Reinforced Wool Keratin Fibers via Dithiol Chain Re-bonding

Regenerated wool keratin fibers (RWKFs) have heretofore attracted tremendous interest according to environmental friendliness, ample resource, and intrinsic biocompatibility for broad applications. In this realm, both uncontrollable keratin fibril assembly procedure and resultant insufficient mechanical strength, have greatly hindered their large-scale manufacture and commercial viability. Herein, a continuous wet-spinning strategy is put forward to rebuild wool keratin into compact regenerated bio-fibers with improved strength via disulfide re-bonding. Dithiothreitol (DTT) has been introduced to renovate disulfide linkage inside keratin polypeptide chains, and bridge keratin fibrils via covalent thiol bonding to form a continuous backbone as mechanical support. A thus-derived RWKF manifests a tensile strength of 186.1 ± 7.0 MPa and Young's modulus of 7.4 ± 0.2 GPa, which exceeds those of natural wool, feathers, and regenerated wool or feather keratin fibers. The detailed wet-spinning technical parameters, such as coagulation, oxidation, and post-treatment, have been systematically optimized to guarantee the continuous preparation of high-strength regenerated keratin fibers. This work offers insight into solving the concurrent challenges for continuous manufacture of regenerated protein fibers and sustainability concerns about biomass waste.     

Electrocapacitive Deionization: Mechanisms,Electrodes, and Cell Designs

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is an emerging water desalination technology for removing different ionic species from water, which is based on electric charge compensation by these charged species. CDI is becoming popular because it is more energy-efficient and cost-effective than other technologies, such as reverse osmosis and distillation, specifically in dealing with brackish water having low or moderate salt concentrations. Over the past decade, the CDI research field has witnessed significant advances in the used electrode materials, cell architectures, and associated mechanisms for desalination applications. This review article first discusses ion storage/removal mechanisms in carbon and Faradaic materials aided by advanced in situ analysis techniques and computations. It then summarizes research progress toward electrode materials in terms of structure, surface chemistry, and composition. More still, it discusses CDI cell architectures by highlighting their different cell design concepts. Finally, current challenges and future research directions are summarized to provide guidelines for future CDI research.     

Solid Solvation Assisted Electrical Doping Conserves High-Performance in 500 nm Active Layer Organic Solar Cells

Organic solar cells (OSCs) process fascinating solution-printing capability to achieve low-cost and large-scale manufacture. However, the rapid power conversion efficiency (PCE) decay with active layer thickness enlargement inhibits the implement of OSCs’ potential advantages. To overcome the bottlenecks of PCE decay in thick active layer OSCs, the electrical doping with componential selectivity in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) film is achieved by introducing a solid solvation additive. Benefiting from the higher exciton splitting efficiency together with the longer drift (L_dr) and diffusion (L_diff) lengths, an OSC with 100 nm BHJ film demonstrates a PCE increment from 16.44% to 18.24% with prolonged dark and illuminated storage stabilities. Applying the solid solvation assisted (SSA) doping method in the OSCs with 500 nm active layer, the PCE significantly increases by 31.9%, from the original value of 11.79% to 15.55%. It further improves to 15.84% in a ternary blend thick-film device, which is the record value to the best of our knowledge. Besides, the SSA doping narrows the PCE gap between the 0.04 and 1 cm² devices. All improvements demonstrate the great potential of SSA doping for OSC commercial manufacture, since it optimizes the photovoltaic performance under all practical conditions of long-term, thick-film, and large-area.     

结合Transformer与非对称学习策略的图像检索

目的 图像检索是计算机视觉领域的一项基础任务,大多采用卷积神经网络和对称式学习策略,导致所需训练数据量大、模型训练时间长、监督信息利用不充分。针对上述问题,本文提出一种Transformer与非对称学习策略相结合的图像检索方法。方法 对于查询图像,使用Transformer生成图像的哈希表示,利用哈希损失学习哈希函数,使图像的哈希表示更加真实。对于待检索图像,采用非对称式学习策略,直接得到图像的哈希表示,并将哈希损失与分类损失相结合,充分利用监督信息,提高训练速度。在哈希空间通过计算汉明距离实现相似图像的快速检索。结果 在CIFAR-10和NUS-WIDE两个数据集上,将本文方法与主流的5种对称式方法和性能最优的两种非对称式方法进行比较,本文方法的mAP(mean average precision)比当前最优方法分别提升了5.06%和4.17%。结论 本文方法利用Transformer提取图像特征,并将哈希损失与分类损失相结合,在不增加训练数据量的前提下,减少了模型训练时间。所提方法性能优于当前同类方法,能够有效完成图像检索任务。     

