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The polyphenol-assisted assembly of an Au-deposited microneedle array and the methylene blue-immobilized microneedle array were designed for in situ SERS-based bacteria sensing and antibacterial photodynamic therapy, respectively.

Reporting the findings from radiologic images is an important method for radiologists to communicate with referring physicians. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the recommendations for additional imaging (RAIs) after abdominal computed tomography (CT) studies for abdominal magnetic resonance (MR) imaging.The Institutional Review Board approved this retrospective study, which includes data collected from the radiology information system (RIS) database of a tertiary medical referral center. Associations between abdominal CT and subsequent abdominal MR were recorded. The effectiveness of RAIs in an abdominal report was determined. The influence of the wording and the location of the RAIs were also analyzed.The presence of RAIs in an abdominal CT report for an abdominal MR examination was more likely to result in a subsequent MR examination within 120 days (36.7% vs. 4.0%). RAIs were also associated with a reduction in the time interval between the CT and MR examinations (29.0 days vs. 39.0 days). The most effective recommendations included wording that advocated for further evaluation and were mentioned in both the context and conclusion of the report.RAIs have a significant influence on clinical decisions. Radiologists should be aware of the power of RAIs and be prudent and conscientious when making recommendations in radiology reports.

In this paper, we propose Hformer, a novel supervised learning model for low-dose computer tomography (LDCT) denoising. Hformer combines the strengths of convolutional neural networks for local feature extraction and transformer models for global feature capture. The performance of Hformer was verified and evaluated based on the AAPM-Mayo Clinic LDCT Grand Challenge Dataset. Compared with the former representative state-of-the-art (SOTA) model designs under different architectures, Hformer achieved optimal metrics without requiring a large number of learning parameters, with metrics of 33.4405 PSNR, 8.6956 RMSE, and 0.9163 SSIM. The experiments demonstrated designed Hformer is a SOTA model for noise suppression, structure preservation, and lesion detection.

Peritrophins are peritrophic membrane (PM) proteins that can interact with chitin fibers via chitin-binding domains. Peritrophins have essential roles in providing porosity and strength to the PM that lines the shrimp midgut. Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND), caused by strains of V. parahaemolyticus, is known to initially colonize the shrimp stomach and simultaneously disrupt its structural barriers (e.g., cuticle or epithelial tissues) to reach the hepatopancreas. Although stomach and hepatopancreas were identified as target tissues involved in AHPND pathogenesis, our results indicated that peritrophin in peritrophic membrane has a crucial role in determining not only colonization of AHPND-causing bacteria but also their tissue distribution. As the interaction between LvPeritrophin (LvPT) and WSSV (white spot syndrome virus) is not well understood, we noted that LvPT expression was upregulated in shrimp stomach challenged with either WSSV or AHPND. In an in vitro pathogen binding assay, there was strong binding of recombinant LvPT WSSV and AHPND-causing V. parahaemolyticus, and various bacteria. Furthermore, dsRNA-mediated LvPT silencing inhibited WSSV gene expression and viral genome replication. However, downregulation of LvPT gene expression increased copies of AHPND-causing bacteria in shrimp digestive tract, and facilitated bacterial colonization in stomach. In conclusion, we speculated that LvPT might regulate bacterial colonization during AHPND, whereas in WSSV infection, LvPT silencing favored the host. Although recombinant LvPT had strong binding with WSSV, the precise role of LvPT in WSSV infection needs further investigation. These findings increased our understanding of host-pathogen interactions in AHPND and WSSV infection that can be applied in shrimp aquaculture for developing effective antibacterial and antiviral strategies.

