Plasmonic nanostructures hold promise for the realization of ultra-thin sub-wavelength devices, reducing power operating thresholds and enabling nonlinear optical functionality in metasurfaces. ...However, this promise is substantially undercut by absorption introduced by resistive losses, causing the metasurface community to turn away from plasmonics in favour of alternative material platforms (e.g., dielectrics) that provide weaker field enhancement, but more tolerable losses. Here, we report a plasmonic metasurface with a quality-factor (Q-factor) of 2340 in the telecommunication C band by exploiting surface lattice resonances (SLRs), exceeding the record by an order of magnitude. Additionally, we show that SLRs retain many of the same benefits as localized plasmonic resonances, such as field enhancement and strong confinement of light along the metal surface. Our results demonstrate that SLRs provide an exciting and unexplored method to tailor incident light fields, and could pave the way to flexible wavelength-scale devices for any optical resonating application.
This study of the effect of a microbiota-directed supplement on the growth of young children with moderate acute malnutrition included tests of association between changes in growth and changes in ...the plasma proteome and fecal microbiota.
Extrusion of foods is an emerging technology for the food industries to process and market a large number of products of varying size, shape, texture, and taste. Extrusion cooking technology has led ...to production of wide variety of products like pasta, breakfast cereals, bread crumbs, biscuits, crackers, croutons, baby foods, snack foods, confectionery items, chewing gum, texturized vegetable protein (TVP), modified starch, pet foods, dried soups, dry beverage mixes etc. The functional properties of extruded foods plays an important role for their acceptability which include water absorption, water solubility, oil absorption indexes, expansion index, bulk density and viscosity of the dough. The aim of this review is to give the detailed outlines about the potential of extrusion technology in development of different types of products and the role of extrusion-operating conditions and their effect on product development resulting in quality changes i.e physical, chemical, and nutritional, experienced during the extrusion process.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
AbstractA strong mainshock may cause several aftershocks within a short interval. These aftershocks can make buildings damaged during the mainshock more vulnerable to collapse. Hence, it is critical ...to study the seismic responses of a structure during aftershock events following a major shock. The focus of this work was to investigate the seismic fragility of an emerging high-performance seismic-resistant system—the self-centering energy-absorbing dual rocking core (SEDRC) system—considering mainshock–aftershock sequences, and to compare SEDRC with traditional systems. First, three- and six-story SEDRC systems were designed following the direct displacement-based design method to show comparable maximum interstory drifts compared with those of the three- and six-story benchmark buckling-restrained braced frames (BRBFs), respectively, under the design-basis earthquake excitations. Second, 30 as-recorded mainshock–aftershock sequences were selected. The dynamic analyses and incremental dynamic analyses (IDAs) were conducted to study the seismic responses of the four buildings with the mainshock inputs alone and the mainshock–aftershock sequence inputs. The analysis results show that the designed SEDRC systems and BRBFs can obtain comparable performance in limiting the maximum interstory drifts (MID) responses, whereas the SEDRC systems are more efficient in limiting the maximum residual interstory drifts (MRD). Moreover, the SEDRC systems perform much better than BRBFs in resisting structural collapse. As expected, the aftershocks would increase the MID, but may increase or decrease the MRD of the SEDRC systems and BRBFs. Finally, the seismic fragilities of the designed systems were further investigated on the basis of the results from the IDAs in a probabilistic framework using a joint probability density function with the consideration of both MID and MRD. The advantages of the SEDRC systems in achieving excellent seismic collapse-resistant and self-centering capacity were explored through probabilistic analyses.
•We investigate the dynamic relationships among tourism, economic growth and CO2 emissions.•A panel data of Eastern and Western European Union countries are examined.•We establish long-run ...equilibrium relationship among economic growth, CO2 emissions, tourism, FDI and trade.•Results from long-run elasticities suggest that tourism stimulates economic growth in Eastern and Western EU countries.•Tourism increases CO2 emissions in Eastern EU but decreases in Western EU.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of tourism on economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions in Eastern and Western European Union (EU) countries by incorporating FDI and trade in the production and CO2 emission functions. We apply panel econometric techniques which account for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. The results of Westerlund panel cointegration test confirm a long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. Results from long-run elasticities suggest that tourism stimulates economic growth in Eastern and Western EU countries. However, tourism increases CO2 emissions in Eastern EU but decreases in Western EU. This indicates that tourism has an adverse effect on the environment in Eastern EU. Finally, short-run heterogeneous panel causality test results suggest that tourism causes CO2 emissions in Eastern EU while economic growth and CO2 emissions cause tourism in Western EU. Overall, our findings suggest that tourism plays an important role in accelerating economic growth; however, its role on CO2 emissions largely depends on the adaptation of sustainable tourism policies and efficient management.