Application of NLO and Antibacterial Activity of Tricine Doped Potassium Metal Ion Crystal

We have successfully produced Tricine Potassium Nitrate (TPN) single crystal synthesis using the solution growth method in this study. The powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) technique was used to identify the phases of TPN crystals. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis was performed to examine the functional groups contained in the produced crystals. To measure optical transparency, a UV-VIS-NIR investigation was conducted between 200 and 800nm. TPN crystal's photoluminescence (PL) spectrum was recorded. Vickers' hardness tester was used to investigate the mechanical characteristics of the formed crystal.Thermal gravimetric/differential thermal analysis was used to investigate the thermal behaviors of the produced crystals. The surface morphology of the formed crystal was determined using a field emission scanning electron microscope. Wet etching experiments were used to investigate the TPN crystal's growth feature. The shock damage threshold technique was used to determine the shock strength at which the crystal poses a risk. The Kurtz-Perry technique was used to investigate the effectiveness of the developed crystals' second harmonic generation (SHG). The antibacterial activity of TPN grown crystal against various standard bacterial strains.

Deformation-induced Japan twinning in quartz during incipient mylonitization

Many crystalline rocks of the continental crust contain coarse-grained quartz as a main mineral (e.g., granitoids). Incipient deformation of coarse quartz, which likely controls the accumulation of bulk strain in heterogeneously deformed crustal rock volumes, commonly develops microshear zones (MSZs) of localized recrystallization. At mid-crustal conditions, where quartz deformation is mostly accomplished by subgrain rotation recrystallization, grains of MSZs can show an abrupt change in crystallographic orientation (large misorientation angle) with respect to the host quartz that is still not fully understood. We analyzed MSZs (20–200 μm thick) from deformed coarse-grained (millimeter grain size) quartz veins in the Austroalpine Schobergruppe (Eastern Alps). Electron backscatter diffraction analysis reveals that the MSZs are characterized by a nearly 90° misorientation angle between the c-axes of the host and new grains, which also share one {m} and one {1122} pole, compatible with Japan twinning. This abrupt switch of the c-axis orientation can promote geometrical softening and shear localization. So far, Japan twinning has been interpreted as a growth feature. We show that deformation-induced twinning in quartz, including Japan and Dauphiné twinning, can play an important role in initiation of crystal-plastic deformation within the crust.

Impact of Stochasticity on Traffic Flow Dynamics in Macroscopic Continuum Models

Stochasticity is an indispensable factor for describing real traffic situations. Recent experimental study has shown that a model spanning a two-dimensional speed–spacing (or speed–density) relationship has the potential to reproduce the characteristics of traffic flow in both experiments and empirical observations. This paper studies the impact of stochasticity on traffic flow in macroscopic models utilizing the stochastic flow–density relationship. Numerical analysis is conducted under the periodic boundary to study the impact of stochasticity on stability. Traffic flow upstream of a bottleneck is also investigated to study the impact of stochasticity on the oscillation growth feature. It is shown that there is only a quantitative difference for model stability after introducing stochasticity. In contrast, a qualitative change of the traffic oscillation growth feature can be clearly observed. With the introduction of stochasticity, traffic oscillations begin to grow in a concave way along the road. Sensitivity analysis is also performed. It is found that, under the stochastic flow–density relationship: (i) with the decrease of relaxation time, the second-order model becomes stable; (ii) the smaller the propagation speed of small disturbance, the much stronger the traffic oscillation; (iii) the larger the fluctuation range, the sooner the traffic oscillation fully develops; and (iv) the changing probability has trivial impact on the simulation results. Finally, model calibration and validation are conducted. It is shown that the experimental spatiotemporal patterns can be captured by macroscopic models under the stochastic flow–density relationship, especially the second-order model.

Effect of Oxygen Source on the Various Properties of SnO2 Thin Films Deposited by Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition

