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A liquid-based sol–gel method was developed to synthesize nanocarbon-coated Li3V2(PO4)3. The products were characterized by XRD, SEM and electrochemical measurements. The results of Rietveld refinement analysis indicate that single-phase Li3V2(PO4)3 with monoclinic structure can be obtained in our experimental process. The discharge capacity of carbon-coated Li3V2(PO4)3 was 152.6mAh/g at the 50th cycle under 1C rate, with 95.4% retention rate of initial capacity. A high discharge capacity of 184.1mAh/g can be obtained under 0.12C rate, and a capacity of 140.0mAh/g can still be held at 3C rate. The cyclic voltammetric measurements indicate that the electrode reaction reversibility is enhanced due to the carbon-coating. SEM images show that the reduced particle size and well-dispersed carbon-coating can be responsible for the good electrochemical performance obtained in our experiments.
Fine-sized, well-crystallized LiMnPO4 and two Cu-doped derivatives (2% and 5% Cu2+ doping) are readily prepared via a hydrothermal route. X-ray diffraction (XRD) combined with structural analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), specific surface area analysis, and galvanostatic charge–discharge tests are applied to characterize these materials. The structure analysis shows that only a negligible amount of Cu2+ ions (0.2%) occupy the Li sites in the 2% Cu-doped material, while a considerable amount of Cu2+ ions (1.8%) occupy the Li sites in the 5% Cu-doped one. The electrochemical tests show that the 2% Cu-doped LiMnPO4 displays an improved electrochemical performance compared with the undoped LiMnPO4, while the 5% Cu-doped LiMnPO4 exhibits a decreased activity.
In the present work, an interconnected sandwich carbon/Si-SiO2/carbon nanospheres composite was prepared by template method and carbon thermal vapor deposition (TVD). The carbon conductive layer can not only efficiently improve the electronic conductivity of Si-based anode, but also play a key role in alleviating the negative effect from huge volume expansion over discharge/charge of Si-based anode. The resulting material delivered a reversible capacity of 1094 mAh/g, and exhibited excellent cycling stability. It kept a reversible capacity of 1050 mAh/g over 200 cycles with a capacity retention of 96%.
Developing highly efficient oxygen electrode is particular important in the application of electrochemical energy conversion and storage technologies. In this work, we report the synthesis of highly dispersed CoSx nanocrystals anchored on N-doped mesoporous carbon (CoSx@NMC) network electrode. CoSx@NMC, derived from Fe/Co dual tuning nitrogen/sulfur-containing polymer as carbon precursor, manifests discrete dual-active-sites endowing excellent bifunctional catalytic activity toward both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The zinc-air battery system assembled from this CoSx@NMC electrode exhibits an open circuit voltage of 1.44V (vs. Zn/Zn+) and a peak power density of 269.7 mW cm−2. Notably, it exhibits a super stability in the galvanostatic discharge of 5 mA and 50 mA, and the voltage could be maintained stable at 1.25V over 90h galvanostatic discharge. Rechargeable zinc-air battery delivers an excellent cycling stability beyond 1288 charge/discharge cycles. The superior electrochemical catalytic properties for ORR/OER are attributed to the strongly coupled pyridine-N, graphitic-N and nanoscale CoSx, which can promote the simultaneous exposure of both OER and ORR active centres. Further investigations reveal that the microstructure of the mesoporous carbon might experience a structural remodeling during the charge/discharge process.
US-based Pall Corp has developed a filter dispenser which, it claims, simplifies membrane handling and maximises work-flow in high throughput microbiology testing laboratories.
