Search Results (5,811)

Recent advances in chiplet architectures, heterogeneous integration, 2.5D/3D packaging, high-performance computing, and RF applications have increased the demand for high-density vertical interconnects and low-loss packaging platforms. Glass substrates have attracted considerable attention for next-generation advanced packaging because of their low dielectric loss, high dimensional stability, smooth surface, and compatibility with large-area panel-level processing. Through-glass vias (TGVs) are essential vertical interconnect structures that enable the electrical integration of glass substrates. This focused review summarizes TGV technologies for glass-based advanced packaging from the perspectives of via formation, seed layer deposition, metallization, Cu filling, defect formation, reliability, and plugging-based alternative architectures. Representative TGV formation methods, including laser drilling, selective laser etching, laser-induced deep etching, wet/dry etching, and photosensitive glass processing, are compared. Metallization approaches based on sputtering, electroless plating, ALD/CVD, and hybrid processes are discussed together with Cu electroplating strategies such as conformal plating, bottom-up filling, pulse or pulse-reverse plating, and engineered-geometry filling. Key defects, including voids, seams, pinch-off, seed discontinuity, Cu/glass interfacial delamination, glass cracking, and Cu protrusion, are reviewed in relation to thermomechanical reliability. Finally, polymer/dielectric plugging, plugging/re-drilling, conductive paste plugging, and hybrid Cu/plugging structures are discussed as application-specific alternatives for balancing electrical performance, reliability, manufacturability, yield, and cost. Full article

Oily wastewater, especially stable oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions, threatens aquatic ecosystems and is difficult to treat using conventional separation technologies. Herein, a hydrophilic and underwater oleophobic chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/cellulose aerogel (CPCG) was fabricated through a facile one-pot dip-coating strategy. Cellulose aerogel (CG) was prepared by low-temperature dissolution, network reinforcement, washing, and freeze-drying, before being coated with a cross-linked CS/PVA layer using glutaraldehyde, followed by NaOH solidification. SEM revealed a honeycomb-like cellulose framework uniformly covered by the CS/PVA coating, which improved the structural integrity of the skeleton. FT-IR and TG analyses supported the successful construction of the coating and the enhanced thermal stability of CPCG. CPCG displayed a high underwater oil contact angle of 153.8°, which remained above 153° after 30 min, indicating robust underwater oil repellency. Wet CPCG retained 99% of its original height after 30 compression–recovery cycles. Owing to the stable hydration layer, interconnected channels, and improved wet-state resilience, CPCG efficiently separated light and heavy oil/water mixtures and various O/W emulsions. The separation efficiencies for different emulsions were above 99%, and CPCG retained about 93% efficiency after ten cyclohexane/water emulsion separation cycles. This work provides a green and scalable route for constructing biomass-based aerogels for oily wastewater treatment. Full article

Water is a key factor affecting the mechanical properties and stability of rock masses in underground engineering. In practical engineering settings, water distribution is commonly spatially heterogeneous, and the relative orientation between water distribution and the stress direction may further complicate the mechanical response and failure behavior of rocks. To investigate this issue under controlled laboratory conditions, Linyi red sandstone was selected, and four groups of specimens with distinct water-bearing states (oven-dried, fully saturated, axially semi-saturated, and radially semi-saturated) were prepared using tailored immersion protocols. Laboratory uniaxial compression tests and simplified discrete element simulations were combined to examine the macroscopic mechanical response, failure localization, and mesoscopic damage evolution of sandstone under directional heterogeneous water distribution. The results indicate that the water-bearing state strongly affects the uniaxial compressive strength and apparent deformation modulus of sandstone; compared with oven-dried specimens, fully saturated specimens show an approximately 40–60% reduction in these parameters, whereas semi-saturated specimens exhibit intermediate values. The relative orientation between the water distribution and loading direction further influences the failure pattern of semi-saturated specimens. Failure in semi-saturated specimens tends to initiate or localize in water-affected regions, while the multi-stage post-peak response of radially semi-saturated specimens can be interpreted as a sequential load-transfer process between saturated and dry regions. Heterogeneous water distribution also affects microcrack development and force-chain redistribution, with the idealized dry–wet transition region acting as a sensitive zone for crack initiation and stress redistribution. This study clarifies the first-order influence of directional heterogeneous water distribution on the mechanical behavior of sandstone and provides support for stability assessment and disaster mitigation in underground rock engineering under complex water-bearing conditions. Full article

