stochastic programming model determines the lane width and other road geometric design parameters in the first stage, and then the posted road speed limit in the second stage for each scenario. To mitigate crash severity, we use a chance constraint to restrict a certain percentile of the vehicle travel speed to comply with the posted road speed limit. This two-stage decision scheme is shown to be effective for the data collected in Lincoln, Nebraska, when restricting the vehicle travel speed of up to two positive standard deviations from the mean travel speed to be under the posted speed limit. The application of a stochastic programming model that utilizes regression analysis results serves as an innovative decision scheme that effectively connects statistical analysis and optimization studies in road geometric design for transportation safety. Its objective is to minimize crash frequency while simultaneously mitigating crash severity. This methodology has extensive potential for application in various environments to assist in the reduction of both crash frequency and crash severity.

Effects of Measurement Temperature on Radioluminescence Processes in Cerium-Activated Silica Glasses for Dosimetry Applications

Cerium-doped-silica glasses are widely used as ionizing radiation sensing materials. However, their response needs to be characterized as a function of measurement temperature for application in various environments, such as in vivo dosimetry, space and particle accelerators. In this paper, the temperature effect on the radioluminescence (RL) response of Cerium-doped glassy rods was investigated in the 193–353 K range under different X-ray dose rates. The doped silica rods were prepared using the sol-gel technique and spliced into an optical fiber to guide the RL signal to a detector. Then, the experimental RL levels and kinetics measurements during and after irradiation were compared with their simulation counterparts. This simulation is based on a standard system of coupled non-linear differential equations to describe the processes of electron-hole pairs generation, trapping-detrapping and recombination in order to shed light on the temperature effect on the RL signal dynamics and intensity.

Approximating Max Function in Fully Homomorphic Encryption

This study focuses on efficiently finding the location of the maximum value for large-scale values encrypted by the CKKS (Cheon—Kim—Kim–Song) method. To find the maximum value, logM+1 comparison operations and logM rotation operations, and 2logM+3 additions and 2logM+1 multiplications are required. However, there is no known way to find a k-approximate maximum value, i.e., a value with the same most significant k-bits as the maximum value. In this study, when the value range of all data in each slot in the ciphertext is [0, 1], we propose a method for finding all slot positions of values whose most significant k-bits match the maximum value. The proposed method can find all slots from the input ciphertexts where their values have the same most significant k-bits as the maximum value by performing 2k comparison operations, (4k+2) multiplications, (6k+2klogM+3) additions, and 2klogM rotation operations. Through experiments and complexity analysis, we show that the proposed method is more efficient than the existing method of finding all locations where the k MSB is equal to the maximum value. The result of this can be applied to various privacy-preserving applications in various environments, such as IoT devices.

Single-Atom-Anchored Two-Dimensional MoSi2N4 Monolayers for Efficient Electroreduction of CO2 to Formic Acid and Methane

Efficient and selective CO2 electroreduction into value-added chemicals and fuels emerged as a significant approach for CO2 conversion; however, it relies on catalysts with controllable product selectivity and reaction paths. In this work, by means of first-principles calculations, we identify five catalysts (TM@MoSi2N4, TM = Sc, Ti, Fe, Co, and Ni) comprising transition-metal atoms anchored on a MoSi2N4 monolayer, whose catalytic performance can be controlled by adjusting the d-band center and occupation of supported metal atoms. During CO2 reduction, the single metal atoms function as the active sites that activate the MoSi2N4 inert base plane, and as-designed electrocatalysts exhibit excellent activity in CO2 reduction. Interestingly, HCOOH is the preferred product of CO2 reduction on the Co@MoSi2N4 catalyst with a rate-determining barrier of 0.89 eV, while the other four catalysts prefer to reduce CO2 to CH4 with a rate-determining barrier of 0.81–1.24 eV. Moreover, MoSi2N4 is an extremely air-stable material, which will facilitate its application in various environments. Our findings provide a promising candidate with high activity, catalysts for renewable energy technologies, and selectivity for experimental work.

An optically transparent flexible metasurface absorber with broadband radar absorption and low infrared emissivity

The rapid development of surveillance technology has driven the research of multispectral stealth. Demand for infrared and microwave radar compatible stealth is becoming increasingly urgent in military applications. Herein, a versatile metamaterial absorber is designed and fabricated to simultaneously achieve ultra-broadband radar scattering reduction, low infrared emission, and high optical transparency. The designed structure consists of an infrared stealth layer, radar absorption layers, and backing ground. The infrared stealth layer employs specifically indium tin oxide (ITO) square patches, while the radar absorption layers can be obtained by stacking different size ITO patterned films of the same structure with high surface resistances, realizing broadband microwave stealth performance in the 1.98–18.6 GHz frequency range with an incident angle of 45°. The broad radar stealth and low infrared emissivity of 0.283 are consistent with the simulations and calculations. Furthermore, the designed structure exhibits characteristics such as polarization insensitivity, wide incident angles, optical transparency, and flexibility, allowing for a wide range of applications in various environments.

