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In this work, single crystalline $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ nanoflakes (NFs) are formed in a highly dense array by Au seeding of a Fe substrate by a thermal oxidation technique. The NFs are conformally decorated with a thin FeOOH cocatalyst layer. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) measurements show that this photoanode with the $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$/FeOOH NFs rooted on the Au/Fe structure exhibits a significantly enhanced PEC water oxidation performance compared to the plain $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ nanostructure on the Fe substrate. The $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$/FeOOH NFs on Au/Fe photoanode yields a photocurrent density of 3.1 mA cm-2 at 1.5 VRHE, and a remarkably low onset potential of 0.5-0.6 VRHE in 1 M KOH under AM 1.5G (100 mW cm-2) simulated sunlight illumination. The enhancement in PEC performance can be attributed to a synergistic effect of the FeOOH top decoration and Au under-layer. While FeOOH facilitates hole transfer at the interface of electrode/electrolyte, the Au layer provides a sink for the electron transport to the back contact: this leads overall to a drastically improved charge-separation efficiency in the single crystalline $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ NF photoanode.

In this work, we report on the electrochemical behavior of nitrided spaced TiO$_2$ nanotubes conformally coated with a nanocrystalline Nb$_2$O$_5$ layer and find for these hierarchical structures an excellent supercapacitor performance. Highly aligned conductive 1D electrodes were obtained by a three step process: i) growth of self-organized nanotubes with defined and adjustable intertube spacing, ii) conformal Nb$_2$O$_5$ decoration in the tube interspace (while providing full electrolyte access to the entire active area), and iii) high temperature nitridation. Key is the growth of a nanotube array with regular tube-to-tube interspacing that enables an optimized decoration with secondary materials such as Nb$_2$O$_5$. We observe an increase in electrode capacitance from 158 $\mu$F cm-2 for bare TiO$_2$ NTs, to 1536 $\mu$F cm-2 for TiO$_2$/Nb$_2$O$_5$ NTs, to finally 37 mF cm-2 for Nb$_2$O$_5$ decorated and then nitrided nanotubes. This drastic increase can be ascribed firstly to the defined spacing established between the tube arrays that then allows for a conformal coating with a secondary active coating. Secondly, nitridation causes a drastic increase of the electron conductivity of the entire scaffold and thus reduces resistive losses.

Self-standing TiO$_2$ nanotube layers in the form of membranes are fabricated by self-organizing anodization of Ti metal and a potential shock technique. The membranes were then decorated by sputtering different Pt amounts i) only at the top, ii) only at the bottom or iii) at both top and bottom of the tube layers. The Pt-decorated membranes are transferred either in tube top up or in tube top down configuration onto FTO slides and investigated after crystallization as photocatalysts for H$_2$ generation using either front or back-side light irradiation. Double-side Pt-decoration of the tube membranes leads to higher H$_2$ generation rates (independent of tube and light irradiation configuration) compared to membranes decorated at only one side with similar overall Pt amounts. The results suggest that this effect is not ascribed to the overall amount of Pt cocatalyst as such but rather to its distribution at both tube extremities. This leads to optimized light absorption and electron diffusion/transfer dynamics: the central part of the membranes act as light harvesting zone and electrons therein generated can diffuse towards the Pt/TiO$_2$ active zones (tube extremities) where they can react with the environment and generate H$_2$ gas.

In the present work, we investigate two distinctly different anodic TiO2 nanotubular morphologies, spaced and close-packed arrays. While the close-packed tubular arrays are formed in ethylene glycol, spaced NTs, which have a regular gap between individual nanotubes, grow in a diethylene glycol or dimethyl sulfoxide based electrolyte. Depending on the electrolyte used for anodization, the morphology, crystal structure and chemical composition of the resulting nanotubular layer vary from one another. This influences the electrochemical and photoelectrochemical activity of nanotubes. Overall, we find that spaced NTs not only can provide enhanced charge transfer characteristics but also can show beneficial light absorption characteristics when used as a photo or light harvesting electrode.

