Effect of pretreated cow dung fiber on rheological and fatigue properties of asphalt binder

Cow dung waste has caused severe environmental pollution and public health issues in China. In this study, the cow dung residues were used as a cheap renewable fiber to modify asphalt binder, providing a new solution for the proper disposal of cow dung waste. Three cow dung fibers with two lengths were prepared using different treatments,...

Investigation on the technical performance and workability of hot-melting road marking materials using for the high-altitude area

The special environment conditions in high altitude areas leads to serious cracking and peeling of road hot-melt marking coatings. In order to improve the durability of marking paint, a durable hot-melt marking paint was designed by modifying the paint with toughening-agent, rheological agent, and anti-aging agent. The modification mechanism...

A bio-inspired and switchable H⁺/OH⁻ ion-channel for room temperature exhaled CO₂ chemiresistive sensing

Inspired by the CO₂-induced reversible activation mechanism of the slow anion channel 1 (SLAC1) in plant stomatal guard cells during plant photosynthesis, we designed and prepared a CO₂- switchable H⁺/OH⁻ ion channel (CSPH ion channel). A high-performance chemiresistive room temperature CO<sub>2<...

High-Performance Flexible Strain Sensor Fabricated Using Laser Transmission Pyrolysis

In recent years, metal crack-based stretchable flexible strain sensors have attracted significant attention in wearable device applications due to their extremely high sensitivity. However, the tradeoff between sensitivity and detection range has been an intractable dilemma, severely limiting their practical applications. Herein, we propose a...

Life cycle assessment of material footprint in recycling: A case of concrete recycling

Meeting the current demand for concrete requires not only mining tons of gravel and sand, but also burning large amounts of fossil fuel resources in cement kilning. Consequently, concrete recycling is crucial to achieving a material-efficient society, especially with the application of various categories of concrete and the goal of phasing...

Generalized Single-Vehicle-Based Graph Reinforcement Learning for Decision-Making in Autonomous Driving

In the autonomous driving process, the decision-making system is mainly used to provide macro-control instructions based on the information captured by the sensing system. Learning-based algorithms have apparent advantages in information processing and understanding for an increasingly complex driving environment. To incorporate the...

Multi-Agent Decision-Making Modes in Uncertain Interactive Traffic Scenarios via Graph Convolution-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning

As one of the main elements of reinforcement learning, the design of the reward function is often not given enough attention when reinforcement learning is used in concrete applications, which leads to unsatisfactory performances. In this study, a reward function matrix is proposed for training various decision-making modes with emphasis on...

Strain-engineered S-HfSe₂ monolayer as a promising gas sensor for detecting NH₃: A first-principles study

The development of high-performance gas sensing materials is one of the development trends of new gas sensor technology. In this work, in order to predict the gas-sensitive characteristics of HfSe₂ and its potential as a gas-sensitive material, the interactions of nonmetallic element (O, S, Te) doped HfSe₂ monolayer and...

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....