ALBERT

Description: Protein micro/nanopatterning has long provided sophisticated strategies for a wide range of applications including biointerfaces, tissue engineering, optics/photonics, and bioelectronics. We present here the use of regenerated silk fibroin to explore wrinkle formation by exploiting the structure–function relation of silk. This yields a biopolymer-based reversible, multiresponsive, dynamic wrinkling system based on the protein’s responsiveness to external stimuli that allows on-demand tuning of surface morphologies and properties. The polymorphic transitions of silk fibroin enable modulation of the wrinkle patterns and, consequently, the material’s physical properties. The interplay between silk protein chains and external stimuli enables control over the protein film’s wrinkling dynamics. Thanks to the versatility of regenerated silk fibroin as a technological substrate, a number of demonstrator devices of varying utility are shown ranging from information encoding to modulation of optical transparency and thermal regulation.

Description: The interaction between light and matter has been long explored, leading to insights based on the modulation and control of electrons and/or photons within a material. An opportunity exists in optomechanics, where the conversion of radiation into material strain and actuation is currently induced at the molecular level in liquid crystal systems, or at the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device scale, producing limited potential strain energy (or force) in light-driven systems. We present here flexible material composites that, when illuminated, are capable of macroscale motion, through the interplay of optically absorptive elements and low Curie temperature magnetic materials. These composites can be formed into films, sponges, monoliths, and hydrogels, and can be actuated with light at desired locations. Light-actuated elastomeric composites for gripping and releasing, heliotactic motion, light-driven propulsion, and rotation are demonstrated as examples of the versatility of this approach.

Description: The detection of difenidol hydrochloride, which is a drug that is widely used for treating the nausea and vomiting symptoms caused by certain diseases, has been increasingly involved in cases of suicide via overdosing and of drug poisoning in children. A novel electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensor for the simple and effective detection of difenidol hydrochloride was fabricated by modifying a glassy carbon electrode with three-dimensional carbon nanofibers (3D-CNFs). The 3D-CNFs were synthesized by electrospinning a mixture of montmorillonite (MMT) and polyacrylonitrile, carbonizing the electrospun product, and etching it with hydrofluoric acid. The form and structure of the 3D-CNFs was analyzed via scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman microspectroscopy. According to the experimental results obtained using the modified electrodes, a good linear relationship was found between peak intensity and difenidol concentration (y = 868.14x − 61.04, R2 = 0.999), with a relatively low detection limit (8.64 × 10−10 mol·L−1 (S/N = 3)). In addition, our approach exhibited good recovery values ranging from 98.99% to 102.28%. The proposed novel ECL sensor has wide application prospects for the detection of difenidol hydrochloride.

Description: Although CO2 fertilization on plant growth has been repeatedly modeled to be the main reason for the current changes in the terrestrial carbon sink at the global scale, there have been controversial findings on the CO2 fertilization effects on forests from tree-ring analyses. In this study, we employed conventional dendrochronological tree-ring datasets from Northeast China, to detect the effect of CO2 fertilization on Larix gmelinii growth from 1950 to 2010. Among four sites, there were two sites exhibiting a significant residual growth enhancement at a 90% confidence level after removing the size, age and climaterelated trends of tree-ring indices. In addition, we found consistency (R from 0.26 to 0.33, p 〈 0.1) between the high frequency CO2 fluctuation and residual growth indices at two of the four sites during the common period. A biogeochemical model was used to quantitatively predict the contribution of elevated atmospheric CO2 on accumulated residual growth enhancement. As found in the tree-ring data, 14% of the residual growth was attributed to the CO2 fertilization effect, while climate was responsible for approximately the remainding 86%.

Description: Abstract Multi‐stage multi‐cluster hydraulic fracturing is currently the most effective method to stimulate low‐permeability hydrocarbon reservoirs. The desired result of this stimulation technique is highly uniform growth of multiple closely‐spaced hydraulic fractures. In order to deepen our understanding on the competitive growth of these fractures, we have investigated the growth behaviors of multiple hydraulic fractures under different conditions. A fully‐coupled model with a 3D influence coefficient is presented for fracture growth in a rock layer, based on a combination of boundary element method and finite volume method. It is validated against classic solutions and lab experiments. The parametric analyses of dimensionless arguments to quantify the uniformity of fracture growth are performed, with varying fracture geometries and geotechnical conditions including pre‐existing natural fractures. The results demonstrate that fracture competition is controlled by the dimensionless toughness, the initial fracture geometric settings and the ratio of fracture spacing to height. A higher fluid viscosity, a smaller initial length offset and a larger spacing benefit simultaneous fracture growth for conventional bi‐wing hydraulic fractures. By contrast, single‐wing ones exhibit a remarkably better performance in long‐time simultaneous fracture growth at a small separation, especially at low dimensionless toughness. Under certain conditions, the closely‐spaced single‐wing fractures are prone to grow simultaneously and uniformly in less energy consumption. The simultaneous growth is found to be insensitive to the interference from small‐scale natural fractures. The uniform single‐wing fracture growth from the perspective of geomechanics will provide a new insight for both reservoir stimulation and formation of vein and dike swarms.