Herein, we performed a comparative study of plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) of SnO2 films using Sn(dmamp)2 as the Sn source and either H2O plasma or O2 plasma as the oxygen source in a wide temperature range of 100–300 °C. Since the type of oxygen source employed in PEALD determines the growth behavior and resultant film properties, we investigated the growth feature of both SnO2 PEALD processes and the various chemical, structural, morphological, optical, and electrical properties of SnO2 films, depending on the oxygen source. SnO2 films from Sn(dmamp)2/H2O plasma (SH-SnO2) and Sn(dmamp)2/O2 plasma (SO-SnO2) showed self-limiting atomic layer deposition (ALD) growth behavior with growth rates of ~0.21 and 0.07–0.13 nm/cycle, respectively. SO-SnO2 films showed relatively larger grain structures than SH-SnO2 films at all temperatures. Interestingly, SH-SnO2 films grown at high temperatures of 250 and 300 °C presented porous rod-shaped surface morphology. SO-SnO2 films showed good electrical properties, such as high mobility up to 27 cm2 V−1·s−1 and high carrier concentration of ~1019 cm−3, whereas SH-SnO2 films exhibited poor Hall mobility of 0.3–1.4 cm2 V−1·s−1 and moderate carrier concentration of 1 × 1017–30 × 1017 cm−3. This may be attributed to the significant grain boundary and hydrogen impurity scattering.

Smoke Object Segmentation and the Dynamic Growth Feature Model for Video-Based Smoke Detection Systems

This article concerns smoke detection in the early stages of a fire. Using the computer-aided system, the efficient and early detection of smoke may stop a massive fire incident. Without considering the multiple moving objects on background and smoke particles analysis (i.e., pattern recognition), smoke detection models show suboptimal performance. To address this, this paper proposes a hybrid smoke segmentation and an efficient symmetrical simulation model of dynamic smoke to extract a smoke growth feature based on temporal frames from a video. In this model, smoke is segmented from the multi-moving object on the complex background using the Gaussian’s Mixture Model (GMM) and HSV (hue-saturation-value) color segmentation to encounter the candidate smoke and non-smoke regions in the preprocessing stage. The preprocessed temporal frames with moving smoke are analyzed by the dynamic smoke growth analysis and spatial-temporal frame energy feature extraction model. In dynamic smoke growth analysis, the temporal frames are segmented in blocks and the smoke growth representations are formulated from corresponding blocks. Finally, the classifier was trained using the extracted features to classify and detect smoke using a Radial Basis Function (RBF) non-linear Gaussian kernel-based binary Support Vector Machine (SVM). For validating the proposed smoke detection model, multi-conditional video clips are used. The experimental results suggest that the proposed model outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms.

Examination on Bulk Growth, Thermal, Mechanical, Dielectric, and Optical Properties of Li2na3 (So4)2 Single Crystal for Optoelectronic Applications

Nonlinear optical lithium sodium sulphate hexahydrate (LSS) crystal of 17 mm x 14 mm x 12 mm dimension was harvested by temperature reducing method. The single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction investigation studies reveal the crystal system and crystalline characters of grown LSS crystal. The FT-IR spectrum of LSS crystal was recorded to confirm its functional constituents present in the synthesized compound. Mechanical ability of the grown LSS crystal was studied by Vicker’s hardness method. The etching pattern was recorded to identify the growth feature of the grown crystal. The parameters of dielectric constant and dielectric loss were calculated for the grown crystal. Thermal analysis was carried out on the crystal by employing thermogravimetric method. The cutoff wavelength and optical transmittance character and second harmonic generation efficiency of the LSS crystal were done by UV-Visible and Kurtz-Perry studies respectively.

Ultrasound Assessment of Bone Mass in Central Africans Population

<p><em>Background: Osteodensitometry, a procedure increasingly accepted by clinicians to access osteoporosis is not yet fully validated by WHO. It requires the establishment of normal values and references curves for each population, and in our community, this is not yet assessed.</em></p><p><em>The purpose of this study was twofold: to describe the profile of the speed of sound of proximal phalangeal metaphysis and establish references curves in central Africans and to compare them with those of other populations specially Caucasians.</em></p><p><em>Methods: This cross sectional study was carried out at Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa from January to December 2016.</em></p><p><em>Four hundred twenty four subjects aged from 20 to 87 years old, were explored and the speed of sound in theirs proximal phalanges measured using ultrasound equipment. Age, gender, hormonal status and speed of sound were collected and analyzed.</em></p><p><em>Results: The mean value of the amplitude dependant speed of sound (AD-SoS) showed a growth feature with age (from 2056 m/sec at second decade of life to 2145.27 m/sec at fourth decade followed by a progressive decrease which was present in both sexes but more marked in postmenopausal women (1927.06 m/sec). This mean value was higher than in Caucasian studies. In this study, age and hormonal status seems to be the bone quality most influencing anthropometric factors as seen in many series.</em></p><p><em>The curve profile with age was also a polynomial curve as seen in others populations of the world.</em></p><p><em>Conclusion: This study provides normal data for phalangeal ultrasound measurements and reference curve of central Africans which were compared to those of Western studies.</em></p>