| 1. |
- Zhang, Hanzhu, 1991-
(författare)
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High-entropy boron-carbide and its composites
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- High-entropy alloy (HEA) is a multicomponent alloy material that contains five or more principal elements in equi- or near equi-atomic ratios. The entropy stabilisation leads to the formation of a crystalline solid solution accommodating the principal elements. The HEA solid solution has characteristic features such as lattice distortion, sluggish diffusion and cocktail effect that contribute to the superior properties of HEA including high strength, high hardness, excellent thermal and chemical stability, etc. The concept of HEA has been extended to ceramic materials to process high-entropy ceramic (HEC) that consists of multiple ceramic compounds such as metallic oxides, nitrides or carbides. The HECs have shown entropy stabilisation and formed single-phase ceramic solid solutions. However, the formation mechanism of high-entropic phase in HECs remains unclear and unpredictable. Generally, in order to maximise the probability of forming a high-entropy solid solution in a ceramic system, ceramic compounds with least difference in the crystal structure, preferably with only one anionic constituent element, are favoured when designing HECs, which limits the potential of discovering and developing new HECs. In this project, a multicomponent ceramic system containing six ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), B4C, HfC, Mo2C, TaC, TiC and SiC, was used to investigate the formation of high-entropy ceramics, UHTC composites, as well as the microstructure evolution, properties and high temperature applications. A ceramic composite composed of SiC and a high-entropy boron-carbide with hexagonal crystal structure was successfully processed from the carbide system in spite of the difference in the crystal structures of precursors (face-centred cubic, hexagonal and rhombohedral). The hexagonal HEC solid solution exhibited a unique AlB2 structure with alternating layers of metal and non-metal C/B atoms according to the experimental and simulation investigations. The HEC/SiC composite showed superior mechanical properties such as ultra-high hardness, excellent wear and oxidation resistance. The addition of B4C was discovered to be the key factor in the formation of the hexagonal high-entropy boron-carbide solid solution, while the final phase composition was tailored by utilising precursors of different particle size. Additionally, SiC as the reinforcement component in the HEC/SiC composite was used to tailor the microstructure, phase evolution and mechanical properties of the high-entropy boron-carbide composite. Higher content of SiC resulted in enhanced mechanical properties such as hardness and fracture toughness, as well as promoted the formation of the hexagonal high-entropy boron-carbide solid solution. To extend the investigation on the high-entropy boron-carbide composite to application, B4C, HfC, Mo2C, TaC and TiC were consolidated into a target for magnetron sputtering. The target was used to deposit oxidation-resistant high-entropy coatings using magnetron sputtering on carbon-carbon composites. The coatings showed superior mechanical performance and high temperature oxidation resistance at 2000 °C on carbon-carbon composite, suggesting potential applications of high-entropy boron-carbide ceramics as a protective coating material against oxidation at elevated temperature. This work pointed out the possibilities of synthesising high-performance HECs with superior properties from components with vast elemental and structure diversity, and thereby advanced the design criteria of HECs and provided more potential research directions for the new high-performance ceramic materials.
