This study explores how zirconia additive interacts with MgH_(2)to improve its hydrogen storage performance.Initially it is confirmed that the zirconia added MgH_(2)powder releases hydrogen at a temperature of about 5...This study explores how zirconia additive interacts with MgH_(2)to improve its hydrogen storage performance.Initially it is confirmed that the zirconia added MgH_(2)powder releases hydrogen at a temperature of about 50℃below that of the additive free MgH_(2).Subsequent tests by X ray diffraction(XRD)and infrared(IR)spectroscopy techniques reveal that the ZrO_(2) mixed MgH_(2)powder contains ZrHx(2<x>1.5)and MgO secondary phases.This observation is supported by the negative Gibbs free energy values obtained for the formation of ZrH_(2)/MgO from ZrO_(2)/MgH_(2)powder samples.An X ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)study reveals that apart from Zr^(4+)cations,Zr^(2+) and zero valent Zr exist in the powder.Atomic force microscopy(AFM)study reveals that the average grain size is 20 nm and the elemental line scan profiles further proves the existence of oxygen deficient Zr bearing phase(s).This study strengthens the belief that functional metal oxide additives in fact chemically interact with MgH_(2)to make active in-situ catalysts in the MgH_(2)system.展开更多
This paper conducts a scientometric analysis and systematic literature review to identify the trends in microfinance outcomes from the perspective of their recipients,specifically more vulnerable people,while also foc...This paper conducts a scientometric analysis and systematic literature review to identify the trends in microfinance outcomes from the perspective of their recipients,specifically more vulnerable people,while also focusing on the demand side.Applying the keywords“co-occurrence networks”and“citation networks,”we examined 524 studies indexed on the ISI Web of Science database between 2012 and March 2021.The subsequent content analysis of bibliometric-coupled articles concerns the main research topics in this field:the socioeconomic outcomes of microfinance,the dichotomy between social performance and the mission drift of microfinance institutions,and how entrepreneurship and financial innovation,specifically through crowdfunding,mitigate poverty and empower the more vulnerable.The findings reinforce the idea that microfinance constitutes a distinct field of development thinking,and indicate that a more holistic approach should be adopted to boost microfinance outcomes through a better understanding of their beneficiaries.The trends in this field will help policymakers,regulators,and academics to examine the nuts and bolts of microfinance and identify the most relevant areas of intervention.展开更多
Particulate matter(PM_(2.5))samples were collected in the vicinity of an industrial chemical pole and analysed for organic and elemental carbon(OC and EC),47 trace elements and around 150 organic constituents.On avera...Particulate matter(PM_(2.5))samples were collected in the vicinity of an industrial chemical pole and analysed for organic and elemental carbon(OC and EC),47 trace elements and around 150 organic constituents.On average,OC and EC accounted for 25.2% and 11.4% of the PM_(2.5) mass,respectively.Organic compounds comprised polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs),alkylated PAHs,anhydrosugars,phenolics,aromatic ketones,glycerol derivatives,aliphatic alcohols,sterols,and carboxyl groups,including aromatic,carboxylic and dicarboxylic acids.Enrichment factors>100 were obtained for Pb,Cd,Zn,Cu,Sn,B,Se,Bi,Sb and Mo,showing the contribution of industrial emissions and nearby major roads.Principal component analysis revealed that vehicle,industrial and biomass burning emissions accounted for 66%,11% and 9%,respectively,of the total PM_(2.5)-bound PAHs.Some of the detected organic constituents are likely associated with plasticiser ingredients and thermal stabilisers used in the manufacture of PVC and other plastics in the industrial complex.Photooxidation products of both anthropogenic(e.g.,toluene)and biogenic(e.g.,isoprene and pinenes)precursors were also observed.It was estimated that biomass burning accounted for 13.8%of the PM_(2.5) concentrations and that secondary OC represented 37.6% of the total OC.The lifetime cancer risk from inhalation exposure to PM_(2.5)-bound PAHs was found to be negligible,but it exceeded the threshold of 10−6 for metal(loi)s,mainly due to Cr and As.展开更多