Herein, we report the cost-effective synthesis of P90–TiO2/g-C3N4 hybrid nanocomposite with enhanced optical and electrochemical properties through the surface disorder modifications for photocatalysis and electrochemical sensors. Ultrasound irradiation (37 kHz/150 W) was employed for the hydroxylation on P90–TiO2 and exfoliation of g-C3N4 (CN), using a probe sonication technique. Several analytical and spectroscopic techniques were applied to investigate the physicochemical and optical properties of the prepared materials. The Sunset Yellow FCF (SSY) and phenol (PhOH) were used as hazardous organic pollutants to evaluate the photocatalytic activities. Under simulated solar irradiation, the 40wt% UL-P90/CN photocatalyst exhibited 98.8%, and 99.35% degradations of SSY and PhOH within 5 min and 120 min, respectively. In addition, the photogenerated charge separation and an interfacial charge transferability were confirmed by photoelectrochemical measurements. Additionally, the electrochemical detection of SSY in the presence of 40wt% UL-P90/CN resulted in excellent sensitivity (1.029 μAμM−1cm−2), a broad linear range of detection (0.01–319 μM), and relatively low detection limit (4 nM). Therefore, the as-prepared 40wt% UL-P90/CN nanocomposite can be used as an efficient catalyst material for photocatalysis and sensor applications.

Purpose PET/CT is an important tool for tumor staging or evaluation of treatment response, especially for lung tumors. However, due to patients' free-breathing, the static PET image could be blurred, resulting in decreasing in image quality and incorrect quantitative values. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the Q.Static scan mode with the novel PET list data-driven gated (DDG) technique decreases the lesion blurring problems in lung cancer patients. Methods 194 patients with lung tumors were retrospectively reviewed. DDG Q.Static scan mode was set with 3 beds to cover the whole chest and the upper abdomen in their routine PET/CT scans. It was activated automatically when sensed significant respiratory motion. Routine reconstruction algorithm was applied to the data. Only those lesions located in the motioncorrected areas were measured and calculated for statistics. Results There were 124 out of 194 patients whose acquisition beds at least one bed activated the DDG Q.Static procedure. However, only 49 out of 124 patients showed lesions in their activated beds. Compared to noncorrection data, DDG Q.Static data showed improved accuracy by increasing SUVmax and SUVmean by 8.52% (9.20±5.42 to 9.74±5.42) and 8.65% (6.11±3.68 to 6.48±3.68). And, MTV was reduced from 6.54±8.58 to 5.55±7.33 (14.79% reduction). For subjective image quality, DDG Q.Static data was scored higher than noncorrection data. Conclusions This study demonstrated that both quantitative values and image quality were improved after correction. The DDG Q.Static technique provided an easier way to correct motion artifacts in PET/CT scans.

In this study, the Ni(OH)

In this work, we demonstrated that building different linking groups between nanodiamond (ND) and TiO2 (P25) could provide more effective protection under oxidative stress and ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation compared with the use of TiO2 alone. The establishment of ester (-C-O-O-R), amide (-CONH-), and epoxide-amine adduct (-NHCCO-) groups between ND-TiO2 composites was found to be critical in the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by controlling their charge transfer behaviors. We hypothesized that linking groups between the composites dictate the performance of ROS generation from nano-TiO2 under UV-light irradiation due to the differences in linking groups. The results showed that hydroxyl radicals were attenuated by the incorporation of ND. An MTT cell proliferation assay was performed in human cells under the treatment of ND-TiO2 composites to investigate the impacts of composites on cell viability. The results from the luciferase reporter assay suggested they have anti-inflammatory activity and can reduce cellular DNA damage under ROS stimulation. A zebrafish model was also applied with the ND-TiO2 composite treatment to demonstrate the safety aspects of the composites in vivo and their biomedical application potential. Studies exploring ROS generation behaviors in different linking groups suggested that interactive functionalization between nanoparticles might be an ideal antioxidant and anti-inflammatory strategy.

In this paper, the Doppler effect is introduced into the communication between vehicles to detect the cars that are likely to make car crash. Besides, the behaviors and information of the coming vehicles can be promptly obtained using the Doppler effect without the need of vision. In the past, the vehicle used GPS for positioning and navigating. The information received at that time was different from the actual situation, so the target object could not be accurately located. Thus, the past GPS-based positioning can only serve as an auxiliary function and has no guarantee for the safety of the vehicle. As the fifth generation of mobile communications is about to be released, it is expected to overcome many problems, including intelligent control system and data signal time delay, which will further improve the precision positioning technology. If the vehicle is equipped with Doppler radar, it can evaluate the collision with other vehicles in advance and give the driver a warning before the collision, allowing the driver to make a clear and safe response and decision in advance. The reason why we use the Doppler radar is because vehicles can transmit information in real time, such as distance, relative speed, etc. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to find the vehicles that have no brakes and are likely to collide with us at the intersection.