Interactive device for the treatment of pediatric neuromotor deficiencies using personalized recovery programs

Abstract: Modern rehabilitation procedures use devices that provide physical therapists with various types of information to improve assessment of patient progress during reha-bilitation plans. The new trend of these technologies is the development of safe, portable and comfortable wearable devices with extensive applications in various environments (medical clinics or at the patient's home). The present work presents a portable and safe device for hand rehabilitation, consisting of five finger force sensors and a palmar sensor arranged in the ball, capable of capturing pressure signals during the execution of move-ments guided by the physiotherapist or by a video game/virtual reality. A 3-axis accel-erometer was used to spatially monitor the patient's movements. A series of games with different levels of difficulty were created, through which the degree of mobility of the pa-tient can be monitored depending on the game he chooses and at the same time reflected by the score obtained at the end of the game. Also, to be more interactive, the interface was chosen to play with 2 players simultaneously. So that they can choose to play in the team or as competitors. The system allows users to show different routines to guide them in their use and also evaluates pressure signals and response time. Keywords: microcontroller, games interactive, physiokinetotherapist, rehabilitation, health im-provement.

Electrochemical Sensor Mediated Assessment of Carbonate Moieties in Soil Matrix

Carbon sequestration is a major global phenomenon that is particularly relevant now with the effect of climate change monitoring and regenerative agriculture. It refers to different practices that contribute to the absorption and storage of carbon in the soil. While the impact of sequestration of carbon is majorly from organic sources, the effect from soil inorganic carbon accumulation is not trivial especially in arid and semi-arid regions where the inorganic carbon (IC) share in sequestration is significant. Movement of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into soil resources via photosynthesis and root respiration with the subsequent formation of bicarbonate in soil, which exists as bicarbonate in solution phase in groundwater sources or precipitates into CaCO3 in soil phase. Current soil carbon monitoring is either based on extensive soil sampling for analyzing in the laboratory or using proximal sensing methods, which are less accurate. Thus, implementation of novel soil sensors for accurate in-situ measurements could fundamentally improve soil carbon assessment and monitoring. Comparatively, the level and depth of assessing inorganic carbon in soil is significantly lower than that of soil organic carbon (SOC) monitoring. Electrochemistry as a transduction mode is highly viable in this regard due to its ease of applicability in various environments including the complex-soil matrix is a vital component that holds together the Earth’s ecosystem. The key mechanism of releasing the inorganic carbon relies on capturing the different pools that encompass the inorganic/ mineral carbon in soil including- carbonate ions in soil from Calcium (Calcite) which is the major pool of the IC in soil contributing to around 90% of this source and Magnesium (Dolomite). The other minor fraction that is present in the IC pool arises from Bicarbonates (HCO3-).In this sensor development study, we have designed a modified 3-electrode system which is functionalized with a correlated ion-capture film that is functional to changes in carbonate moieties in the soil electrolyte test system. Then this composite sensor was introduced into test soil setups with varying carbonate content to measure the sensor response- wherein, cyclic voltammetry (DC based) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy was used to determine signal output as a function of increasing dose. It was seen that the peak current around 0.4-0.5V on the positive axis was modulated to increase with carbonate content (% or ppm) and correspondingly- changes in the Rct (charge-transfer resistance) and Zw (Warburg impedance) along with the capacitive element shift was noticeable in the EIS spectra. The experimental cycle was performed using an in-house designed portable potentiostat device which was integrated into a probe head setup that could be inserted into soil for testing. The results from these experiments yielded linearity metrics from regression fits as R2 > 0.97 and measurable sensing range from 0.01% (100 ppm) to 1% (10,000 ppm). Therefore, a first-of-a-kind sensor system was developed for determining carbonate content in real soil samples using an electrochemical mode which will be subsequently tested in-field to survey field deployable and point-of-use capability of the system. Figure 1

Analysis of the functionality of voice and video communication systems

The article contains a comparison of the functionality and qualitative verification of voice and video communication systems, through tests of voice message shift in time, at different data rates, tests of system use cases and the study of the popularity of applications in various environments and age groups, thanks to an electronic survey . The systems examined were: Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Signal, WhatsApp, Cisco Webex Meetings. The following hypothesis was made: Voice and video communication systems are very popular systems among users, and their functional capabilities are similar.

