Effect of ZnO layer thickness upon optoelectrical properties of NiO/ ZnO heterojunction prepared at room temperature

In this work, p-NiO/n-ZnO heterostructures were successfully prepared at room temperature using RF sputtering technique. The influence of ZnO layer thickness on the performance of the heterojunction was investigated. The deposited ZnO layers have a hexagonal Wurtzite structure with preferable growth orientations along (002) and (103) for thinner films. Increasing the thickness results in more crystallographic orientation randomness. The current–voltage measurements of the realized heterojunctions showed a clear rectifying behavior. The measured ideality factor varies from 2.5 to 1.6 according to the thickness of ZnO layer. The series resistance of the device is enlarged with increasing ZnO thickness. The deduced parameters from the I–V characteristics suggest that 200 nm is the optimal thickness of the ZnO layer according to our experimental conditions. We attribute the relatively better performance of this thickness to achieving reasonable compensation between serial resistance and ideality factor. The best heterojunction was tested and successfully used as a UV detector.     

Synthesis of heterocyclic metal complexes and their evaluation as marine antifoulants

4-Amino-3-thio-1,24-triazolidine (L₁) and 4-amino-5-thio-1,3,4-thiadiazole (L_II) as well as their metal complexes of the general formulae ML_I·2H₂O and ML_IICl (M; Pb(II), Cd(II) and Zn(II)) were prepared. With Sn(II), we obtained Sn(L_I)₂·2H₂O and SnL_IICl, respectively. The structures of the compounds were identified through elemental analysis, and IR and UV spectra measurements, in addition to thermal analysis in case of the metal complexes. The antifouling properties of the compounds were tested by their incorporation into paint formulations which were applied to PVC substrates and tested in water from Alexandria western harbour. When the compounds were added at 17·5% by volume, the coated panels were fouled after 3 months of immersion. The addition of 6·7% by volume of tributyltin oxide to 15·8% of the prepared compounds in one formulation elevated the paint efficiency and prevented fouling for 11 months. Paint containing solely tributyltin oxide at the same concentration was inactive against algae.     

Fractionation and characterisation for antioxidant activity of hydrolysed whey protein

Whey protein isolate (WPI) was hydrolysed for 1 h using Alcalase, Protamex and Flavourzyme. Native WPI, hydrolysed WPI and two commercial WPI hydrolysates were subjected to fractionation by size exclusion chromatography. Antioxidant activity of WPI fractions was measured with a liposome‐oxidising system (50 µM FeCl₃/0.1 µM ascorbate, pH 7.0). Lipid oxidation was measured as thiobarbituric acid‐reactive substances (TBARS). Gel electrophoresis and amino acid analysis were run to identify the peptide composition. The influence of amino acid composition on antioxidant activity was evaluated using multivariate analysis methods (correlation analysis, principal component analysis, multiple linear regression and discriminant analysis). TBARS assays indicated the presence of antioxidant activity in all protein fractions, including non‐hydrolysed WPI. For native and hydrolysed WPI samples the first fraction (> 45 kDa) showed a higher TBARS inhibition effect (24–27%) when compared with lower‐molecular‐weight fractions and hydrolysate mixtures. In contrast, for commercial WPI hydrolysates a higher inhibitory effect was found in most of the lower‐molecular‐weight fractions (30–55%). The ability of WPI fractions to delay lipid oxidation was found to be related to the prevalence of histidine and hydrophobic amino acids. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Influence of third monomer on the crystal phase transition behavior of ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene copolymer

Crystal phase transition between the low- and high-temperature phases has been investigated for ethylene (E)-tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) alternating copolymer (ETFE) containing the third monomeric species by the temperature dependent measurements of wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and differential scanning calorimetry. Nonafluoro-1-hexene (NFH) and hexafluoropropylene (HFP) were chosen as the third monomers, where they are different in the side-branch length, -(CF₂)₃CF₃ and -CF₃, respectively. In the case of E/TFE/NFH copolymer (ET-C4F9), the crystal phase transition temperature of the original ETFE two-components copolymer was not very much affected by the existence of NFH in the range of NFH content from 0.7 to 3 mol%. Contrarily, the crystal phase transition temperature of E/TFE/HFP copolymer (ET-CF3) was found to decrease drastically with increasing HFP content. The melting temperature and the higher-order structure were also affected sensitively depending on the HFP content. This difference in phase transition behavior between ET-C4F9 and ET-CF3 copolymers is reasonably interpreted as follows: the short side groups (-CF₃) of HFP monomeric unit are included in the crystal lattice of E/TFE chains and the unit cell is expanded gradually with an increment of the HFP content, resulting in the decrease in phase transition point because of easier thermal motion of the chains. On the other hand, the long side groups [-(CF₂)₃CF₃] of NFH monomeric units are excluded out of the crystal lattice and located on the lamellar surfaces or in the amorphous region and do not affect very much the phase transition temperature even when the NFH content is increased. In association with such a change in crystal structure, the long period of stacked lamellar structure was found to decrease remarkably in the case of NFH, whereas it does not change very much for HFP, consistent with the interpretation of the above-mentioned WAXD data.     