Tremor is a manifestation of a variety of human neurodegenerative diseases, notably Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Essential Tremor (ET), both affecting millions worldwide. PD is primarily caused by a progressive loss ...Tremor is a manifestation of a variety of human neurodegenerative diseases, notably Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Essential Tremor (ET), both affecting millions worldwide. PD is primarily caused by a progressive loss of dopamine neurons in the nigrostriatal system that leads to widespread motor symptoms such as bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor and postural instability. ET typically involves a tremor of the arms, hands or fingers. No definitive test or biomarker is yet available for PD or ET, so the rate of misdiagnosis is relatively high. As tremor is a very common feature at the onset of both diseases, it is crucial to be able to characterize it. This is made possible using acce?lerometers to quantify the tremor amplitude and frequency. In this work we aim to find tasks involving upper limb movements that are suitable to modulate both types of tremor. Four tasks were tested, differing on whether the arms moved together or alternatingly and whether loads were added. Significant differences in tremor measures were found when patients were asked to perform simultaneous rapid arms movements with loads placed on their wrists. These results may allow the design of an efficient fMRI protocol for identifying the cortical circuits responsible for the modulation of tremor.展开更多
Medical image segmentation plays an important role in clinical diagnosis,quantitative analysis,and treatment process.Since 2015,U-Net-based approaches have been widely used formedical image segmentation.The purpose of...Medical image segmentation plays an important role in clinical diagnosis,quantitative analysis,and treatment process.Since 2015,U-Net-based approaches have been widely used formedical image segmentation.The purpose of the U-Net expansive path is to map low-resolution encoder feature maps to full input resolution feature maps.However,the consecutive deconvolution and convolutional operations in the expansive path lead to the loss of some high-level information.More high-level information can make the segmentationmore accurate.In this paper,we propose MU-Net,a novel,multi-path upsampling convolution network to retain more high-level information.The MU-Net mainly consists of three parts:contracting path,skip connection,and multi-expansive paths.The proposed MU-Net architecture is evaluated based on three different medical imaging datasets.Our experiments show that MU-Net improves the segmentation performance of U-Net-based methods on different datasets.At the same time,the computational efficiency is significantly improved by reducing the number of parameters by more than half.展开更多
Latent information is difficult to get from the text in speech synthesis.Studies show that features from speech can get more information to help text encoding.In the field of speech encoding,a lot of work has been con...Latent information is difficult to get from the text in speech synthesis.Studies show that features from speech can get more information to help text encoding.In the field of speech encoding,a lot of work has been conducted on two aspects.The first aspect is to encode speech frame by frame.The second aspect is to encode the whole speech to a vector.But the scale in these aspects is fixed.So,encoding speech with an adjustable scale for more latent information is worthy of investigation.But current alignment approaches only support frame-by-frame encoding and speech-to-vector encoding.It remains a challenge to propose a new alignment approach to support adjustable scale speech encoding.This paper presents the dynamic speech encoder with a new alignment approach in conjunction with frame-by-frame encoding and speech-to-vector encoding.The speech feature fromourmodel achieves three functions.First,the speech feature can reconstruct the origin speech while the length of the speech feature is equal to the text length.Second,our model can get text embedding fromspeech,and the encoded speech feature is similar to the text embedding result.Finally,it can transfer the style of synthesis speech and make it more similar to the given reference speech.展开更多
Smart trains and railways are gaining increasing significance in major global cities as they offer solutions to issues like traffic congestion and environmental pollution.Technological advancements have facilitated th...Smart trains and railways are gaining increasing significance in major global cities as they offer solutions to issues like traffic congestion and environmental pollution.Technological advancements have facilitated the transition from conventional systems to more advanced,highly efficient,and personalized railway systems.However,the complexity of these systems presents challenges,especially in terms of reliability,interoperability security,and privacy.With the potential vulnerability of railway systems to cyberattacks,it becomes crucial for these emerging smart systems to establish stringent privacy and security requirements.Cybersecurity is a key requirement to enable railways to deploy and take advantage of the full extent of a connected,digital environment.This research explores the cybersecurity landscape within Smart Railways aiming