Modern Physics Letters B

In this work, a new method for human re-identification (Re-ID) from multiple surveillance cameras is proposed. Unlike traditional methods in which only the body features are used for matching, our proposed method uses both body and facial features for the Re-ID process. This combination allows us to re-identify people in challenging conditions, such as people with a uniform or similar-looking outfit, a partial or occluded body, appearance changes, or illumination. The face and body feature extraction models were developed using the state-of-the-art deep neural backbones and the synthesis of existing datasets in the literature. The performance of the method was evaluated on a self-generated dataset, which contains images under challenging conditions. The evaluation results show that our method outperforms traditional methods, in which the accuracy Rank1 reaches 91.30% while the traditional ones have a Rank1 of only 86.96%. This newly introduced method can be used for many practical applications in security surveillance of buildings and offices where challenging conditions often appear.

In this study, antibacterial low-density polyethylene (LDPE) composites were prepared using a silver-based antibacterial agent (Ag agent) and compatibilizer (linear low-density polyethylene-g-maleic anhydride (LLDPE-g-MA)), and their thermal, mechanical, and antibacterial properties were examined. The crystallization temperatures of the compatibilizer/antibacterial composites were higher than those of the composites prepared without a compatibilizer. LDPE is a crystalline material, and the addition of LLDPE-g-MA reduced the PE content and enthalpy of the composite and improved the dispersibility of the Ag agent between the substrates. The antibacterial activity test revealed that the addition of the Ag agent and compatibilizer to LDPE composites enhanced their antibacterial effects.

In this study, properties such as hydrophilicity and biocompatibility of surfaces prepared with 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) were evaluated under neutral to acidic conditions. The MPC-modified surface exhibit high hydrophilicity in neutral condition due to the ionization effect, while under acidic conditions below pH 3, the hydrophilicity gradually decreased due to the decrease in the negative charge of the PC groups. Biocompatibility property was evaluated by measuring the adsorption prevention effect against fibrinogen. The adsorption of fibrinogen was hardly observed on scanning electronic microscope (SEM) pictures under pH 7.6, which was significantly lower than that of the bare glass. However, the adsorption ratio increased under acidic conditions of pH 2.8 indicating a decrease in biocompatibility.

The biodegradable natural jute threads (JT) were braided into jute flag ropes (JFR) by a flag braiding machine first. Then, JT and JFR were woven into plain-woven jute thread fabrics (JTF) and jute flag rope fabrics (JFRF), respectively, by using a dobby loom. Subsequently, JTF and JFRF were impregnated with polylactic acid (PLA) resin to become JTF/PLA and JFRF/PLA composites, respectively. These JTF/PLA and JFRF/PLA composites are biodegradable. The tensile, compressive, and bending characteristics of these composites were examined by a material test system (MTS 810). In addition, the impact properties of these composites were evaluated by an Izod tester. The experimental results show that the braiding technique strengthened the jute ropes. The JFRF/PLA composite has high tensile strength, compressive modulus, bending modulus, and impact resistance

Because particles that accumulate without movement can lead to a deposition gradient, the formation of a stable suspension is essential for the electrophoretic dispersion (EPD) process. The hydrophobic properties of Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) were easily dispersed in many nonpolar polymers without further deformation steps. However, the uniform dispersion of HNTs in aqueous solutions is a pre-EPD process task. The zeta potential controls the main parameters of EPD processes, such as the density of deposits, particle orientation and velocity, and repulsive interactions between particles, which determine the stability of the suspension. In this study, the solution stability range for the addition of nanoparticles was measured and the optimal dispersion range was determined. In addition, an HNT-reinforced composite material was created by determining the optimal dispersion stability range of HNT, and the impact strength and fracture mechanism of the interface were analyzed. The solution stability and dispersion were the best between pH 6.6 and 6.8, and the highest impact strength was confirmed at 0.7 wt%. The HNT confirmed the interfacial dispersion of the EPD-fibers using scanning electron microscopy and dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS).

