Dysprosium doped copper oxide (Cu1-xDyxO) nanoparticles enabled bifunctional electrode for overall water splitting

The production of hydrogen, a favourable alternative to an unsustainable fossil fuel remains as a significant hurdle with the pertaining challenge in the design of proficient, highly productive and sustainable electrocatalyst for both oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, the dysprosium (Dy) doped copper oxide (Cu_1-xDy_xO) nanoparticles were synthesized via solution combustion technique and utilized as a non-noble metal based bi-functional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting. Due to the improved surface to volume ratio and conductivity, the optimized Cu_1-xDy_xO (x = 0.01, 0.02) electrocatalysts exhibited impressive HER and OER performance respectively in 1 M KOH delivering a current density of 10 mAcm^?2 at a potential of ?0.18 V vs RHE for HER and 1.53 V vs RHE for OER. Moreover, the Dy doped CuO electrocatalyst used as a bi-functional catalyst for overall water splitting achieved a potential of 1.56 V at a current density 10 mAcm^?2 and relatively high current density of 66 mAcm^?2 at a peak potential of 2 V. A long term stability of 24 h was achieved for a cell voltage of 2.2 V at a constant current density of 30 mAcm^?2 with only 10% of the initial current loss. This showcases the accumulative opportunity of dysprosium as a dopant in CuO nanoparticles for fabricating a highly effective and low-cost bi-functional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting.     

不同煤阶煤孔隙特征及其吸附能力响应

我国是煤炭资源大国，煤层气储量规模相当可观，但煤储层又具有低孔、低渗的不足，照搬国外或常规石油天然气的开采程序和方法已被证实是走不通的。应结合实际，根据不同地质条件、不同煤阶的开采程序，进行孔隙特征研究。煤孔隙特征、连通性和吸附能力对煤层气开采影响尤为重要，为研究煤孔隙结构特征随煤变质程度的变化关系及其吸附能力的响应特点，采取不同地区不同变质程度煤样，进行压汞测试和等温吸附实验。实验结果表明，煤孔隙度和平均孔径均随变质程度增加呈现降低—升高—降低的趋势；煤中孔隙连通性随煤变质程度增加逐渐变差；随煤变质程度增加，其最大吸附能力也呈现降低—升高—降低的总体趋势。     

Discovery of Affinity-Based Probes for Btk Occupancy Assays

Bruton's tyrosine kinase (Btk) is an attractive target for the treatment of a wide array of B-cell malignancies and autoimmune diseases. Small-molecule covalent irreversible Btk inhibitors targeting Cys481 have been developed for the treatment of such diseases. In clinical trials, probe molecules are required in occupancy studies to measure the level of engagement of the protein by these covalent irreversible inhibitors. The result of this pharmacodynamic (PD) activity provides guidance for appropriate dosage selection to optimize inhibition of the drug target and correlation of target inhibition with disease treatment efficacy. This information is crucial for successful evaluation of drug candidates in clinical trials. Based on the pyridine carboxamide scaffold of a novel solvent-accessible pocket (SAP) series of covalent irreversible Btk inhibitors, we successfully developed a potent and selective affinity-based biotinylated probe 12 (2-[(4-{4-[5-(1-{5-[(3aS,4S,6aR)-2-oxo-hexahydro-1H-thieno[3,4-d]imidazol-4-yl]pentanamido}-3,6,9,12-tetraoxapentadecan-15-amido)pentanoyl]piperazine-1-carbonyl}phenyl)amino]-6-[1-(prop-2-enoyl)piperidin-4-yl]pyridine-3-carboxamide). Compound 12 has been used in Btk occupancy assays for preclinical studies to determine the therapeutic efficacy of Btk inhibition in two mouse lupus models driven by TLR7 activation and type I interferon.     

Formation of a geometric pattern with a mobile wireless sensor network

Mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs) will enable information systems to gather detailed information about the environment on an unprecedented scale. These self‐organizing, distributed networks of sensors, processors, and actuators that are capable of movement have a broad range of potential applications, including military reconnaissance, surveillance, planetary exploration, and geophysical mapping. In many of the foreseen applications, the MWSN will need to form a geometric pattern without assistance from the user. In military reconnaissance, for example, the nodes will be dropped onto the battlefield from a plane and land at random positions. The nodes will be expected to arrange themselves into a predetermined formation in order to perform a specific task. Thus, we present algorithms for forming a line, circle, and regular polygon from a given set of random positions. The algorithms are distributed and use no communication between the nodes to minimize energy consumption. Unlike past studies of geometric problems where algorithms are either tested in simulations where each node has global knowledge of all the other nodes or implemented on a small number of robots, the robustness of our algorithms has been studied with simulations that model the sensor system in detail. The simulations demonstrate that the algorithms are robust against random errors in the sensors and actuators. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Situating natural language understanding within experience-based design

Building useful systems with an ability to understand "real" natural language input has long been an elusive goal for Artificial Intelligence. Well-known problems such as ambiguity, indirectness, and incompleteness of natural language inputs have thwarted efforts to build natural language interfaces to intelligent systems. In this article, we report on our work on a model of understanding natural language design specifications of physical devices such as simple electrical circuits. Our system, called KA, solves the classical problems of ambiguity, incompleteness and indirectness by exploiting the knowledge and problem-solving processes in the situation of designing simple physical devices. In addition, KA acquires its knowledge structures (apart from a basic ontology of devices) from the results of its problem-solving processes. Thus, KA can be bootstrapped to understand design specifications and user feedback about new devices using the knowledge structures it acquired from similar devices designed previously.In this paper, we report on three investigations in the KA project. Our first investigation demonstrates that KA can resolve ambiguities in design specifications as well as infer unarticulated requirements using the ontology, the knowledge structures, and the problem-solving processes provided by its design situation. The second investigation shows that KA's problem-solving capabilities help ascertain the relevance of indirect design specifications, and identify unspecified relations between detailed requirements. The third investigation demonstrates the extensibility of KA's theory of natural language understanding by showing that KA can interpret user feedback as well as design requirements. Our results demonstrate that situating language understanding in problem solving, such as device design in KA, provides effective solutions to unresolved problems in natural language processing.     

激电法找油的原理及应用

激电法是非地震物探手段中的一种，由于油气在向上渗透的过程中会与地层发生一系列的生物。化学反应而形成次生黄铁矿，激电法正是通过发现油气藏上方形成的次生黄铁矿晕来寻找油气的一种间接找油方法。通过详细介绍激电法寻找油气的基本原理。仪器设备等，从实践角度论述了激电法在油田勘探开发中的应用范围及其特点，最后通过兴例说明了其良好的应用效果。