The Taiwan high-speed rail (HSR) markedly reduces the travel time from the north of Taiwan to the south, or vice versa, relative to other modes of public overland transportation. The HSR is faster than those modes, but also more expensive to ride. The pricing of HSR tickets has gained limited public acceptance because it lacks justification, indicating the need for a theoretical method for objectively justifying the ticket prices. With continuing improvements in data analytics, the computational capacity of computers, and visualization techniques, constructing a time–space model of a long-distance transportation system has become increasingly feasible, and such a model can be used to examine the time–space compression of the HSR. The first part of this investigation uses multidimensional scaling to obtain fitting coordinates based on travel times for various combinations of departure/destination HSR stations, and a geographic information system to generate time–space maps of the relative locations of those stations. Through these maps, we can directly estimate the traveling time between pairs of stations. The second part constructs a floating ticket-pricing model that accounts for the riding costs of the HSR. The model's power to explain the prices of HSR tickets is evaluated. Based on the analytical results, suggestions to the current HSR ticket fare were proposed to set the feasible rate concerning the operating, passenger-perceived, and time-space compression costs. Recommendations for future research are made.

The main goal of the analysis of microbial ecology is to understand the relationship between Earth&rsquo, s microbial community and their functions in the environment. This paper presents a proof-of-concept research to develop a bioclimatic modeling approach that leverages artificial intelligence techniques to identify the microbial species in a river as a function of physicochemical parameters. Feature reduction and selection are both utilized in the data preprocessing owing to the scarce of available data points collected and missing values of physicochemical attributes from a river in Southeast China. A bio-inspired metaheuristic optimized machine learner, which supports the adjustment to the multiple-output prediction form, is used in bioclimatic modeling. The accuracy of prediction and applicability of the model can help microbiologists and ecologists in quantifying the predicted microbial species for further experimental planning with minimal expenditure, which is become one of the most serious issues when facing dramatic changes of environmental conditions caused by global warming. This work demonstrates a neoteric approach for potential use in predicting preliminary microbial structures in the environment.

Fe2O3 polyhedrons are one of the most promising morphologies for photoelectrochemical water splitting. In spite of recent reports on the successful synthesis of various Fe2O3 polyhedrons, the fabrication of defined photoelectrodes by anchoring the polyhedron in a suitable configuration remains a great challenge. Herein, we introduce a synthetic strategy to prepare Fe2O3 dodecahedrons with high-index {112} facets directly anchored on a one dimensional Fe2O3 nanoflake ({110} facets) electrode. Key is that the Fe2O3 nanoflakes act as seeds for the initiation of the growth of dodecahedral nanocrystals from an iron nitrate solution. The initial single crystals consist of Fe3O4 with exposed {110} basal surfaces that then in a thermal step can be converted to hematite with {112} facets. The resulting single crystal (bi-crystal) hematite photoanode demonstrates a high efficiency for solar water splitting with an excellent photoresponse due to the synergistic effects of direct grafting of the light harvesting and reactive polyhedron and the 1D transport geometry. Under optimized conditions the hematite polyhedrons on nanoflake-structure show photocurrent densities of 2.4 mA cm−2 at 1.23 VRHE and 3.5 mA cm−2 at 1.5 VRHE under AM 1.5 G simulated sunlight.

With a large-scale usage of portable electric appliances, a high demand for increasingly high density energy storage devices has emerged. MoO3 has, in principle, a large potential as negative electrode material in supercapacitive devices, due to high charge densities that can be obtained from its reversible redox reactions. Nevertheless, the extremely poor electrochemical stability of MoO3 in aqueous electrolytes prevents a practical use in high capacitance devices. In this work, we describe how to overcome this severe stability issue by forming amorphous molybdenum oxide/tantalum oxide nanotubes by anodic oxidation of a Mo-Ta alloy. The presence of a critical amount of Ta-oxide (> 20 at-%) prevents the electrochemical decay of the MoO3 phase and thus yields an extremely high stability. Due to the protection provided by tantalum oxide, no capacitance losses are measureable after 10000 charg-ing/discharging cycles.