The software routines for data sampling and processing that are implemented on-board telemetry devices (tags) called Conductivity-Temperature-Depth Satellite Relay Data Loggers (CTD-SRDLs) enable the simultaneous collection of biological and in-situ environmental data by animal-platforms over periods of weeks to months, despite severe energy and bandwidth limitations imposed by their relatively small size. This extended operational lifetime is made possible by the use of software protocols on-board the tags that manage sensors, data collection, storage, compression and transmission to ensure that the most useful data are sent at appropriate resolution while minimizing redundancy. While tag software is tailored to the particular species under study and the questions being addressed with a given field deployment, the philosophy behind Sea Mammal Research Unit Instrumentation Group (SMRU-IG) software protocols is to adopt a general set of principles to achieve the best results within the energy and bandwidth constraints. Here, we discuss these and review the general protocol that is used to simultaneously collect information on geographical movements, diving behaviour and in-situ oceanographic information from marine mammals.
The metal-to-semiconductor transition has been noticed in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with various novel electronic and structural characteristics. The prospective and scope of GNRs for an array of implications could be spread significantly by this transition. Based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we studied the electronic and transport properties of zig-zag GNRs doped with lithium (Li) along with different edge morphology. Zig-zag nanoribbons are known to exhibit metallic behaviour without using spin. The structural properties, namely, edge state, doping and ribbon width, can be considered to affect the electronic properties of GNR structures. In this study, the changes in the electronic properties by doping a Li atom with various atomic percentages (16.6%, 33.3%, 50% and 66.6%) were investigated. Calculations were done by employing the local density approximation (LDA) based on DFT. In the presence of unique edge states, the edge-modified systems exhibit a noticeable change with prominent and better Li mobility. As a result, it has been observed that substituting two Li atoms at the carbon edges is more predominant compared to other doping configurations. We expect that our peculiar results will have potential applications in energy conversion, solar cells and thermoelectric devices.
Magnesium alloy stent has been employed in animal and clinical experiment in recent years. It has been verified to be biocompatible and degradable due to corrosion after being implanted into blood vessel. Mg–Y–Gd–Nd alloy is usually used to construct an absorbable magnesium alloy stent. However, the corrosion resistant of as cast Mg–Y–Gd–Nd alloy is poor relatively and the control of corrosion rate is difficult. Aiming at the requirement of endovascular stent in clinic, a new biomedical Mg–Zn–Y–Nd alloy with low Zn and Y content (Zn/Y atom ratio 6) was designed, which exists quasicrystals to improve its corrosion resistance. Additionally, sub-rapid solidification processing was applied for preparation of corrosion-resisting Mg–Zn–Y–Nd and Mg–Y–Gd–Nd alloys. Compared with the as cast sample, the corrosion behavior of alloys in dynamic simulated body fluid (SBF) (the speed of body fluid: 16 ml/800 ml min−1) was investigated. The results show that as sub-rapid solidification Mg–Zn–Y–Nd alloy has the better corrosion resistance in dynamic SBF due to grain refinement and fine dispersion distribution of the quasicrystals and intermetallic compounds in α-Mg matrix. In the as cast sample, both Mg–Zn–Y–Nd and Mg–Y–Gd–Nd alloys exhibit poor corrosion resistance. Mg–Zn–Y–Nd alloy by sub-rapid solidification processing provides excellent corrosion resistance in dynamic SBF, which open a new window for biomedical materials design, especially for vascular stent application.
In this study the effect of the carbon coating on the electrochemical properties of LiFePO4 as a cathode for Li-ion batteries were investigated. The carbon-coated LiFePO4 particles were synthesized by the mechanochemical process and one-step heat treatment. Microscopic observations using SEM and TEM revealed that the carbon coating reduced the particle size of the LiFePO4. The carbon-coated LiFePO4 showed much better performances in terms of the discharge capacity and cycle stability than bare LiFePO4. It was confirmed that the carbon coating decreased the migration distance of Li-ion and enhanced the charge transfer from CV and ac impedance measurements. The improved electrochemical properties of the carbon-coated LiFePO4 were, therefore, attributed to the reduced particle size and enhanced electrical contacts by carbon.
