Friendly Conversion Research Articles

Electric Field Effects on Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting: Perspectives and Outlook

The grand challenges in renewable energy lie in our ability to comprehend efficient energy conversion systems, together with dealing with the problem of intermittency via scalable energy storage systems. Relatively little progress has been made on this at grid scale and two overriding challenges still need to be addressed: (i) limiting damage to the environment and (ii) the question of environmentally friendly energy conversion. The present review focuses on a novel route for producing hydrogen, the ultimate clean fuel, from the Sun, and renewable energy source. Hydrogen can be produced by light-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, but it is very inefficient; rather, we focus here on how electric fields can be applied to metal oxide/water systems in tailoring the interplay with their intrinsic electric fields, and in how this can alter and boost PEC activity, drawing both on experiment and non-equilibrium molecular simulation.

Layered thermoelectric materials: Structure, bonding, and performance mechanisms

The ever-increasing world-wide energy consumption and crisis of environmental pollution have aroused enthusiasm on developing high-efficiency and green-clean energy conversion technology. Thermoelectric materials enable an environmentally friendly conversion between heat and electricity, and therefore serve as an optimum candidate for solving the current dilemma and contribute to the carbon-neutral target. Among the thermoelectric family, layered materials have shared a great portion with impressive thermoelectric performance originating from their (quasi-)two-dimensional crystal structure with hierarchical bonding, i.e., strong intralayer and weak interlayer bonds. This structure and bonding feature is believed to be propitious to low lattice thermal conductivity, low-dimensional electrical features, and anisotropic electron and phonon transport behaviors, which offer great opportunity to disentangle the inter-coupled thermoelectric parameters. For those benefits, layered materials emerge endlessly in the field of thermoelectricity and have achieved extensive attention. In this review, we highlight the recent progress in the field of layered thermoelectric materials. The structure and bonding peculiarities of layered thermoelectric materials are outlined. Then, following the classification of single-unit, quasi-double-unit, and double-unit layered thermoelectric materials, the crystal and bonding features in some typical layered thermoelectric materials are discussed, with focus on their current research interest and progresses. The possible mechanisms behind the performance optimization will be analyzed. Finally, some personal views on the prospect of this field, including chemical bond perspective and interlayer electronic transport enhancement are also presented.

Greater Social Competence Is Associated With Higher Interpersonal Neural Synchrony in Adolescents With Autism.

Difficulty engaging in reciprocal social interactions is a core characteristic of autism spectrum disorder. The mechanisms supporting effective dynamic real-time social exchanges are not yet well understood. This proof-of-concept hyperscanning electroencephalography study examined neural synchrony as the mechanism supporting interpersonal social interaction in 34 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (50% female), age 10–16 years, paired with neurotypical confederates of similar age. The degree of brain-to-brain neural synchrony was quantified at temporo-parietal scalp locations as the circular correlation of oscillatory amplitudes in theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands while the participants engaged in a friendly conversation. In line with the hypotheses, interpersonal neural synchrony was significantly greater during the social interaction compared to the baseline. Lower levels of synchrony were associated with increased behavioral symptoms of social difficulties. With regard to sex differences, we found evidence for stronger interpersonal neural synchrony during conversation than baseline in females with autism, but not in male participants, for whom such condition differences did not reach statistical significance. This study established the feasibility of hyperscanning during real-time social interactions as an informative approach to examine social competence in autism, demonstrated that neural coordination of activity between the interacting brains may contribute to social behavior, and offered new insights into sex-related variability in social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Process Design for Biohydrogen Production from Waste Materials and Its Application

Biohydrogen is regarded as an attractive future clean energy carrier due to its high energy content and environmentally friendly conversion. Biohydrogen reactor is widely used in studies concerning the anaerobic co-digestion of food waste, sewage sludge, wastewater and other organic solids. Anaerobic digestion is a series of biological processes in which microorganisms break down biodegradable material (biomass or waste feedstock) in the absence of oxygen to produce biogas, which may generate electricity and heat, or can be processed into renewable natural gas and transportation fuels. This review article explains the scientific processes of anaerobic digestion process such as hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis and hydrogenesis as well as methods to produce biohydrogen gas such as fermentation and biophotolysis for the waste management technology and sources of renewable energy and concludes with solutions that may allow anaerobic digestion to become more widely adopted throughout the developing countries to control the waste management system.

