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The effect of post-deposition annealing temperature on the pH sensitivity of room temperature RF sputtered Ta₂O₅ was investigated. Structural and morphological features of these films were analyzed before and after annealing at various temperatures. The deposited films are amorphous up to 600 °C and crystallize at 700 °C in an orthorhombic phase. Electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor (EIS) field effect based sensors with an amorphous Ta2O5 sensing layer showed pH sensitivity above 50 mV/pH. For sensors annealed above 200 °C pH sensitivity decreased with increasing temperature. Stabilized sensor response and maximum pH sensitivity was achieved after low temperature annealing at 200 °C, which is compatible with the use of polymeric substrates and application as sensitive layer in oxides TFT-based sensors.

This research has been motivated by a real-life problem of a waste cooking oil collection system characterized by the existence of multiple depots with an outsourced vehicle fleet, where the collection routes have to be plan. The routing problem addressed allows open routes between depots, i.e., all routes start at one depot but can end at the same or at a different one, depending on what minimizes the objective function considered. Such problem is referred as a Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Mixed Closed and Open Inter-Depot Routes and is, in this paper, modeled through a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulation where capacity and duration constraints are taken into account. The model developed is applied to the real case study providing, as final results, the vehicle routes planning where a decrease of 13% on mileage and 11% on fleet hiring cost are achieved, when comparing with the current company solution.

The preferential binding of anions and cations in aqueous solutions of the ionic liquids (ILs) 1-butyl- 3-methylimidazolium ([C₄mim]⁺) and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ([C₂mim]⁺) chloride and dicyanamide (dca^-) with the small alpha-helical protein Im7 was investigated using a combination of differential scanning calorimetry, NMR spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Our results show that direct ion interactions are crucial to understand the effects of ILs on the stability of proteins and that an anion effect is dominant. We show that the binding of weakly hydrated anions to positively charged or polar residues leads to the partial dehydration of the backbone groups, and is critical to control stability, explaining why dca^- is more denaturing than Cl^-. Direct cation–protein interactions also mediate stability; cation size and hydrophobicity are relevant to account for destabilisation as shown by the effect of [C₄mim]⁺ compared to [C₂mim]⁺. The specificity in the interaction of IL ions with protein residues established by weak favourable interactions is confirmed by NMR chemical shift perturbation, amide hydrogen exchange data and MD simulations. Differences in specificity are due to the balance of interaction established between ion pairs and ion-solvent that determine the type of residues affected. When the interaction of both cation and anion with the protein is strong the net result is similar to a non-specific interaction, leading ultimately to unfolding. Since the nature of the ions is a determinant of the level of interaction with the protein towards denaturation or stabilisation, ILs offer a unique possibility to modulate protein stabilisation or even folding events.

Let \(\mathcal{M}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) be the class of bounded away from one and infinity functions \(p:\mathbb{R}^n\to[1,\infty]\) such that the Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator is bounded on the variable Lebesgue space \(L^{p(\cdot)}(\mathbb{R}^n)\). We show that if \(a\) belongs to the Hörmander class \(S_{\rho,\delta}^{n(\rho-1)}\) with \(0<\rho\le 1\), \(0\le\delta<1\), then the pseudodifferential operator \(\operatorname{Op}(a)\) is bounded on the variable Lebesgue space \(L^{p(\cdot)}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) provided that \(p\in\mathcal{M}(\mathbb{R}^n)\). Let \(\mathcal{M}^*(\mathbb{R}^n)\) be the class of variable exponents \(p\in\mathcal{M}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) represented as \(1/p(x)=\theta/p_0+(1-\theta)/p_1(x)\) where \(p_0\in(1,\infty)\), \(\theta\in(0,1)\), and \(p_1\in\mathcal{M}(\mathbb{R}^n)\). We prove that if \(a\in S_{1,0}^0\) slowly oscillates at infinity in the first variable, then the condition \[ \lim_{R\to\infty}\inf_{|x|+|\xi|\ge R}|a(x,\xi)|>0 \] is sufficient for the Fredholmness of \(\operatorname{Op}(a)\) on \(L^{p(\cdot)}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) whenever \(p\in\mathcal{M}^*(\mathbb{R}^n)\). Both theorems generalize pioneering results by Rabinovich and Samko [RS08] obtained for globally log-Hölder continuous exponents \(p\), constituting a proper subset of \(\mathcal{M}^*(\mathbb{R}^n)\).

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Thin-films of copper oxide Cu O were produced by thermal oxidation of metallic copper (Cu) at different temperatures (150-450 C). The films produced at temperatures of 200, 250 and 300 C showed high Hall motilities of 2.2, 1.9 and 1.6 cm V s , respectively. Single Cu O phases were obtained at 200 C and its conversion to CuO starts at 250 C. For lower thicknesses 40 nm, the films oxidized at 250 C showed a complete conversion to CuO phase. Successful thin-film transistors (TFTs) were produce by thermal oxidation of a 20 nm Cu film, obtaining p-type Cu O (at 200 C) and CuO (at 250 C) with On/Off ratios of 6 10 and 1 10 , respectively. © 2005-2012 IEEE.

In this paper we report results concerning the use of paper as substrate and as an electronic component for the next generation of sustainable low cost electronic systems, where different examples of applications are given. © 2013 Society for Information Display.

In this work, we report results concerning the performances of thin-film transistors (TFTs) where the channel layer is based on microcrystalline zinc tin oxide (ZTO) processed by spray pyrolysis technique. TFTs made with 30 nm thick ZTO channel layer deposited at a substrate temperature of 400 C and 300 Cexhibited, respectively, a saturation mobility of 2.9 cm V s and 1.45 cm V s ; voltage of 0.15 V, and 0.2 V; a sub-threshold swing of 400 mV/dec and 500 mV/dec; ON/OFF ratio at the onset of hard saturation current of 3.5 10 and 6 10 , for a drain to source voltage of 10 V (close to or below the gate to source voltage). This indicates that the substrate temperature is relevant in determining the devices' electronic performances. © 2013 IEEE.