Despite many years of research, object tracking remains a challenging problem, not only because of the variety of object appearances, but also because of the complexity of surrounding environments. In this research, we present an algorithm for single object tracking using a particle filter framework and color histograms. Particle filters are iterative algorithms that perform predictions in each iteration using particles, which are samples drawn from a statistical distribution. Color histograms are embedded in these particles, and the distances between histograms are used to measure likelihood between targets and observations. One downside of color histograms is that they ignore spatial information, which may produce tracking failure when objects appear that are similar in color. To overcome this disadvantage, we propose a saliency-based weighting scheme for histogram calculation. Given an image region, first its saliency map is generated. Next, its histogram is calculated based on the generated saliency map. Pixels located in salient regions have higher weights than those in others, which helps preserve the spatial information. Experimental results showed the efficiency of the proposed appearance model in object tracking under various conditions.

Au and Pt do not form homogeneous bulk alloys as they are thermodynamically not miscible. However, we show that anodic TiO2 nanotubes (NTs) can in situ be uniformly decorated with homogeneous AuPt alloy nanoparticles (NPs) during their anodic growth. For this, a metallic Ti substrate containing low amounts of dissolved Au (0.1 atom %) and Pt (0.1 atom %) is used for anodizing. The matrix metal (Ti) is converted to oxide, whereas at the oxide/metal interface direct noble metal particle formation and alloying of Au and Pt takes place; continuously these particles are then picked up by the growing nanotube wall. In our experiments, the AuPt alloy NPs have an average size of 4.2 nm, and at the end of the anodic process, these are regularly dispersed over the TiO2 nanotubes. These alloyed AuPt particles act as excellent co-catalyst in photocatalytic H2 generation, with a H2 production rate of 12.04 μL h–1 under solar light. This represents a strongly enhanced activity as compared to TiO2 NTs decorated with mon...

The fiber-reinforcement of soil is an effective and reliable ground improvement technique for increasing the strength and stability of soil for various purposes (including retaining structures, embankments, foundations, slopes and pavements). Numerous scholars have developed methods to identify factors that influence the shear strength and to predict the peak friction angle of fiber-reinforced soil (FRS). The accuracy of theoretical and empirical models for predicting the shear strength (peak friction angle) of FRS is questionable because of the difficulty of using these simplified models to describe the complex mechanism of soil-fiber interaction. Solutions to this problem require ever-increasing predictive accuracy, and ML-based methods have been confirmed to provide potential solutions to real-world engineering problems. Therefore, this study develops weighted-feature least squares support vector regression (WFLSSVR) that is optimized by a novel metaheuristic algorithm, jellyfish search (JS) algorithm, to predict the peak friction angle of FRS. Analytical results demonstrate that JS-WFLSSVR outperforms baseline, ensemble, and hybrid machine learning models as well as empirical methods in literature. Notably, analysis of the weight values that were obtained by JS-WFLSSVR enables the identification of new feature combinations that provide much higher accuracy than current models. Therefore, the JS-WFLSSVR model not only significantly provides better predictive accuracy than methods in the literature; it is also a good feature selection method, and can help geotechnical engineers in estimating the shear strength of FRS. Geotechnical engineers can use the proposed model to predict the shear strength and control the quality of FRS structures.