Некондиційні горючі копалини України та засади їхньої екологічної конверсії

In the general case, substandard combustible minerals include on-balance and off-balance reserves of primary energy materials - coal and peat deposits (solid combustible minerals) and oil and natural gas deposits (liquid and gaseous combustible minerals), which by physico-chemical, energy or geological-spatial conditions do not meet the economic criteria for extraction and use of traditional technological methods, as well as the potential of methane from coal deposits, arrays of man-made carbon-containing materials such as waste from coal mining, coal beneficiation, refining, etc. Review of the available reserves in terms of the use of modern technologies of environmentally friendly conversion can significantly expand the opportunities for the development of all types of combustible minerals in Ukraine. The paper considers the geological zoning of oil and gas fields and deposits of solid combustible minerals, as well as their reserves and production. It is shown that the reserves of the main primary energy resources in Ukraine many times exceeds the extraction and has significant opportunities to increase due to the use of substandard combustible minerals. The principles of ecologically safe conversion of substandard combustible minerals in terrestrial and underground conditions are presented. The importance of energy utilization of methane from coal deposits, arrays of such man-made carbon-containing materials as coal mining waste, coal beneficiation, oil refining, etc. was noted. The main mining-geological and technological criteria that contribute to the development of coal seams by underground gasification are given, as well as deposits and areas of coal basins of Ukraine that are suitable for underground gasification.

"A Scientist and A Musician:" Tête-à-tête with Eiichi Nakamura

Eiichi Nakamura is an old friend. We first met in 1977 at Columbia University when he had just started his postdoctoral research with Gilbert Stork, and I was on my way to Madison, Wisconsin, to begin my postdoctoral research with Barry M. Trost. Over the following 44 years, we have had many opportunities to meet in various countries. I have always enjoyed Eiichi’s original science and Baroque flute music. He and his wife Yoko Nakamura visited my family at our home in Israel, and I had a chance to spend time in their beautiful home in Tokyo. Hence, I found it peculiar to conduct a friendly conversation over Zoom. But electronic communication has become an integral part of our life during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a relaxed weekend in late October 2021, early morning in Israel and afternoon in Tokyo. It was as close as possible to a face-to-face meeting, spending a couple of hours together while staying in our home offices.

Environmental Critical Aspects of The Conversion of Biomass to Biogas for Sustainable Energy in Indonesia

Renewable energy will become the foundation for meeting the world's energy needs in the future. However, Indonesia has not done much research on the development and application of technology for sustainable energy. Indonesia has potential energy sources. However, biomass conversion into other forms of energy, such as biogas, will hurt the environment. The development of biomass-based bioenergy is one of the best solution for meeting Indonesia's current and future energy needs. Biogas is biomass-based bioenergy, which is the potential for future energy sources. Minimizing the environment's degradation is a significant aspect of preparing the biomass to biogas conversion model. Furthermore, the production of biogas with automatic monitoring and control will minimize new waste formation. Indonesian government regulatory support and total community participation will increase converting biomass into biogas as renewable energy into electrical energy. The paper analyzes the environmental impact of biomass conversion into biogas and proposed an environmentally friendly conversion model.