This brief presents a high-efficiency battery management unit combining a single-inductor dual-output (SIDO) buck converter with two charge pumps (CPs) to provide three voltage levels (6 V, −6 V, and 2 V) for neuron stimulators in implantable medical devices. The stacked power stage in the buck converter mitigates the voltage stress issue in the power stage to manage 3.2–4.8 V battery voltage. By cascading a buck converter and CPs, the voltage across the CP power stage is reduced to generate 6 V and −6 V high voltage outputs without using high voltage devices. As a result, the proposed battery management could provide 6 V, −6 V, and 2 V output voltages from 3.2 to 4.8 V input voltage using a 180-nm standard CMOS process. The measurement results demonstrate that the proposed battery management achieved a peak efficiency of 82.9% with an available input voltage of 3.2–4.8 V.

Titanium dioxide nanomaterials have good capability to prevent human cells from damage under UV irradiation. However, some studies indicated that the nanoscale of titanium dioxide could potentially cause harmful effects such as free radical generation under UV irradiation and thereby accelerate the progress of cell aging. Fullerenes can scavenge large amounts of free radicals due to the fact that fullerenes contain enormous amount of π electrons with low lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbital, but its adverse properties, such as the poor solubility in water, restricted the applicability. In this study, we employed water-soluble carboxylic acid fullerenes (C60-COOH and C70-COOH) as the free radical scavenger and modify onto the surface of titanium dioxide by refluxed esterification (P25/C60-COOH or C70-COOH) technique. The conformation and properties of these nanomaterials were characterized by techniques and equipment such as X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive spectroscopy analysis, scanning electron microscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. We also introduced methylene blue and rhodamine B as indicators to evaluate and demonstrate the scavenging capacity of these nanomaterials. Moreover, we examined the biocompatibility and UV protection capacity of our P25/fullerene composites in human 293T cells, and applied luciferase activity assay to investigate the possible underlying cell protection mechanisms exhibited by these nanomaterials. Our data indicate that both P25/C60-COOH and P25/C70-COOH could protect human cells against UV exposure. P25/C70-COOH exhibits great anti-inflammation capacity, whereas P25/C60-COOH exhibits great anti-oxidative stress and anti-DNA damage capacity. Our results suggest that most of our P25/fullerene composite materials have the ability to reduce free radicals and exhibit high biomedical potential in anti-inflammation, anti-oxidant, and anti-aging applications.

Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a standard of care for brain metastases (BM) patients, yet large BM are at a greater risk for radionecrosis and local progression (LP). Concomitant bevacizumab and radiotherapy has been shown to improve outcomes in primary and metastatic brain tumors. This retrospective study investigated the efficacy and safety of concurrent bevacizumab and SRS for large BM. From 2015 to 2019, patients with a BM diameter ≥ 2 cm who received either combination therapy (n = 49, SRS + BVZ group), or SRS alone (n = 73, SRS group) were enrolled. Bevacizumab was given peri-radiosurgically with a 2-week interval. Radiographic response was assessed using the RECIST version 1.1. Competing risk and logistic regression analysis were performed to evaluate prognostic factors. Radiographic response was achieved in 41 patients (84%) in the SRS + BVZ group and 37 patients (51%) in the SRS group (p = 0.001). In the multivariate regression analysis, concurrent bevacizumab was independently associated with a better radiographic response (p = 0.003). The cumulative incidences of LP and ≥ grade 2 radionecrosis at 12 months between the SRS + BVZ group and SRS group were 2% versus 6.8%, and 14.3% versus 14.6%, respectively. For patients with BM size ≥ 3 cm, the cumulative incidence of LP was significantly lower in the SRS + BVZ group (p = 0.03). No ≥ grade 4 toxicity was observed in either group. Concurrent bevacizumab and SRS for large BM is highly effective, with a better radiographic response and minimal excessive treatment-related toxicities. Peri-radiosurgical bevacizumab preferentially reduced the risk of LP, especially for BM size ≥ 3 cm.