to identify potential threats and associated risks on these systems,focusing on analyzing the current literature related to Smart Railways and cybersecurity aspects,then listing key technologies used by smart systems,and finally proposing an illustration of use cases application to call attention to the impact of attacks,providing then as a set of good practices that must be followed to reduce risks and to the safeguard the operability for Rail Transportation.The research findings suggest that over the last few years,there has been a significant increase in research activity in this area,indicating a growing recognition of the importance of cybersecurity in the railway industry.The results also pointed out several gaps related to this topic,namely the lack of standardization in cybersecurity practices and limited consideration of human factors that can impact cybersecurity.展开更多
Olive oil is a nutritionally and economically valuable product whose global production has steadily increased,alongside the generation of large volumes of solid and liquid waste.Olive oil mill wastewater and solid res...Olive oil is a nutritionally and economically valuable product whose global production has steadily increased,alongside the generation of large volumes of solid and liquid waste.Olive oil mill wastewater and solid residues such as olive pomace and olive stones have become ma-jor environmental concerns due to their high pollutant load.At the same time,these byproducts offer an opportunity:their valorization as low-cost,sustainable adsorbents for water treatment.Addressing this dual environmental challenge,this review provides a comprehensive and sys-tematized synthesis of the current state of research on the use of olive oil production residues for water decontamination via adsorption.Specifically,the study maps the types of byproducts used,their target pollutants,removal efficiencies,and adsorption capacities.Unlike previous re-views,this work emphasizes studies that apply raw or minimally processed residues,as well as experiments conducted with real wastewater or under environmentally relevant conditions.The data are presented in a structured and comparative format,highlighting promising results and underexplored combinations.By identifying trends,gaps,and practical applications,this review contributes to advancing the development of circular economy-based,eco-friendly solutions for water pollution control and provides a valuable resource for future research and implementation.展开更多
文摘This study explores how zirconia additive interacts with MgH_(2)to improve its hydrogen storage performance.Initially it is confirmed that the zirconia added MgH_(2)powder releases hydrogen at a temperature of about 50℃below that of the additive free MgH_(2).Subsequent tests by X ray diffraction(XRD)and infrared(IR)spectroscopy techniques reveal that the ZrO_(2) mixed MgH_(2)powder contains ZrHx(2<x>1.5)and MgO secondary phases.This observation is supported by the negative Gibbs free energy values obtained for the formation of ZrH_(2)/MgO from ZrO_(2)/MgH_(2)powder samples.An X ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)study reveals that apart from Zr^(4+)cations,Zr^(2+) and zero valent Zr exist in the powder.Atomic force microscopy(AFM)study reveals that the average grain size is 20 nm and the elemental line scan profiles further proves the existence of oxygen deficient Zr bearing phase(s).This study strengthens the belief that functional metal oxide additives in fact chemically interact with MgH_(2)to make active in-situ catalysts in the MgH_(2)system.
基金support of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia(UBI PTDC/EGE/OGE/31246/2017,UIDB/04630/2020,UIDB/04728/2020,UIDB/04105/2020)。
文摘This paper conducts a scientometric analysis and systematic literature review to identify the trends in microfinance outcomes from the perspective of their recipients,specifically more vulnerable people,while also focusing on the demand side.Applying the keywords“co-occurrence networks”and“citation networks,”we examined 524 studies indexed on the ISI Web of Science database between 2012 and March 2021.The subsequent content analysis of bibliometric-coupled articles concerns the main research topics in this field:the socioeconomic outcomes of microfinance,the dichotomy between social performance and the mission drift of microfinance institutions,and how entrepreneurship and financial innovation,specifically through crowdfunding,mitigate poverty and empower the more vulnerable.The findings reinforce the idea that microfinance constitutes a distinct field of development thinking,and indicate that a more holistic approach should be adopted to boost microfinance outcomes through a better understanding of their beneficiaries.The trends in this field will help policymakers,regulators,and academics to examine the nuts and bolts of microfinance and identify the most relevant areas of intervention.
