Design Principles and Mechanistic Understandings of Non-Noble-Metal Bifunctional Electrocatalysts for Zinc-Air Batteries

Zinc-air batteries(ZABs)are promising energy storage systems because of high theoretical energy density,safety,low cost,and abundance of zinc.However,the slow multi-step reaction of oxygen and heavy reliance on noble-metal catalysts hinder the practical applications of ZABs.Therefore,feasible and advanced non-noble-metal elec-trocatalysts for air cathodes need to be identified to promote the oxygen catalytic reaction.In this review,we initially introduced the advancement of ZABs in the past two decades and provided an overview of key developments in this field.Then,we discussed the work-ing mechanism and the design of bifunctional electrocatalysts from the perspective of morphology design,crystal structure tuning,interface strategy,and atomic engineering.We also included theoretical studies,machine learning,and advanced characterization technologies to provide a comprehensive understanding of the structure-performance relationship of electrocatalysts and the reaction pathways of the oxygen redox reactions.Finally,we discussed the challenges and prospects related to designing advanced non-noble-metal bifunctional electrocatalysts for ZABs.

Anisotropic etching mechanisms of 4H-SiC:Experimental and first-principles insights

Molten-alkali etching has been widely used to reveal dislocations in 4H silicon carbide(4H-SiC),which has promoted the identification and statistics of dislocation density in 4H-SiC single crystals.However,the etching mechanism of 4H-SiC is limited misunderstood.In this letter,we reveal the anisotropic etching mechanism of the Si face and C face of 4H-SiC by combining molten-KOH etching,X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)and first-principles investigations.The activation energies for the molten-KOH etching of the C face and Si face of 4H-SiC are calculated to be 25.09 and 35.75 kcal/mol,respectively.The molten-KOH etching rate of the C face is higher than the Si face.Combining XPS analysis and first-principles calculations,we find that the molten-KOH etching of 4H-SiC is proceeded by the cycling of the oxidation of 4H-SiC by the dissolved oxygen and the removal of oxides by molten KOH.The faster etching rate of the C face is caused by the fact that the oxides on the C face are unstable,and easier to be removed with molten alkali,rather than the C face being easier to be oxidized.

Scientific principles for accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)are significantly off-course as we reach the midpoint of their 2030 deadline.From a scientific perspective,the critical challenge in achieving the SDGs lies in the need for more scientific principles to understand the complex socio-ecological systems(SES)and their interactions influencing the 17 SDGs.Here,we propose a scientific framework to clarify the common scientific principles and the rational treatment of diversity under these principles.The framework’s core is revealing the complex mechanisms underlying the achievement of each Sustainable Development Goal(SDG)and SDG interactions.Building upon the identified mechanisms,complex SES models can be established,and the implementation of SDGs can be formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem,seeking a compromise in competition between essential costs and desired benefits.Our framework can assist countries,and even the world in accelerating progress towards the SDGs.

International law obligations for the disposal of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water under the principles of nuclear safety