Indium tin oxide (ITO) is widely used in the optoelectronic industry as a transparent conductive oxide owing to its excellent optical and electrical properties. To improve the physical properties of ITO, highly conductive ITO/Ag/ITO multilayer electrodes were prepared using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Then, laser annealing was performed on the multilayer electrodes with scanning intervals of 0.01, 0.02, 0.05 and 0.1 mm. The structural properties of the multilayer electrodes were characterized by X-ray diffraction, and their optical and electrical properties were characterized by ultraviolet (UV) visible spectrophotometry and a four-point probe station, respectively. The results demonstrated that the multilayer films had a polycrystalline structure, and ITO (222) and Ag (111) preferred orientations were identified after laser annealing. In addition, the crystalline size of the Ag layers increased slightly, implying that the defect density within the Ag layers was reduced, resulting in a significant increase in its conductivity. A significantly low electrical resistivity of 5.35 $\mathrm{\Omega }$/sq and high optical transmittance of 85% were achieved. The Haacke index value was ${\varphi }_{\mathrm{\text{Vis}}}\cong 37.74\times 10^{-3}{\mathrm{\Omega }}^{-1}$, which was much better than the value of ${\varphi }_{\mathrm{\text{Vis}}}\cong 18.14\times 10^{-3}{\mathrm{\Omega }}^{-1}$ before laser annealing.

A seawater electrolyzer solution has high alkalinity owing to the presence of scale-like hydroxide compounds, Ca(OH)₂, and Mg(OH)₂ generated from a dimensionally stable anode during electrolysis. This study proposes four different types of composite materials to replace the existing ballast piping materials that are vulnerable to high alkalinity. To this end, composite specimens were prepared and immersed in an NaOH solution for 720 h. Furthermore, their suitability as ballast pipe materials was confirmed through a physical property analysis of the immersed specimens. The results show that all four types of composite specimens deteriorated, but they had different interfacial bonding mechanisms. For specimens with low interfacial bond strength between fibers and resins, the deterioration initiated and propagated from the surface and the internal penetration of the NaOH solution occurred rapidly, resulting in the rapid deterioration of their physical properties. The mechanisms of good and bad interfacial bonding between fibers and resins were determined based on the interfacial bonding force. Thus, this study will help understand the deterioration mechanisms of composite materials immersed in chemical solutions such as NaOH or acid in the future.

In this study, it is executed to obtain ${\mathrm{Zr}}_{2-x}{\mathrm{Ti}}_{\mathrm{x}}{\mathrm{WP}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{12}$ ($x=0.05$, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20) ceramics with high relative density, 0–0.9 wt% MgO was added as a sintering aid. The influence of MgO amount and relative density on the coefficient of thermal expansion for ${\mathrm{Zr}}_{2-x}{\mathrm{Ti}}_{\mathrm{x}}{\mathrm{WP}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{12}$ was also investigated. Pure and monophase of Zr${}_{1.8}$Ti${}_{0.2}$WP₂O${}_{12}$ with MgO has been obtained and MgO used sintering aid was doped in the crystal. The coefficients of thermal expansion of the 0.9 wt% MgO-doped sample and MgO-free sample were $-2.24$ ppm/K and $-2.25$ ppm/K, respectively. This result suggests that doping of MgO does not have an influence on the coefficient of thermal expansion. In other words, adding MgO increases sintering properties without change in the coefficient of thermal expansion.

Transparent diodes were fabricated by layering a Ga–Sn–O (GTO) film onto an In₂O₃:Sn (ITO) film using a facing-targeted DC sputtering method. When a GTO film containing $\sim 25$ mol% Ga was deposited on the surface of the conductive ITO film at room temperature, a diode bilayer film was obtained.The bilayer film exhibited rectification characteristics of approximately 0 and 3.8 $\mu$A/V when negative and positive voltages were applied, respectively. However, the rectification characteristics increased up to 68.3 $\mu$A/V in the positive voltage applied region after annealed at 200${}^{\circ }$C.