The fabrication and characterization of the photovoltaic cells composed of polydiacetylene and fullerene

Propargyl alcohol was coupled to 2,4-hexadiyne-1,6-diol (HDD) and crystallized in the process of ultraviolet irradiation-induced topochemical polymerization. The HDD polymer crystals were used as one component in the fabrication of organic photovoltaic cells, in combination with fullerene as the electron acceptor. The various structures of the produced photovoltaic cells included bilayer, trilayer, and bulk heterojunction structures. Their photovoltaic properties were analyzed in relation to crystal structure, electrochemical properties, and band structure of the HDD polydiacetylene polymers.     

Rheology of concentrated xanthan gum solutions: Steady shear flow behavior

Using a strain-controlled rheometer, the steady shear flow properties of aqueous xanthan gum solutions of different concentrations were measured over a wide range of shear rates. In this article, both the shear rate and concentration dependencies of steady shear flow behavior are reported from the experimentally obtained data. The viscous behavior is quantitatively discussed using a well-known power law type flow equation with a special emphasis on its importance in industrial processing and actual usage. In addition, several inelastic-viscoplastic flow models including a yield stress parameter are employed to make a quantitative evaluation of the steady shear flow behavior, and then the applicability of these models is also examined in detail. Finally, the elastic nature is explained with a brief comment on its practical significance. Main results obtained from this study can be summarized as follows: (1) Concentrated xanthan gum solutions exhibit a finite magnitude of yield stress. This may come from the fact that a large number of hydrogen bonds in the helix structure result in a stable configuration that can show a resistance to flow. (2) Concentrated xanthan gum solutions show a marked non-Newtonian shear-thinning behavior which is well described by a power law flow equation and may be interpreted in terms of the conformational status of the polymer molecules under the influence of shear flow. This rheological feature enhances sensory qualities in food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic products and guarantees a high degree of mixability, pumpability, and pourability during their processing and/or actual use. (3) The Herschel-Bulkley, Mizrahi-Berk, and Heinz-Casson models are all applicable and have equivalent ability to describe the steady shear flow behavior of concentrated xanthan gum solutions, whereas both the Bingham and Casson models do not give a good applicability. (4) Concentrated xanthan gum solutions exhibit a quite important elastic flow behavior which acts as a significant factor for many industrial applications such as food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic manufacturing processes.     

Development of a platform for realistic garment drape simulation

An integrated platform for garment drape simulation system has been developed. In this system, garment patterns from conventional two-dimensional CAD systems can be assembled into a three-dimensional garment on a parametrically resizable realistic human body model. A fast and robust particle-based physical calculation engine has been developed for garment shape generation. Then a series of geometric and graphical techniques were applied to create realistic impressions on simulated garments. This system can be used as the rapid prototyping tool for garments in the future quick-response system.     

Relation between chemical structure of yellow disperse dyes and their lightfastness

Five yellow disperse dyes were synthesized and their dyeing, fastness and photodegradation behaviors were investigated. It was found that dyes derived from phenylindole and N-alkylaminobenzene showed dye uptake directly proportional to the dye concentration, but the build-up of dyes derived from carbazole and pyridone were not good. The wavelength at maximum absorption, molar extinction coefficient, and the tendency to the photodegradation were strongly dependent on the electron donating ability of the coupling component. The dye, whose coupling component was phenylindole, possessed the excellent dyeing properties and the high degree of lightfastness. UVA had an effect on the inhibition of the photodegradation especially for the easily photodegradable dyes.     

Conjoint analysis of high-performance fabrics for mountaineering jacket

Conjoint analysis is a method for measuring and modeling consumer preferences for multiattribute alternatives. The purpose of this research was to determine the preferred high-performance fabrics for a mountaineering jacket to identify those fabric attributes best suited to the consumer’s needs. A conjoint analysis was conducted using 120 samples taken from mountaineering club members including university students and amateur hikers, who ranked their preferences in the selection of a hypothetical jacket based on the profiles derived from an orthogonal design. Our results show that the water/windproof attribute was the most important in choosing a hypothetical jacket (27.6 %), followed by price (24.9 %), breathability (24.8 %), durability (18.1 %), and weight (4.6 %).     