The disposal of contaminated water from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant is a significant international nuclear safety issue with considerable cross-border implications.This matter requires compliance not only with the law of the sea but also with the principles of nuclear safety under international law.These principles serve as the overarching tenet of international and China’s domestic nuclear laws,applicable to nuclear facilities and activities.The principle of safety in nuclear activities is fully recognized in international and domestic laws,carrying broad legal binding force.Japan’s discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea violates its obligations under the principle of safety in nuclear activities,including commitments to optimum protection,as low as reasonably practicable,and prevention.The Japanese government and the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA)have breached the obligation of optimum protection by restricting the scope of assessments,substituting core concepts,and shielding dissenting views.In the absence of clear radiation standards,they have acted unilaterally without fulfilling the obligation as low as reasonably practicable principle.The discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water poses an imminent and unpredictable risk to all countries worldwide,including Japanese residents.Japan and the IAEA should fulfill their obligations under international law regarding disposal,adhering to the principles of nuclear safety,including optimum protection,the obligation as low as reasonably practicable,and prevention through multilateral cooperation.Specifically,the obligation to provide optimum protection should be implemented by re-evaluating the most reliable disposal technologies and methods currently available and comprehensively assessing various options.The standard of the obligation as low as reasonably practicable requires that the minimization of negative impacts on human health,livelihoods,and the environment should not be subordinated to considerations of cutting costs and expenses.Multilateral cooperation should be promoted through the establishment of sound multilateral long-term monitoring mechanisms for the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water,notification and consultation obligations,and periodic assessments.These obligations under international law were fulfilled after the accidents at the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear power plants.The implications of the principles of nuclear safety align with the concept of building a community of shared future for nuclear safety advocated by China.In cases of violations of international law regarding the disposal of nuclear-contaminated water that jeopardize the concept of a community of a shared future for nuclear safety,China can also rely on its own strength to promote the implementation of due obligations through self-help.

The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence:Connotations in International Law and Contemporary Relevance

The year 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence initiated by China.As an anchor foreign policy of New China and its first contribution of public product for the international community,the Five Principles have made a historic contribution to the building of a new type of just and equitable international relations,advancing the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,and becoming universally applicable basic norms for international relations and key fundamental principles of international law.

Fundamental Principles behind Climate Change

The attribution of climate change is complex,and the current mainstream view is more inclined towards human activities and carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.Any complex problem is composed of basic principles.This article elaborates on the basic logic behind climate change(a global hot topic)through basic principles such as reaction types,carbon thermal properties of biomass energy,greenhouse gas attribution,ecological basic theory,and energy cycle.

Four Dimensions of Integrating Chinese Culture Into College English Teaching From the Perspective of Tyler’s Basic Principles

Integrating Chinese culture into college English can not only enhance students’humanities literacy and cultivate their cultural confidence,but also facilitate the inheritance and international dissemination of Chinese culture.Taking Tyler’s curriculum framework as the starting point,this paper analyzes some factors that affect the integration of Chinese culture into the college English teaching and proposes some strategies for the integration of Chinese culture into college English teaching by innovating teaching objectives,enriching teaching contents,transforming modes of course delivery,and reconstructing the assessment system.

First‑principles study on electronic structure,optical and magnetic properties of rare earth elements X(X=Sc,Y,La,Ce,Eu)doped with two‑dimensional GaSe

The electronic structure,magnetic,and optical properties of two-dimensional(2D)GaSe doped with rare earth elements X(X=Sc,Y,La,Ce,Eu)were calculated using the first-principles plane wave method based on den-sity functional theory.The results show that intrinsic 2D GaSe is a p-type nonmagnetic semiconductor with an indi-rect bandgap of 2.6611 eV.The spin-up and spin-down channels of Sc-,Y-,and La-doped 2D GaSe are symmetric,they are non-magnetic semiconductors.The magnetic moments of Ce-and Eu-doped 2D GaSe are 0.908μ_(B)and 7.163μ_(B),which are magnetic semiconductors.Impurity energy levels appear in both spin-up and spin-down chan-nels of Eu-doped 2D GaSe,which enhances the probability of electron transition.Compared with intrinsic 2D GaSe,the static dielectric constant of the doped 2D GaSe increases,and the polarization ability is strengthened.The ab-sorption spectrum of the doped 2D GaSe shifts in the low-energy direction,and the red-shift phenomenon occurs,which extends the absorption spectral range.The optical reflection coefficient of the doped 2D GaSe is improved in the low energy region,and the improvement of Eu-doped 2D GaSe is the most obvious.