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| 2. |
- Zhang, Xueli, 1991-
(författare)
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Biomarkers for Diagnosis, Therapy and Prognosis in Colorectal Cancer : a study from databases, machine learning predictions to laboratory confirmations
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide. Early diagnosis and better therapy response have been believed to be associated with better prognosis. CRC biomarkers are considered as precise indicators for the early diagnosis and better therapy response. It is, therefore, of importance to find out, analyze and evaluate the CRC biomarkers to further provide the more precis evidence for predicting novel potential biomarkers and eventually to improve early diagnosis, personalized therapy and prognosis for CRC.In this study, we started with creating and establishing a CRC biomarker database. (CBD: http://sysbio.suda.edu.cn/CBD/index.html) In the CBD database, there were 870 reported CRC biomarkers collected from the published articles in PubMed. In this version of the CBD, CRC biomarker data was carefully collected, sorted, displayed, and analyzed. The major applications of the CBD are to provide 1) the records of CRC biomarkers (DNA, RNA, protein and others) concerning diagnosis, treatment and prognosis; 2) the basic and clinical research information concerning the CRC biomarkers; 3) the primary results for bioinformatics and biostatics analysis of the CRC biomarkers; 4) downloading/uploading the biomedicine information for CRC biomarkers.Based on our CBD and other public databases, we further analyzed the presented CRC biomarkers (DNAs, RNAs, proteins) and predicted novel potential multiple biomarkers (the combination of single biomarkers) with biological networks and pathways analysis for diagnosis, therapy response and prognosis in CRC. We found several hub biomarkers and key pathways for the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis in CRC. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) test and survival analysis by microarray data revealed that multiple biomarkers could be better biomarkers than the single biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of CRC.There are 62 diagnosis biomarkers for colon cancer in our CBD. In the previous studies, we found these present biomarkers were not enough to improve significantly the diagnosis of colon cancer. In order to find out novel biomarkers for the colon cancer diagnosis, we have performed /machine learning (ML) techniques such as support vector machine (SVM) and regression tree to predict candidate to discover diagnostic biomarkers for colon cancer. Based on the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network topology features of the identified biomarkers, we found 12 protein biomarkers which were considered as the candidate colon cancer diagnosis biomarkers. Among these protein biomarkers Chromogranin-A (CHGA) was the most powerful biomarker, which showed good performance in bioinformatics test and Immunohistochemistry(IHC). We are now expanding this study to CRC.Expression of CHGA protein in colon cancer was further verified with a novel logistic regressionbased meta-analysis, and convinced as a valuable diagnostic biomarker as compared with the typical diagnostic biomarkers, such as TP53, KRAS and MKI67.microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) have been considered as potential biomarkers. A novel miRNA-mRNA interaction network-based model was used to predict miRNA biomarkers for CRC and found that miRNA-186-5p, miRNA-10b-5p and miRNA-30e-5p might be the novel biomarkers for CRC diagnosis. In conclusion, we have created a useful CBD database for CRC biomarkers and provided detailed information for how to use the CBD in CRC biomarker investigations. Our studies have been focusing on the biomarkers in diagnosis, therapy and prognosis. Based on our CBD and other powerful cancer associated databases, ML has been used to analyze the characteristics of the CRC biomarkers and predict novel potential CRC biomarkers. The predicted potential biomarkers were further confirmed at biomedical laboratory.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Gnosa, Sebastian, 1984-
(författare)
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Astrocyte elevated gene-1 in relation to colorectal cancer development and radiotherapy response
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The incidence and death rate for colorectal cancer (CRC) decreased during the last decades as a result of improved diagnosis and treatment. However, CRC is still the third most common cancer in the world, and is responsible for about 700 000 deaths per year worldwide. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms of the disease, and to find molecular markers in order to further improve prognosis, and to develop new treatment strategies. Astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1), encoded by the MTDH gene, is upregulated in a variety of cancers. AEG-1 is involved in cell survival, proliferation, migration, invasion, metastasis, angiogenesis, and apoptosis.The aim of this thesis was to investigate the role of AEG-1 in CRC development and the impact of AEG-1 on the response of radiation treatment. The AEG-1 expression, analysed in different CRC patient cohorts in paper I and III, was increased in the tumour tissue compared with the normal mucosa, and higher in the lymph node and liver metastases. Expression analyses in normal and cancer cell lines confirmed these results. In paper II, sequencing of the complete coding sequence of the MTDH gene in 356 patients revealed 50 single nucleotide variants of which 29 were novel. Eight exonic variants were detected, including three frameshift variants which were probably pathogenic, and two missense variants located in functional protein regions. There was no correlation of the MTDH variants or AEG-1 expression with the patient survival. In paper III, we also investigated the impact of AEG-1 on the response to radiation treatment. AEG-1 knockdown decreased the cellular survival upon radiation in several colon cancer cell lines. The AEG-1 expression was furthermore analysed in patients, which were randomised to either surgery alone or preoperative radiotherapy (RT), followed by surgery. The rectal cancer patients with high AEG-1 expression treated with RT had a significantly higher risk of developing distant recurrence and had a worse disease free survival, likely due to the metastasis promoting properties of AEG-1. In paper IV, the impact of AEG-1 knockdown and radiation on migration and invasion was analysed in colon cancer cell lines in vitro and in a novel zebrafish model in vivo. AEG-1 knockdown decreased migration and invasion, and radiation-enhanced migration and invasion in the cell lines tested.In conclusion, our data suggest that AEG-1 is involved in CRC development, while MTDH gene variants probably not have a high clinical importance in CRC. Furthermore, AEG-1 is a promising radiosensitising target and a valuable prognostic marker in CRC. We further showed that AEG-1 knockdown inhibits migration and invasion, as well as radiation-enhanced cell migration and invasion.