In this study, the poly-vinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/p-benzoquinone (pBQ) gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) is synthesized well with LiTFSI/TEGDME for Li-air battery (LAB) applications. The PVDF/pBQ GPEs are characterized by electrochemical analysis and compared to the PVDF GPE. We confirm that pBQ molecule in PVDF GPE shows redox mediate behavior during charge-discharge process. Employing PVDF/pBQ GPE for LAB leads to an improved cycleability from 2 to over 30. In addition it results in a charge voltage decrease from around 4.2V to around 3.3V. The energy cycle efficiency (ECE) is improved about 15%. The pBQ accelerates to the formation of an amorphous phase on synthesized PVDF GPE matrix by acting inhibitor for polymerization. It leads to ionic conductivity improvement of synthesized GPE from 2.83 mScm−1 to 4.98 mScm−1.
Wildfire smoke is an increasing environmental health threat to which children are particularly vulnerable, for both physiologic and behavioral reasons. To address the need for improved public health messaging this review summarizes current knowledge and knowledge gaps in the health effects of wildfire smoke in children, as well as tools for public health response aimed at children, including consideration of low-cost sensor data, respirators, and exposures in school environments. There is an established literature of health effects in children from components of ambient air pollution, which are also present in wildfire smoke, and an emerging literature on the effects of wildfire smoke, particularly for respiratory outcomes. Low-cost particulate sensors demonstrate the spatial variability of pollution, including wildfire smoke, where children live and play. Surgical masks and respirators can provide limited protection for children during wildfire events, with expected decreases of roughly 20%  and 80% for surgical masks and N95 respirators, respectively. Schools should improve filtration to reduce exposure of our nation’s children to smoke during wildfire events. The evidence base described may help clinical and public health authorities provide accurate information to families to improve their decision making.
This work presents a detailed study of the electrochemical performance of polyphosphazene based electrolyte membranes consisting of a linear polymer with –(NPR2)– units, grafted with ethylene oxide side chains of the type R = –(OCH2CH2)3OCH3 and containing LiTFSI and LiBOB as dissolved lithium salts. The average molecular weight was 105 g mol−1. Mechanical stability was achieved by UV induced in-situ cross-linking of the thin polymer electrolyte films. Favorable properties of this type of polymer electrolytes are the good thermal and electrochemical stability of the electrolyte membranes, the broad electrochemical stability window ranging between 0 V and 4.7 V versus the Li/Li+ reference and a very good interface stability at lithium metal electrodes where a stable SEI was formed during initial contact. Total ionic conductivities up to 10−4 S cm−1 were measured at 30 °C. The transference numbers of lithium ions at 50 °C ranged between 0.06 and 0.07 and hence are lower by a factor of about three as compared to other typical polymer electrolytes. Nevertheless, the partial lithium ion conductivity estimated from the product of total conductivity and lithium ion transference number is as high or slightly higher compared to PEO based polymer electrolytes.
Cognitive function in schizophrenia has been associated with different sociodemographic and clinical variables. Substance use disorder (SUD) history has also been associated with cognition in schizophrenia; however, contradictory results have been found regarding its influence on cognitive function. Our aim was to study the relationship between executive function and a) age, b) duration of illness, c) number of psychotic episodes, d) positive symptoms, and e) negative symptoms, in a sample of schizophrenic patients, and secondly to study whether these relationships persisted after stratification of the sample according to the presence or absence of SUD history. A final sample of 203 schizophrenic patients were evaluated for psychotic symptoms using the PANSS, and assessed using a neuropsychological battery to calculate a composite executive function score. Linear regression analyses were performed, with this executive score as the dependent variable, and age, duration of illness, number of psychotic episodes, positive PANSS score and negative PANSS score as independent variables. For the total sample, the regression model showed three variables to be significant predictors of the executive score: age (p =0.004), number of episodes (p =0.027), and PANSS negative score (p =0.003). However, once the sample was stratified, the regression model showed age (p =0.011) and number of episodes (p =0.011) to be predictor variables for the executive score in the group of schizophrenic patients with SUD history, while age (p =0.028) and PANSS negative score (p =0.006) were predictors in the group of schizophrenic patients without such history. These findings highlight the importance of considering SUD history in studies of cognitive function in schizophrenia.