Background: Although vertebral hemangioma is the most common benign spine tumor, rare patients may experience spinal cord compression accompanied by pain and neurological deficits, in whom surgery remains the standard treatment option. For patients with comorbidities who cannot tolerate operation, radiotherapy may be an alternative treatment, however, previous studies suggested that if spinal cord cannel was aggressively compressed by vertebral hemangioma, the efficacies of radiotherapy were suboptimal. Methods and results: Herein, we presented two patients with vertebral hemangioma who developed spinal cord compression, first patient with underlying congenital heart disease had spinal canal encroachment of 63.4% at ninth thoracic vertebra, and second patient failed to transcatheter arterial embolization for treating total encroachment of sacrum plexus. The first patient underwent radiotherapy with 44 Gy at 20 fractions using Tomotherapy and became fully recovered from the severe neurological deficits at 5.5 months after completing radiotherapy. The second patient benefited from neurological symptoms relief at 6 months after completion of radiotherapy using 42 Gy at 21 fractions using volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) technique.Conclusions: Our results indicate that radiotherapy with 42 to 44 Gy using conventional fractions could efficiently cause tumor regressions and improve neurological symptoms resulted from vertebral hemangioma-causing spinal cord compression.

Metal vanadate (MVO4) and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) photocatalytic materials attract much interest due to their tremendous physicochemical and photocatalytic performances. In this prospect, BixFe1–xVO4 were prepared by mixing cation precursors (Bi and Fe) in different proportions (x = 0.7; 0.5; 0.3 wt.%) via a simple one-pot hydrothermal route and impregnated on the surface of sulfur-doped g-C3N4 (SCN) for a wide range of solar absorption and effective charge separation. Several spectroscopic methods are used to analyze the physicochemical and optoelectronic properties of as-synthesized photocatalysts. The photocatalytic activities of as-synthesized photocatalysts were evaluated by photoelectrochemical oxygen evolution reactions (OER) and photodegradation of roxarsone (ROX). This work aims to investigate the formation, photocatalytic performance, and rational mechanism of BixFe1–xVO4/SCN photocatalytic nanocomposites. Among different BixFe1–xVO4 (x = 0.7; 0.5; 0.3 wt.%), the Bi0.5Fe0.5VO4/SCN (Bi/Fe = 0.5 wt.%) nanocomposite results in 85.66% of ROX photodegradation within 90 mins under visible-light irradiation. The photocatalytic performance of the nanocomposite is about 2.49, 2.87, 3.48 folds higher than that of pristine g-C3N4, BiVO4, and FeVO4 samples, respectively. The photoelectrochemical OER results suggest the higher photocurrent density at 1.23 V (vs NHE) was achieved by Bi0.5Fe0.5VO4/SCN (0.987 mA cm–2) nanocomposite, and which is 16.73, 5.11, and 6.16 times higher than that of CN (0.059 mA cm–2), BiVO4 (0.193 mA cm–2), and FeVO4 (0.160 mA cm–2), respectively. The XPS and photoelectrochemical (PEC) analysis depict the higher donor densities (ND) and excellent charge separations through type-II heterojunction of the BixFe1–xVO4/SCN nanocomposite.