Principles of Shiology——Revealing the Basic Rules of Human Shiance

The objective principles of shiology are mainly reflected in three fields as food acquisition, eaters' health and shiance order. Most of the objective principles in the field of food acquisition have been revealed by agronomy and foodstuff science. This research mainly focuses on 10 principles in the field of eaters' health and shiance order and in addition, there are also five lemmas that extend from the above principles. The 10 principles are the core theory of the shiology knowledge system, which play an important role in the objective principles revealed by human beings and constitute one of the basic principles of human civilization. Compared with the scientific principles of mathematics, physics, chemistry and economics, the principles of shiology have three characteristics as popularity, practicability and survivability. The principles of shiology in the field of eaters' health are all around us, and everyone can understand and master them. Using the principles of shiology can improve the healthy life span of 8 billion people. The principles of shiology in the field of shiance order is an important tool of social governance, which can reduce human social conflicts, reduce social involution, improve overall efficiency of social operation, and maintain the sustainable development of human beings.

Research on the Course of Principles of Concrete Structure Design

Nowadays,education and teaching have become a hot topic,and teaching in colleges and universities is facing a brand-new development direction.Principles of Concrete Structure Design,as one of the main courses,transmits professional knowledge for students,enhances the students’professional ability,and further carries out in-depth research on the course to bring a better teaching effect for students.The article mainly focuses on the research of the principles of concrete structure design course,conducts an analysis of the teaching characteristics of the principles of concrete structure design course,and reasonably sets the teaching content from the optimization of the course teaching objectives;innovative course teaching methods can deepen the effect of knowledge understanding;reform of experimental practice teaching can lay down the effect of the internalization of knowledge,etc.The in-depth description and discussion of the relevant aspects of the research aim to provide guidelines for related research.

Research on Teaching Methods of Flight Control Principles

With the rapid development of China’s civil aviation industry,the teaching method of operating knowledge of flight principles has changed greatly,which creates a good implementation environment to improve the safety of civil aviation in our country.At present,the main training content of air route transport pilots in China is basic aviation theory,initial flight training,airline modification,etc.The principles of flight control are an important part of basic aviation theoretical knowledge training,which will involve a large number of flight technology training content,instructors will also be based on the pilot type.Teaching flight control theory and practical knowledge requires relatively high theoretical learning ability of students,and the learning effect of this part of theoretical knowledge will directly affect the quality of subsequent learning,but also directly affect the effectiveness of flight training.This paper focuses on the analysis of the basic concepts of flight control,studies the existing problems in the teaching of flight control principles,summarizes the teaching measures of flight control principles,aiming to provide a reference to teaching personnel.

The Principles of Insulin Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Insulin therapy is an integral part of the pharmacological management of Type 2 diabetes mellitus. Guidelines recommended insulin therapy for those patients with suboptimal glycaemic control despite optimal medical treatments. Studies show that insulin therapy with the human and regular insulins improve glycaemic control, reduce the chronic complications, and inevitably improve patient’s quality of life. The new analogue insulin has a better safety profile and efficacies, and has been shown to achieve better outcomes and patient’s acceptability compared with the human and regular insulins. The diabetic guidelines also recommend the intensity of insulin therapy in a personalised glycaemic control strategy based on the patient’s profiles and their preferences. However, the guidelines do not recommend any standardised approach to the principles of insulin initiation, titration, and monitoring. This review summarises the essential principles of insulin initiation, titration, and monitoring in Type 2 diabetes mellitus.

On the “Online and Offline Blended Teaching” Mode for Ideological and Political Theory Courses in Universities—A Case of “Introduction to Basic Principles of Marxism”

With the deepening development of educational informatization, online and offline blended teaching, as a new teaching mode, is increasingly receiving widespread attention from educators [1]. At present, the reform of the “online and offline blended teaching” of ideological and political education courses directly affects the quality of talent cultivation in universities. The article takes the course “Introduction to Basic Principles of Marxism” as an example to explore the reform mode of “online and offline blended teaching” in ideological and political theory courses in universities from the aspects of reasonable allocation of class hours, design of online teaching activities, how to deepen classroom teaching offline, and diversified assessment modes. Furthermore, the article summarizes the experience of mode reform and promotes the deep development of the people-oriented education concept in ideological and political courses in universities, so as to achieve the ultimate goal of moral education in ideological and political education in universities.

