Telerobotic Intergroup Contact: Acceptance and Preferences in Israel and Palestine.

We explore telerobotics as a novel form of intergroup communication. In this form, remotely operated robots facilitate embodied and situated intergroup contact between groups in conflict over long distances, potentially reducing prejudice and promoting positive social change. Based on previous conceptual frameworks and design hypotheses, we conducted a survey on the acceptance and preferences of the telerobotic medium in Israel and Palestine.

Utilizing environment-friendly eugenol as a diluent with trioctylamine for the reactive extraction of aqueous levulinic acid.

This paper focuses on the reactive extraction of levulinic acid (LA) from aqueous solution by reactive extraction. This goal is achieved using eugenol, a green alternative in the industry, as a solvent in the liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) measurements for the ternary system of LA + Eugenol + HO and quaternary systems of LA + Eugenol/ Methanol (MeOH) + HO + Tri-n-octylamine (TOA) at T = 293.15 K.

Estimating Molecular Thermal Averages with the Quantum Equation of Motion and Informationally Complete Measurements.

By leveraging the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE), the "quantum equation of motion" (qEOM) method established itself as a promising tool for quantum chemistry on near-term quantum computers and has been used extensively to estimate molecular excited states. Here, we explore a novel application of this method, employing it to compute thermal averages of quantum systems, specifically molecules like ethylene and butadiene. A drawback of qEOM is that it requires measuring the expectation values of a large number of observables on the ground state of the system, and the number of necessary measurements can become a bottleneck of the method.

Revisiting biochemical pathways for lead and cadmium tolerance by domain bacteria, eukarya, and their joint action in bioremediation.

With the advent rise is in urbanization and industrialization, heavy metals (HMs) such as lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) contamination have increased considerably. It is among the most recalcitrant pollutants majorly affecting the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem like human well-being, animals, soil health, crop productivity, and diversity of prokaryotes (bacteria) and eukaryotes (plants, fungi, and algae). At higher concentrations, these metals are toxic for their growth and pose a significant environmental threat, necessitating innovative and sustainable remediation strategies.

Author Correction: Predictive evolution of metabolic phenotypes using model-designed environments.

[Image: see text]

Isolation of β-O-4-Rich Lignin From Birch in High Yields Enabled by Continuous-Flow Supercritical Water Treatment.

The continuous flow supercritical water (scHO) treatment of Birch wood (T=372-382 °C; t=0.3-0.7 s; p=260 bar) followed by alkali extraction of lignin allowed for the isolation of lignin and lignin carbohydrate complexes (LCCs) with a high number of β-O-4 moieties in the range 29-57/100 Ar (evaluated by quantitative C NMR analysis) in yields ranging between 13-19 wt % with respect to the initial wood.

Spectroscopy of Oscillation Modes in Homogeneously Precessing Domain of Superfluid He-B.

We study the homogeneously precessing domain (HPD) in superfluid He-B in a regular continuous-wave nuclear magnetic resonance (CW NMR) experiment. Using Fourier analysis of CW NMR time traces, we identify several oscillation modes with frequency monotonically increasing with the frequency shift of the HPD. Some of these modes are localized near the cell walls, while others are localized in bulk liquid and can be interpreted as oscillations of -solitons.

Cutting edge technology for wastewater treatment using smart nanomaterials: recent trends and futuristic advancements.

Water is a vital component of our existence. Many human activities, such as improper waste disposal from households, industries, hospitals, and synthetic processes, are major contributors to the contamination of water streams. It is the responsibility of every individual to safeguard water resources and reduce pollution.

Interfacial Modification for High-Efficient Reversible Protonic Ceramic Cell with a Spin-Coated BaZrCeYO Electrolyte Thin Film.

Slurry spin coating is an effective approach for the fabrication of protonic ceramic electrolyte thin films. However, weak adhesion between the electrode and spin-coated electrolyte layers in electrochemical cells due to the low sinterability of the proton-conducting perovskite materials usually lead to a high interfacial resistance and thus a low performance. Herein, we report a method to improve the interfacial connection and boost the performance of protonic ceramic cells based on a BaZrCeYO (BZCY) electrolyte.

Lignin Nanofiber Flexible Carbon Aerogels for Self-Standing Supercapacitors.

Renewable feedstocks are sought for clean technology applications, including energy storage applications. In this study, LignoForce™ lignin, a biobased aromatic polymer commercially isolated from wood, was fractioned into two parts using acetone, and the resulting lignin fractions had distinct thermo-rheological behavior. These two fractionated lignins were combined in various ratios and transformed into nanofibers by electrospinning.

Subword Representations Successfully Decode Brain Responses to Morphologically Complex Written Words.

This study extends the idea of decoding word-evoked brain activations using a corpus-semantic vector space to multimorphemic words in the agglutinative Finnish language. The corpus-semantic models are trained on word segments, and decoding is carried out with word vectors that are composed of these segments. We tested several alternative vector-space models using different segmentations: no segmentation (whole word), linguistic morphemes, statistical morphemes, random segmentation, and character-level 1-, 2- and 3-grams, and paired them with recorded MEG responses to multimorphemic words in a visual word recognition task.

