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A kinetically favored Cd2+ and Ge4+ dual‐doped lithium titanate (Li4Ti5O12) anode material is designed for lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs). Rietveld refinement reveals that introducing a 0.05 wt.% of Cd2+ at Li(8a) and Ge4+ at Ti(16d) sites brings no structural change in the spinel Li4Ti5O12. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) identifies Cd2+ and Ge4+ are homogenously doped in the Li4Ti5O12 lattice. High‐resolution powder diffraction (HRPD) confirmed that Cd2+ and Ge4+ doping in Li4Ti5O12 brings expansion in the lattice, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE‐SEM) shows the reduction in the particle size due to of Cd and Ge in the LTO lattice, and X‐ray photoluminescence spectroscopy (XPS) confirms the partial reduction of Ti4+ to Ti3+ ions on the surface of 0.05‐Cd‐Ge‐LTO electrodes to the pristine LTO. Furthermore, the 0.05‐Cd‐Ge‐Li4Ti5O12 electrode exhibits a superior rate performance and delivers a discharge capacity of ≈169.1 mAhg−1 at 0.1 current rates. It is worth mentioning that, the 0.05‐Cd‐Ge‐Li4Ti5O12 electrode brings outstanding cycling stability in Li+ half‐cell, having a capacity retention of 98.79% after 300 cycles at 2C. This proves that dual‐doping of Cd2+ at Li(8a) and Ge4+ at Ti(16d) sites in the Li4Ti5O12 lattice is an effective approach to obtain superior electrochemical performance as anode material in LIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work aimed to highlight an efficient, readily accessible, and cost-effective adsorbent derived from Dalbergia sissoo (DS) leaf powder for removing the environmentally hazardous dye "alizarin red S" (ARS) from hydrous medium. A variant of the adsorbent is activated via sulfuric acid and composited with magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (DSMNC). Both adsorbents are thoroughly characterized using techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, point of zero charge, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, which show that they have a porous structure rich in active sites. Different adsorption conditions are optimized with the maximum removal efficiency of 76.63% for DS and 97.89% for DSMNC. The study was highlighted via the application of various adsorption isotherms, including Freundlich, Langmuir, Temkin, and Dubinin–Radushkevich, to adsorption data. Pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and intra-particle diffusion models were utilized to investigate the kinetics and mechanism of adsorption. The Freundlich model and pseudo-second-order kinetics exhibited the best fit, suggesting a combination of physical interactions, as confirmed by the D–R and Temkin models. The dominant adsorbate–adsorbent interactive interactions responsible for ARS removal were hydrogen bonding, dispersion forces, and noncovalent aromatic ring adsorbent pi-interactions. Thermodynamic parameters extracted from adsorption data indicated that the removal of the mutagenic dye "ARS" was exothermic and spontaneous on both DS and DSMNC, with DSMNC exhibiting higher removal efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using first-principle calculations, metal–semiconductor (MS) contact of YX2 (Y=Ta, Nb; X=S, Se, Te) and MX2 (M=Mo, W; X=S, Se, Te) monolayers in the shape of YX2–MX2 van der Waals Heterostructures (vdWHs) are fabricated. Electronic structure, type of the Schottky contact and height of Schottky barrier at the interface of YX2–MX2 vdWHs are investigated. Stabilities of these systems confirmed via AIMD simulation and binding energies calculations. Electronic band structures confirm the metallic nature of YX2–MX2 MS vdWHs. Specific cases of the YX2–MX2 MS vdWHs have quite small (high) effective mass (carrier mobility), hence show potential for nanoelectronic devices. Workfunction and transfer of charges among the layers of YX2–MX2 MS vdWHs are also evaluated via electrostatic potential. A Schottky contact is established, while fabricating YX2–MX2 MS vdWHs. The calculated Schottky barrier height (SBH) show that YX2–MX2 (Y=Ta, Nb, M=Mo, W; X=S, Se, Te) vdWHs, initiate p-type of Schottky contact, while specifically, TaX2–MTe2 (M=Mo, W) and NbTe2–MoS2 and NbTe2–WS2 MS vdWHs initiate n-type of Schottky contact due to their higher Bn values. The SBH values are miniature compared to traditional MS contacts, but they are consistent with previous 2D based MS contacts. These observations indicates the potential of YX2–MX2 MS vdWHs for high-performance device application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid design of advanced materials depends on synthesis parameters and design. A wide range of materials can be synthesized using precursor reactions based on chelated gel and organic polymeric gel pathways. The desire to develop high-performance lithium-ion rechargeable batteries has motivated decades of research on the synthesis of battery active material particles with precise control of composition, phase-purity, and morphology. Among the most common methods reported in the