Publisher Summary Types of metal-air batteries discussed in this chapter are zinc-air primary batteries, zinc-air secondary batteries, and aluminum-air secondary batteries. Zinc-air cells also have applications in navigation aids. McGraw Edison, for example, supply the Carbonaire range of batteries covering the following applications: short lights of all types, such as reef lights and lights on fixed structures Further, aluminium-air batteries have a high power density. This has led to proposals for their use in the following applications: marine lights, toys, reserve lights, and range extenders for lead-acid vehicle batteries.
Dye-sensitized solar cells are promising candidates as supplementary power sources; the dominance in the photovoltaic field of inorganic solid-state junction devices is in fact now being challenged by the third generation of solar cells based on dye-sensitized, nano-porous photo-electrodes and polymer electrolytes. Polymer electrolytes are actually very favorable for photo-electrochemical solar cells and in this study poly(acrylonitrile)–MgI2 based complexes are used. As ambient temperature conductivity of poly(acrylonitrile)–salt complexes are in general low, a conductivity enhancement is attained by blending with the plasticizers ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate. At 20°C the optimum ionic conductivity of 1.9×10−3 Scm−1 is obtained for the (PAN)10(MgI2) n (I2) n/10(EC)20(PC)20 electrolyte where n =1.5. The predominantly ionic nature of the electrolyte is seen from the DC polarization data. Differential scanning calorimetric thermograms of electrolyte samples with different MgI2 concentrations were studied and glass transition temperatures were determined. Further, in this study, a dye-sensitized solar cell structure was fabricated with the configuration Glass/FTO/TiO2/Dye/Electrolyte/Pt/FTO/Glass and an overall energy conversion efficiency of 2.5% was achieved under solar irradiation of 600Wm−2. The I–V characteristics curves revealed that the short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage and fill factor of the cell are 3.87mA, 659mV and 59.0%, respectively.
This study examined how the participant’s self-esteem and social physique anxiety affected the emotional reactions to viewing their own virtual body and willingness to participate in the virtual experience in the future. Three-dimensional body scanning technology was used as a virtual reality tool. Ninety-three (51 males and 42 females) subjects participated in the experiment, who were 18+ years old, both genders, and had no history of musculoskeletal or mental problems. The experiment consisted of the three phases, including the pre-scanning survey, 3D body scanning, and post-scanning evaluation. The results verified causal relationships that led to certain types of emotions after viewing the 3D virtual body and the willingness to participate in a future session, within the domains of self-esteem and social physique anxiety. Specifically, self-confidence (positive dimension of self-esteem) was strongly associated with positive emotions. The “other-oriented” perspective of social physique anxiety exhibited positive correlations with negative emotions. The participants who showed positive emotions indicated a strong willingness to participate in another session of 3D body scanning in the future, but those with negative emotions also showed their positive willingness to participate in the future session. It signified that regardless of their emotional responses (positive or negative) to viewing their 3D virtual body, the participants were willing to experience their 3D virtual body in the future. The findings suggested that this virtual reality approach could be used as a potentially effective, clinical tool for patients with body image-related disorders. Study limitations and future research were also discussed.
Recent experiments have revealed that external bending breaks the symmetry of lithiation in germanium nanowires. However, the effects of external stress on lithiation in silicon and the associated underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we have performed a series of large-scale atomistic simulations based on a newly developed reactive force field (ReaxFF) to investigate the effects of external stress on the interfacial reactions and diffusion (two dominant processes during lithiation) of silicon anodes. The simulation results quantitatively show the variations in the migration velocity of the phase boundary (i.e., the reaction front during lithiation) and the diffusivity of lithium (in crystalline and amorphous lithiated silicon) as a function of the external stress and indicate that the tensile stress accelerates the lithiation rate while the compressive stress retards it. Furthermore, comparing the large-scale ReaxFF-based simulations and previous ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations indicated that large samples and long duration times are crucially important and indispensable for accurately calculating the diffusivity of amorphous lithiated silicon under external stress. These results not only provide a fundamental understanding of the intimate coupling between mechanical stress and lithiation kinetics but also open avenues for optimizing batteries to control/alter the lithiation rate of silicon anodes by applying external mechanical stresses.