The present study investigates the synergistic effects of incorporating natural alkali-treated Alfa fibers, lime, and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) on the physical and mechanical performance of compressed earth blocks. Laboratory tests were conducted using locally sourced earth material, reinforced with two lengths of alkali-treated Alfa fiber—F1 (3–9 mm) and F2 (20–25 mm)—and stabilized with lime (4, 8%) and GGBS (4, 8, 12%). Tests included wet and dry compressive strength, capillary absorption, linear shrinkage, abrasion resistance and thermal conductivity. Results show that the incorporation of Alfa fibers, particularly when combined with lime and GGBS, significantly enhanced wet compressive strength and abrasion resistance, while the initial reduction in dry compressive strength due to fibers was effectively offset by GGBS. The combination of longer Alfa fibers (F2) with lime and GGBS provided the best overall performance, producing compressed earth blocks with superior mechanical strength, durability, and thermal efficiency. Full article

This study aimed to determine the optimal biochar application rate for sustaining cotton productivity in moderately saline soils under dry sowing with wet emergence (DSWE) conditions in Shaya County, Xinjiang. A two-year field experiment, arranged in a randomized complete block design with two replicates, evaluated six biochar application rates (S1–S6) against a non-amended control (CK). The biochar, derived from fruit-wood via limited-oxygen pyrolysis at 500 °C (pH 9.82, porosity 64.5%), was applied as a single pre-sowing amendment. Soil water–salt dynamics, crop emergence, and growth parameters were continuously monitored. The results indicated that biochar application consistently reduced soil salinity; specifically, seedling-stage salinity decreased by 30.1–42.2% in the first year compared with the CK. Cotton emergence and yield improved significantly across both seasons. However, the optimal application rate for maximizing yield varied between years. While a high rate (S5: 25 t·hm⁻²) produced the highest first-year yield (6243.8 kg·hm⁻²), a moderate rate (S3: 15 t·hm⁻²) demonstrated greater yield stability and achieved the maximum yield (5975.2 kg·hm⁻²) in the second year. This interannual shift is likely attributable to biochar aging and structural pore saturation in the high-dose plots. Combined with high regional evaporation, these factors exacerbated secondary salinization and reduced the residual benefits of the amendment over time. In contrast, the moderate dose maintained a more effective balance between continuous water–salt regulation and nutrient availability. Under the experimental conditions, a single pre-sowing application of 15 t·hm⁻² biochar, combined with a 375 m³·hm⁻² drip irrigation volume, is recommended as an effective strategy to ameliorate salinity and support long-term yield stability. Full article

Most previous drought risk assessments have been done on monthly or annual time-scales, which do not directly correspond to crop conditions during wet and dry seasons. To address this limitation, this study introduces a novel framework for seasonal drought risk assessments. The analysis is conducted across multiple temporal periods, including the past (2020s: 2001–2020), near future (2030s: 2021–2040) and far future periods (2050s–2090s: 2041–2100) while considering the combined impacts of land use and climate change scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Multi-drought hazard indices were developed to characterize drought conditions and evaluated for dry seasons (November to April) and wet seasons (May to October). Groundwater storage outflow was incorporated into the analysis to reflect its critical role as an alternative water source. Under RCP8.5 in dry seasons, the results show a decrease in drought risks from very high to high from the 2030s to the 2070s followed by an increase toward the 2090s. Meanwhile, in wet seasons under RCP8.5, the results exhibit an increase from very low to low for the 2030s–2090s. Adoption of drought-resistant crop varieties and improvement of irrigation systems in irrigated areas, as well as adaptive irrigation management in non-irrigated areas, were found to reduce drought damage in the future. Full article