Description: Sensors, Vol. 18, Pages 2160: A Tightly Coupled RTK/INS Algorithm with Ambiguity Resolution in the Position Domain for Ground Vehicles in Harsh Urban Environments Sensors doi: 10.3390/s18072160 Authors: Wei Li Wenyi Li Xiaowei Cui Sihao Zhao Mingquan Lu Vehicles driving in urban canyons are always confronted with a degraded Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal environment. The surrounding obstacles may cause signal reflections or blockages, which lead to large multipath noises and intermittent GNSS reception. Under these circumstances, it is not feasible to use conventional real-time kinematic (RTK) algorithms to maintain high-precision performance for positioning. In order to meet the special requirements of safety-critical applications under non-ideal observation conditions, a novel tightly coupled RTK/Inertial Navigation System (INS) algorithm is proposed in this paper, which can provide accurate and reliable positioning results continuously. Our integrated RTK/INS algorithm has three features. Firstly, INS measurements are used to help search for integer ambiguities in the position domain. INS solutions can provide a more accurate initial location and a more efficient search region. Secondly, the criterion for determining whether a candidate position is the correct solution is only related to the fractional value of the carrier-phase measurement. Thus, the new algorithm is immune to cycle slips as well as large pseudorange noises. Thirdly, our algorithm can provide more accurate ranging information than the pseudorange, even though it may not necessarily be fixed successfully, because it selects the weighted ambiguity solution as the result rather than the candidate point with maximum probability. The proposed algorithm is demonstrated on both simulated and real datasets. Compared with single epoch RTK and conventional tightly coupled RTK/INS integrations that search integer ambiguities in the ambiguity domain, our method attains better accuracy and stability in a simulated environment. Moreover, the real experimental results are presented to validate the performance of the new integrated navigation algorithm.

Description: Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is a rodent-borne infectious disease caused by hantaviruses. About 90% of global cases were reported in China. We collected monthly data on counts of HFRS cases, climatic factors (mean temperature, rainfall, and relative humidity), and vegetation (normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)) in 109 Chinese counties from January 2002 to December 2013. First, we used a quasi-Poisson regression with a distributed lag non-linear model to assess the impacts of these four factors on HFRS in 109 counties, separately. Then we conducted a multivariate meta-analysis to pool the results at the national level. The results of our study showed that there were non-linear associations between the four factors and HFRS. Specifically, the highest risks of HFRS occurred at the 45th, 30th, 20th, and 80th percentiles (with mean and standard deviations of 10.58 ± 4.52 °C, 18.81 ± 17.82 mm, 58.61 ± 6.33%, 198.20 ± 22.23 at the 109 counties, respectively) of mean temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, and NDVI, respectively. HFRS case estimates were most sensitive to mean temperature amongst the four factors, and the lag patterns of the impacts of these factors on HFRS were heterogeneous. Our findings provide rigorous scientific support to current HFRS monitoring and the development of early warning systems.

Description: ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b03387

Description: Forests, Vol. 9, Pages 5: Relationship between Net Primary Productivity and Forest Stand Age under Different Site Conditions and Its Implications for Regional Carbon Cycle Study Forests doi: 10.3390/f9010005 Authors: Bin Wang Mingze Li Wenyi Fan Ying Yu Jing Chen Net primary productivity (NPP) is a key component in the terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle, and it varies according to stand age and site class index (SCI) for different forest types. Here we report an improved method for describing the relationships between NPP and stand age at various SCI values for the main forest types and groups in Heilongjiang Province, China, using existing yield tables, biomass equations, and forest inventory data. We calculated NPP as the sum of four components: Annual accumulation of live biomass, annual mortality of biomass, foliage turnover, and fine root turnover in soil. We also consider the NPP of understory vegetation or moss. These NPP-age relationships under different site conditions indicate that the NPP values of broadleaved and coniferous, as well as broadleaved mixed forests increase rapidly and reach a maximum when in young forests. However, for coniferous forest types, the maximum NPP generally occurs in mature forests. In addition, a higher SCI leads to a higher NPP value. Finally, we input these NPP-age relationships at various SCI values into the Integrated Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon (InTEC) model to modify NPP modeling to estimate NPP in Heilongjiang Province in China from 2001 to 2010. All of the results showed that the methods reported in this study provide a reliable approach for estimating regional forest carbon budgets.