Comparison of Magnesium and Titanium Doping on Material Properties and pH Sensing Performance on Sb2O3 Membranes in Electrolyte-Insulator-Semiconductor Structure

In this research, electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor (EIS) capacitors with Sb2O3 sensing membranes were fabricated. The results indicate that Mg doping and Ti-doped Sb2O3 membranes with appropriate annealing had improved material quality and sensing performance. Multiple material characterizations and sensing measurements of Mg-doped and Ti doping on Sb2O3 sensing membranes were conducted, including of X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These detailed studies indicate that silicate and defects in the membrane could be suppressed by doping and annealing. Moreover, compactness enhancement, crystallization and grainization, which reinforced the surface sites on the membrane and boosted the sensing factor, could be achieved by doping and annealing. Among all of the samples, Mg doped membrane with annealing at 400 °C had the most preferable material properties and sensing behaviors. Mg-doped Sb2O3-based with appropriate annealing are promising for future industrial ionsensing devices and for possible integration with Sb2O3-based semiconductor devices.

Effects of NH3 Plasma and Mg Doping on InGaZnO pH Sensing Membrane

In this study, the effects of magnesium (Mg) doping and Ammonia (NH3) plasma on the pH sensing capabilities of InGaZnO membranes were investigated. Undoped InGaZnO and Mg-doped pH sensing membranes with NH3 plasma were examined with multiple material analyses including X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectroscopy and transmission electron microscope, and pH sensing behaviors of the membrane in electrolyte-insulator-semiconductors. Results indicate that Mg doping and NH3 plasma treatment could superpositionally enhance crystallization in fine nanostructures, and strengthen chemical bindings. Results indicate these material improvements increased pH sensing capability significantly. Plasma-treated Mg-doped InGaZnO pH sensing membranes show promise for future pH sensing biosensors.

Concepts and how they get that way

Drawing on the material culture of the Ancient Near East as interpreted through Material Engagement Theory, the journey of how material number becomes a conceptual number is traced to address questions of how a particular material form might generate a concept and how concepts might ultimately encompass multiple material forms so that they include but are irreducible to all of them together. Material forms incorporated into the cognitive system affect the content and structure of concepts through their agency and affordances, the capabilities and constraints they provide as the material component of the extended, enactive mind. Material forms give concepts the tangibility that enables them to be literally grasped and manipulated. As they are distributed over multiple material forms, concepts effectively become independent of any of them, yielding the abstract irreducibility that makes a concept like number what it is. Finally, social aspects of material use—collaboration, ordinariness, and time—have important effects on the generation and distribution of concepts.

Thinking Materially: Cognition as Extended and Enacted

Human cognition is extended and enacted. Drawing the boundaries of cognition to include the resources and attributes of the body and materiality allows an examination of how these components interact with the brain as a system, especially over cultural and evolutionary spans of time. Literacy and numeracy provide examples of multigenerational, incremental change in both psychological functioning and material forms. Though we think materiality, its central role in human cognition is often unappreciated, for reasons that include conceptual distribution over multiple material forms, the unconscious transparency of cognitive activity in general, and the different temporalities of metaplastic change in neurons and cultural forms.

Navigating stigma through everyday city-making: Gendered trajectories, politics and outcomes in the periphery of Lima

Over the last two decades, a growing body of scholars from the fields of psychology, sociology, law and public health have devoted their attention to examining how and why stigma operates as a form of discrimination, paying particular attention to ethno-racially stigmatised groups. However, less attention has focused on how ordinary women and men engaged in peripheral urbanisation processes are stigmatised through multiple material, social and political mechanisms and with a myriad of outcomes. Building on this literature, and drawing on the trajectories of a man and a woman living in the periphery of metropolitan Lima, I explore how stigmatisation shapes the daily lives of poor and impoverished citizens as they try to find a place in the city, and how and why their everyday practices contribute, or not, to the transformation of stigma traps. I argue that the everyday city-making practices of the ‘unsheltered’ are inextricably linked to the politics of bare citizenship. As those stigmatised become individualised, isolated and undermined, they also are deprived of being part of a collective experience, and are deeply challenged to reclaim their agency as entitled citizens. The wider the range of stigmatisation mechanisms at work, the more difficult it is for those subjected to stigma to counteract them, as they become disadvantaged in a broad range of domains: from social relations, to tenure security, access to services and infrastructure, livelihood opportunities, and psychological and physical wellbeing. I further contend that a deep examination of the material world – the dwelling, the neighbourhood and the city – and of the practices and imaginaries that produce this material world, opens a window into the micro-politics of how stigma is negotiated, apportioned and resisted in the everyday lives of those who are politically and materially unsheltered.