This paper proposes a prototype-level hierarchical visual–sensor framework for monitoring the Zamioculcas houseplant in complex indoor environments and supporting adaptive care-mode selection. The proposed framework combines a two-level visual pipeline, consisting of YOLO-based target plant detection and MobileViT-S-based leaf-condition classification, with a Plant Health Index (PHI) and a rule-based decision-support module for integrating visual and IoT-derived indicators. For the detection task, YOLOv8, YOLO12, and YOLO26 were compared, with YOLO26 showing the most balanced performance among the evaluated implementations. To improve robustness in real indoor scenes, negative training samples were added; this reduced the image-level false alarm rate on an independent negative-scene test set from 50.7% to 10.0% and increased specificity from 49.3% to 90.0%. For the second visual level, MobileViT-S achieved an accuracy of 0.9857 and an F1-score of 0.9857 on the independent cropped leaf test subset. To reduce the dependence of this result on a single data split, an additional 5-fold cross-validation experiment was conducted on the full cropped leaf dataset of 847 images, resulting in an accuracy of 0.9858 ± 0.0068 and an F1-score of 0.9853 ± 0.0070. To further address plant-level generalization, an additional unseen-plant validation subset of 60 newly collected cropped leaf images was evaluated, and MobileViT-S achieved an accuracy of 0.9500 and an F1-score of 0.9499. These results support the stability of the leaf-condition classifier within the available data, although larger external validation with strict plant-level and session-level separation remains necessary. In addition, an Arduino-based module-level validation was conducted using a capacitive soil-moisture sensor to verify the proposed sensor-based and Vision–IoT decision rules. The experiment demonstrated that the rule-based layer can distinguish dry, normal, and wet soil states and select conservative care actions depending on both soil moisture and visual-condition input. A brief real-time camera–sensor communication test further confirmed that live camera input, Arduino-based soil-moisture sensing, PHI computation, and care-mode selection can be connected within one decision-support pipeline. The proposed PHI and care-mode selection module are therefore presented as a formalized decision-support layer rather than as a fully validated autonomous irrigation system. Further calibration, actuator integration, and closed-loop validation remain necessary before practical autonomous deployment. Full article

The scarcity of natural aggregates and the accumulation of oil sludge in desert regions pose critical challenges for highway construction. Although aeolian sand and oil sludge pyrolysis residue have been studied individually as construction materials, their combined use in foamed lightweight soil remains unexplored. This study addresses this gap by developing a novel foamed lightweight soil termed SOFS, which is created through the synergistic modification of aeolian sand and oil sludge pyrolysis residue. A six-factor, five-level orthogonal array (L25) was employed to systematically investigate the effects of residue content, sand content, foam-to-slurry ratio, foaming agent dilution, water-to-solid ratio, and mixing time. The evaluated properties included physical properties (fluidity and wet density), mechanical properties (compressive, splitting tensile, and flexural strength), and durability (wet–dry and freeze–thaw resistance). Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine the microstructural mechanisms. Variance and range analysis identified the optimal mixture, designated H14, which achieved 28-day compressive, splitting tensile, and flexural strengths of 3.75 MPa, 2.21 MPa, and 0.9 MPa, respectively, thereby meeting desert roadbed requirements. Compared with conventional materials, H14 exhibited superior durability, with strength losses of only 16.3% in compressive strength and 19.1% in splitting tensile strength after 25 cycles. Microstructural analysis revealed a dense C-S-H gel network encapsulating the solid waste particles, with nanoscale Al- and Cl-rich crystalline phases observed at interfacial pores—a phenomenon that has rarely been documented in previous studies. These findings provide a theoretical and technical foundation for solid waste valorization and the development of sustainable desert infrastructure. Full article

