Films of nitrogen-doped TiO2 have been successfully deposited on a Si substrate by radio frequency reactive sputtering in a mixture of argon, oxygen and nitrogen. The nitrogen gas ratio varies in the range 0.2–0.4 during the deposition, resulting in TiOxNy films with 3% ≤ y ≤ 6.55% as determined by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Chemical bond state analysis by XPS indicates that nitrogen is effectively incorporated and produces an oxynitride centre as oxygen is replaced by nitrogen. Characterization by atomic force microscopy demonstrates that the incorporation of nitrogen has a significant effect on the morphology of the targeted TiO2 thin films. Spectroscopic ellipsometry with a photon energy of 0.75–6.5 eV at room temperature has been carried out to derive the refractive index n and the extinction coefficient k on the basis of a new amorphous dispersive model. The optical constants such as absorption coefficient, complex dielectric functions and the optical band gap have been determined. The trend of a decrease in the optical band gap with an increase in nitrogen concentration is consistent with the observation determined by UV–visible spectroscopy. The reduced band gap is associated with the N 2p orbital in the TiOxNy films.

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ABSTRACTto better understand the potential for improving biomass accumulation and radiation use efficiency (rUE) of winter wheat under deficit irrigation regimes, in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, an experiment was conducted at the luancheng Experimental Station of Chinese academy of Science to study the effects of deficit irrigation regimes on the photosynthetic active radiation (Par), biomass accumulation, grain yield, and rUE of winter wheat. in this experiment, field experiment involving winter wheat with 1, 2 and 3 irrigation applications at sowing, jointing, or heading stages was conducted, and total irrigation water was all controlled at 120 mm. The results indicate that irrigation 2 or 3 times could help to increase the Par capture ratio in the later growing season of winter wheat; this result was mainly due to the changes in the vertical distributions of leaf area index (lai) and a significant increase of the lai at 0-20 cm above the ground surface (lSD, P < 0.05). Compared with irrigation only once during the growing season of winter wheat, irrigation 2 times significantly (lSD, P < 0.05) increased aboveground dry matter at maturity; irrigation at sowing and heading or jointing and heading stages significantly (lSD, P < 0.05) improved the grain yield, and irrigation at jointing and heading stages provided the highest rUE (0.56 g/mol). Combining the grain yield and rUE, it can be concluded that irrigation at jointing and heading stages has higher grain yield and rUE, which will offer a sound measurement for developing deficit irrigation regimes in north China.

High dielectric constant ZrO2 gate dielectric thin films have been prepared by means of in situ thermal oxidation of sputtered metallic Zr films. XRD reveals that the as-oxidized samples are amorphous, but can be made polycrystalline with a highly ()-preferential orientation by increasing the annealing temperature. AFM measurements confirm that high temperature annealing results in increase of the roughness root mean square value of the films. The growth and properties of the interfacial SiO2 layer formed at the ZrO2/Si interface are observed by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. It has been found that the formation of the interfacial layer depends on the post-deposition annealing temperature. On the basis of a parametrized Tauc–Lorentz dispersion model, the optical properties of the as-oxidized and annealed films related to the annealing temperature are systematically investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The increase in the refractive index and decrease in extinction coefficient with increase of the annealing temperature are discussed in detail.

Numerous synthetic RNA-based controls for integrating sensing switches with function devices have been demonstrated in a variety of organisms for gene regulation. Although potential advantages of RNA-based genetic control strategies have been shown in clinical applications, successfully extending these engineered systems into medical applications has seldom been reported. Here, a synthetic RNA-based ribozyme system and its application in advancing rationally designed cellular therapy were described. The theophylline-responsive, ribozyme-based device provided a powerful platform for suicide gene expression regulation in tumor cells. Moreover, we demonstrate the ability of our synthetic controller to modulate effectively the viability of the cells in response to drug input. Our RNA-based regulatory system could dose-dependently fine-tune transgene expression in mammalian cells and address urgent limitations in existing genetic control strategies for gene- and cell-based therapies in the future.

To reduce the discharge of the standard bulk Micromegas and GEM detector, the GEM-Micromegas detector was developed at the Institute of High Energy Physics. Taking into account the advantages of the two detectors, one GEM foil was set as a preamplifier on the mesh of Micromegas in the structure and the GEM preamplification decreased the working voltage of Micromegas to reduce the effect of the discharge significantly. At the same gain, the spark probability of the GEM-Micromegas detector can be reduced to a factor 0.01 compared to the standard Micromegas detector, and even the higher gain could be obtained. In the paper, the performance of the detector in X-ray beam was studied at 1W2B Laboratory of Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility. Finally, the result of the energy resolution under various X-ray energies was given in different working gases. It indicates that the GEM-Micromegas detector has the energy response capability in the energy range from 6 keV to 20 keV and it could work better than the standard bulk-Micromegas.

Using digital twins in voyage performance evaluation is becoming critical for ocean vessels to reduce GHG emissions. A novel GBM approach is proposed in this paper to establish a digital twin model for voyage performance prediction. The weather hindcast data are introduced to enrich noon reports (NR) and automatic identification system (AIS) datasets, which are split into training and validation sets to develop GBM. The NR and AIS datasets collected from a 57000DWT bulk carrier are used to demonstrate the fidelity and capability of the proposed GBM. The voyage performance prediction from the GBM shows better accuracy than those from pure WBM or pure BBMs. An arrival time forecast and a weather routing showcase are also presented to demonstrate the application effects of GBM. The proposed GBM provides a satisfying prediction of ship speed and fuel consumption without mandatory sensor-collected data, thus applicable for a varity of vessels. In those cases where more sensors are available onboard, the proposed approach can incorporate sensor data to improve the model accuracy further.