{pH is a vital physiological parameter that can be used for disease diagnosis and treatment as well as in monitoring other biological processes. Metal/metal oxide based pH sensors have several advantages regarding their reliability, miniaturization, and cost-effectiveness, which are critical characteristics for in vivo applications. In this work, WO3 nanoparticles were electrodeposited on flexible substrates over metal electrodes with a sensing area of 1 mm(2). These sensors show a sensitivity of -56.7 +/- 1.3 mV/pH, in a wide pH range of 9 to 5. A proof of concept is also demonstrated using a flexible reference electrode in solid electrolyte with a curved surface. A good balance between the performance parameters (sensitivity), the production costs, and simplicity of the sensors was accomplished, as required for wearable biomedical devices.}

{We report the preparation and spectro-electrochemical characterization of electrochromic devices (ECD) combining inkjet-printed WO3 as cathode and electro-deposited V2O5 as anode. ECD were prepared for the first time with an optimized formulation of gel polymer electrolyte based on Bisphenol A ethoxylate dimethacrylate and Poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (BEMA/PEGMA) encompassing the Room Temperature Ionic Liquid (RTIL, 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide) as solvent. The UV-VIS spectrum of ECD was recorded at different potentials during Li+ insertion and de-insertion; additionally the Percent Trasmittance (T%) of ECD vs. time was investigated during repeated bleaching and coloring cycles allowing thus the estimation of switching times and device stability. Due to the lower ionic conductivity and the apparent superior solvent permeability within WO3 active layer, RTIL containing ECD showed slower switching times, but higher contrast with respect to the similar ones with EC/DEC as solvent. These results indicate that the ECD containing environment-friendly RTIL electrolytes are suitable for applications requiring high contrast, high safety and moderately fast switching times.}

This paper inspects how risk is affected by news sign and size within - depreciation, appreciation, stability - distinct exchange rate trends, and by volatility model choice, taking on various asymmetric Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity models to daily Mozambique New Metical against South Africa Rand, MZN/ZAR, exchange rate over January 2010 - December 2014. Our results show that risk measurement
and asymmetry of shocks to volatility depend on exchange rate trend, being that estimating the full sample conceals the actual behavior, and model choice, specifically the degree of nonlinearity and persistence. In particular, we find that when positive/negative news type matches the sign of the exchange rate trend, risk increases by more. Interestingly, this means that in times of appreciation the good news turns out to be bad,
likely because they raise the fear of overvaluation, under monitoring in natural resource producers and exporting countries. The findings contribute to the growing concern on nonlinear economic policy design, exchange rate targeting and surely international trade and investment decisions, where an incorrect assessment exchange rate risk and asymmetry may lead to mispricing of assets, namely options, and eventual underestimation of
measures, as Value at Risk, relevant for Basel agreement.

We study permutations on n elements preserving orientation (parity) of every subset of size k. We describe all groups of these permutations. Unexpectedly, these groups (except for some special cases) are either trivial, cyclic or dihedral. In this context, we define and study monoids generalizing monoids of order-preserving mappings and monoids of orientation-preserving mappings.

In this note, we consider the monoid PIM_n of all partial monotone transformations on a chain with n elements whose domains and ranges are intervals and its submonoid IM_n constituted by the full transformations. For both of these monoids, our aim is to determine their cardinalities and ranks and define them by means of presentations. We also calculate the number of nilpotent elements of PIM_n.

In this paper, we consider the inverse submonoids AM_n of monotone transformations and AO_n of order-preserving transformations of the alternating inverse monoid AI_n on a chain with n elements. We compute the cardinalities, describe the Green's structures and the congruences, and calculate the ranks of these two submonoids of AI_n.

In this paper, we consider the inverse submonoids AOR_n of oriented transformations and AOP_n of orientation-preserving transformations of the alternating inverse monoid AI_n on a chain with n elements. We compute the cardinalities, describe the Green's structures and the congruences, and calculate the ranks of AOR_n and AOP_n.

Let $\Omega_n$ be a finite chain with $n$ elements $(n\in\mathbb{N})$, and let $\mathcal{POPI}_{n}$ be the semigroup of all injective orientation-preserving partial transformations of $\Omega_n$. In this paper, for any nonempty subset $Y$ of $\Omega_n$, we consider the subsemigroup $\mathcal{POPI}_{n}(Y)$ of $\mathcal{POPI}_{n}$ of all transformations with range contained in $Y$. We describe the Green's relations and study the regularity of $\mathcal{POPI}_{n}(Y)$. Moreover, we calculate the rank of $\mathcal{POPI}_{n}(Y)$ and determine when two semigroups of this type are isomorphic.

In this paper, we consider the monoid PIO_n, of all partial order-preserving transformations on a chain with n elements whose domains and ranges are intervals, along with its submonoid PIO_n^- of order-decreasing transformations. Our main aim is to give presentations for PIO_n^- and PIO_n. Moreover, for both monoids, we describe regular elements and determine their ranks, cardinalities and the numbers of idempotents and nilpotents.

In this paper, we consider the monoids of all partial endomorphisms, of all partial weak endomorphisms, of all injective partial endomorphisms, of all partial strong endomorphisms and of all partial strong weak endomorphisms of a star graph with a finite number of vertices. Our main objective is to exhibit a presentation for each of them.