This paper analyzes the zero-voltage switching (ZVS) for all switches in a high-voltage-gain bidirectional DC–DC converter in triangular conduction mode (TCM) operation without any auxiliary components. From the ZVS condition, the reverse inductor current can be derived, and the required dead-time duration between the main switches and SR switches can be determined, which leads to a reduction in the duty cycle loss. Moreover, the relationship between switching frequency and load in TCM operation can be determined, which helps to reduce the peak-to-peak inductor current and reduce the conduction loss at light load. An experimental prototype of a high-voltage-gain bidirectional DC–DC converter is implemented with a maximum output power of 48 W. The result shows the peak efficiency of 97% and 96.8% in the forward and reverse directions, respectively.

In this article, a sliding mode control (SMC) is proposed to deal with the frequency deviation problem in interconnected time-delay power systems (ITDPS) with two source power generations. First, the proportional and integral switching surface is used for each area to guarantee the frequency deviation reach zero in normal operating conditions. Then, the stability of the system is ensured with a new Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) via Lyapunov stability theory. In addition, the SMC law is designed to guarantee the finite time eachability of the system. Finally, impacts of certain physical constraints affecting dynamic performance of the power network such as time-delay is proposed to consider the signal delay in the controller. Effectiveness of the suggested method is validated by simulation studies on the load frequency control under time-delays in the two-area, the step load disturbance and the mismatched uncertainty.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.

Defect detection is one of the most important tasks and a challenging problem for industrial quality control. Among the available visual inspection techniques, automatic thresholding is a commonly used approach for defect detection because of the simplicity in terms of its implementation and computing. In this paper, we propose an automatic thresholding technique, which is an improvement in Otsu’s method, using an entropy weighting scheme. The proposed method enables the detection of extremely small defect regions compared to the product surface area. Experimental results confirm the efficiency of the proposed system over other techniques.

The efficiency of photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting of semiconductors is mainly restricted by the sluggish kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction dominated by photogenerated holes. Herein, we demonstrate that with the assistance of photon-induced surface plasmon resonance excitation of Au nanoparticles, the iron oxyhydroxides (FeOOH) cocatalysts could serve as a unique “hole-depletion” layer for significantly promoting the PEC performance of single crystalline α-Fe2O3 photoanodes. The photogenerated holes can be efficiently extracted from α-Fe2O3 nanoflake to FeOOH layer, and promptly depleted by the injected hot-electrons from Au nanoparticles, while the hot-holes left behind on Au participate in the oxygen evolution reaction. Accordingly, the synergy of charge separation and hole transfer could be efficiently improved by the surface plasmon excitation on Au nanoparticles. As a result, the photocurrent density for the Fe2O3/FeOOH/Au photoelectrode without additional doping reaches up to 3.2 mA cm−2 at 1.23 VRHE, and 6.5 mA cm−2 at 1.6 VRHE, with a low onset potential of 0.6 VRHE under AM 1.5 G simulated sunlight, which is 2.5 and 5 times higher than for FeOOH modified and pristine α-Fe2O3 photoanodes, respectively. These results thus provide the basic of a new concept and strategy toward the design of more efficient PEC water splitting systems.

In the present work, we introduce a technique to achieve rapid growth of self-ordered anodic nanotubes with a well-defined tube-to-tube spacing (spaced tubes) and single-wall morphology. By optimizing the anodization conditions (electrolyte, temperature, etc.), the growth rate of spaced tubes can be ≈25 times faster than in conventional approaches while maintaining a tube-to-tube spacing of ≈100 nm. We show that the origin of the tube-to-tube spacing is self-ordering of nanotubes on two different scales – the primary large tubes are embedded in a matrix of secondary, very short nanotubes with a small diameter. Preferential etching of the small tubes during anodic growth leaves behind an ordered array of spaced individual tubes with a well-defined tube-to-tube spacing. Keywords: Anodization, TiO2 nanotubes, Two-size scale, Fast-growth, DMSO

International audience; In this study, we have investigated the use of silver cation as nucleating agent in germanotellurite glass matrix of compositions (100−x) [70TeO2–10GeO2–10Nb2O5–10K2O]–xAg2O (x=0-6 mol%), in order to promote bulk crystallization. Density measurements, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction, UV-Vis, and Raman spectroscopies have been performed to study the crystallization process. We have observed bulk crystallization of a unique noncentrosymmetric phase, K[Nb1/3Te2/3]2O4.8, which has been investigated for its second-order optical activity. Transparent to translucent glass-ceramics have been successfully tailored under thermal treatment and second harmonic generation signals were recorded on the glass-ceramic samples as a function of their synthesis procedure. It is suggested that the second-order optical properties observed are strongly related to the organization of crystallites within phase-separated domains.