Background Practical, reliable “real world” measures of cognition are needed to supplement neurocognitive performance data to evaluate possible efficacy of new drugs targeting cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia. Because interview-based measures of cognition offer one possible approach, data from the MATRICS initiative (n =176) were used to examine the psychometric properties of the Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS) and the Clinical Global Impression of Cognition in Schizophrenia (CGI-CogS). Method We used classical test theory methods and item response theory to derive the 10-item Cognitive Assessment Interview (CAI) from the SCoRS and CGI-CogS (“parent instruments”). Sources of information for CAI ratings included the patient and an informant. Validity analyses examined the relationship between the CAI and objective measures of cognitive functioning, intermediate measures of cognition, and functional outcome. Results The rater's score from the newly derived CAI (10 items) correlate highly (r =.87) with those from the combined set of the SCoRS and CGI-CogS (41 items). Both the patient (r =.82) and the informant (r =.95) data were highly correlated with the rater's score. The CAI was modestly correlated with objectively measured neurocognition (r =−.32), functional capacity (r =−.44), and functional outcome (r =−.32), which was comparable to the parent instruments. Conclusions The CAI allows for expert judgment in evaluating a patient's cognitive functioning and was modestly correlated with neurocognitive functioning, functional capacity, and functional outcome. The CAI is a brief, repeatable, and potentially valuable tool for rating cognition in schizophrenia patients who are participating in clinical trials.
In this article, the welfare of the laying hen is used to illustrate a proposed approach to regulation of the welfare of animals. The probable replacement of the present cage systems to a range of management systems in the future needs to be guided by regulations that act as a reference point and are not dependent on defining facilities and systems that are in a state of flux. The challenges for regulators include: (1) to develop regulations that achieve welfare outcomes consistent with current scientific thinking, meet public expectations for the welfare of hens, are readily understood and accepted by those who must abide by them, and are effective tools for those who have to enforce them; (2) to write regulations that strike a balance among the often conflicting social, ethical, economic and production management considerations in a way that does not stifle innovation and remain relevant in an environment of constant change; (3) to exercise judgment on the prioritization of normal behaviors and the welfare compromise of failing to provide for them; and (4) to decide what are the priority behaviors that must be provided for as a minimum requirement and what additional provisions constitute “best practice.” We believe future regulations should focus on defining welfare outcomes for the hen based on known needs in a manner that requires those outcomes to be delivered, rather than requiring that facilities and management systems have particular specified features.
Effective thermal management of photovoltaic cells is essential for improving its conversion efficiency and increasing its life span. Solar cell temperature and efficiency have an inverse relationship therefore, cooling of solar cells is a critical research objective which numerous researchers have paid attention to. Among the widely adopted thermal management techniques is the use of thermoelectric generators to enhance the performance of photovoltaics. Photovoltaic cells can convert the ultra-violent and visible regions of the solar spectrum into electrical energy directly while thermoelectric modules utilize the infrared region to generate electrical energy. Consequently, the combination of photovoltaic and thermoelectric generators would enable the utilization of a wider solar spectrum. In addition, the combination of both systems has the potential to provide enhanced performance due to the compensating effects of both systems. The waste heat produced from the photovoltaic can be used by the thermoelectric generator to produce additional energy thereby increasing the overall power output and efficiency of the hybrid system. However, the integration of both systems is complex because of their opposing characteristics thus, effective coupling of both systems is essential. This review presents the concepts of photovoltaics and thermoelectric energy conversion, research focus areas in the hybrid systems, applications of such systems, discussion of the most recent research accomplishments and recommendations for future research. All the essential elements and research areas in hybrid photovoltaic/thermoelectric generator are discussed in detailed therefore, this review would serve as a valuable reference literature.