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| 5. |
- Qian, Deping
(författare)
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Studies of Voltage Losses in Organic Solar Cells
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices based on semiconducting polymers and small molecules are potential alternatives to inorganic solar cells, owing to their advantages of being inexpensive, lightweight, flexible and suitable for roll-to-roll production. The state of art organic solar cells (OSCs) performed power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) over 13%.The quantum efficiency losses in OSCs have been significantly reduced within the charge generation and extraction processes, resulting in high EQEPV (70-90%) and high FF (70-80%). Whereas, large voltage losses (Δ? = ??/? − ???) were observed in conventional fullerene based solar cells, and it has been the main limiting factor for further OPV advancement. Therefore, strategies to reduce the voltage losses are required.In this thesis, newly designed non-fullerene (NF) acceptors are used to construct novel material systems for high efficiency solar cells. In particular, we studied the hole transfer in these fullerene free systems. We also reported a NF system that exhibit ultrafast and efficient charge separation despite a negligible driving force, as ECT is nearly identical to ??. Moreover, the small driving force is found to have minimal detrimental effects on charge transfer dynamics of the OSCs. We demonstrate a NF based OSC with efficiency of 9.5% and internal quantum efficiency nearly 90% despite a low voltage loss of 0.61 V. This creates a path towards highly efficient OSCs with a low voltage loss.CT states in OSCs are also investigated, since VOC is governed by the CT energy (ECT), which is found as ???? = ??? − 0.6 in a large set of fullerene based solar cells. In order to reduce these recombination losses from CT states, we explored polymer-diPDI systems which exhibited weakened D-A coupling strength, due to the steric hindrance effect. The radiative recombination losses at D/A interface in these NF devices are all reduced to less than 0.18 eV. In particular, in some cases, the additional emission from pure material is favorable for suppressing the non-radiative CT states decay. Consequently, the recombination losses in these NF systems are reduced to 0.5 eV, while the charge generation is still efficient as confirmed by PL quenching and EQEPV.Novel material systems based on non-fullerene acceptors are investigated. The systems performed energy offsets (ΔHOMO or ΔLUMO) less than 0.15eV, resulting in the same energy of CT states and bulk excitons. In this regard, the charge transfer energy loss is minimized. We also found that the EL spectra as well as the EQEEL of the blend solar cells are similar with that of lower gap components in blends. Thus the non-radiative voltage losses are reduced to < 0.3V and small voltage loss of 0.5-0.7V are obtained. Meanwhile, the charge generation in systems are still efficient and high EQEPV of 50-70% can be achieved. It confirms that there is no intrinsic limit for the VOC and efficiency of OPVs as compared with other photovoltaic technologies.
