Interfacial nanodroplets were grafted to the surfaces of self-sacrificed template particles in a galvanic reaction system to assist the construction of 3D Au porous structures. The interfacial nanodroplets were formed via direct adsorption of surfactant-free emulsions onto the particle surfaces. The interfacial nanodroplets discretely distributed at the template particle surfaces and served as ...

In this paper, we present a modified nanosphere lithographic scheme that is based on the self-assembly and electroforming techniques. The scheme was demonstrated to fabricate a nickel template of ordered nanobowl arrays together with a nickel nanostructure array-patterned glass substrate. The hemispherical nanobowls exhibit uniform sizes and smooth interior surfaces, and the shallow nanobowls w...

In many industries, there are some tasks which pose life risk for human workers. The trend is to replace the human worker by robots. These intelligent machines do a task with precision and suit for repetitive tasks. One typical task in an industry is to pick up a load (object) and place it elsewhere. The goal is to identify (locate) the correct load and pick it up to transport. In this paper, w...

The influence of SnO2 nanoparticles and method of their introduction in silver matrix on microstructure and physical properties such as density, porosity, hardness and electrical conductivity of Ag-SnO2 electrical contact materials were studied. The SnO2 nanoparticles were introduced by conventional powder mixing and by template method using different templates. All investigated samples were pr...

Mn-doped ZnS nanocrystals based on low dopant concentrations (0-2%) and coated with a shell of Zn(OH)2 have been prepared via soft template and precipitation reaction. The results indicate that the ZnS:Mn nanocrystal is cubic zinc blende structure and its diameter is 3.02 nm as demonstrated by XRD. Measured by TEM, the morphology of nanocrystals is a spherical shape, and their particle size (3-...

Self-assembly is a powerful paradigm, wherein molecules spontaneously form ordered phases exhibiting well-defined nanoscale periodicity and shapes. However, the inherent energy-minimization aspect of self-assembly yields a very limited set of morphologies, such as lamellae or hexagonally packed cylinders. Here, we show how soft self-assembling materials-block copolymer thin films-can be manipul...

This paper presents an Ontology-based Holonic Diagnostic System (OHDS) that combines the advantages of the holonic paradigm with multi-agent system technology and ontology design, for the organization of unstructured biomedical research into structured disease information. We use ontologies as ‘brain’ for the holonic diagnostic system to enhance its ability to structure information in a meaning...

This paper proposed an automated three-dimensional (3D) lumbar intervertebral disc (IVD) segmentation strategy from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data. Starting from two user supplied landmarks, the geometrical parameters of all lumbar vertebral bodies and intervertebral discs are automatically extracted from a mid-sagittal slice using a graphical model based template matching approach. Base...

The emergence of porous organic polymers (POPs) has provided great opportunities for new applications in heterogeneous catalysis owing to their unprecedented intrinsic structural features such as high surface areas, extraordinary framework stabilities and chemically adjustable compositions. In this tutorial review, representative recent developments in the POPs-based catalysts with hierarchical...