Lithium nitrate regulated carbonate electrolytes for practical Li-metal batteries: Mechanisms, principles and strategies

Li-metal batteries(LMBs)regain research prominence owing to the ever-increasing high-energy requirements.Commercially available carbonate electrolytes exhibit unfavourable parasitic reactions with Limetal anode(LMA),leading to the formation of unstable solid electrolyte interphase(SEI)and the breed of Li dendrites/dead Li.Significantly,lithium nitrate(LiNO_(3)),an excellent film-forming additive,proves crucial to construct a robust Li_(3)N/Li_(2)O/Li_(x)NO_(y)-rich SEI after combining with ether-based electrolytes.Thus,the given challenge leads to natural ideas which suggest the incorporation of LiNO_(3) into commercial carbonate for practical LMBs.Regrettably,LiNO_(3) demonstrates limited solubility(~800 ppm)in commercial carbonate electrolytes.Thence,developing stable SEI and dendrite-free LMA with the incorporation of LiNO_(3) into carbonate electrolytes is an efficacious strategy to realize robust LMBs via a scalable and cost-effective route.Therefore,this review unravels the grievances between LMA,LiNO_(3)and carbonate electrolytes,and enables a comprehensive analysis of LMA stabilizing mechanism with LiNO_(3),dissolution principle of LiNO_(3) in carbonate electrolytes,and LiNO_(3) introduction strategies.This review converges attention on a point that the LiNO_(3)-introduction into commercial carbonate electrolytes is an imperious choice to realize practical LMBs with commercial 4 V layered cathode.

How to improve machine learning models for lithofacies identification by practical and novel ensemble strategy and principles

Typically, relationship between well logs and lithofacies is complex, which leads to low accuracy of lithofacies identification. Machine learning (ML) methods are often applied to identify lithofacies using logs labelled by rock cores. However, these methods have accuracy limits to some extent. To further improve their accuracies, practical and novel ensemble learning strategy and principles are proposed in this work, which allows geologists not familiar with ML to establish a good ML lithofacies identification model and help geologists familiar with ML further improve accuracy of lithofacies identification. The ensemble learning strategy combines ML methods as sub-classifiers to generate a comprehensive lithofacies identification model, which aims to reduce the variance errors in prediction. Each sub-classifier is trained by randomly sampled labelled data with random features. The novelty of this work lies in the ensemble principles making sub-classifiers just overfitting by algorithm parameter setting and sub-dataset sampling. The principles can help reduce the bias errors in the prediction. Two issues are discussed, videlicet (1) whether only a relatively simple single-classifier method can be as sub-classifiers and how to select proper ML methods as sub-classifiers;(2) whether different kinds of ML methods can be combined as sub-classifiers. If yes, how to determine a proper combination. In order to test the effectiveness of the ensemble strategy and principles for lithofacies identification, different kinds of machine learning algorithms are selected as sub-classifiers, including regular classifiers (LDA, NB, KNN, ID3 tree and CART), kernel method (SVM), and ensemble learning algorithms (RF, AdaBoost, XGBoost and LightGBM). In this work, the experiments used a published dataset of lithofacies from Daniudi gas field (DGF) in Ordes Basin, China. Based on a series of comparisons between ML algorithms and their corresponding ensemble models using the ensemble strategy and principles, conclusions are drawn: (1) not only decision tree but also other single-classifiers and ensemble-learning-classifiers can be used as sub-classifiers of homogeneous ensemble learning and the ensemble can improve the accuracy of the original classifiers;(2) the ensemble principles for the introduced homogeneous and heterogeneous ensemble strategy are effective in promoting ML in lithofacies identification;(3) in practice, heterogeneous ensemble is more suitable for building a more powerful lithofacies identification model, though it is complex.