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| 6. |
- Wang, Yuming, 1989-
(författare)
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Voltage Losses in Non-fullerene Organic Solar Cells
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Non-fullerene acceptors have significantly boosted the efficiencies of organic solar cells (OSCs) in the past few years. State-of-the-art OSCs have achieved a certificated power conversion efficiency of 17.4%. In spite of significant professes, there is still a gap between efficiencies of OSCs and those of traditional inorganic solar cells and emerging perovskite solar cells. One of the important reasons for this gap is the large voltage losses for OSCs. Understanding and reducing the voltage losses is of critical importance for further improving the performance of the OSCs. This thesis studies the voltage losses of OSCs based on non-fullerene acceptors.The charge transfer (CT) state plays a critical role in the open-circuit voltage (VOC) of the OSCs. According to the reciprocity relation between the electroluminescence (EL) and the external quantum efficiency of solar cells (EQEPV), we know that the sub-bandgap absorbance (responsible for large radiative recombination voltage losses) and the weak emission of CT states (responsible for large non-radiative voltage losses) are the reasons for large voltage losses in fullerene-based OSCs. In addition, the driving force, defined as the difference between the energy of the singlet states and CT states, was considered to be essential for efficient charge generation, especially when the OSC field was dominated by fullerene acceptors. A series of polymer: non-fullerene pairs with different driving forces were studied by spectroscopy methods e.g. Fourier-transfer photocurrent spectroscopy (FTPS) and electroluminescence spectroscopy. It was demonstrated that both radiative recombination voltage loss and the non-radiative energy loss can be suppressed by reducing driving forces, resulting in overall decreased voltage losses of the OSCs.Another question regarding the trade-off between the voltage losses and charge generation is still under debate – is the driving force essential for the efficient charge separation? A novel polymer: non-fullerene system with negligible offsets between both the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and the highest unoccupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of the donor and acceptor was studied. Although the driving force for the new system is small, it works efficiently. It implies that efficient charge generation can occur with negligible driving forces for both electrons and holes, suggesting that the high VOC and efficient charge generation can be achieved at the same time for non-fullerene OSCs.In addition to binary OSCs, the voltage losses in ternary OSCs are also studied in this thesis. It was found that the VOC of the ternary organic solar cells cannot be well interpreted by the widely used alloy or parallel model. The non-radiative voltage loss, which is not paid much attention in the two models, was found to play an important role in the tunable VOC of the ternary OSCs. We demonstrate that the non-radiative voltage losses in ternary OSCs is dependent on the radiative recombination rates and the energy levels of the CT states of the two constituting binary OSCs. Furthermore, the aggregation of the individual components can be decreased by adding the third component, suppressing the aggregation caused quenching and leading to a reduced non-radiative recombination voltage loss.The non-fullerene based OSCs with small voltage losses show great potential for indoor applications. Although it might be difficult for OSCs to compete with commercial silicon solar cells for harvesting the solar energy, we demonstrate highly efficient and stable non-fullerene OSCs under indoor light, providing a unique application possibility where OSCs can out-compete other photovoltaic technologies. For the indoor application, the OSCs takes advantage of the easily tunable absorption range of the organic semiconductors, and avoids their drawbacks of the instability under strong outdoor light containing ultraviolet light.