The mechanical properties of soil–concrete interfaces directly impact the bearing capacity and structural stability of underground projects. Characterizing mechanical responses and quantifying multi-factor influence mechanisms are fundamental to geotechnical design, numerical simulation, and safety assessment. To reveal the mechanical properties of the unsaturated loess–structure interface, this study conducted a series of direct shear tests on loess–concrete interfaces under varying moisture contents. The effects of interface roughness, soil dry density, normal stress, and soil moisture content on the interfacial shear strength were quantitatively evaluated. The results show 20–35% shear stress variation with dry density, up to 35% shear strength reduction upon wetting, less than 10% shear stress difference due to interface roughness, and normal stress controls, shear stress magnitude, and initial failure sliding displacement. Based on the test results, moisture content was introduced as an additional variable to establish a modified hyperbolic model for unsaturated soil-structure interfaces. This model contains six parameters, all of which can be determined through interface direct shear tests at different moisture contents. These findings advance the quantitative understanding of unsaturated loess–concrete interface mechanics and provide a critical theoretical foundation for the design, numerical analysis, and stability assessment of unsaturated loess–structure interfaces under multi-factor coupled conditions in practical geotechnical engineering. Full article

To enhance the strength and water stability of stabilized expansive soil, this study investigates the use of cement, montmorillonite adsorption modifier (MAM), and their composite system. Laboratory tests evaluated compaction characteristics, swell–shrink behavior, and mechanical performance. The results show that MAM more effectively regulates compaction by reducing optimum water content and increasing maximum dry density; 6% MAM increases maximum dry density by ≈0.04 g/cm³ and reduces optimum water content by ≈2%. In terms of swell–shrink behavior, MAM reduces both swelling and linear shrinkage more effectively than cement. The incorporation of 5% MAM reduces the free swelling ratio by 40% and the equilibrium moisture absorption by 2.7%, lowering the swelling classification to non-expansive. Furthermore, 5% MAM decreases the unloaded and loaded swelling ratio by 14.7% and 5%, respectively, while increasing MAM from 2% to 6% further reduces linear shrinkage by 1.12%. Cement significantly enhances compressive strength, with 7–28 d values reaching 2.2–2.7 times those of untreated soil at 9% content; however, its water stability under wet–dry cycles is limited. In contrast, the cement–MAM composite system achieves balanced improvement by simultaneously suppressing swelling and enhancing both strength and water stability. These findings provide a reference for the treatment and engineering application of expansive soils. Full article

Precipitation is among the most uncertain and poorly predicted weather products in earth system science. Local convective precipitation is particularly sensitive to strong land–atmosphere coupling. Two indices derived from atmospheric thermodynamic vertical profiles, convective triggering potential (CTP), a measure of the temperature lapse rate between approximately 1 and 3 km above the ground surface, and low-level humidity (HI_low), have become preferred measures of land–atmospheric coupling strength. To complement previous studies that primarily relied on limited station observations or regional analyses, this study provides a 20-year assessment of the CTP-HI_low framework for a wide area of the Continental United States (CONUS) using integrated satellite observations, reanalysis products, and surface datasets. The study further identifies important regional limitations in the framework’s predictive skill and demonstrates the influence of mid-level vertical wind shear on precipitation occurrence during both wet and dry soil advantage conditions. These findings provide new insight into why the framework performs inconsistently across different climate regions and suggest pathways for improving land–atmosphere coupling-based precipitation prediction. The objective is to determine the atmospheric and land-surface factors that control the regional performance of the CTP-HI_low framework and to identify how additional datasets that include more atmospheric variables can improve precipitation prediction skill. Full article