基金supported by the projects “ATHEROFIT: Phytochemical-based metabolic immunomodulation to prevent/attenuate particulate mattermediated atherosclerosis” (OHM-Estarreja/2019-2128)funded by LabEx DRIIHM, and “SOPRO: Chemical and toxicologicalSOurce PROfiling of particulate matter in urban air”, POCI-010145-FEDER-029574+5 种基金funded by FEDER, through COMPETE2020 - Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionaliza??o (POCI)national funds (OE), through FCT/MCTESthe grants SFRH/BPD/123176/2016, SFRH/BD/117993/2016 and SFRH/BD/144550/2019 from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)subsidised by national funds (OE), through FCT, I.P., in the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19support to CESAM (UIDB/50017/2020 & UIDP/50017/2020) and CICECO (UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020), to FCT/MCTES through national fundsco-funding by FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020
文摘Particulate matter(PM_(2.5))samples were collected in the vicinity of an industrial chemical pole and analysed for organic and elemental carbon(OC and EC),47 trace elements and around 150 organic constituents.On average,OC and EC accounted for 25.2% and 11.4% of the PM_(2.5) mass,respectively.Organic compounds comprised polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs),alkylated PAHs,anhydrosugars,phenolics,aromatic ketones,glycerol derivatives,aliphatic alcohols,sterols,and carboxyl groups,including aromatic,carboxylic and dicarboxylic acids.Enrichment factors>100 were obtained for Pb,Cd,Zn,Cu,Sn,B,Se,Bi,Sb and Mo,showing the contribution of industrial emissions and nearby major roads.Principal component analysis revealed that vehicle,industrial and biomass burning emissions accounted for 66%,11% and 9%,respectively,of the total PM_(2.5)-bound PAHs.Some of the detected organic constituents are likely associated with plasticiser ingredients and thermal stabilisers used in the manufacture of PVC and other plastics in the industrial complex.Photooxidation products of both anthropogenic(e.g.,toluene)and biogenic(e.g.,isoprene and pinenes)precursors were also observed.It was estimated that biomass burning accounted for 13.8%of the PM_(2.5) concentrations and that secondary OC represented 37.6% of the total OC.The lifetime cancer risk from inhalation exposure to PM_(2.5)-bound PAHs was found to be negligible,but it exceeded the threshold of 10−6 for metal(loi)s,mainly due to Cr and As.
文摘Tremor is a manifestation of a variety of human neurodegenerative diseases, notably Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Essential Tremor (ET), both affecting millions worldwide. PD is primarily caused by a progressive loss of dopamine neurons in the nigrostriatal system that leads to widespread motor symptoms such as bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor and postural instability. ET typically involves a tremor of the arms, hands or fingers. No definitive test or biomarker is yet available for PD or ET, so the rate of misdiagnosis is relatively high. As tremor is a very common feature at the onset of both diseases, it is crucial to be able to characterize it. This is made possible using acce?lerometers to quantify the tremor amplitude and frequency. In this work we aim to find tasks involving upper limb movements that are suitable to modulate both types of tremor. Four tasks were tested, differing on whether the arms moved together or alternatingly and whether loads were added. Significant differences in tremor measures were found when patients were asked to perform simultaneous rapid arms movements with loads placed on their wrists. These results may allow the design of an efficient fMRI protocol for identifying the cortical circuits responsible for the modulation of tremor.
基金The authors received Sichuan Science and Technology Program(No.18YYJC1917)funding for this study.
文摘Medical image segmentation plays an important role in clinical diagnosis,quantitative analysis,and treatment process.Since 2015,U-Net-based approaches have been widely used formedical image segmentation.The purpose of the U-Net expansive path is to map low-resolution encoder feature maps to full input resolution feature maps.However,the consecutive deconvolution and convolutional operations in the expansive path lead to the loss of some high-level information.More high-level information can make the segmentationmore accurate.In this paper,we propose MU-Net,a novel,multi-path upsampling convolution network to retain more high-level information.The MU-Net mainly consists of three parts:contracting path,skip connection,and multi-expansive paths.The proposed MU-Net architecture is evaluated based on three different medical imaging datasets.Our experiments show that MU-Net improves the segmentation performance of U-Net-based methods on different datasets.At the same time,the computational efficiency is significantly improved by reducing the number of parameters by more than half.