Web-Based Semantic Similarity: An Evaluation in the Biomedical Domain

Computation of semantic similarity between concepts is a very common problem in many language related tasks and knowledge domains. In the biomedical field, several approaches have been developed to deal with this issue by exploiting the structured knowledge available in domain ontologies (such as SNOMED-CT or MeSH) and specific, closed and reliable corpora (such as clinical data). However, in recent years, the enormous growth of the Web has motivated researchers to start using it as the corpus to assist semantic analysis of language. This paper proposes and evaluates the use of the Web as background corpus for measuring the similarity of biomedical concepts. Several ontology-based similarity measures have been studied and tested, using a benchmark composed by biomedical terms, comparing the results obtained when applying them to the Web against approaches in which specific clinical data were used. Results show that the similarity values obtained from the Web for ontology-based measures are at least and even more reliable than those obtained from specific clinical data, showing the suitability of the Web as information corpus for the biomedical domain.     

Biodegradability and improved mechanical performance of polyhydroxyalkanoates/agave fiber biocomposites compatibilized by different strategies

In this work, biocomposites made of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) with natural fibers were produced via compression molding. In particular, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and polyhydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate (PHBV) were reinforced with 20 wt% of agave fibers. Different compatibilization strategies were investigated to improve the fiber-matrix interaction: fiber surface treatment in PHA solution, fiber surface treatment in maleated PHA solution, fiber propionylation, and extrusion with maleated PHA. The biocomposites were characterized in terms of morphology, mechanical properties, water absorption, and biodegradability by CO₂ production tracking. In general, fiber propionylation was the best strategy for mechanical properties enhancement and water uptake decreasing. Biocomposites with propionylated fibers showed improved flexural strength (170% for PHB and 84% for PHBV). The flexural modulus was also enhanced with propionylated fibers up to 19% and 18% compared to uncompatibilized biocomposites (PHB and PHBV, respectively). Tensile strength increased by 16% (PHB) and 14% (PHBV), and the water absorption was reduced using propionylated fibers going from 6.6% to 4.4% compared with biocomposites with untreated fibers. Most importantly, the impact strength was also improved for all biocomposites by up to 96% compared with the neat PHA matrices. Finally, it was found that the compatibilization did not negatively modify the PHA biodegradability.     

Dependency-based security risk assessment for cyber-physical systems

A cyber-physical attack is a security breach in cyber space that impacts on the physical environment. The number and diversity of such attacks against Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are increasing at impressive rates. In times of Industry 4.0 and Cyber-Physical Systems, providing security against cyber-physical attacks is a serious challenge which calls for cybersecurity risk assessment methods capable of investigating the tight interactions and interdependencies between the cyber and the physical components in such systems. However, existing risk assessment methods do not consider this specific characteristic of CPSs. In this paper, we propose a dependency-based, domain-agnostic cybersecurity risk assessment method that leverages a model of the CPS under study that captures dependencies among the system components. The proposed method identifies possible attack paths against critical components of a CPS by taking an attacker’s viewpoint and prioritizes these paths according to their risk to materialize, thus allowing the defenders to define efficient security controls. We illustrate the workings of the proposed method by applying it to a case study of a CPS in the energy domain, and we highlight the advantages that the proposed method offers when used to assess cybersecurity risks in CPSs.

     

In Situ Management of Ions Migration to Control Hysteresis Effect for Planar Heterojunction Perovskite Solar Cells

As one of the most promising photovoltaic materials, the efficiency of inorganic–organic hybrid halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) has reached 25.5% in 2020. However, the stability and hysteresis remain primary challenges before it can become a commercial photovoltaic technology. Therefore, those issues have drawn significant attention for photovoltaic applications. In this work, a study of the PSCs hysteresis improvement is presented based on a combination of first-principles simulations, scanning electron microscopy images, and time-dependent photocurrent measurements. It indicates the hysteresis led by the ion migration and accumulation is mainly localized at the two interfaces: one is between electron transport layer and active layer, and the other is between active layer and hole transport layer. Considering the massive defects at the grain boundaries (GBs), they lower the potential barriers significantly. The defect density at GBs is therefore reduced via the in situ passivation of PbI₂ crystals. The hysteresis index is decreased from 22.43% down to 1.04%, and results in an improvement in efficiency from 17.12% up to 20.10%. Following the understanding of defect-induced hysteresis, an approach to improve the hysteresis is provided, which can be integrated into the fabrication process and widely applied to enhance the performance of PSCs.