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| 7. |
- Yu, Hongling, 1987-
(författare)
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Color Tuning for Perovskite Light-Emitting Diodes
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Metal halide perovskites (MHPs) are recognized as promising semiconductor materials for a variety of optical and electrical device applications due to their cost-effective and outstanding optoelectronic properties. As one of the most significant applications, perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) hold promise for future lighting and display technologies, attributed to their high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY), high color purity, and tunable emission color. The emission colors of PeLEDs can be tuned by mixing the halide anions, adjusting the size of perovskite nanocrystals, or changing the dimensionality of perovskites. However, in practice, all these different approaches have their own advantages and challenges. This thesis centres around the color tunability of perovskites, aiming to develop PeLEDs with different colors using different approaches.We first demonstrate red and near-infrared PeLEDs using a straightforward approach – in situ solution-processed perovskite quantum dots (PQDs). PQDs prepared from colloidal approaches are widely reported and used in LEDs. In contrast, PQDs prepared from the in situ approaches are hardly reported, although they have advantages for device applications. By employing aromatic ammonium iodide (1-naphthylmethyl ammonium iodide, NMAI) as an agent into perovskite precursor solutions, together with annealing temperature modulation, we obtain in situ grown PQDs delivering high external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) of up to 11.0% with tunable electroluminescence (EL) spectra (667 - 790 nm). Our in situ generated PQDs based on pure-halogen perovskites can be easily obtained through a simple deposition process and free of phase segregation, making them a more promising approach for tuning the emission colors of perovskite LEDs.We then move to blue PeLEDs using cesium-based mixed-Br/Cl perovskites. Although mixed halides are a straightforward strategy to tune the emission color, PeLEDs based on this approach suffer from poor color stability, which is attributed to surface defects at grain boundaries. Under the condition of optical excitations, light density over a certain value (a threshold), oxygen, and surface defects at perovskite grain boundaries are found to be key factors inducing photoluminescence (PL) spectral instability of CsPb(Br1−xClx)3 perovskites. Upon electrical bias, defects at grain boundaries provide undesirable halide migration channels, responsible for EL spectral instability issues. Through effective defect passivation, the PL spectral resistance to oxygen is enhanced; moreover, high-performance and color-stable blue PeLEDs are achieved, delivering a maximum luminance of 5351 cd m–2 and a peak EQE of 4.55% with a peak emission wavelength at 489 nm. These findings provide new insights into the color instability issue of mixed halide blue perovskites, against which we also demonstrate an effective strategy.We finally realize single-emissive-layer (EML) white PeLEDs by employing a mixed halide perovskite film as the EML. In spite of high-performance monochromatic blue, green, and red colors, the development of white PeLEDs, especially for single-EML ones, remains a very big challenge. By effective modulation of the halide salt precursors, we achieve single-EML white PeLEDs with Commission Internationale de L’Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.33, 0.33), close to those (0.3128, 0.3290) of the CIE standard illuminant D65. This work not only provides a successful demonstration of a single-EML white PeLED, but also provides useful guidelines for the future development of highperformance single-EML white PeLEDs.
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| 8. |
- Zhang, Feng, 1986-
(författare)
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Instability in Settling Fibres : A Numerical Study
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sedimenting suspensions exist in a varity of natural phenomena and industrial applications. It is already observed in experiments that the dilute fibre suspensions experience a concentration instability under gravity at low Reynolds numbers. Initially well-mixed suspensions become inhomogeneous and anisotropic due to this instability. This project is focused on the development and validation of numerical models to understand the instability in a dilute fibre suspension by means of the mixture model and the point-particle model.For periodic boundary condition, we use a linear stability analysis to show that inertia and hydro dynamic translational diffusion damp perturbations at long wavelengths and short wavelengths, respectively, leading to a wavenumber selection. However, numerical simulations indicate a weak wavenumber selection even at zero Reynolds number. Numerical simulations also show that the induced flow may either die or saturate on a finite amplitude. The characterof this long time behaviour is dictated by the wavenumber, the presence or absence of the translational diusivity, rotational diffusivity, and the fluid inertia on particle motions. Moreover, the most unstable wavenumber decreases with time and the maximum amplitude increases. The smallest wavenumber obtains the largest amplitude at steady state.For a vessel bounded by sidewalls, the near-wall convection is an upward back flow in the very beginning, due to the combined effects of the steric-depleted layer and a hydrodynamiclly-depleted region near the wall. However, the evolution of the near-wall convection at later times depends on the aspect ratio of the bres, the translational diffusivity and the initial perturbations. The steric-depleted layer in the mixture model can be neglected for large widths. Multiple streamers are obtained due to the sidewalls, implying that the sidewalls can generate a wavelength which is smaller than the channel width. The suspension ends up with a single streamer on one side of the container, consistent with the results of the cases with periodic boundary condition but different from the experimental results. This might be due to the absence of the botton wall in the mixture model. Moreover, the global structure evolution of a suspension is dependent on the width of the vessel and the amplitude ofthe initial perturbations.
