Toward smart building and smart home, floor as one of our most frequently interactive interfaces can be implemented with embedded sensors to extract abundant sensory information without the ...video-taken concerns. Yet the previously developed floor sensors are normally of small scale, high implementation cost, large power consumption, and complicated device configuration. Here we show a smart floor monitoring system through the integration of self-powered triboelectric floor mats and deep learning-based data analytics. The floor mats are fabricated with unique "identity" electrode patterns using a low-cost and highly scalable screen printing technique, enabling a parallel connection to reduce the system complexity and the deep-learning computational cost. The stepping position, activity status, and identity information can be determined according to the instant sensory data analytics. This developed smart floor technology can establish the foundation using floor as the functional interface for diverse applications in smart building/home, e.g., intelligent automation, healthcare, and security.
We propose a novel technique for chaotic correlation optical time domain reflectometer with millimeter and range- independent spatial resolution. Utilizing chaotic waveforms generated from a laser ...diode with an optical fiber ring feedback, a proof-of-concept experiment is demonstrated with 6-cm spatial resolution in the 0 ~ 140 m range, which is limited by the bandwidth of the real-time oscilloscope used.
Modern electronic devices are moving toward miniaturization and integration with an emerging focus on wearable electronics. Due to their close contact with the human body, wearable electronics have ...new requirements including low weight, small size, and flexibility. Conventional 3D and 2D electronic devices fail to efficiently meet these requirements due to their rigidity and bulkiness. Hence, a new family of 1D fiber‐shaped electronic devices including energy‐harvesting devices, energy‐storage devices, light‐emitting devices, and sensing devices has risen to the challenge due to their small diameter, lightweight, flexibility, and weavability into soft textile electronics. The application challenges faced by fiber and textile electronics from single fiber‐shaped devices to continuously scalable fabrication, to encapsulation and testing, and to application mode exploration, are discussed. The evolutionary trends of fiber and textile electronics are then summarized. Finally, future directions required to boost their commercialization are highlighted.
The application challenges faced by fiber and textile electronics are discussed, from single fiber‐shaped devices, to continuously scalable fabrication, to encapsulation and testing, and to exploration of application modes. Evolutionary trends and new directions for future study are also provided.
Metal–air batteries are considered one of the most promising next‐generation energy storage devices owing to their ultrahigh theoretical specific energy. However, sluggish cathode kinetics (O2 and ...CO2 reduction/evolution) result in large overpotentials and low round‐trip efficiencies which seriously hinder their practical applications. Utilizing light to drive slow cathode processes has increasingly becoming a promising solution to this issue. Considering the rapid development and emerging issues of this field, this Review summarizes the current understanding of light‐assisted metal–air batteries in terms of configurations and mechanisms, provides general design strategies and specific examples of photocathodes, systematically discusses the influence of light on batteries, and finally identifies existing gaps and future priorities for the development of practical light‐assisted metal–air batteries.
Using light to drive slow cathode kinetics has been explored as a promising solution to unlock the high theoretical specific energy of metal–air batteries. This Review summarizes the current understanding of light‐assisted metal–air batteries, discusses the significant influence of light on battery systems, and identifies existing gaps and future priorities.
In this article, morphology, structure and size controllable chitosan microspheres with high mechanical strength were synthesized by microfluidic technology combining chemical crosslinking and used ...as an adsorbent for methyl orange. The synthesized adsorbents were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS). The effect of pH revealed that the adsorption process depended on pH and the pH variation of methyl orange solution after adsorption indicated that adsorption capacity was affected through the associated role of chitosan nature and pH variation. Experimental results suggested that the as-prepared chitosan microspheres were controlled within a narrow size distribution (coefficients of variation is 1.81%), whose adsorption capacity reached to 207mg·g−1 and mechanical strength was suitable to resist forces. In addition, the adsorption isotherm was well fitted with the Langmuir model, and the adsorption kinetic was best described by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The high performance microfluidic-synthesized chitosan microspheres have promising potentials in the applications of removing dyes from wastewater.
With the rapid progress of wearable electronics, it is highly desirable to develop flexible power supplies, and significant progress has been thus made in making a variety of flexible batteries. Here ...the recent advances of flexible lithium ion batteries based on carbon nanomaterials have been carefully discussed from the viewpoint of material synthesis, structure design and property optimization. The remaining challenges and promising directions are highlighted to provide the clues for the future study in this booming field at end.