Surface functionalization and shape modifications are the key strategies being utilized to overcome the limitations of semiconductors in advanced oxidation processes (AOP). Herein, the uniform α-Fe

As a two-dimensional nanomaterial, bismuth oxybromide (BiOBr) have attracted tremendous interest in the area of visible-light photocatalysis since it can provide the internal electric field (IEF) through z-axis through its unique electronic band structure. However, the insufficient active sites and rapid recombination rate of charged carriers hamper the efficiency of the photocatalysis. To address these two major obstacles, an enticing strategy of constructing heterojunction was established by introducing Bi

In this paper, we present a single-inductor triple-input–triple-output (SITITO) buck–boost converter in a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS process for dual-source energy harvesting. The converter operates in the single-source mode, dual-source mode (DSM), and backup mode automatically by detecting the input and output conditions. Converter operation in the proposed DSM enables extraction of power from both a photovoltaic cell and a thermoelectric generator in one switching cycle for efficient power extraction. The cycle-by-cycle source-tracking approach selects the appropriate input source according to the maximum power point of the energy transducers. The adaptive on-time circuit with the proposed adaptive peak-inductor-current (APIC) control adjusts the on-time of power transistors to obtain high conversion efficiency under different input voltages. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed SITITO converter has a peak efficiency of 84.4%. When compared with the conventional constant peak-inductor-current control, an efficiency improvement of 11% is obtained via the proposed APIC control.

Inverse packet sets is a set model with dynamic characteristics, which is got by introducing dynamic characteristics into Cantor set $$ X $$ and improving Cantor $$ X $$ . By using inverse packet sets to improve the concept of ordinary augmented matrix, the structure of internal inverse packet augmented matrix, outer inverse packet augmented matrix and inverse packet augmented matrix are given. Internal inverse packet augmented matrix reasoning, outer inverse packet augmented matrix reasoning, inverse packet augmented matrix reasoning and reasoning model are given. Finally intelligent dynamic separating-acquisition of information is given. By using these theoretical results, the application of intelligent dynamic separating-acquisition of educational information is given. Inverse packet matrix reasoning provides a new theory and new method for mining and acquisition of dynamic educational information. This is also a successful teaching demonstration on the research of matrix Teaching.

Function packet set is a dynamic model of information law, which introduces function concept into packet set and improves it; function packet set is a function set pair composed of function internal packet set $$ S^{{\bar{F}}} $$ and function outer packet set $$ S^{F} $$ ; or, $$ (S^{{\bar{F}}} ,S^{F} ) $$ is a function packet set. Packet reasoning is a dynamic reasoning generated from packet set, and it’s composed of internal packet reasoning and outer packet reasoning. This paper introduces function into packet reasoning, improves packet reasoning and gives packet information law reasoning; by cross-penetration of function outer packet set with outer packet information law reasoning, the studies on intelligent fusion of outer packet information law and its outer separating are given. The generating of outer packet information law reasoning of intelligent fusion of outer packet information law, intelligent fusion of outer packet information law with attribute conjunctive reduction theorem, outer separating and reducing of intelligent fusion of outer packet information law and outer separating of intelligent fusion of outer packet information law with discovery-application of unknown information law are given in this paper.

All inorganic perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) and perovskite CsPbX3/SiO2 nanocomposites (PNCs) have shown their potentials for optical and lighting applications. We demonstrate a one-step approach to synthesize PQDs and PNCs more simply and effectively at room temperature in the open air. The resulting PNCs can show a narrow emission in the PL spectra and high stability under ambient conditions. In particular, both green CsPbBr3/SiO2 and red CsPbI3-xBrx/SiO2 PNCs can be obtained by employing this easy and low-cost method. Even, the SiO2 protection can also effectively prevent the halide exchange reaction between green and red PNCs, meaning the capability for white light applications. The resulting white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) based on the green and red PNCs coated on the blue LED have a white Commission Internationale del’ Enclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.375, 0.362) and a low correlated color temperature (CCT) of 4054 K.

Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND) is a serious bacterial disease caused by V. parahaemolyticus strains which contain a virulent plasmid that encodes a binary pore-forming Pir toxin. Typically, these AHPND-causing bacteria first colonize in the shrimp stomach and then later cross to the hepatopancreas. To do this, they must pass through structural barriers which include the pliant cuticular lining of the stomach lumen. A previous transcriptomic study of shrimp challenged with the virulent 5HP strain of V. parahaemolyticus found significant upregulation of a contig associated with the cuticular proteins LvDD9A and LvDD9B. Here, we confirmed that the mRNA levels of these two genes were significantly upregulated not only in 5HP-infected shrimp, but also in the stomach of shrimp challenged with the white spot syndrome virus (WSSV). Using dsRNA-mediated gene silencing, we found that AHPND-causing bacteria migrated to the hepatopancreas within 3 h of AHPND infection in LvDD9A/B-silenced shrimp. Shrimp shell hardness of LvDD9A/B-silenced shrimp was also significantly decreased. Conversely, we found that silencing of LvDD9A/B significantly inhibited both WSSV gene expression and genome replication. Taken together, our data suggests that LvDD9A and LvDD9B are involved in both AHPND and WSSV infection. However, in AHPND, these cuticular proteins help to prevent bacterial migration from the stomach to the hepatopancreas, whereas in WSSV infection, they facilitate viral gene expression and genome replication.

Conventional inorganic mass spectrometric (MS) analysis of metals can require time-consuming and tedious sample preparation. We thus report the novel and direct characterization of metals in solid samples using an organic MS technique known as electrospray laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (ELDI/MS). No sample pretreatment was needed, and results were rapidly obtained due to the ambient and laser-based nature of ELDI/MS. Metals from samples were desorbed and ionized by laser irradiation, after which they reacted with EDTA and then post-ionized and detected as metal-EDTA complexes. Aluminum, copper, iron, lead, nickel, and zinc from plates, foils, and coins were characterized in seconds. This study demonstrates that an ESI/MS system can be easily modified to analyze metal elements in solids by involving a chelating agent, indicating a potentially promising development in MS towards the analysis of metals using organic MS.

One of the eligible criteria for patients to receive boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is based on the tumour-to-normal ratio (T/N) measured by FBPA-PET. However, there is no standard protocol for normal region-of-interested delineation. With comparison of contralateral cerebrum, our study revealed the consistency (p 0.05) and high feasibility using the cerebellum as an alternative normal tissue baseline because of its homogeneous uptake. Following RECIST version 1.1, the standard-operating-procedure (SOP) for the BNCT fulfilled the expected tumour response and tumour shrinkage rate (p 0.05). Our modified procedure can provide more precise information for BNCT within a reasonable time.

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) are potentially an efficient way to reduce the computation load as well as the power consumption on edge devices because of the sparsely activated neurons and event-driven behavior. In this paper, a continuous-valued artificial neural network (ANN) with fully connections is equivalently converted into spiking operations and the parameters are quantized to low resolution. With the proposed method, data bandwidth can be reduced and the algorithm is proved to be more useful and hardware-amenable on FPGAs. From the simulation results, the ANN with 8- and 4-bit weights received accuracy drop of 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively. The conversion of the quantized ANN to SNN received acceptable error drop within 0.15%.

In this paper, a single-inductor dual-output (SIDO) buck converter is developed for implantable medical devices. The stacked power stage with startup circuit is designed to avoid overstress issue in 180nm CMOS process for 3.4 V to 5 V battery input. The converter provides two regulated outputs for the charge pump ( $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{OUT}1}=3\ \mathrm{V}$ ) and the digital circuits ( $\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{OUT}2}=2\ \mathrm{V}$ ) with low cross regulation with pulse-skip modulation. An adaptive on-time (AOT) circuit adjusts on time dynamically based on the input voltage (VIN) to obtain high conversion efficiency and low output voltage ripple under different VIN. The measurement results demonstrates that the proposed converter achieves peak efficiency of 93.6% with an available input voltage of 3.4 V to 5 V.