literature to prepare precursors for lithium-ion battery active materials, sol-gel is characterized by simplicity, homogeneous mixing, and tuning of the particle shape. The chelate gel and organic polymeric gel precursor-based sol-gel method is efficient to promote desirable reaction conditions. Both precursor routes are commonly used to synthesize lithium-ion battery cathode active materials from raw materials such as inorganic salts in aqueous solutions or organic solvents. The purpose of this review is to discuss synthesis procedure and summarize the progress that has been made in producing crystalline particles of tunable and complex morphologies by sol-gel synthesis that can be used as active materials for lithium-ion batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the cybersecurity industry, where legitimate transactions far outnumber fraudulent ones, detecting fraud is of paramount significance. In order to evaluate the accuracy of detecting fraudulent transactions in imbalanced real datasets, this study compares the efficacy of two approaches, random under-sampling and oversampling, using the synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE). Random under-sampling aims for fairness by excluding examples from the majority class, but this compromises precision in favor of recall. To strike a balance and ensure statistical significance, SMOTE was used instead to produce artificial examples of the minority class. Based on the data obtained, it is clear that random under-sampling achieves high recall (92.86%) at the expense of low precision, whereas SMOTE achieves a higher accuracy (86.75%) and a more even F1 score (73.47%) at the expense of a slightly lower recall. As true fraudulent transactions require at least two methods for verification, we investigated different machine learning methods and made suitable balances between accuracy, F1 score, and recall. Our comparison sheds light on the subtleties and ramifications of each approach, allowing professionals in the field of cybersecurity to better choose the approach that best meets the needs of their own firm. This research highlights the need to resolve class imbalances for effective fraud detection in cybersecurity, as well as the need for constant monitoring and the investigation of new approaches to increase applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we introduce a new type of multivalued fuzzy proximal quasi-contraction. These are generalized contractions which are a hybrid of H -contractive mappings and quasi-contractions. Furthermore, we establish the best proximity point results for newly introduced fuzzy contractions in the context of fuzzy b-metric spaces. Fuzzy b-metric spaces are more general than fuzzy metric spaces and are linked with the cosine distance, which is used in various contexts of artificial intelligence to measure the similarity between elements of a vector space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is causing significant disruptions worldwide, and Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), is no exception. This qualitative research delves into the extensive effects of climate change on the health of Swat's residents, particularly those in vulnerable communities. By conducting in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals, local authorities, and affected individuals, alongside employing data collection methods such as audio recordings and meticulous note-taking, a comprehensive understanding of the situation was developed. The study highlights the multifaceted factors contributing to climate change in the region, including deforestation, glacial melting, and unpredictable weather patterns, and explores their cascading effects on public health. The findings reveal that climate change is exacerbating various health issues, including a rise in respiratory problems due to increased air pollution, a surge in waterborne diseases from contaminated water sources, heat-related illnesses stemming from rising temperatures, and a growing prevalence of mental health challenges as communities struggle with climate-induced stress and displacement. To address these impacts, urgent measures are needed, including substantial investment in resilient infrastructure, strengthening local healthcare systems to cope with emerging health threats, improving water management practices to ensure safe drinking water, enhancing early warning systems for extreme weather events, promoting public health education focused on climate adaptation, empowering communities through participatory approaches, and integrating mental health support into climate response strategies. The study emphasizes the importance of coordinated and proactive measures at both local and governmental levels to mitigate the socio-economic and psychological consequences of climate change. By offering valuable insights from respondents, the study concludes by recommending specific actions to alleviate the adverse impacts of climate change on health in Swat, KP, and calls for a comprehensive, multisectoral approach to ensure the