First principles calculation of intermetallic compounds in FeTiCoNiVCrMnCuAl system high entropy alloy

The structural, electronic and elastic properties of common intermetallic compounds in FeTiCoNiVCrMnCuAI system high entropy alloy were investigated by the first principles calculation. The calculation results of formation enthalpy and cohesive energy show that FeTi, Fe2Ti, AlCrFe2, Co2Ti, AlMn2V and Mn2Ti phases may form in the formation process of the alloy. Further studies show that FeTi, FezTi, AlCrFe2, Co2Ti and AlMn2V phases with higher shear modulus and elastic modulus would be excellent strengthening phases in high entropy alloy and would improve the hardness of the alloy. In addition, the partial density of states was investigated for revealing the bonding mode, and the analyses on the strength of p-d hybridization also reveal the underlying mechanism for the elastic properties of these compounds.

Probability Distribution of SARS-Cov-2 (COVID) Infectivity Following Onset of Symptoms: Analysis from First Principles

The phasing out of protective measures by governments and public health agencies, despite continued seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, leaves individuals who are concerned for their health with two basic options over which they have control: 1) minimize risk of infection by being vaccinated and by wearing a face mask when appropriate, and 2) minimize risk of transmission upon infection by self-isolating. For the latter to be effective, it is essential to have an accurate sense of the probability of infectivity as a function of time following the onset of symptoms. Epidemiological considerations suggest that the period of infectivity follows a lognormal distribution. This proposition is tested empirically by construction of the lognormal probability density function and cumulative distribution function based on quantiles of infectivity reported by several independent investigations. A comprehensive examination of a prototypical ideal clinical study, based on general statistical principles (the Principle of Maximum Entropy and the Central Limit Theorem) reveals that the probability of infectivity is a lognormal random variable. Subsequent evolution of new variants may change the parameters of the distribution, which can be updated by the methods in this paper, but the form of the probability function is expected to remain lognormal as this is the most probable distribution consistent with mathematical requirements and available information.

First principles calculation on ternary stannide phase narrow band gap semiconductor Na_2MgSn

The electronic structures,chemical bonding,elastic and optical properties of the ternary stannide phase Na2MgSn were investigated by using density-fimctional theory（DFT） within generalized gradient approximation（GGA）.The calculated energy band structures show that Na2MgSn is an indirect semiconductor material with a narrow band gap 0.126 eV.The density of state（DOS）and the partial density of state（PDOS） calculations show that the DOS near the Fermi level is mainly from the Na 2p,Mg 3p and Sn5 p states.Population analysis suggests that there are strongly bonded Mg-Sn honeycomb layers in Na2MgSn.Basic physical properties,such as lattice constant,bulk modulus,shear modulus,elastic constants c（ij） were calculated.The elastic modulus E and Poisson ratio v were also predicted.The results show that Na2MgSn is mechanically stable soft material and behaves in a brittle manner.Detailed analysis of all optical functions reveals that Na2MgSn is a better dielectric material,and reflectivity spectra show that Na2MgSn promise as good coating materials in the energy regions 6.24-10.49 eV.

First principles study of electronic structure, chemical bonding and elastic properties of BiOCuS

The electronic structures, chemical bonding and elastic properties of the tetragonal phase BiOCuS were investigated by using density-functional theory （DFT） within generalized gradient approximation （GGA）. The calculated energy band structures show that the tetragonal phase BiOCuS is an indirect semiconductor with the calculated band gap of about 0.503 eV. The density of states （DOS） and the partial density of states （PDOS） calculations show that the DOS near the Fermi level is mainly from the Cu-3d state. Population analysis suggests that the chemical bonding in BiOCuS has predominantly ionic character with mixed covalent-ionic character. Basic physical properties, such as lattice constant, bulk modulus, shear modulus, elastic constants, were calculated. The elastic modulus and Poisson ratio were also predicted. The results show that tetragonal phase BiOCuS is mechanically stable and behaves in a ductile manner.