An ultrasound-driven implantable wireless energy harvesting system using a triboelectric transducer

<h2>Summary</h2> Wireless power transfer can significantly extend the application range and service life of implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers, neurostimulators, and vascular applicators. However, existing transmission schemes are faced with shortcomings such as weak power, discontinuity, or impact on human health. Here, we design a subcutaneously implantable flexible ultrasound energy harvesting system that integrates a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) transducer and a power management circuit into a single flexible printed circuit board. We maximize the TENG transducer performance by choosing an attached-electrode TENG with optimized structural parameters, which offers 66% higher output power and lower impedance than the existing work. Such a flexible system shows broad applications in various environments. It can successfully provide a stable direct current voltage of 1.8 V with >1 mW continuous DC output power and >10 mW instantaneous power, which is sufficient to continuously drive various sensor systems, operate micromotors, and apply nerve stimulation.

End-to-End Lip-Reading Open Cloud-Based Speech Architecture.

Deep learning technology has encouraged research on noise-robust automatic speech recognition (ASR). The combination of cloud computing technologies and artificial intelligence has significantly improved the performance of open cloud-based speech recognition application programming interfaces (OCSR APIs). Noise-robust ASRs for application in different environments are being developed. This study proposes noise-robust OCSR APIs based on an end-to-end lip-reading architecture for practical applications in various environments. Several OCSR APIs, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Naver, were evaluated using the Google Voice Command Dataset v2 to obtain the optimum performance. Based on performance, the Microsoft API was integrated with Google’s trained word2vec model to enhance the keywords with more complete semantic information. The extracted word vector was integrated with the proposed lip-reading architecture for audio-visual speech recognition. Three forms of convolutional neural networks (3D CNN, 3D dense connection CNN, and multilayer 3D CNN) were used in the proposed lip-reading architecture. Vectors extracted from API and vision were classified after concatenation. The proposed architecture enhanced the OCSR API average accuracy rate by 14.42% using standard ASR evaluation measures along with the signal-to-noise ratio. The proposed model exhibits improved performance in various noise settings, increasing the dependability of OCSR APIs for practical applications.

Highly efficient and stable deep-blue room temperature phosphorescence via through-space conjugation

Efficient blue and deep-blue room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) is still a great challenge due to the difficulties in populating and stabilizing the excitons in relatively high-lying states. Inorganic boric acid, lacking conventional luminophores in its structure, is generally not considered as efficient material for RTP. In this work, we illustrated how to make deep-blue RTP materials with both high emission efficiency (phosphorescence quantum yield of 45%) and an ultralong lifetime (2.9 s) through a heat treatment strategy. Moreover, a through-space conjugation assisted energy transfer and rigidification mechanism was proposed for explaining the simultaneous promoting of emission lifetime and efficiency. In addition, the deep-blue RTP materials displayed excellent stability against restrict external environments (such as high concentration acid, alkali, oxidant, reductant and organic solvents). Benefiting from these high-performance RTP materials, multi-level information encryption under harsh conditions was demonstrated. The research results thus provide a universal principle and strategy for designing stable and efficient blue RTP materials, which also extend their applications in various environments.

Superhydrophobic PDMS-pCA@CNWF Composite with UV-Resistant and Self-Cleaning Properties for Oil/Water Separation.

Oil separation is crucial for avoiding environmental pollution originating from industrial wastewater and oil spillage; therefore, it is essential to develop techniques for oil separation. Herein, a new membrane with superhydrophilicity was synthesized by a facile, green, and low-cost method. First, cellulose non-woven fabric (CNWF) was modified by poly (catechin) (pCA), which has good antioxidant and antibacterial activities, to make it unaffected by ultraviolet light and to improve the stability of the structure. Then, hydrolyzed polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was coated on the pCA@CNWF surface via chemical bonding to make the composite hydrophobic. This durable superhydrophobic fabric can be used to separate various oil/water mixtures by gravity-driven forces with high separation efficiency (over 98.9%). Additionally, the PDMS-pCA@CNWF possesses the advantages of flexibility, high efficiency, and an outstanding self-cleaning performance, and demonstrates significant potential for applications in various environments, even under various harsh conditions, which make it very promising for the treatment of oil pollution in practical applications.

Contact Information-Based Indoor Pedestrian Localization Using Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons

Indoor localization technologies are actively investigated to realize location-based applications in various environments, and indoor localization methods based on whether the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) is less than a threshold have been proposed previously. Such a proximity/non-proximity binary value is used in digital contact tracing applications to reduce the coronavirus disease effects. We proposed two indoor pedestrian localization methods based on contact information using bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons, namely multilateration and cooperative localization. This study attempts to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods using only contact information. Through simulation experiments, we found that the proposed methods can achieve comparable accuracy to existing methods when the attenuation model is accurate. The difference in average localization error was 0.1 m between the proposed method 1 and range-based method, and 0.2 m between the proposed method 2 and fingerprinting method. We confirmed that the proposed methods using only contact information are robust against environmental changes even when the attenuation model is inaccurate. We consider that these contributions have added a new perspective on the use of contact information in the field of indoor localization, which aims to realize power-saving and cost reduction.