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel evolutionary divergent RNA virus, is responsible for the present devastating COVID-19 pandemic. To explore the genomic ...signatures, we comprehensively analyzed 2,492 complete and/or near-complete genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 strains reported from across the globe to the GISAID database up to 30 March 2020. Genome-wide annotations revealed 1,516 nucleotide-level variations at different positions throughout the entire genome of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, nucleotide (nt) deletion analysis found twelve deletion sites throughout the genome other than previously reported deletions at coding sequence of the ORF8 (open reading frame), spike, and ORF7a proteins, specifically in polyprotein ORF1ab (n = 9), ORF10 (n = 1), and 3´-UTR (n = 2). Evidence from the systematic gene-level mutational and protein profile analyses revealed a large number of amino acid (aa) substitutions (n = 744), demonstrating the viral proteins heterogeneous. Notably, residues of receptor-binding domain (RBD) showing crucial interactions with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and cross-reacting neutralizing antibody were found to be conserved among the analyzed virus strains, except for replacement of lysine with arginine at 378th position of the cryptic epitope of a Shanghai isolate, hCoV-19/Shanghai/SH0007/2020 (EPI_ISL_416320). Furthermore, our results of the preliminary epidemiological data on SARS-CoV-2 infections revealed that frequency of aa mutations were relatively higher in the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences of Europe (43.07%) followed by Asia (38.09%), and North America (29.64%) while case fatality rates remained higher in the European temperate countries, such as Italy, Spain, Netherlands, France, England and Belgium. Thus, the present method of genome annotation employed at this early pandemic stage could be a promising tool for monitoring and tracking the continuously evolving pandemic situation, the associated genetic variants, and their implications for the development of effective control and prophylaxis strategies.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Nonlinear optical phenomena are crucial for a broad range of applications, such as microscopy, all-optical data processing, and quantum information. However, materials usually exhibit a weak optical ...nonlinearity even under intense coherent illumination. We report that indium tin oxide can acquire an ultrafast and large intensity-dependent refractive index in the region of the spectrum where the real part of its permittivity vanishes. We observe a change in the real part of the refractive index of 0.72 ± 0.025, corresponding to 170% of the linear refractive index. This change in refractive index is reversible with a recovery time of about 360 femtoseconds. Our results offer the possibility of designing material structures with large ultrafast nonlinearity for applications in nanophotonics.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In Bangladesh, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have substantial effects on the livelihood of people, but smallholder vegetables growers will be even more affected because of the perishability ...nature of the product. The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Bangladesh on 8th March, 2020 and consequently the country went into lockdown on 26 March, 2020. This study has made a survey of vegetables farmers through a mobile phone to understand the impact of COVID-19 on vegetables supply chain, gross margin and the future production plan of the growers. In Bangladesh, the lockdown has disrupted the food supply chain and increases the likelihood of food insecurity. Lockdown has impeded vegetable farmers' access to markets, thus limiting their productive and sales capacities. The price of yield has dropped by more than half resulting in huge loss for vegetable growers. The loss incurred by the farmers for producing Brinjal, Cucumber, Pointed gourd, Yardlong beans and Bottle gourd are BDT 4900, BDT 10900, BDT 57400, BDT 52500 and BDT 18500 per acre respectively as a result of COVID-19. The decreased income increases farmers' likelihood of vulnerability and food insecurity and poses a challenge to continued produce. 'Cash support' is more important than 'food support' in order to keep vegetable farmers in farming, to ensure a ready supply of necessary low-cost resources, and to help fight against the upcoming food shortage.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Space-time duality in paraxial optical wave propagation implies the existence of intriguing effects when light interacts with a material exhibiting two refractive indexes separated by a boundary in ...time. The direct consequence of such time-refraction effect is a change in the frequency of light while leaving the wavevector unchanged. Here, we experimentally show that the effect of time refraction is significantly enhanced in an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) medium as a consequence of the optically induced unity-order refractive index change in a sub-picosecond time scale. Specifically, we demonstrate broadband and controllable shift (up to 14.9 THz) in the frequency of a light beam using a time-varying subwavelength-thick indium tin oxide (ITO) film in its ENZ spectral range. Our findings hint at the possibility of designing (3 + 1)D metamaterials by incorporating time-varying bulk ENZ materials, and they present a unique playground to investigate various novel effects in the time domain.
•Prediction models of Cμ and Cr were developed for the RSMRF.•A peak and residual displacement-based design method was developed for retrofitting SMRFs.•The designed RSMRFs can achieve the desired ...peak and residual inter-story drift responses.•The designed RSMRFs have no repair requirements for after MCE excitations.
Conventional steel moment-resisting frames (SMRFs) absorb seismic energy through steel yielding behavior, leading to significant residual displacement. Although steel yielding behavior can ensure the seismic safety of SMRFs under strong earthquakes, excessive residual displacement may lead to post-earthquake demolition decisions, causing a large amount of economic loss. This paper aims to develop a peak and residual displacement-based design (PRDBD) method for controlling the peak and residual inter-story drift responses of SMRFs by installing self-centering braces. The peak and residual displacements are both set as the design targets in the proposed PRDBD method. To this end, the machine learning prediction models of inelastic and residual displacement ratios were first developed based on the median responses of single-degree-of-freedom systems under earthquakes. The detailed design steps of the proposed PRDBD method were subsequently introduced. The three- and nine-story demonstration buildings were retrofitted by using the PRDBD method with two different design targets. Static and dynamic analyses were conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed PRDBD method. The static analysis results indicated that the self-centering braces could efficiently enhance the SMRF’s stiffness and strength. The retrofitted SMRFs showed no strength deterioration, whereas the original SMRFs showed obvious strength deterioration at the roof drifts of 3.2% and 2.5% in the three- and nine-story buildings, respectively. The dynamic analysis results confirm that the self-centering braces can efficiently reduce the peak and residual inter-story drift responses of the existing SMRFs and the retrofitted SMRFs can achieve the peak and residual inter-story performance objectives under the considered seismic intensity. Moreover, the retrofitted SMRFs can be fully recoverable after maximum considered earthquakes by controlling the maximum residual inter-story drift lower than 0.2%.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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