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| 9. |
- Zhang, Feng, 1984-
(författare)
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Secure Mobile Service-Oriented Architecture
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Mobile transactions have been in development for around ten years. More and more initiatives and efforts are invested in this area resulting in dramatic and rapid development and deployment of mobile technologies and applications. However, there are still many issues that hinder wider deployment and acceptance of mobile systems, especially those handling serious and sensitive mobile transactions. One of the most important of them is security.This dissertation is focused on security architecture for mobile environments. Research issues addressed in this dissertation are based on three currently important groups of problems: a) lack of an open, comprehensive, adaptable and secure infrastructure for mobile services and applications; b) lack of standardized solutions for secure mobile transactions, compliant with various regulatory and user requirements and applicable to different types of popular mobile devices and hardware/software mobile platforms; and c) resource limitations of mobile devices and mobile networks.The main contribution of this dissertation is large-scale, secure service-oriented architecture for mobile environments. The architecture structures secure mobile transaction systems into seven layers, called trusted stack, which is equivalent to ISO/OSI layered networking model. These layers are, starting from the bottom: 1) secure element (chip) layer, 2) applets layer, 3) middleware layer, 4) mobile applications layer, 5) communication layer, 6) services broker layer, and 7) mobile service provider layer. These seven layers include all necessary components required for implementation and operations of secure mobile transaction systems and therefore provide a framework for designing and implementing such systems.Besides the architecture, four types of security services necessary and critical for serious mobile transactions, have also been designed and described in the dissertation. These services are: (1) mobile registration and identity management; (2) mobile PKI; (3) mobile authentication and authorization; and (4) secure messaging. These services are lightweight, therefore suitable for mobile environments, technologies and applications, and also compliant with existing Internet security standards.Finally, as the proof of correctness of the proposed concept and methodology, a prototype system was also developed based on the designed security architecture. The system provides comprehensive security services mentioned above to several types of mobile services providers: mobile banking, mobile commerce, mobile ticketing, and mobile parking. These types of providers have been selected only as currently the most popular and representative, since the architecture is applicable to any other type of mobile service providers.
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| 10. |
- Zhang, Feng, 1981-
(författare)
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Theoretical Studies on Kinetics of Molecular Excited States
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- HTML clipboardKinetics on molecular excited states is a challenging subject in the field of theoretical chemistry. This thesis pays attention to theoretical studies on kinetics of photo-induced processes, including photo-chemical reactions, radiative and non-radiative transitions (intersystem crossing and internal conversion) in molecular and bio-related systems. One- or multi- dimensional potential energy surfaces (PESs) not only provide qualitative mechanistic explanation for excited state decay, but also make it possible to perform kinetic simulations. We have constructed several types of PESs by using computational methods of high-accuracy for a variety of systems of interest. In particular, density functional theory (DFT) and couple cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) method are employed to build PESs of the ground and lowest triple states. For medium-sized molecules, the complete active space self-consistent (CASSCF) method is used for constructing the PESs of excited states. Various kinetic theories for the decay processes of excite states are briefly introduced, in particularly adiabatic and nonadiabatic Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel -Marcus (RRKM) approaches for the kinetics of nonradiative decay of excited 2-aminopridine molecule. Special attention has been devoted to Monte Carlo transition state theory which can provide an efficient way to predict the rate of nonradiative transitions of polyatomic molecules on multi-dimensional PESs. Examples of Monte Carlo simulations on the intersystem crossing of isocyanic acid and a model molecule of hexacoordinate heme, as well as internal conversion process for 2-amininopyridine dimer and the adenine-thymine base pair are presented.
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