well-being of the region's inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a class of metrics which are equivalent to the Hausdorff metric in some sense to establish the well-posedness of fixed point problems associated with multifunctions of metric spaces, satisfying various generalized contraction conditions. Examples are provided to justify the applicability of new results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different compositions of manganese (x = 1 & 3 wt. %) and nitrogen (y = 1 wt. %) co-doped TiO2 (MnxNyT) photocatalysts are prepared by the conventional sol-gel method. The crystallinity, optical properties, phase purity and surface morphology of prepared nano-photocatalysts were characterised in detail. The structural analyses show that the simultaneous doping with manganese and nitrogen controls the growth of TiO2 crystal structure having an average crystallite size in the range of 14.6 to 24.5 nm. The optical analysis also demonstrated that due to the synergistic effect of Mn and N, co-doped TiO2 represents the red-shift in the absorption band edge from 3.33 eV to 2.39 eV, which improved the response of TiO2 structure towards the visible region and enhanced electron-hole separation. Among all, Mn3N1T represented the better photocatalytic efficiency against anionic dyes (Blue KBR and Red GD) and phenol under optimised conditions (such as initial substrate's concentration = 20 ppm, photocatalyst dose = 0.5 g and solution pH of 3 and 7, respectively) due to its low bandgap, low crystallite size and high absorptivity towards the visible region. The kinetics study also showed that the degradation of dyes and phenol over Mn3N1T followed pseudo-first-order kinetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface functionalization of 1D materials such as silicon nanowires is a critical preparation technology for biochemical sensing. However, existing nonselective functionalization techniques result in nonlocal binding and contamination, with potential device damage risks. Associated risks are further exacerbated for next-generation devices of a 3D nature with challenging topographies. Such 3D devices draw inspiration from the out-of-plane evolution of planar transistors to FinFETs and to today's gate-all-around transistors. This study is the first reported technological work addressing stencil-based surface decoration and selective functionalization of a suspended silicon nanowire building block embedded within such a device that involves two-order-of-magnitude thicker features compared to the nanowire critical dimensions. A gold pattern resolution of 3.0 μm atop the silicon nanowires is achieved with a stencil aperture critical dimension of 2.2 μm, accompanied by a die-level registration accuracy of 1.2 ± 0.3 μm. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition-based silicon nitride stencil membranes as large as 300 × 300 μm2 are used to define the apertures without any membrane fracture during fabrication and membrane cleaning. The pattern-blurring aspect as a resolution-limiting factor is assessed by using 24 individual nanowire devices. Finally, gold-patterned silicon nanowires are functionalized using thiolated heparin and employed for selective attachment and detection of the human recombinant basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2). With the potential involvement in angiogenesis, the process of new blood vessel formation crucial for tumor growth, FGF-2 can serve as a potential prognostic biomarker in oncology. Demonstrated selectively on nanowires with high pattern resolution, the proposed functionalization approach offers possibilities for parallel sensing using vast nanowire arrays embedded in 3D device architectures developed for next-generation biochemical sensors in addition to serving various encapsulation and packaging needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anemia and malnutrition are global health problem among all nutritional disorder with high morbidity and mortality in school aged children. Therefore the aims of the study assist the prevalence and risk factors of anemia, and malnutrition among school-going children of District Swabi Pakistan. A total of 600 school aged children of aged 4-15 years were included in the study in 2023. Hematocrit level was obtained using a centrifuge microhematocrit, and converted to hemoglobin using standard conversion. Nutritional status was determined by the anthropometric measurements, and demographic characteristics were obtained by questionnaire. Anemia and malnutrition were defined according to the World Health Organization standards. In current research work 600 children were selected for the assessment of nutritional status in which 105(17.5%) were found malnutrated. Moderate frequency of assessment were found among anemia 25(23.80%), stunting 22(21%) and underweight 18(17%) respectively. High frequency was found in malnutrition 40(38%) while very low frequency was seen in wasting 2(1.90%). Gender wise assessment of the students shows that the nutritional deficiencies were slightly