We report on free-standing Ta3N5 nanotubular membranes with open top and bottom, used as visible-light-active, flow-through photocatalytic micro-reactors. We grow first a robust anodic Ta2O5 layer, lift-off a membrane and convert to Ta3N5. Such membranes can easily, in a flow-through mode, degrade methylene blue under visible light (wavelength >400 nm) or solar illumination.

In this study, we investigated some factors effected on GABA stimulation under hypoxia-anaerobic condition and evaluated the loss rate of GABA amount after boiling and drying. These factors include pH soaking water, temperature and time germination. We also carried out the germinated optimization based on above factors. The results showed the optimal conditions included: temperature was 36.6oC, time was 14.5 hours and pH was 5.83. The highest GABA was 1638.67ppm and higher 27.55 times than raw material. Seeds (after germinating) were boiled at 80oC in 15 minutes and dried at 50oC in 3 hours. Finally, we ground it to recover the germinated mung bean powder which moisture content was 6.13% and GABA content was 273.76ppm - 4.6 times higher than the raw powder.

'Black' TiO2 -in the widest sense, TiO2 reduced by various treatments-has attracted tremendous scientific interest in recent years because of some outstanding properties; most remarkably in photocatalysis. While the material effects visible light absorption (the blacker, the better), black titania produced by high pressure hydrogenation was recently reported to show another highly interesting feature; noble-metal-free photocatalytic H2 generation. In a systematic investigation of high-temperature hydrogen treatments of anatase nanoparticles, TEM, XRD, EPR, XPS, and photoelectrochemistry are used to characterize different degrees of surface hydrogenation, surface termination, electrical conductivity, and structural defects in the differently treated materials. The materials' intrinsic activity for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution is coupled neither with their visible light absorption behavior nor the formation of amorphous material, but rather must be ascribed to optimized and specific defect formation (gray is better than black). This finding is further confirmed by using a mesoporous anatase matrix as a hydrogenation precursor, which, after conversion to the gray state, even further enhances the overall photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity.

Ideally ordered anodic porous TiO2 was fabricated by anodizing an Al/Ti layered specimen. A two-layered specimen composed of an Al top layer and a Ti underlying layer was prepared and then processed by nanoimprinting. The Al top layer was easily pretextured by nanoimprinting owing to its softness and it was straightforward to introduce an ideally ordered pore arrangement by anodization. This pore arrangement was transferred to the underlying Ti layer, resulting in ideally ordered porous structures in TiO2. This process can be applied to the high-throughput fabrication of ideally ordered anodic porous oxides other than TiO2 and also to other metals with high hardness. Keywords: Porous TiO2, Anodization, Imprinting process

