Specific Ion Effects of Azobenzene Salts on Photoresponse of PNIPAm in Aqueous Solutions.

Ionic species are important to dominate phase separation behaviors of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) in aqueous solutions. Herein, photoresponsive azobenzene-based salts with various ions are prepared and their photoresponsive ion effects on clouding temperatures (TcpS ) of PNIPAm in aqueous solutions are explored. It is found that, despite of various structures of anions and cations, trans-TcpS under vis light irradiation are always higher than cis-TcpS under UV irradiation. Particularly, Hofmeister effect of anions on TcpS is roughly observed. For example, azobenzene with kosmotropic CO3 2- gives the lowest cis-Tcp while in use of typical chaotropic anions, such as ClO4 - , azobenzene isomerization less affects values of Tcp s. In another hand, azobenzene-based metallic salts containing lithium, sodium, and potassium cations also demonstrate photoresponsive Hofmeister effect. Trans-metallic azobenzene demonstrates a chaotropic effect on Tcp s while UV induces kosmotropic behaviors on TcpS . Additionally, ionic conduction of the solution along with photoresponsive phase separations is also investigated and PNIPAm aggregations induce a sharp reduction of ion conduction during UV light illumination.

Emotional Voice Puppetry.

The paper presents emotional voice puppetry, an audio-based facial animation approach to portray characters with vivid emotional changes. The lips motion and the surrounding facial areas are controlled by the contents of the audio, and the facial dynamics are established by category of the emotion and the intensity. Our approach is exclusive because it takes account of perceptual validity and geometry instead of pure geometric processes. Another highlight of our approach is the generalizability to multiple characters. The findings showed that training new secondary characters when the rig parameters are categorized as eye, eyebrows, nose, mouth, and signature wrinkles is significant in achieving better generalization results compared to joint training. User studies demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our approach can be applicable in AR/VR and 3DUI, namely, virtual reality avatars/self-avatars, teleconferencing and in-game dialogue.

Poly(ethylenimine)-Functionalized Monolithic Alumina Honeycomb Adsorbents for CO2 Capture from Air.

The development of practical and effective gas-solid contactors is an important area in the development of CO2 capture technologies. Target CO2 capture applications, such as postcombustion carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) from power plant flue gases or CO2 extraction directly from ambient air (DAC), require high flow rates of gas to be processed at low cost. Extruded monolithic honeycomb structures, such as those employed in the catalytic converters of automobiles, have excellent potential as structured contactors for CO2 adsorption applications because of the low pressure drop imposed on fluid moving through the straight channels of such structures. Here, we report the impregnation of poly(ethylenimine) (PEI), an effective aminopolymer reported commonly for CO2 separation, into extruded monolithic alumina to form structured CO2 sorbents. These structured sorbents are first prepared on a small scale, characterized thoroughly, and compared with powder sorbents with a similar composition. Despite consistent differences observed in the filling of mesopores with PEI between the monolithic and powder sorbents, their performance in CO2 adsorption is similar across a range of PEI contents. A larger monolithic cylinder (1 inch diameter, 4 inch length) is evaluated under conditions closer to those that might be used in large-scale applications and shows a similar performance to the smaller monoliths and powders tested initially. This larger structure is evaluated over five cycles of CO2 adsorption and steam desorption and demonstrates a volumetric capacity of 350 molCO2 m-3monolith and an equilibration time of 350 min under a 0.4 m s(-1) linear flow velocity through the monolith channels using 400 ppm CO2 in N2 as the adsorption gas at 30 °C. This volumetric capacity surpasses that of a similar technology considered previously, which suggested that CO2 could be removed from air at an operating cost as low as $100 per ton.