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Shadow, a natural phenomenon resulting from the absence of light, plays a pivotal role in agriculture, particularly in processes such as photosynthesis in plants. Despite the availability of generic shadow datasets, many suffer from annotation errors and lack detailed representations of agricultural shadows with possible human activity inside, excluding those derived from satellite or drone views. In this paper, we present an evaluation of a synthetically generated top-down shadow segmentation dataset characterized by photorealistic rendering and accurate shadow masks. We aim to determine its efficacy compared to real-world datasets and assess how factors such as annotation quality and image domain influence neural network model training. To establish a baseline, we trained numerous baseline architectures and subsequently explored transfer learning using various freely available shadow datasets. We further evaluated the out-of-domain performance compared to the training set of other shadow datasets. Our findings suggest that AgroSegNet demonstrates competitive performance and is effective for transfer learning, particularly in domains similar to agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terahertz(0.1–30 THz) radiation reveals a wealth of information thatis relevant for material, biological, and medical sciences with applicationsthat span chemical sensing, high-speed electronics, and coherent controlof semiconductor quantum bits. To date, there have been no methodscapable of controlling terahertz (THz) radiation at molecular scales.Here we report both generation and detection of broadband terahertzfield from 10 nm scale oxide nanojunctions. Frequency components ofultrafast optical radiation are mixed at these nanojunctions, producingbroadband THz emission. These same devices detect THz electric fieldswith comparable spatial resolution. This unprecedented control, ona scale of 4 orders of magnitude smaller than the diffraction limit,creates a pathway toward THz-bandwidth spectroscopy and control ofindividual nanoparticles and molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic skins (e‐skins), which are mechanically compliant with human skin, are regarded as ideal electronic devices for noninvasive human–machine interaction and wearable devices. In order to fully mimic human skin, e‐skins should possess reliable mechanical properties and be able to resist external environmental factors like heat, cold, desiccation, and bacteria, while perceiving multiple external stimuli, such as temperature, humidity, and strain. Here, a transparent, mechanically robust, environmentally stable, versatile natural skin‐derived organohydrogel (NSD‐Gel) is nanoengineered through the integration of betaine, silver nanoparticles, and sodium chloride in a glycerol/water binary solvent. The transparent NSD‐Gel e‐skin exhibits outstanding tensile strength (7.33 MPa), puncture resistance, moisture retention, self‐regeneration, and antibacterial properties. Additionally, the NSD‐Gel e‐skin possesses enhanced cold/heat resistance and stimuli‐responsive characteristics that effectively sense environmental temperature and humidity changes, as well as physiological human body motion signals. In vitro and in vivo experiments show that the NSD‐Gel e‐skin confers desired biocompatibility and tissue protective properties even in extremely harsh environments (−196 °C to 100 °C). The NSD‐Gel e‐skin has great potential for applications in multidimensional wearable electronic devices, human‐machine interfaces, and artificial intelligence, generating a versatile platform for the development of high‐performance e‐skins with on‐demand properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mechanical durability of superhydrophobic coating relies on not only the matrix robustness of the coating but also the adhesion stability between the coating and its substrate. Mechanically durable superhydrophobic composite coating of poly(ethyl cyanoacrylate)/SiO 2 /polydimethylsiloxane (PECA/SiO 2 /PDMS) was fabricated by pretreating substrate with ethyl cyanoacrylate (ECA) followed by spray-coating composite of PDMS precursors, SiO 2 nanoparticles and ECA monomers. In the coating process, the ECAs were in situ polymerized into PECA as an adhesive in between to bind the upper coating with the substrate and inside the composite to strengthen the coating matrix. The as-obtained PECA/SiO 2 /PDMS coating has strong mechanical stability and excellent superhydrophobicity even after sandpaper abrasion, sand grain impacting, water tumbling over, or acidic/basic solutions corrosion. This adhesive strategy can be applied on all kinds of substrates, providing a facile way to mechanically durable superhydrophobic coatings for expanding the applications. [Display omitted] • A superhydrophobic composite coating of poly(ethyl cyanoacrylate)/SiO2/polydimethylsiloxane was fabricated. • Poly(ethyl cyanoacrylate) as adhesive enhanced both the coating and the interaction between the coating and its substrate. • The composite coating exhibits mechanically durable superhydrophobicity with contact angle up to 163°. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report frictional drag measurements between two superconducting LaAlO3/SrTiO3 nanowires. In these experiments, current passing through one nanowire induces a voltage across a nearby electrically isolated nanowire. The frictional drag signal contains both symmetric and anti-symmetric components. The anti-symmetric component arises from the rectification of quantum shot noise in the drive nanowire by the broken symmetry in the drag nanowire. The symmetric component in the drag resistance is ascribed to rectification of thermal noise in the drive nanowire during superconducting-normal transition. The suppression of the symmetric component is observed when a normal nanowire is used as either a drag or drive nanowire with the other nanowire superconducting. The absence of symmetric drag resistance between a normal drag nanowire and a superconducting drive nanowire suggests a higher electron-hole asymmetry in the superconducting LaAlO3/SrTiO3 nanowire arising from the 1D nature of superconductivity at LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strontium titanate (SrTiO3) is the first and best known superconducting semiconductor. It exhibits an extremely low carrier density threshold for superconductivity, and possesses a phase diagram similar to that of high-temperature superconductors-two factors that suggest an unconventional pairing mechanism. Despite sustained interest for 50 years, direct experimental insight into the nature of electron pairing in SrTiO3 has remained elusive. Here we perform transport experiments with nanowire-based single-electron transistors at the interface between SrTiO3 and a thin layer of lanthanum aluminate, LaAlO3. Electrostatic gating reveals a series of two-electron conductance resonances-paired electron states-that bifurcate above a critical pairing field Bp of about 1-4 tesla, an order of magnitude larger than the superconducting critical magnetic field. For magnetic fields below Bp, these resonances are insensitive to the applied magnetic field; for fields in excess of Bp, the resonances exhibit a linear Zeeman-like energy splitting. Electron pairing is stable at temperatures as high as 900 millikelvin, well above the superconducting transition temperature (about 300 millikelvin). These experiments demonstrate the existence of a robust electronic phase in which electrons pair without forming a superconducting state. Key experimental signatures are captured by a model involving an attractive Hubbard interaction that describes real-space electron pairing as a precursor to superconductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to further enhance the application field of zein-based microcapsule. Zein-based amorphous TiO 2 composite microcapsules (ZTCMs) were innovatively prepared from zein, tetra butyl ortho titanate (TBOT) and PEO 106 PPO 70 PEO 106 (F127) via interface template synthesis. The Effects of TBOT amount on ZTCMs structures and photo-catalytic performances were mainly investigated. Chemical structure and microstructure of the obtained composite microcapsules were characterized mainly by fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS). The results show ZTCMs exhibited evident hollow structure with titanium dioxide (TiO 2) wrapped in the outer layer. The average size of ZTCMs 300 was approximately 4 µm, which increased as the increase of TBOT dosage. Significantly, ZTCMs showed excellent photo-catalytic ability on dyes, red wine and coffee alike. The degradation rate of Rhodamine B (RB) was more than 80% after irradiation for 5 h under sunlight. This study provides a facile method to fabricate natural-based photo-catalytic material, which will be a good candidate in many fields such as medicine, food packaging, leather and textile. In this study, amorphous TiO 2 -coated zein microcapsules (ZTCMs) were made by interface template synthesis to improve the utilization of zein and the specific surface area of amorphous TiO 2. The obtained ZTCMs can further enhance the photo-catalytic performance of TiO 2 and expand the application ranges of zein. Meanwhile, the composite microcapsules have application prospects in the food and chemical industries. [Display omitted] • Zein was employed to fabricate stable microcapsules ascribe to its self-assembly properties. • The interface template synthesis was adopted to fabricate composite microcapsules. • The microcapsules own double-shell structure and excellent photo-catalytic performance. • The microcapsules possess a reasonable photo-degradation efficiency after three cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]