基金supported by National Key R&D Program of China (2020AAA0107901).
文摘Latent information is difficult to get from the text in speech synthesis.Studies show that features from speech can get more information to help text encoding.In the field of speech encoding,a lot of work has been conducted on two aspects.The first aspect is to encode speech frame by frame.The second aspect is to encode the whole speech to a vector.But the scale in these aspects is fixed.So,encoding speech with an adjustable scale for more latent information is worthy of investigation.But current alignment approaches only support frame-by-frame encoding and speech-to-vector encoding.It remains a challenge to propose a new alignment approach to support adjustable scale speech encoding.This paper presents the dynamic speech encoder with a new alignment approach in conjunction with frame-by-frame encoding and speech-to-vector encoding.The speech feature fromourmodel achieves three functions.First,the speech feature can reconstruct the origin speech while the length of the speech feature is equal to the text length.Second,our model can get text embedding fromspeech,and the encoded speech feature is similar to the text embedding result.Finally,it can transfer the style of synthesis speech and make it more similar to the given reference speech.
基金supported by national funds through FCT-Fundaçao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia,Portugal through project UIDB/04728/2020。
文摘Smart trains and railways are gaining increasing significance in major global cities as they offer solutions to issues like traffic congestion and environmental pollution.Technological advancements have facilitated the transition from conventional systems to more advanced,highly efficient,and personalized railway systems.However,the complexity of these systems presents challenges,especially in terms of reliability,interoperability security,and privacy.With the potential vulnerability of railway systems to cyberattacks,it becomes crucial for these emerging smart systems to establish stringent privacy and security requirements.Cybersecurity is a key requirement to enable railways to deploy and take advantage of the full extent of a connected,digital environment.This research explores the cybersecurity landscape within Smart Railways aiming to identify potential threats and associated risks on these systems,focusing on analyzing the current literature related to Smart Railways and cybersecurity aspects,then listing key technologies used by smart systems,and finally proposing an illustration of use cases application to call attention to the impact of attacks,providing then as a set of good practices that must be followed to reduce risks and to the safeguard the operability for Rail Transportation.The research findings suggest that over the last few years,there has been a significant increase in research activity in this area,indicating a growing recognition of the importance of cybersecurity in the railway industry.The results also pointed out several gaps related to this topic,namely the lack of standardization in cybersecurity practices and limited consideration of human factors that can impact cybersecurity.
基金supported by national funds through FCT/MCTES(PIDDAC):LSRE-LCM(No.UIDB/50020/2020 and No.UIDP/50020/2020),ALiCE(No.LA/P/0045/2020),MEF(No.UIDB/04928/2020)by FEDER funding(No.CENTRO-01-0246-FEDER-000044).
文摘Olive oil is a nutritionally and economically valuable product whose global production has steadily increased,alongside the generation of large volumes of solid and liquid waste.Olive oil mill wastewater and solid residues such as olive pomace and olive stones have become ma-jor environmental concerns due to their high pollutant load.At the same time,these byproducts offer an opportunity:their valorization as low-cost,sustainable adsorbents for water treatment.Addressing this dual environmental challenge,this review provides a comprehensive and sys-tematized synthesis of the current state of research on the use of olive oil production residues for water decontamination via adsorption.Specifically,the study maps the types of byproducts used,their target pollutants,removal efficiencies,and adsorption capacities.Unlike previous re-views,this work emphasizes studies that apply raw or minimally processed residues,as well as experiments conducted with real wastewater or under environmentally relevant conditions.The data are presented in a structured and comparative format,highlighting promising results and underexplored combinations.By identifying trends,gaps,and practical applications,this review contributes to advancing the development of circular economy-based,eco-friendly solutions for water pollution control and provides a valuable resource for future research and implementation.