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising method for the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy stored in the form of hydrogen. Nanostructured hematite (α‐Fe2O3) is one of the most attractive materials for a highly efficient charge carrier generation and collection due to its large specific surface area and the short minority carrier diffusion length. In the present work, the PEC water splitting performance of nanostructured α‐Fe2O3 is investigated which was prepared by anodization followed by annealing in a low oxygen ambient (0.03 % O2 in Ar). It was found that low oxygen annealing can activate a significant PEC response of α‐Fe2O3 even at a low temperature of 400 °C and provide an excellent PEC performance compared with classic air annealing. The photocurrent of the α‐Fe2O3 annealed in the low oxygen at 1.5 V vs. RHE results as 0.5 mA cm−2, being 20 times higher than that of annealing in air. The obtained results show that the α‐Fe2O3 annealed in low oxygen contains beneficial defects and promotes the transport of holes; it can be attributed to the improvement of conductivity due to the introduction of suitable oxygen vacancies in the α‐Fe2O3. Additionally, we demonstrate the photocurrent of α‐Fe2O3 annealed in low oxygen ambient can be further enhanced by Zn‐Co LDH, which is a co‐catalyst of oxygen evolution reaction. This indicates low oxygen annealing generates a promising method to obtain an excellent PEC water splitting performance from α‐Fe2O3 photoanodes., Low oxygen annealing can activate a significant photoelectrochemical response of α‐Fe2O3 even at a low temperature of 400 °C and provide an excellent PEC performance compared with classic air annealing. The α‐Fe2O3 annealed in low oxygen ambient contains beneficial defects and promotes the transport of photogenerated holes; it can be attributed to the introduction of suitable oxygen vacancies in the α‐Fe2O3.

Hollow titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotubes offer substantially higher drug loading capacity and slower drug release kinetics compared to solid drug nanocarriers of comparable size. In this report, we load TiO2 nanotubes with iron oxide nanoparticles to facilitate site-specific magnetic guidance and drug delivery. We generate magnetic TiO2 nanotubes (TiO2NTs) by incorporating a ferrofluid containing Ø ≈ 10 nm iron oxide nanoparticles in planar sheets of weakly connected TiO2 nanotubes. After thermal annealing, the magnetic tubular arrays are loaded with therapeutic drugs and then sonicated to separate the nanotubes. We demonstrate that magnetic TiO2NTs are non-toxic for HeLa cells at therapeutic concentrations (≤200 µg/mL). Adhesion and endocytosis of magnetic nanotubes to a layer of HeLa cells are increased in the presence of a magnetic gradient field. As a proof-of-concept, we load the nanotubes with the topoisomerase inhibitor camptothecin and achieve a 90% killing efficiency. We also load the nanotubes with oligonucleotides for cell transfection and achieve 100% cellular uptake efficiency. Our results demonstrate the potential of magnetic TiO2NTs for a wide range of biomedical applications, including site-specific delivery of therapeutic drugs.

Recently, sodium ion batteries (SIBs) have been widely investigated as one of the most promising candidates for replacing lithium ion batteries (LIBs). For SIBs or LIBs, designing a stable and uniform solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) at the electrode–electrolyte interface is the key factor to provide high capacity, long-term cycling, and high-rate performance. In this paper, it is described how a remarkably enhanced SEI layer can be obtained on TiO2 nanotube (TiO2 NTs) arrays that allows for a strongly improved performance of sodium battery systems. Key is that a Li+ pre-insertion in TiO2 NTs can condition the SEI for Na+ replacement. SIBs constructed with Li-pre-inserted NTs deliver an exceptional Na+ cycling stability (e.g., 99.9 ± 0.1% capacity retention during 250 cycles at a current rate of 50 mA g−1) and an excellent rate capability (e.g., 132 mA h g−1 at a current rate of 1 A g−1). The key factor in this outstanding performance is that Li-pre-insertion into TiO2 NTs leads not only to an enhanced electronic conductivity in the tubes, but also expands the anatase lattice for facilitated subsequent Na+ cycling.

Solutions that simulate hydrometallurgical base metal process streams with high nickel (Ni) and minor platinum (Pt) concentrations were used to create Pt/Ni nanoparticles on TiO2 nanotube surfaces. For this, electrochemical deposition – redox replacement (EDRR) was used that also allowed to control the nanoparticle size, density and Pt/Ni content of the deposited nanoparticles The Pt/Ni nanoparticle decorated titanium dioxide nanotubes (TiO2 nanotubes) become strongly activated for photocatalytic hydrogen (H2) evolution. Moreover, EDRR facilitates nanoparticle formation without the need for any additional chemicals and is more effective than electrodeposition alone. Actually, a 10,000-time enrichment level of Pt took place on the TiO2 surface when compared to Pt content in the solution with the EDRR method. The results show that hydrometallurgical streams offer great potential as an alternative raw material source for industrial catalyst production when coupled with redox replacement electrochemistry.