With the rapid progress of wearable electronics, it is highly desirable to develop flexible power supplies, and significant progress has been thus made in making a variety of flexible batteries. Here the recent advances of flexible lithium ion batteries based on carbon nanomaterials have been carefully discussed from the viewpoint of material synthesis, structure design and property optimization. The remaining challenges and promising directions are highlighted to provide the clues for the future study in this booming field at end. Display omitted
Event-based suspended sediment dynamics (ESSD) provides insights into soil erosion and sediment transport and signals of changing environments within catchments, but it is still poorly understood in ...the middle Yellow River basin (MYRB). This study focuses on the hysteresis relationship between suspended sediment concentration (SSC) and flow discharge (Q), interpreting the ESSD and its spatial variation. The datasets in the 1960s from 73 hydrologic gauging stations were analyzed as the baseline of the MYRB without experiencing significant climate change and human disturbances. The Q-SSC hysteresis loops were first analyzed in terms of their direction and shape, and the Lloyd et al.'s (2016a) hysteresis index (HI) was adopted to quantify the hysteresis characteristics. Two types of catchments have been identified across the MYRB in terms of the dominant hysteresis pattern and the sign of the HI value. The dominant loops of the Type A catchments are clockwise with positive HI values and located in the southernmost rock mountain regions; Type B appears elsewhere, i.e., in the softstone, aeolian, and loess regions, where most of the events present anticlockwise or complex loops with generally negative HI values. The HI follows an upward-concave parabolic curve with either mean annual precipitation (Pm) or vegetation cover (NDVI). Two sets of thresholds are determined as Pm or NDVI increases. At Pm = 670 mm or NDVI = 0.74, a transition from Type B to Type A occurs as the HI value changes from negative to positive because the vegetation cover is too high to change the catchment from non-limited to limited supply. At Pm = 490 mm or NDVI = 0.40, the negative HI value reaches its minimum, suggesting the maximum availability of sediment in Type B due to the change in the dominant factor of soil erosion from precipitation erosivity to erosion resistance of vegetation. This study highlights the overall dynamics of soil erosion and sediment transport in the MYRB, which helps prioritize watershed management measures on the Loess Plateau under a changing environment.
•Sediment supply environment is identified across the middle Yellow River basin.•Hysteresis index follows an upward-concave parabola with precipitation or NDVI.•Two sets of thresholds of spatial variations in suspended dynamics are determined.
Li−CO2 batteries are explored as promising power systems to alleviate environmental issues and to implement space applications. However, sluggish cathode kinetics of CO2 reduction/evolution result in ...low round‐trip efficiency and poor cycling stability of the fabricated energy‐storage devices. Herein, we design a heterostructued photocathode comprising carbon nanotube and carbon nitride to accelerate cathode reactions of a Li−CO2 battery under illumination. Benefiting from the unique defective structure of carbon nitride and favorable interfacial charge transfer, the photocathode effectively harvests ultraviolet‐visible light to generate abundant photoexcited carriers and coordinates energetic photoelectrons/holes to participate in the discharge/charge reactions, leading to efficient photo‐energy utilization in decreasing reaction barriers and enhancing thermodynamic reversibility of Li−CO2 battery. The resulting battery delivers a high round‐trip efficiency of 98.8 % (ultralow voltage hysteresis of 0.04 V) and superior cycling stability (86.1 % efficiency retention after 100 cycles).
A carbon nanotube/carbon nitride heterostructured photocathode is designed to efficiently utilize photo‐energy to boost sluggish CO2 reduction and evolution kinetics of the Li−CO2 battery. The resulting Li−CO2 battery achieves a record‐high round‐trip efficiency of 98.8 %, superior cycling stability with high efficiency retention of 86.1 % after 100 cycles and ultrahigh areal capacity of 15.77 mAh cm−2.
Abstract
The advent of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) signals a new era in exploring galaxies in the high-
z
universe. Current and upcoming JWST imaging will potentially detect galaxies at
z
∼ ...20, creating a new urgency in the quest to infer accurate photometric redshifts (photo-
z
) for individual galaxies from their spectral energy distributions, as well as masses, ages, and star formation rates. Here we illustrate the utility of informed priors encoding previous observations of galaxies across cosmic time in achieving these goals. We construct three joint priors encoding empirical constraints of redshifts, masses, and star formation histories in the galaxy population within the
Prospector
Bayesian inference framework. In contrast with uniform priors, our model breaks an age–mass–redshift degeneracy, and thus reduces the mean bias error in masses from 0.3 to 0.1 dex, and in ages from 0.6 to 0.2 dex in tests done on mock JWST observations. Notably, our model recovers redshifts at least as accurately as the state-of-the-art photo-
z
code
EAzY
in deep JWST fields, but with two advantages: tailoring a model based on a particular survey is rendered mostly unnecessary given well-motivated priors; obtaining joint posteriors describing stellar, active galactic nuclei, gas, and dust contributions becomes possible. We can now confidently use the joint distribution to propagate full non-Gaussian redshift uncertainties into inferred properties of the galaxy population. This model, “
Prospector
-
β
,” is intended for fitting galaxy photometry where the redshift is unknown, and will be instrumental in ensuring the maximum science return from forthcoming photometric surveys with JWST. The code is made publicly available online as a part of
Prospector
9
9
The version used in this work corresponds to the state of the Git repository at commit
https://github.com/bd-j/prospector/commit/820ad72363a1f9c22cf03610bfe6e361213385cd
.
.