Repair of Geological Models Based on Multiple Material Marching Cubes

In this paper, we present a multi-domain implicit surface reconstruction algorithm for geological modeling based on the labeling of voxel points. The improved algorithm sets a label for each voxel point to represent the type of its geological domain and then obtains all the voxel points in the void areas. After that, the improved algorithm modifies the labels of the voxel points in the void areas and finally reconstructs the geological models through the Multiple Material Marching Cubes (M3C) algorithm. The improved algorithm solves the problems of some unexpected overlaps and voids in geological modeling by setting and modifying the labels of the voxel points. Our key contribution is proposing a labeling processing method to repair the overlap and void defects generated in the geological modeling and realizing the improved M3C algorithm. The experimental results of some geological models show the performance of the improved method. Compared with the original method, the improved method can repair the overlap and void defects in geological modeling to ensure the raw structural adjacency relationships of the geological bodies.

Multi-Material and Multi-Joint Topology Optimization for Lightweight and Cost-Effective Design

Lightweighting and cost reduction are overarching research themes in aerospace and automotive industries, leading to the exploration of new materials, advanced manufacturing methods, and design optimization algorithms. Multi-material topology optimization is an important tool that can generate unconventional designs leveraging the differing mechanical properties of multiple material types to increase performance. However, these approaches do not consider joining design during optimization, which can ultimately result in higher cost, worse performance, and unrealistic designs that must be altered in the interpretation stage. This work presents a multi-material and multi-joint topology optimization methodology that models joints at the interfaces between dissimilar materials, controls the joining pattern using joint design variables, and reduces cost through the addition of a joining cost constraint. Design variable interpolation schemes, interface detection for unstructured meshes, and sensitivity analysis are outlined in detail in this paper. The approach is applied to a real-world rocker arm geometry to demonstrate the importance of considering joints during multi-material topology optimization. The results of the numerical example indicate that the methodology can successfully detect interfaces in unstructured meshes and strategically place joints to maximize stiffness of the structure. A parameter study of various joining cost constraint levels illustrates how the optimizer alters part topology and joining design to reduce cost.

Fatigue and Functional Independence inPeople with Multiple Sclerosis

Objetivo: Establecer la relación entre la fatiga y el nivel de independencia funcional en actividades de la vida diaria en personas con esclerosis múltiple. Material y método: Se realizó un estudio descriptivo trasversal con alcance correlacional. Participaron 107 personas con esclerosis múltiple, mayores de 18 años con puntuaciones entre 0 y 8 en la Escala Ampliada del Estado de Discapacidad de Kurtzke. Se evaluó la fatiga con la Escala de Gravedad de la Fatiga, las actividades básicas cotidianas con el Índice de Barthel y las instrumentales con la Escala de Lawton y Brody. Se correlacionaron estas variables y se realizaron pruebas de homogeneidad entre la severidad de la fatiga y variables sociodemográficas y clínicas. Resultados: Se encontró una relación significativa inversamente proporcional entre el grado de severidad de la fatiga y las variables de dependencia para las actividades básicas e instrumentales de la vida diaria (p<0,001). No se evidenció relación significativa entre la severidad de la fatiga con la edad, el sexo y el tiempo de evolución de la esclerosis múltiple (p>0,05). Se encontraron diferencias significativas en el nivel de fatiga respecto al uso de ayudas externas, hipertensión arterial, diabetes mellitus, compromiso motor, trastornos de la sensibilidad, alteraciones del control de esfínteres, deterioro cognitivo y depresión. Conclusiones: Se encontró que la fatiga fue el síntoma más predominante (>75%). Las personas que informan altos niveles de fatiga mostraron menor independencia para las actividades de la vida diaria.