This study develops a novel metaheuristic algorithm that is motivated by the behavior of jellyfish in the ocean and is called artificial Jellyfish Search (JS) optimizer. The simulation of the search behavior of jellyfish involves their following the ocean current, their motions inside a jellyfish swarm (active motions and passive motions), a time control mechanism for switching among these movements, and their convergences into jellyfish bloom. JS optimizer is tested using a comprehensive set of mathematical benchmark functions and applied to a series of structural engineering problems. Fifty small/average-scale and twenty-five large-scale functions involving various dimensions were used to validate JS optimizer, which was compared with ten well-known metaheuristic algorithms. JS optimizer was found to outperform those algorithms in solving mathematical benchmark functions. The JS algorithm was then used to solve structural optimization problems, including 25-bar tower design, 52-bar tower design and 582-bar tower design problems. In those cases, JS not only performed best but also required the fewest evaluations of objective functions. Therefore, JS is potentially an excellent metaheuristic algorithm for solving optimization problems.

Feature extraction and emotional classification are significant roles in speech emotion recognition. It is hard to extract and select the optimal features, researchers can not be sure what the features should be. With deep learning approaches, features could be extracted by using hierarchical abstraction layers, but it requires high computational resources and a large number of data. In this article, we choose static, differential, and acceleration coefficients of log Mel-spectrogram as inputs for the deep learning model. To avoid performance degradation, we also add a skip connection with dilated convolution network integration. All representatives are fed into a self-attention mechanism with bidirectional recurrent neural networks to learn long term global features and exploit context for each time step. Finally, we investigate contrastive center loss with softmax loss as loss function to improve the accuracy of emotion recognition. For validating robustness and effectiveness, we tested the proposed method on the Emo-DB and ERC2019 datasets. Experimental results show that the performance of the proposed method is strongly comparable with the existing state-of-the-art methods on the Emo-DB and ERC2019 with 88% and 67%, respectively. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.

Nanoscale titanium nitride TiN is a metallic material that can effectively harvest sunlight over a broad spectral range and produce high local temperatures via the photothermal effect. Nanoscale indium oxide-hydroxide, In2 O3- x (OH)y , is a semiconducting material capable of photocatalyzing the hydrogenation of gaseous CO2 ; however, its wide electronic bandgap limits its absorption of photons to the ultraviolet region of the solar spectrum. Herein, the benefits of both nanomaterials in a ternary heterostructure: TiN@TiO2 @In2 O3- x (OH)y are combined. This heterostructured material synergistically couples the metallic TiN and semiconducting In2 O3- x (OH)y phases via an interfacial semiconducting TiO2 layer, allowing it to drive the light-assisted reverse water gas shift reaction at a conversion rate greatly surpassing that of its individual components or any binary combinations thereof.

We report on how to grow and control self-organized TiO2 nanotube arrays that show defined and regular gaps between individual nanotubes. For this we use electrochemical anodization of titanium in fluoride containing di-ethylene glycol (DEG) electrolytes, with variations in voltage and water content in the electrolyte. In these specific electrolytes, such nanotubes show a true spacing, i.e. nanotubes are spaced both at top and at bottom in regular intervals, this in contrast to classic nanotubes obtained in other organic electrolytes showing a close-packed organization. We identify critical parameters that define the “region of existence” i.e. under which condition tube spacing occurs as well as the intertube distance, to be the voltage and the water content. Using these findings allows to grow tubes where diameter and spacing can even be independently controlled. Keyword: Spaced TiO2 nanotubes, Anodization, TiO2 arrays