Adsorption characteristics and mechanisms of water-soluble polymers (PVP and PEG) on kaolin and montmorillonite minerals

The excessive use and accumulation of water-soluble polymers (WSPs, known as “liquid plastics”) in the environment can pose potential risks to both ecosystems and human health, but the environmental fate of WSPs remains unclear. Here, the adsorption behavior of WSPs with different molecular weight on kaolinite (Kaol) and montmorillonite (Mt)...

Robust additive manufacturable Ni superalloys designed by the integrated optimization of local elemental segregation and cracking susceptibility criteria

To achieve an effective design of additively manufacturable Ni superalloys with decent service performance, a hybrid computational design model has been developed, where the strategy to tailor local elemental segregations was integrated within a scheme of minimizing the cracking susceptibility. More specifically, the phase boundary of primary...

DeepPick: A Deep Learning Approach to Unveil Outstanding Users Ranking with Public Attainable Features

Outstanding users (OUs) denote the influential, 'core' or 'bridge' users in online social networks. How to accurately detect and rank them is an important problem for third-party online service providers and researchers. Conventional efforts, ranging from early graph-based algorithms to recent machine learning-based approaches, typically rely on...

Effects of GBFS content and curing methods on the working performance and microstructure of ternary geopolymers based on high-content steel slag

Aimed to address the low utilization rate of steel slag (SS) and its challenge in resource utilization in China, this study developed ternary geopolymers made by high-content (50%) SS together with fly ash (FA) and granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS). The effects of GBFS content (0–40%) and curing methods (water curing, standard curing,...

Unveiling the inequalities in virtual water transfer in China: The environmental and economic perspectives

To alleviate the geographical mismatch between supply and demand of water resources, virtual water trade had attracted extensive attention. Many studies had estimated the virtual water flow and measured the virtual water inequality using Environmental Input-Output (EIO) model. However, EIO model ignores the feedback effect in the trade, which...

ROSE: Robust Searchable Encryption with Forward and Backward Security

Dynamic searchable symmetric encryption (DSSE) has been widely recognized as a promising technique to delegate update and search queries over an outsourced database to an untrusted server while guaranteeing the privacy of data. Many efforts on DSSE have been devoted to obtaining a good tradeoff between security and performance. However, it...

Erosion Behavior of Sand-Silt Mixtures: Revisiting the Erosion Threshold

The erosion threshold, beyond which bed sediments start to move, is a key parameter describing sediment transport processes. For silt-dominated mixtures, in which the grain size is between sand and clay, existing experimental studies exhibit contradictory observations. That is, the erosion was either sand-like or clay-like, suggesting...

Red-Emitting SrGa₂O₄:Cu²⁺Phosphor with Super-Long Persistent Luminescence

The red afterglow of current rare-earth-activated long persistent luminescence (LPL) phosphors is largely still less than 6 h, in contrast to the 20 or 30 h long blue- or green-emitting ones, becoming the main obstacle to realize their multiscenario applications in practice. Herein, we report a rare-earth-free red-emitting LPL phosphor SrGa...

DEKS: A Secure Cloud-Based Searchable Service Can Make Attackers Pay

Many practical secure systems have been designed to prevent real-world attacks via maximizing the attacking cost so as to reduce attack intentions. Inspired by this philosophy, we propose a new concept named delay encryption with keyword search (DEKS) to resist the notorious keyword guessing attack (KGA), in the context of secure cloud-based...

Plot-level reconstruction of 3D tree models for aboveground biomass estimation

Complexity of forest structure is an important factor contributing to uncertainty in aboveground biomass estimates. In this study, we present a new method for reducing uncertainty in forest aboveground biomass (AGB) estimation based on plot-level terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) point clouds reconstruction. The method estimates the total AGB...

A two-dimensional ordinary state-based peridynamic model for surface fatigue crack propagation in railheads

Based on ordinary state-based peridynamic theory, a 2D peridynamic model has been established to investigate fatigue crack propagation in railheads. The proposed model is verified in terms of rail deformation under a quasi-static load and the ductile material-related fatigue failure model. Good agreements have been achieved between a finite...

New innovations in pavement materials and engineering: A review on pavement engineering research 2021

Sustainable and resilient pavement infrastructure is critical for current economic and environmental challenges. In the past 10 years, the pavement infrastructure strongly supports the rapid development of the global social economy. New theories, new methods, new technologies and new materials related to pavement engineering are emerging....

Synthesis of stable and low-Co2 selective Ɛ-iron carbide Fischer-Tropsch catalysts

Tunable Luminescence of CeAl11O18 Based Phosphors by Replacement of (AlO)+ by (SiN)+ and Co-Doping with Eu

A series of Si-N or Eu-Li doped CeAl11O18 and CeAl12O18N phosphors are prepared by solid–state reaction. Their structure and luminescence are researched carefully. Si-N doping with the concentration less than 8% can be successfully dissolved into CeAl11O18 crystal lattice and doesn't change the matrix structure, only resulting in crystal lattice...

Binding crystalline solids at low temperatures

Crystalline solids are solid materials whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in a highly regulated fashion. Due to lack of rotational freedom in their stacking, they have been known as fragile materials. Even though some efforts have been dedicated to bind or mend defects/cracks in amorphous materials like concrete or polymers...