Proposal to use the study corpus for contemporary French in Didactics of French as a Foreign Language

Abstract The ORFÉO platform (Tools and Research on Written and Oral French) has been making available to users since 2018 a Study Corpus for sampled Contemporary French as well as operating tools. Although this resource is intended for an audience of researchers and students in the fields of linguistics and automatic language processing, we endeavor in this article to report on the didactic potential that it offers within the framework of a Licensing Syntax course treating “subordination” and intended for Czech and Slovak students at levels B1 to C1 in French. We propose a didactic sequence composed of four activities and pursuing three objectives: consolidation of the mastery of the basic functions of dont («which») from a corpus of friendly conversations; the use of simple query interface tools and the introduction of certain principles of corpus sociolinguistics. The corpus-based approach, by confronting learners with authentic contextualized data, helps to redefine the teaching-learning priorities of a language by giving primacy not to respect for grammatical norms but to genre norms.

Paths of words: The political dimension of friendly conversation in Robert Guédiguian’s films

ABSTRACT This article studies the political dimension of friendship in Robert Guédiguian’s cinema, delving into the crucial role that conversation plays in this relationship, and taking Stanley Cavell’s thought as a main reference. Aristotle’s concept of civic friendship, along with its contemporary readings, and Cavell’s notion of conversation provide a theoretical frame for the analysis of three recent feature films directed by Guédiguian that present a strong thematic and narrative unity (and have barely received attention in previous scholarship): Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro/The Snows of Kilimanjaro (2011), La Villa/The House by the Sea (2017) and Gloria Mundi (2019). Based on, but going beyond, Cavell’s moral theorisation of the filmic portrayal of human relationships, the analysis of these films has identified four milestones in the transformative process—both personal and political—that stems from conversation with friends: conformity, confrontation, acknowledgement and renewed community. In all three films, this process of change is not only presented as a progressive discovery of one’s own voice, but also as a progressive unmasking: both are necessary prerequisites for welcoming foreigners in need of acknowledgement and, consequently, for the renewal of community.

Shifts in Behavioral Synchrony in Response to an Interaction Partner's Distress in Adolescents With and Without ASD.

Individuals with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show altered behavioral synchrony and empathic behavior. Yet, an ecologically valid examination of these in adolescents is still required. We employed a social interaction sequence comprising a friendly conversation with a confederate, an expression of distress by her, and a return to friendly conversation. 44 male adolescents (22 with ASD) participated. Socio-emotional behaviors, coded by blind raters and through automated analyses of motion, were analyzed. Results indicated reduced synchrony in the ASD group. Moreover, whereas controls displayed a decrease in synchrony when facing another's distress, adolescents with ASD showed no such change. No group differences were found on empathic behavior. Findings imply gaps between verbal and non-verbal responsesof adolescents with ASD to a distressed interaction partner.

Highly Active Ni Nanoparticles on N‐doped Mesoporous Carbon with Tunable Selectivity for the One‐Pot Transfer Hydroalkylation of Nitroarenes with EtOH in the Absence of H2

AbstractCost‐effective and environmentally friendly conversion of nitroarenes into value‐added products is desirable but still challenging. In this work, highly dispersed Ni nanoparticles (NPs) supported on N‐doped mesoporous carbon (Ni/NC‐x) were synthesized via novel ion exchange‐pyrolysis strategy. Their catalytic performance was investigated for one‐pot transfer hydroalkylation of nitrobenzene (NB) with EtOH in absence of H2. Interestingly, the catalytic performance could be easily manipulated by tuning the morphology and electronic state of Ni NPs via varying the pyrolysis temperature. It was found that the Ni/NC‐650 achieved 100 % nitrobenzene conversion and approx. 90 % selectivity of N,N‐diethyl aniline at 240 °C for 5 h, more active than those of homogeneous catalysts or supported Ni catalysts prepared by impregnation (Ni/NC‐650‐IM, Ni/SiO2). This can be ascribed to the higher dispersion and better reducibility as well as richer surface basicity of the catalyst. More interestingly, the Ni/NC‐650 catalyst achieved complete conversion of various nitroarenes, yielding imines, secondary amines, or tertiary amines selectively by simply controlling the reaction temperature at 180, 200 and 240 °C, respectively. The one‐pot hydrogen‐free process with non‐noble metal catalysts, as demonstrated in this work, shows great promise for selective conversion of nitroarenes with ethanol to various anilines at industrial scale, from an economic, environmental, and safety viewpoint.