Vascular disease and ischemic stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation: Temporal trends and age-related differences.

Background And Aims: We examined temporal trends and age-related differences in the prevalence of vascular diseases and in their association with ischemic stroke (IS) risk in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF).

Methods: The registry-based FinACAF study covered all patients with AF in Finland during 2007-2018. Incidence rate ratios (IRRs) of IS were computed with Poisson regression, and the interaction of vascular diseases with age and calendar year period was assessed.

Enhanced Production of Furfural via Methanolysis of Wood Biomass with HCl Gas.

This study explores the production of furfural, xylose and methylxylosides through the methanolysis of wood flour using anhydrous HCl gas. The process involves methanolysis of wood flour with HCl gas under pressure to generate methylxylosides, which are subsequently converted to xylose and furfural via autohydrolysis in a Parr batch reactor system. The methanolysis was conducted in temperature-controlled HCl gas reactor employing 24 h reaction time and 50 % methanol content in wood flour.

Tunable Assembly of Photocatalytic Colloidal Coatings for Antibacterial Applications.

In this study, evaporation-induced size segregation and interparticle interactions are harnessed to tune the microstructure of photocatalytic colloidal coatings containing TiO nanoparticles and polymer particles. This enabled the fabrication of a library of five distinct microstructures: TiO-on-top stratification, a thin top layer of polymer or TiO, homogeneous films of raspberry particles, and a sandwich structure. The photocatalytic and antibacterial activities of the coatings were evaluated by testing the viability of Methicillin-resistant (MRSA) bacteria using the ISO-27447 protocol, showing a strong correlation with the microstructure.

EEG electrodes and where to find them: automated localization from 3D scans.

The accurate localization of electroencephalography (EEG) electrode positions is crucial for accurate source localization. Recent advancements have proposed alternatives to labor-intensive, manual methods for spatial localization of the electrodes, employing technologies such as 3D scanning and laser scanning. These novel approaches often integrate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as part of the pipeline in localizing the electrodes.

Doing landscape: sensorial and artistic approaches to Donkalnis and Spiginas Mesolithic-Neolithic ritual sites in western Lithuania.

During the Mesolithic and Neolithic, foragers dwelling in the Eastern Baltic, Scandinavia and Fennoscandia regions buried some of their dead on lake islands or other coastal sites. Based on ethnographic accounts, these sites are often understood as liminal places where water separates the lands of the dead and the living. In this paper, we take a more relational view of place and suggest that a particular combination of spatial perception of landscape and the dynamic nature of coastal sites might have contributed to the social agency of these places, resulting in their use as places for ritual activity.

Droplet Friction on Superhydrophobic Surfaces Scales With Liquid-Solid Contact Fraction.

It is generally assumed that contact angle hysteresis of superhydrophobic surfaces scales with liquid-solid contact fraction, however, its experimental verification has been problematic due to the limited accuracy of contact angle and sliding angle goniometry. Advances in cantilever-based friction probes enable accurate droplet friction measurements down to the nanonewton regime, thus suiting much better for characterizing the wetting of superhydrophobic surfaces than contact angle hysteresis measurements. This work quantifies the relationship between droplet friction and liquid-solid contact fraction, through theory and experimental validation.

Compression of room impulse responses for compact storage and fast low-latency convolution.

Unlabelled: Room impulse responses (RIRs) are used in several applications, such as augmented reality and virtual reality. These applications require a large number of RIRs to be convolved with audio, under strict latency constraints. In this paper, we consider the compression of RIRs, in conjunction with fast time-domain convolution.

Temporal trends in mortality and causes of death in patients with incident atrial fibrillation: a nationwide register study from 2010 to 2018.

Objectives: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with increased mortality. Previous studies have reported conflicting results in temporal trends of mortality after AF diagnosis. We aim to address this disparity by investigating the 1-year mortality and causes of death in Finnish patients diagnosed with AF between 2010 and 2017.

Chemical reaction enhanced graph learning for molecule representation.

Motivation: Molecular representation learning (MRL) models molecules with low-dimensional vectors to support biological and chemical applications. Current methods primarily rely on intrinsic molecular information to learn molecular representations, but they often overlook effectively integrating domain knowledge into MRL.

Results: In this article, we develop a reaction-enhanced graph learning (RXGL) framework for MRL, utilizing chemical reactions as domain knowledge.

Black titanium oxide: synthesis, modification, characterization, physiochemical properties, and emerging applications for energy conversion and storage, and environmental sustainability.

Since its advent in 2011, black titanium oxide (B-TiO) has garnered significant attention due to its exceptional optical characteristics, notably its enhanced absorption spectrum ranging from 200 to 2000 nm, in stark contrast to its unmodified counterpart. The escalating urgency to address global climate change has spurred intensified research into this material for sustainable hydrogen production through thermal, photocatalytic, electrocatalytic, or hybrid water-splitting techniques. The rapid advancements in this dynamic field necessitate a comprehensive update.

Correction: Water adsorption lifts the (2 × 1) reconstruction of calcite(104).

Correction for 'Water adsorption lifts the (2 × 1) reconstruction of calcite(104)' by Jonas Heggemann , , 2024, , 21365-21369, https://doi.org/10.1039/D3CP01408H.