Search

Urea oxidation reaction (UOR) has been known as a viable method for renal/liver disease diagnostic detection. Here, we reported a three-dimensional (3D) nickel oxide nanoparticles dressed carbonized eggshell membrane (3D NiO/c-ESM) as a modified electrode toward urea detection. Several common physical measurements were employed to confirm its structural and morphological information. NiO/c-ESM modified electrode exhibits an outstanding performance for urea determination with a linear range from 0.05 to 2.5 mM, and limit detection of ~20 µM (3s). This work offered a green approach for introducing 3D nanostructure through employing biowaste ESMs as templates, providing a typical example for producing new value-added nanomaterials with urea detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bi-functional effect, elevated mass transport and increased durability have been combined within one catalyst for electrochemical methanol oxidation reaction. It has niobium (Nb) doped titanium dioxides (TiO2) nanosized half-sphere shell (HSS) as the substrate material deposited with small amount of Pt nanoparticles. These specially designed HSS nanostructure has significantly increased surface areas which are suitable for Pt nanoparticles to be deposited onto them to form the catalyst denoted as Pt/Nb-TiO2 HSS. It exhibits a remarkably high methanol oxidation activity of 0.21 V vs RHE which is 0.05 V lower than HiSPEC10000 PtRu/C catalyst, due to the substrate's strong metal support interactions effect, bi-functional effect and the special structure. These HSS nanostructures have also increased the methanol diffusion and mass transport within the anode to give a maximum power output of 0.0931 W of cathode polarization in miniature direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). It also acts as protection shells, which minimises the dissolution of Pt metal nanoparticles to prevent its diffusion through the membrane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a 1:25 multi-freedom aero-elastic model for a high lighting pole at the Zhoushan stadium. To validate the similarity characteristics of the model, a free vibration test was performed before the formal test. Beat phenomenon was found and eliminated by synthesis of vibration in the X and Y directions, and the damping ratio of the model was identified by the free decay method. The dynamic characteristics of the model were examined and compared with the real structure; the similarity results were favorable. From the test results, the major along-wind dynamic response was the first vibration component. The along-wind wind vibration coefficient was calculated by the China code and Eurocode. When the peak factor equaled 3.5, the coefficient calculated by the China code was close to the experimental result while Eurocode had a slight overestimation of the coefficient. The wind vibration coefficient during typhoon flow was analyzed, and a magnification factor was suggested in typhoon-prone areas. By analyzing the power spectrum of the dynamic cross-wind base shear force, it was found that a second-order vortex-excited resonance existed. The cross-wind response in the test was smaller than Eurocode estimation. The aerodynamic damping ratio was calculated by random decrement technique and the results showed that aerodynamic damping ratios were mostly positive at the design wind speed, which means that the v/ind-induced galloping phenomenon is predicted not to occur at design wind speeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a unified probabilistic framework for real-time depth map fusion. By modeling the depth imaging process as a random experiment, the depth map fusion is converted into probability density function (pdf) estimation. The depth fusion problem is decoupled into four parts: the fusion space, the influence term, the visibility term and the confidence term. We combine these four terms in a unified probabilistic framework, and apply the framework in two cases to evaluate the performance. In the first case, multiple stereo vision cameras are used to acquire multiple depth map streams from multiple viewpoints simultaneously in real time. In the second case, two cameras and a Kinect are combined to provide two depth map streams. In both cases, strategies for each part of the framework are presented to perform real-time depth fusion. Experimental results show that the proposed framework is promising for real-time depth map fusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study that highlights the presence of 4,5-dihydro-thiazinogeldanamycin, a novel geldanamycin derivative, from the gdmP mutant strain of Streptomyces hygroscopicus 17997. It states that geldanamycin is a promising anticancer agent that inhibits the chaperone activity of heat shock protein which is critical for the activation and maturation of proteins. It adds that genetic engineering has significantly provided two geldanamycin analogues.