Hydrochar: A Review on Its Production Technologies and Applications

Recently, due to the escalating usage of non-renewable fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and petroleum coke in electricity and power generation, and associated issues with pollution and global warming, more attention is being paid to finding alternative renewable fuel sources. Thermochemical and hydrothermal conversion processes have been used to produce biochar and hydrochar, respectively, from waste renewable biomass. Char produced from the thermochemical and hydrothermal decomposition of biomass is considered an environmentally friendly replacement for solid hydrocarbon materials such as coal and petroleum coke. Unlike thermochemically derived biochar, hydrochar has received little attention due to the lack of literature on its production technologies, physicochemical characterization, and applications. This review paper aims to fulfill these objectives and fill the knowledge gaps in the literature relating to hydrochar. Therefore, this review discusses the most recent studies on hydrochar characteristics, reaction mechanisms for char production technology such as hydrothermal carbonization, as well as hydrochar activation and functionalization. In addition, the applications of hydrochar, mainly in the fields of agriculture, pollutant adsorption, catalyst support, bioenergy, carbon sequestration, and electrochemistry are reviewed. With advancements in hydrothermal technologies and other environmentally friendly conversion technologies, hydrochar appears to be an appealing bioresource for a wide variety of energy, environmental, industrial, and commercial applications.

Daily Lives of Dayak Ethnic Community in Betang Long House of Ensaid Panjang Village Sintang District West Kalimantan

This study was conducted to determine the daily lives and social interaction of the Dayak Desa inside and outside Betang Panjai (the long house). This research used a descriptive qualitative approach through the phenomenological method. The study will use semi-structured interviews with three key informants and four other informants. The research data obtained comes from interviews, observation, documentation study and literature study. The theory used in this research is social interaction and social interaction form from Soerjono Soekanto. The results of this study conclude that the Dayak people are active workers, uphold their trust, respect each other and have a high sense of brotherhood. Culture and customs are adhered to in daily practices, including working together in the gardens, fields and rice fields, sharing stories and listening to the conversations of friends and neighbors in the living room. Differences in views on politics, education and technology do not hinder social interaction among residents of Panjang's house.

Oxygen and nitrogen-doped metal-free microalgae carbon nanoparticles for efficient hydrogen production from sodium borohydride in methanol

Here, the oxygen(O) and nitrogen(N) doped metal-free carbon synthesis including potassium hydroxide (KOH) activation of Spirulina Platensis microalgae, followed by nitric acid (HNO3) activation is reported for the first time. Oxygen and nitrogen-doped metal-free catalysts were investigated for efficient hydrogen (H2) production from methanolysis of sodium borohydride (NaBH4). Compared to the catalyst obtained with the KOH activation, the catalytic activity for O and N doped metal-free showed about a four-fold improvement. The catalysts were analysed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), nitrogen adsorption, elemental analysis and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The effects of temperature, NaBH4 amounts, catalyst loading and reusability experiments on the catalytic performance of obtained metal-free catalysts by H2 release from NaBH4 methanolysis were performed. This study can provide a new alternative strategy to produce specific metal-free carbon catalysts doped heteroatom for environmentally friendly conversion to produce H2 efficiently.

Very efficient dehydrogenation of methanolysis reaction with nitrogen doped Chlorella Vulgaris microalgae carbon as metal-free catalysts

In this study, nitrogen (N) doped metal-free catalysts were obtained as a result of nitric acid (HNO3) activation of carbon sample (C–KOH–N), which was obtained based on Chlorella Vulgaris microalgae by KOH activation (C–KOH). These catalysts have been effectively used to produce hydrogen (H2) from the sodium borohydride (NaBH4) methanolysis reaction. Compared to the C–KOH catalyst, the catalytic activity for C–KOH–N showed a seven-fold improvement. Hydrogen generation rate (HGR) values obtained for the NaBH4 methanolysis reaction for C–KOH and C–KOH–N metal-free catalysts were 3250 and 20,100 mL min−1 g−1. The catalysts were characterized using various analytical techniques such as XPS, XRD, SEM, FTIR, BET, and elemental analysis. This work can provide a new alternative strategy to produce specific heteroatom-doped metal-free carbon catalysts for environmentally friendly conversion to produce H2 efficiently.