Structure-property relationship and shape memory effect of polyurethane copolymer cross-linked with pentaerythritol

Polyurethane block copolymers chemically cross-linked by pentaerythritol, a four-way cross-linker, are tested for the shape memory effect. One of the copolymers shows higher shape recovery than any other shape memory copolymer synthesized by us so far. The copolymer maintains a surprising 94 % shape recovery after the third cyclic test. The four-way cross-linking by pentaerythritol and interaction between hard segments are mainly responsible for the very high shape recovery. Tensile mechanical properties also significantly improve by cross-linking. Glass transition temperature (T _g ) slightly increases with cross-linking content. Other characterization such molecular weight, IR, and X-ray diffraction is also carried out to understand the arrangement of copolymer chains.     

RNA干扰对烟草NtPPO8基因沉默的效应分析

多酚氧化酶（PPO）是发生酶促褐变的关键酶,PPO活性过高会使烟叶变褐。为明确烟草NtPPO8基因对PPO活性的影响,建立降低NtPPO8基因表达量的病毒诱导的基因沉默（virus induced gene silencing,VIGS）体系,探究使用RNA干扰技术对烟叶NtPPO8基因表达量及PPO活性的影响。以中烟100和K326为材料,分析在移栽后50d进行VIGS载体侵染的植株,并在侵染后10、20、30、40d分别测定NtPPO8基因表达量及PPO活性。结果表明,接种VIGS载体的转化植株,其中在侵染后20d时NtPPO8基因的沉默效率最高,为78.46%;随着侵染时间推移,NtPPO8基因的沉默效率逐渐降低,在接种后40d内有效表达;且转化植株中的病毒载体会随着植株的生长而向上传导,随着接种部位的上移,沉默效率逐渐降低。因此,研究建立VIGS体系能够有效沉默NtPPO8基因的表达,并且有效降低PPO活性,为提高烟叶耐烤性及降低烟叶褐变比例提供了新的思路和方法。     

A new color index for vegetation segmentation and classification

Color vegetation indices enable various precision agriculture applications by transforming a 3D-color image into its 1D-grayscale counterpart, such that the color of vegetation pixels can be accentuated, while those of nonvegetation pixels are attenuated. The quality of the transformation is essential to the outcomes of computational analyses to follow. The objective of this article is to propose a new vegetation index, the Elliptical Color Index (ECI), which leverages the quadratic discriminant analysis of 3D-color images along a normalized red (r)—green (g) plane. The proposed index is defined as an ellipse function of r and g variables with a shape parameter. For comparison, the ECI’s performance was evaluated along with six other indices, by using 240 color images as a test sample captured from four vegetation species under different illumination and background conditions, together with the corresponding ground-truth patterns. For comparative analysis, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and the precision–recall (PR) curves helped quantify the overall performance of vegetation segmentation across all of the vegetation indices evaluated. For a practical appraisal of vegetation segmentation outcomes, this paper applied Gaussian filtering, and then the thresholding method of Otsu, to the grayscale images transformed by each of the indices. Overall, the test results confirmed that ECI outperforms the other indices, in terms of the area under the curves of ROC and PR, as well as other performance metrics, including total error, precision, and F-score.

     

采煤塌陷裂缝对降雨后坡面土壤水分的影响

为探究采煤塌陷裂缝对坡面储蓄降水的影响,本文对降雨后不同坡向上裂缝两侧的不同土层水分动态变化特征进行了研究。结果表明:降雨主要补充坡面地表0~20 cm土层土壤水分,且在雨后0~20 cm土层土壤水分散失也较为严重;雨后阴坡土壤含水率最高,0~10cm、10~20cm和20~40 cm土层土壤水分差异显著(p0.05)。降雨结束8 d后,裂缝附近的土壤水分变化幅度较大,尤以坡面裂缝上部边缘处最为明显,裂缝处与远离裂缝的土壤水分之间差异显著(p0.05);阳坡土壤水分损失最高,阳坡裂缝周边土壤水分平均损失量高达3.31%。可见,裂缝的出现会在一定程度上打破坡面储蓄降水的格局,加剧坡面局部土壤水分散失,这一点在植被恢复与建设过程中不容忽视。     

Application of microbially induced calcite precipitation to prevent soil loss by rainfall: effect of particle size and organic matter content

Journal of Soils and Sediments - Soil loss by rainfall is a serious problem in civil and environmental engineering. In this study, microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) was applied to...