high in male as compare to female students in comparison of Anemia, Malnutrition, Stunting, and Underweight and in wasting respectively. Aged group wised assessment of the students shows that the nutritional deficiencies were slightly high in low aged student (4-7 years) as compare to 8-11 years and 12-15 years in both gender. Among them Malnutrition were very high leading by Anemia while Underweight and wasting of very low frequency respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to introduce Ciric-Suzuki type quasi-contractive multivalued operators and to obtain the existence of fixed points of such mappings in the framework of b-metric spaces. Some examples are presented to support the results proved herein. We establish a characterization of strong b-metric and b-metric spaces completeness. An asymptotic estimate of a Hausdorff distance between the fixed point sets of two Ciric-Suzuki type quasi-contractive multivalued operators is obtained. As an application of our results, existence and uniqueness of multivalued fractals in the framework of b-metric spaces is proved.

The battery pack is at the heart of electric vehicles, and lithium-ion cells are preferred because of their high power density, long life, high energy density, and viability for usage in relatively high and low temperatures. Lithium-ion batteries are negatively affected by overvoltage, undervoltage, thermal runaway, and cell voltage imbalance. The minimisation of cell imbalance is particularly important because it causes uneven power dissipation by each cell and, hence, temperature distribution that adversely impacts the battery lifetime. Several papers in the literature proposed advanced cell-balancing techniques to increase the effectiveness of basic cell-balancing approaches, reduce power losses, and reduce the number of components in balancing circuits. The new developments and optimisations over the last few years have been particularly intense due to the increased interest in battery technologies for several end-use applications. This paper reviews and discusses recent cell-balancing techniques or methods, covering their operating principles and the optimised utilisation of electrical components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automation of the manufacturing processes of thermoplastic composite laminates has become dependent on open mold processes such as automated tape placement (ATP), which couples tape layering with in situ consolidation. The manufacturing parameters of ATP open mold processes, which comprise processing time, consolidation pressure and temperature, affect the bond strength between the plies and the quality of the laminates produced. Therefore, the effect of the manufacturing parameters should be characterized. This work experimentally evaluates the feasibility of fabricating thermoplastic laminates using an open mold process that reasonably models that of ATP. Glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene laminates are fabricated from unidirectional tapes under different consolidation periods, pressures, and temperatures. The bond quality in the produced laminates is assessed by measuring their interlaminar shear strength, which is measured using a short beam standardized shear test in conjunction with digital image correlation. Results show that consolidation can occur at temperatures slightly below the composite tapes' complete melting temperature, and consolidation times between 7 and 13 min can result in acceptable bond strengths. The results confirmed the feasibility of the process and highlighted its limitations. Analysis of variance and machine learning showed that the effect of process parameters on interlaminar shear strength is nonlinear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To quantitatively identify the transfer paths and evaluate path contributions of shell structures, an singular value decomposition- (SVD-) and principal component analysis- (PCA-) based operational transfer path analysis method is constructed and studied in this paper. Firstly, SVD is used to determine the contribution of each path and reduce crosstalk. Secondly, PCA is applied to reduce the influence of unwanted frequency components and thus reduce noises. This allows the presented OTPA to be more accurate than its traditional counterpart. Once the transmissibility function is obtained, the response synthesis is determined, and the transfer path analysis and path contribution evaluation can be effectively carried out. Numerical and experimental case studies are carried out to validate and test the performance of the presented method. Furthermore, a comprehensive observing the influences of correlation between sources and distance of sources and receiver is also provided. Generally, this paper provides accurate transfer path analysis and path contributions for mechanical systems, which can benefit vibration and noise monitoring and reduction through vibration reduction structure design for new equipment or vibration damping on the major vibration transfer paths for current equipment.