Sulfate attack is a major cause of deterioration in tunnel lining concrete under aggressive underground conditions. This study investigates the sulfate resistance of fiber-reinforced ferroaluminate cement concrete incorporating steel slag powder through combined experimental and numerical approaches. Specimens with different fiber contents (0, 0.2%, and 0.4%) were subjected to dry–wet cycles in a 5% sodium sulfate solution. The results show that fiber incorporation significantly enhances sulfate resistance, with the optimal performance achieved at 0.2% fiber content. Compared with ordinary Portland cement concrete, ferroaluminate cement-based concrete exhibits improved durability, including lower mass variation, reduced strength degradation, and more stable dynamic elastic modulus. Microstructural analyses indicate that hydration products refine the pore structure, while fibers effectively inhibit crack propagation and expansion damage. Numerical simulation of tunnel lining structures further demonstrates that the optimized material reduces stress concentration, displacement, and crack development. Overall, the proposed material shows superior performance and promising application potential for tunnel linings in sulfate-rich environments. Full article

Adobe construction, as part of earthen architecture, is a traditional building technique that is widely used but particularly vulnerable to the effects of water and other climatic factors. This article analyses the physical and mechanical behaviour of three different grain sizes of adobe specimens, classified according to the predominant presence of coarse aggregates (CA), fine aggregates (FA), and fine aggregates with plant fibres (AF). In order to assess their response to climatic scenarios, these specimens are subjected to wetting–drying cycles (3, 5, and 7 cycles) and accelerated weathering tests (E) under controlled laboratory conditions. The main objective is to determine the influence of particle size distribution and the incorporation of plant fibres on the strength, stiffness, durability, and hydraulic behaviour of the material. For this purpose, an experimental programme was developed based on compression, modulus of elasticity, ultrasonic, abrasion, hydraulic erosion, and capillary absorption tests, and carried out at different stages of deterioration. Thus, six specimens were analysed for each of the five time points studied (0, 3, 5, 7, E) and for each proposed particle size distributions, giving a total of 450 samples analysed. The results show that the coarse mix exhibits greater overall mechanical stability, whereas the fine mix is more sensitive to the action of water. Although the addition of fibres improves ductility and resistance to surface erosion, it alters the porous structure of the material. Overall, the results confirm that particle size distribution and fibre reinforcement decisively influence the durability of adobe. Full article

Given the global increase in beef consumption, cull dairy cows are an underutilized resource, mostly destined for low-value ground beef, despite their potential for premium cuts. This review summarizes recent evidence on pre- and post-mortem strategies specifically aimed at improving meat quality in cull dairy cows, addressing a topic that has been little studied. Finishing diets notably increased intramuscular fat by 112% after 4 months of feeding, enhanced carcass yield, and reduced shear force. Wet aging can improve tenderness by approximately 30% during the first 7 days when combined with finishing diets at a lower operating cost, whereas dry aging enhances intense flavors, albeit with greater losses due to dehydration. Innovations such as vascular rinsing and mechanical tenderizing show promising results, although their adoption is limited by technical requirements and costs. The implementation of these strategies can generate economic benefits by revaluing discarded meat (≈25% higher retail price) and sustainability by reducing waste in livestock systems. However, heterogeneity in breed, age, and management requires adapted approaches. Additional studies integrating productive, sensory, and economic aspects, as well as research on consumer acceptance, are needed to facilitate their adoption on an industrial scale and contribute to more efficient and sustainable meat production. Full article

The current need for thermal insulation building materials has led to the development of new materials and technologies, which are necessary to reduce carbon emissions. Lignocellulose materials are promising options for thermal insulation materials in construction, offering appropriate mechanical and environmental properties. While recent reviews focus primarily on material properties, a critical gap remains in the technical analysis of processing parameters and the comparative evaluation of alternative fabrication methods. This study provides a semi-systematic overview of manufacturing processes for lignocellulose-based thermal insulation, highlighting key production methods at the development stage: the most common hot pressing and compression molding, as well as less used hot drying, air-laid, wet-laid, needle-punching, and biological fabrication (mycelium-based). The results show that there is no single ideal method due to a fundamental trade-off: hot pressing provides superior mechanical strength, mycelium and needle-punching provide optimal thermal insulation, while room-temperature drying and blow-molding methods are the most environmentally friendly due to their minimal energy consumption. The key factors determining material performance are the material density, size, and type of raw material, which are strictly regulated by processing parameters. Full article