Nie Luo - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Nie Luo

High-Tc Superconductivity, 2021

Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, 2005

Recent experiments in the LUNAR (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) project have sh... more Recent experiments in the LUNAR (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) project have shown anonymously high electron screening may occur during acceleration driven low energy (<400 kV) ion bombardment of solid targets [1]. These effects become particularly important for E/ Ue < 100 (here E= ion energy and Ue = electron-screening potential energy). Thus these effects become significant for the understanding

First Principles methods are used to study the electronic and phonon structures of palladium hydr... more First Principles methods are used to study the electronic and phonon structures of palladium hydrides (PdH). The electronic structures of Pd thin-films at various H compositions (loadings) are calculated by using both full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) and pseudopotential plane wave (PPPW) techniques. The two methods give similar results, which closely match previous theoretical studies. The phonon structures,

Journal of Power Sources, 2007

A fuel cell (FC) using liquid fuel and oxidizer is under investigation. H 2 O 2 is used in this F... more A fuel cell (FC) using liquid fuel and oxidizer is under investigation. H 2 O 2 is used in this FC directly at the cathode. Either of two types of reactant, namely a gas-phase hydrogen or an aqueous NaBH 4 solution, are utilized as fuel at the anode. Experiments demonstrate that the direct utilization of H 2 O 2 and NaBH 4 at the electrodes results in >30% higher voltage output compared to the ordinary H 2 /O 2 FC. Further, the use of this combination of all liquid fuels, provides numerous advantages (ease of storage, reduced pumping requirements, simplified heat removal, etc.) from an operational point of view. This design is inherently compact compared to other cells that use gas phase reactants. Further, regeneration is possible using an electrical input, e.g. from power lines or a solar panel. While the peroxide-based FC is ideally suited for applications such as space power where air is not available and a high energy density fuel is essential, other distributed and mobile power uses are of interest.

IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 2010

In this paper, a novel pattern recognition scheme, global harmonic subspace analysis (GHSA), is d... more In this paper, a novel pattern recognition scheme, global harmonic subspace analysis (GHSA), is developed for face recognition. In the proposed scheme, global harmonic features are extracted at the semantic scale to capture the 2-D semantic spatial structures of a face image. Laplacian Eigenmap is applied to discriminate faces in their global harmonic subspace. Experimental results on the Yale and PIE face databases show that the proposed GHSA scheme achieves an improvement in face recognition accuracy when compared with conventional subspace approaches, and a further investigation shows that the proposed GHSA scheme has impressive robustness to noise.

IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2010

In this paper, a novel motion-tracking scheme using scale-invariant features is proposed for auto... more In this paper, a novel motion-tracking scheme using scale-invariant features is proposed for automatic cell motility analysis in gray-scale microscopic videos, particularly for the live-cell tracking in low-contrast differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy. In the proposed approach, scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) points around live cells in the microscopic image are detected, and a structure locality preservation (SLP) scheme using Laplacian Eigenmap is proposed to track the SIFT feature points along successive frames of low-contrast DIC videos. Experiments on low-contrast DIC microscopic videos of various live-cell lines shows that in comparison with principal component analysis (PCA) based SIFT tracking, the proposed Laplacian-SIFT can significantly reduce the error rate of SIFT feature tracking. With this enhancement, further experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is a robust and accurate approach to tackling the challenge of live-cell tracking in DIC microscopy. Index Terms-Laplacian eigenmap, live-cell motion tracking, microscopic cell imaging, principal component analysis (PCA), scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT).

AIP Conference Proceedings

The properties of direct hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) fuel cells are studied in this research. Differ... more The properties of direct hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) fuel cells are studied in this research. Different catalysts and diffusion electrodes are tested to optimize the cell performance. Initial results indicate: 1) conversion efficiency over 60% at a practical current density of 250mA/cm2; 2) power density over 0.6 W/cm2, at room temperature and ambient pressure, better than that of any traditional fuel

J Power Sources, 2008

The performance and characteristics of direct sodium-borohydride/hydrogen-peroxide (NaBH 4 /H 2 O... more The performance and characteristics of direct sodium-borohydride/hydrogen-peroxide (NaBH 4 /H 2 O 2) fuel cells are studied in the context of potential applications for air independent propulsion for outer space and underwater. Due to the existence of ocean (sea) water as a natural heat sink, this new fuel cell technology is best suited for underwater propulsion/power systems for small scale high performance marine vehicles. The characteristics of such a power system are compared to other options, specifically for the underwater scenario. The potential of this fuel cell is demonstrated in laboratory experiments. Power density over 1.5 W cm −2 , at 65 • C and ambient pressure, have been achieved with the help of some unique treatments of the fuel cell. One such treatment is an in-situ electroplating technique, which results in electrodes with power density 20-40% higher, than that of the electrodes produced by the ordinary ex-situ electroplating method. This unique process also makes repair or reconditioning of the fuel cell possible and convenient.

In a fusion reactor, a proton and a neutron generated in previous reactions may again fuse with e... more In a fusion reactor, a proton and a neutron generated in previous reactions may again fuse with each other. Or they can in turn fuse with or be captured by an un-reacted deuteron. The average center-of-mass (COM) energy for such reaction is around 10 keV in a typical fusion reactor, but could be as low as 1 keV. At this low COM energy, the reacting nucleons are in an s-wave state in terms of their relative angular momentum. The singlegamma radiation process is thus strongly suppressed due to conservation laws. Instead the gamma ray released is likely to be accompanied by x-ray photons from a nuclear bremsstrahlung process. The x-ray thus generated has a continuous spectrum and peaks around a few hundred eV to a few keV. Therefore, the majority of this nuclear bremsstrahlung radiation is in the form of soft x-ray photons. The average photon energy and spectrum properties of such a process are calculated with a semiclassical approach. The results give a peak near 1.1 keV for the proton-deuteron fusion and a power-to-the-minus-second law in the spectrum's high-energy limit. The high-energy power law from nuclear bremsstrahlung is harder than that of the ordinary bremsstrahlung from electrons of a Maxwell distribution. The hard x-ray portion of this radiation is therefore not negligible compared to the thermal electron-bremsstrahlung type. An analysis of some prior tokamak discharge data shows that this phenomenon might have been observed before, and its interpretation is complicated by the presence of non-thermal electron bremsstrahlung. Nuclear bremsstrahlung in general and the proton type in particular may lead to new plasma diagnostics which are more sensitive to the ionic or nuclear degree of freedom. Such a prospect is helped by significant radiation in the form of hard x-rays of a few hundred keV. This phenomenon should also play a role in nuclear astrophysics as one of the sources for astrophysical x-rays. The process contributes particularly to stellar evolution in the early stage, where the temperature of proto-stars or the so called pre-main sequence stars (T Tauri stars, for example), is at a relatively low of several million degrees Kelvin. An order-of-magnitude calculation was made on the proton-deuteron fusion rate in young star objects. The estimated x-ray luminosity from this reaction is found enough in magnitude to account for experimental ones.

AIP Conference Proceedings, 2005

Previous studies have shown that Single-State-to-Orbit (SSTO) vehicle propellant can be reduced b... more Previous studies have shown that Single-State-to-Orbit (SSTO) vehicle propellant can be reduced by Magnets-Hydro-Dynamic (MHD) processes that minimize airbreathing propulsion losses and propellant consumption during atmospheric flight. Similarly additional reduction in SSTO propellant is enabled by Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion, whose more energetic reactions reduce rocket propellant needs. MHD airbreathing propulsion during an SSTO vehicle&#39;s initial atmospheric flight phase