Surface functionalization and shape modifications are the key strategies being utilized to overcome the limitations of semiconductors in advanced oxidation processes (AOP). Herein, the uniform α-Fe2O3 nanocrystals (α-Fe2O3–NCs) were effectively synthesized via a simple solvothermal route. Meanwhile, the sulfonic acid functionalization (SAF) and the impregnation of α-Fe2O3–NCs on g-C3N4 (α-Fe2O3–NCs@CN-SAF) were achieved through complete solvent evaporation technique. The surface functionalization of the sulfonic acid group on g-C3N4 accelerates the faster migration of electrons to the surface owing to robust electronegativity. The incorporation of α-Fe2O3–NCs with CN-SAF significantly enhances the optoelectronic properties, ultrafast spatial charge separation, and rapid charge transportation. The α-Fe2O3-HPs@CN-SAF and α-Fe2O3-NPs@CN-SAF nanocomposites attained 97.41% and 93.64% of Cr (VI) photoreduction in 10 min, respectively. The photocatalytic efficiency of α-Fe2O3–NCs@CN-SAF nanocomposite is 2.4 and 2.1 times higher than that of pure g-C3N4 and α-Fe2O3, respectively. Besides, the XPS, PEC and recycling experiments confirm the excellent photo-induced charge separation via Z-scheme heterostructure and cyclic stability of α-Fe2O3–NCs@CN-SAF nanocomposites.

Continuous conduction mode power factor correction AC–DC converters are widely employed as the front stage in power supplies with medium or high output power. The second-order reactive input power in single-phase systems causes second-order ripple in the DC-link voltage. The speed of voltage regulation is thus limited by the second-order frequency in seeking to achieve low distorted input current. This study presents a fast second-order voltage estimation method, wherein an integrator is used for the estimation of second-order voltage ripple to obtain rapid voltage feedback without ripple and thereby cope with the limitations imposed by the second-order frequency. This approach greatly expands the bandwidth of the voltage control loop beyond the second-order frequency while reducing the total harmonic distortion associated with the input current. This also makes it possible to reduce the DC capacitance to reduce costs. The authors opted for full digital control using a TI F28335 DSP IC, in conjunction with feedback plus feedforward control to facilitate the design of the current loop. A feedback current corrector is used to reduce distortion associated with the input current over a wide load range. The effectiveness of the proposed control method was confirmed with some simulation and experimental results.

As a two-dimensional nanomaterial, bismuth oxybromide (BiOBr) have attracted tremendous interest in the area of visible-light photocatalysis since it can provide the internal electric field (IEF) through z-axis through its unique electronic band structure. However, the insufficient active sites and rapid recombination rate of charged carriers hamper the efficiency of the photocatalysis. To address these two major obstacles, an enticing strategy of constructing heterojunction was established by introducing Bi2O2(OH)(NO3) (BiON) in BiOBr with the same precursor. Through a facile one-pot hydrothermal synthesis, two Sillen-type layered photocatalysts, with intimately constructed ultrathin heterostructure, was synthesized by the co-precipitation method. In this work, the formation of Bismuth-based heterojunction for charge separation is established by the excessive bismuth nitrate, which subsequently participates with the in situ growth of ultrathin hierarchical microspheres. By attenuating the thickness of BiOBr from 20 nm to 8 nm with the aid of BiON, the photogenerated charges could migrate to the active sites through shorter charge diffusion pathway. Also, the BiOBr and BiON act as an active bridge to promote the separation of electron-hole pairs, which also brings out more active sites due to its increased specific surface area. BiON/BiOBr ultrathin hierarchical microspheres exhibited enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity for decontaminating several types of pollutants. Besides, the activity of as-prepared BiON/BiOBr was further evaluated by inhibiting the growth of kanamycin-resistant bacteria strains. This study presents a novel strategy to incorporate the crystalline bismuth hydrate nitrate into BiOBr to form ultrathin hierarchical microspheres with high surface area for environmental remediation.

In this paper, a single-inductor triple-source quad-mode energy harvesting interface with automatic source selection is developed for multi-source energy harvesting. The interface employs buck-boost topology to convert the energy from photovoltaic (PV) cells and thermoelectric generator (TEG) to a regulated 1.2-V output. The proposed converter has four operating modes: harvesting mode (HM), recycling mode (RM), storage mode (SM), and backup mode (BM). The operating mode is selected automatically according to the input and load conditions to appropriately transfer the energy. The proposed reversely polarized energy recycling (RPER) technique extends the available output power range by 10x with 25.3% efficiency improvement at low input voltage. The measurement results demonstrates the proposed interface achieves the peak efficiency of 82.1%.