On the Nature of Talk-in-Interaction: A Pragmatic Study of Informal Conversations

This study attempts to uncover what the recurring patterns of interaction in informal conversations are. It is also interested in finding out which recurring patterns of interaction dominate in informal conversations and how these recurring patterns of interaction play out in informal conversations. Data used in the study includes only recordings of naturally occurring conversations of close friends in informal settings. The researcher meticulously transcribed the data using the conventions proposed in the Jefferson Notation System. In Conversation Analysis (CA), transcription is part of data analysis. The transcription/analysis reveals that four main recurring patterns characterize informal conversations among friends: Adjacency Pairs, Topic Change, Figurative Language and Dysfluency. The study further reveals the fact that Adjacency pairs is a very dominant recurring pattern in friendly informal conversations. As a form of turn-taking, Adjacency pairs largely characterized the conversations compared to the other three recurring patterns. Finally, the study underscores the fact that friendly informal conversations stay focused on selected topics with very little or no change of topic. Mid-way between the little or no topic change and the dominance of Adjacency pairs are dysfluencies and rhetorical questions. Keywords: conversation analysis, recurring patterns, informal conversations, Jefferson notation system

Turn-Taking in a Friendly Conversation: American Gender Stereotypes Revisited

Turn-Taking in a Friendly Conversation: American Gender Stereotypes Revisited

Constitutional Adjudication in the European Legal Space

This paper, summing up a collective research project, sketches common features of constitutional adjudication in the European legal space and highlights strategies to face authoritarian tendencies in some EU Member States. It shows the legitimacy of operationalizing EU values against such tendencies and the importance of constructive co-operation. Co-operation is more than more or less friendly conversations. Only if the various courts act in unison, they will live up their role in the European legal space.

Hindi Conversational Agents for Mental Health Assistance

In current times, many people are suffering from anxiety-related problems. The problem is manifest in a developing country like India. To deal with this issue, we present an empathetic chatbot that can converse in the native language of Hindi based on the seq2seq encoder-decoder model with an attention mechanism to capture the context. Our model is trained on the benchmark Facebook Empathetic Dialogue dataset comprising of English dialogues. The resultant conversational agent can generate empathetic responses and conducts a friendly conversation with people suffering from mental health disorders. Since a vast population of Indians have Hindi as their mother tongue, this chatbot is adapted to converse in the Hindilanguage. The Google Translate API is used to perform the translation. To the best of our knowledge, no other paper has proposed such an idea of dealing with anxiety and mental stress by building an empathetic chatbot that can converse in the native Hindi language. Results obtained from our attention-based LSTM model is quite impressive and acts in favor of the argument of implementing such a chatbot at a practical level and facilitating extension to other languages. The BLEU score is used for comparing results and our attention-based conversational agent with GloVe word embedding gives a BLEU score of 0.143.

MeONH2·HCl-Mediated α-Methylenation/Conjugate Addition of α-Sulfonyl o-Hydroxyacetophenones with Methyl Sulfoxides: Route to 3-Sulfonylchroman-4-ones

A novel and efficient route for the synthesis of 3-sulfonylchroman-4-ones from α-sulfonyl o-hydroxyacetophenones with methyl sulfoxides via a MeONH2·HCl-mediated sequential methylenation/ conjugate­ addition is described. Plausible reaction mechanisms are proposed and discussed. Various reaction conditions for this novel, one-pot, environmentally friendly conversion were investigated.