模仿学习综述：传统与新进展

模仿学习是强化学习与监督学习的结合,目标是通过观察专家演示,学习专家策略,从而加速强化学习。通过引入任务相关的额外信息,模仿学习相较于强化学习,可以更快地实现策略优化,为缓解低样本效率问题提供了解决方案。模仿学习已成为解决强化学习问题的一种流行框架,涌现出多种提高学习性能的算法和技术。通过与图形图像学的最新研究成果相结合,模仿学习已经在游戏人工智能（artificial intelligence,AI）、机器人控制和自动驾驶等领域发挥了重要作用。本文围绕模仿学习的年度发展,从行为克隆、逆强化学习、对抗式模仿学习、基于观察量的模仿学习和跨领域模仿学习等多个角度进行深入探讨,介绍了模仿学习在实际应用上的最新情况,比较了国内外研究现状,并展望了该领域未来的发展方向。旨在为研究人员和从业人员提供模仿学习的最新进展,从而为开展工作提供参考与便利。     

基于可见光图像的变压器缺陷识别技术研究

为了提升变压器的智能化和可靠性,以110kV油浸式电力变压器为对象,针对变压器外表面可通过可见光图像识别的故障,对变电站现场摄像头布置进行了优化设计,采用深度神经网络方法对对油浸式变压器状态进行了实时监测,并对比了YOLOv3与Faster R-CNN算法对图像识别区别,研究了样本数量对正确率和召回率的影响,分析了标注策略对识别结果的影响,对摄像头装置性能提出了相关的要求。     

基于Conv1d-LSTM模型的能源分配预测

能源分配问题往往与其所在区域环境有关,能源分配的预测可以通过当地环境因素数据来推测之后对该区域的能源分配数值,最大程度上分配好能源. LSTM网络预测短期效果良好,但预测较长时期的数据会导致误差积累,速度慢且准确性差; Informer是近期新提出的能源预测算法模型,速度快但在该任务上预测能力不够.本文提出Conv1d-LSTM模型,预测结果优于上述两个模型,具有更低的平均绝对误差和均方根误差.     

基于MultiResUNet-SMIS的皮肤黑色素瘤图像分割

针对现有的皮肤黑色素瘤病灶分割精度不高的问题,结合现有卷积神经网络方法提出皮肤黑色素瘤图像分割方法 MultiResUNet-SMIS.首先,依据皮肤黑色素瘤成像特点,引入不同空洞率的空洞卷积替换普通卷积,在参数量相同的前提下扩大感受野,使网络模型能够适用于多尺度病灶分割任务;其次加入空间和通道注意力机制以重新分配特征权重,扩大感兴趣特征影响,抑制无关特征;最后融合Focal loss与Dice loss提出一种新的loss函数FD loss用于计算回归损失,解决前景背景像素不均衡问题,进一步提高网络模型的分割精度.实验结果表明,MultiResUNet-SMIS在ISIC-2018数据集上的Dice指数、IoU指数以及Acc准确率分别达到了89.47%、82.67%、96.13%,与原MultiResUNet以及UNet、UNet++、DeepLab V3+等主流方法相比, MultiResUNet-SMIS在皮肤黑色素瘤图像分割中具有更好的效果.     

Regulation of Ionic Distribution and Desolvation Activation Energy Enabled by In Situ Zinc Phosphate Protective Layer toward Highly Reversible Zinc Metal Anodes

Despite the merits of high specific capacity, low cost, and high safety, the practical application of aqueous Zn metal batteries (AZMBs) is plagued by the dendritic growth and corrosion reaction of Zn metal anodes. To solve these issues, a Zn₃(PO₄)₂·4H₂O protective layer is in-situ constructed on Zn foil (Zn@ZnPO) by a simple hydrothermal method, avoiding the traditional slurry-casting process. The insulating and conformable ZnPO layer improves the wettability of Zn@ZnPO and aqueous electrolyte via decreasing the contact angle to 11.7^o. Compared with bare Zn, the Zn@ZnPO possesses a lower desolvation activation energy of 35.25 kJ mol^-1, indicating that the ZnPO fasters the desolvation of hydrated Zn²⁺ ions and thereby ameliorates their transport dynamics. Micro-morphology and structural characterization show that there are no dendrites forming on the post-cycling Zn@ZnPO anodes, and the interfacial ZnPO layer remains almost identical before and after cycles. It can be explained that the electrochemically stable ZnPO layer acts as an ionic modulator to enable the homogeneous distribution of Zn²⁺ ions, inhibiting the growth of Zn dendrites. Benefiting from these advantages, the Zn@ZnPO based symmetric and full cells deliver highly reversible Zn plating/stripping behavior and long cycling lifespans.     

Circularly polarized patch antenna with simultaneously wide frequency tuning range and high gain performance

A tunable circularly polarized square patch antenna with parasitic elements is designed for a wide frequency tuning range and high gain characteristics. The proposed antenna is constructed by one main patch and four semi-elliptic parasitic units. By loading four varactor diodes and adjusting their capacitance values, the tunable feature is performed to reallocate the corresponding working frequency. Moreover, the diagonal corners of the antenna are cut and loaded with varactor diodes, which provide the appropriate perturbation between the two orthogonality modes of the antenna, so as to ensure the circular polarization characteristic in the entire operating tuning band. The experimental results demonstrate that the reflection coefficient and axial ratio are less than −13 dB and 3 dB, respectively. The proposed antenna features a relatively wide continuously tuning range of 24% within 1.9-2.3 GHz and a stable gain of over 7 dBi with a radiation efficiency of above 85%.