Spatial Visual Imagery (SVI)-Based Electroencephalograph Discrimination for Natural CAD Manipulation.

With the increasing demand for natural interactions, people have realized that an intuitive Computer-Aided Design (CAD) interaction mode can reduce the complexity of CAD operation and improve the design experience. Although interaction modes like gaze and gesture are compatible with some complex CAD manipulations, they still require people to express their design intentions physically. The brain contains design intentions implicitly and controls the corresponding body parts that execute the task. Therefore, building an end-to-end channel between the brain and computer as an auxiliary mode for CAD manipulation will allow people to send design intentions mentally and make their interaction more intuitive. This work focuses on the 1-D translation scene and studies a spatial visual imagery (SVI) paradigm to provide theoretical support for building an electroencephalograph (EEG)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) for CAD manipulation. Based on the analysis of three spatial EEG features related to SVI (e.g., common spatial patterns, cross-correlation, and coherence), a multi-feature fusion-based discrimination model was built for SVI. The average accuracy of the intent discrimination of 10 subjects was 86%, and the highest accuracy was 93%. The method proposed was verified to be feasible for discriminating the intentions of CAD object translation with good classification performance. This work further proves the potential of BCI in natural CAD manipulation.

Stable Solid Molecular Hydrogen above 900 K from a Machine-Learned Potential Trained with Diffusion Quantum Monte Carlo.

We survey the phase diagram of high-pressure molecular hydrogen with path integral molecular dynamics using a machine-learned interatomic potential trained with quantum Monte Carlo forces and energies. Besides the HCP and C2/c-24 phases, we find two new stable phases both with molecular centers in the Fmmm-4 structure, separated by a molecular orientation transition with temperature. The high temperature isotropic Fmmm-4 phase has a reentrant melting line with a maximum at higher temperature (1450 K at 150 GPa) than previously estimated and crosses the liquid-liquid transition line around 1200 K and 200 GPa.

Multi-scale simulation of proton diffusion in dislocation cores in BaZrO3.

Dislocations are important for their effects on the chemical, electrical, magnetic, and transport properties of oxide materials, especially for electrochemical devices such as solid fuel cells and resistive memories, but these effects are still under-studied at the atomic level. We have developed a quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM)-based multiscale simulation program to reveal the diffusion properties of protons on 〈100〉 edge dislocations in BaZrO3 perovskite oxide. We find that the large free space and the presence of hydrogen bonds in the dislocation core structure lead to significant trapping of protons. The diffusion properties of protons in dislocation cores were investigated, and no evidence of pipeline diffusion was found from the calculated migration energy barriers, which not only did not accelerate ion diffusion but rather decreases the conductivity of ions. The proton diffusion properties of Y-doped BaZrO3 (BZY), with a dislocation core structure (BZY-D) and with a grain boundary structure (BZY-GB) were also compared. In all three structures, local lattice deformation occupies an essential part in the proton transfer and rotation processes. The change in bond order is calculated and it is found that the interaction with oxygen and Zr ions during proton transfer and rotation controls the energy barrier for local lattice deformation of the O-B-O motion, which affects the proton diffusion in the structure. Our study provides insight into proton diffusion in dislocations in terms of mechanical behavior, elucidates the origin of the energy barrier associated with proton diffusion in dislocations, and provides guidance for the preparation and application of proton conductors.

Manganese and cobalt bimetallic-doped Prussian blue analogs as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for zinc-air batteries.

Zinc-air battery is a novel safe and environment-friendly energy storage device, but the noble-metal electrocatalysts at the air electrode urge people to search for new substitutes. Herein, different ratios of manganese (Mn) and cobalt (Co) are doped into the iron Prussian blue analogs (PBAs) and used as bifunctional electrocatalysts. The Mn1.33Co0.67-PBA shows the outstanding electrocatalytic properties that the half-wave potential is 0.79 V, the Ej=10 of OER is 1.54 V, and the ΔE is as low as 0.75 V, which is superior to that of Pt/C + RuO2 system (0.78 V). Benefiting from the bimetallic-doping advantage, the Mn1.33Co0.67-PBA has good stability in alkaline solutions. Besides, the Mn1.33Co0.67-PBA was assembled into ZAB, possessing a high maximum power density of 161 mW cm-2 and a large specific capacity of 617 mAh g-1, as well as excellent cycle stability. The as-prepared bimetallic-doped PBA has the potential for applications in the energy storage and conversion field.

Simultaneous removal of SO2 and NOx from flue gas by low-temperature adsorption over activated carbon.

An exceptional phenomenon has been observed that SO2 and NOx in flue gas can be effectively adsorbed over activated carbon with a surprising capacity at cold temperatures with the presence of oxygen. In this study, the adsorption characteristics of NO and SO2 over activated carbon at 80, 20, 0, and - 20 is experimentally investigated. Without the presence of oxygen, adsorption of NO is negligible. In the presence of oxygen, NO can be oxidized to NO2 over activated carbon which leads to the co-adsorption of NO/NO2 within the adsorption bed. Catalytic oxidation of NO over activated carbon can be significantly enhanced at cold temperatures, leading to an extraordinary increase of adsorption capacity of NO. With an initial concentration of NO = 200 ppmv and a space velocity of 5000 h-1, the average specific capacity increases from 3.8 to 169.1 mg/g when the temperature decreases from 80 to - 20 â„ƒ. For NO-O2 co-adsorption, the specific capacity increases along the adsorption bed due to the increasing NO2 concentrations. The adsorption capacity of SO2 is also significantly enhanced at cold temperatures. With an initial concentration of SO2 = 1000 ppmv, the specific capacity increases from 12.9 to 123.1 mg/g when the temperature decreases from 80 to - 20 â„ƒ. A novel low-temperature adsorption (LAS) process is developed to simultaneously remove SO2 and NOx from flue gas with a target of near-zero emission. A pilot-scale testing platform with a flue gas flowrate of 3600 Nm3/h is developed and tested. Emission of both SO2 and NOx is less than 1 ppmv, and the predicted energy penalty is about 3% of the net generation.

Expression stabilities of candidate reference genes for RT-qPCR under different stress conditions in soybean.

Due to its accuracy, sensitivity and high throughput, real time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) has been widely used in analysing gene expression. The quality of data from such analyses is affected by the quality of reference genes used. Expression stabilities for nine candidate reference genes widely used in soybean were evaluated under different stresses in this study. Our results showed that EF1A and ACT11 were the best under salinity stress, TUB4, TUA5 and EF1A were the best under drought stress, ACT11 and UKN2 were the best under dark treatment, and EF1B and UKN2 were the best under virus infection. EF1B and UKN2 were the top two genes which can be reliably used in all of the stress conditions assessed.