The expression how come is analogous to why in many grammatical aspects, yet displays various distinct properties. There have been several theoretical attempts to deal with the how come construction in present-day American English, but few are successful in capturing the full range of variation observed in attested data. We investigate synchronic and diachronic grammatical properties of the construction, using data from corpora such as COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), COHA (Corpus of Historical American English) and EEBO (Early English Books Online). Analysis of 13,500+ corpus instances reveals that unlike its historical variants how comes/came, the modern how come underwent grammatical constructionalization and emerged as a lexical unit. Our corpus investigation also motivates a lexicalist HPSG analysis that can account for the observed synchronic and diachronic properties of the construction in a systematic way. (c) 2026 Elsevier B.V. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

Organic cathodes are emerging as promising electrodes for next-generation batteries due to their remarkable structural adaptability, environmental friendliness, cost-effectiveness, and tunable electrochemical properties. However, most small-molecule cathodes encounter significant challenges related to solubility issues and sluggish kinetics. In this study, we investigated n-type conjugated polymer-based organic cathodes, specifically focusing on how variations in the molecular weight of naphthalenediimide (NDI)-based n-type conjugated polymers, PNDI-T2, affect the performance of Li metal batteries. Our results demonstrated that the cathode with the highest molecular weight, P46 (Mn: 46 kg mol-1), exhibited superior performance, characterized by enhanced mechanical properties and Li-ion diffusivity, which contributed to significantly better cycling stability (over 2000 cycles) and rate capability. Additionally, P46 maintains excellent cycling stability even at-10 degrees C, with 100 % capacity retention over 200 cycles. In contrast, the lowest molecular weight, P7 (Mn: 7 kg mol-1), exhibited poor performance due to increased solubility in liquid electrolyte, poor mechanical properties, and low Li-ion diffusivity, resulting in poor specific capacity and rapid capacity decay under high C-rates. This investigation provides crucial insights into how molecular weight influences the properties of n-type conjugated polymer-based cathodes and underscores the potential of high-molecular-weight conjugated polymers in developing more efficient and durable Li metal batteries.

In this study, the fabrication and multifunctional performance of snowman-shaped particles with integrated amphiphilicity, photocatalytic activity, and magnetic responsiveness are investigated. By utilizing a swellingassisted protrusion strategy on titania-coated polymeric spheres, anisotropic structures with distinct hydrophilic titania and hydrophobic polymer domains are formed. The titania domains serve as photocatalytic sites, while the hydrophobic polymer protrusions promote selective and strong anchoring at oil-water interfaces, thereby allowing the snowman-shaped particles to work as solid surfactants. Crystallization of the titania shell via thermal treatment enhances the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of rhodamine B under UV irradiation. Magnetic responsiveness, which arises from the incorporation of magnetic clusters in the titania domain, allows efficient magnetic recovery and reuse of the snowman-shaped particles. These magnetic snowman-shaped particles exhibit excellent oil removal performance and sustained photocatalytic activity over multiple cycles. The findings highlight the potential of anisotropic particle design and surface engineering in the development of reusable hybrid materials for simultaneously treating multiple contaminants in wastewater.

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) thin films, prepared by the sol-gel method, are widely used in optoelectronic devices due to their high electron mobility and excellent optical properties. However, ZnO films often suffer from surface defects, which lead to a degradation in the performance of optoelectronic devices. Here, we systematically investigated the enhancement of n-type characteristics in ZnO thin films under various conditions through UV-C irradiation. Specifically, we analyzed the surface chemistry and n-type characteristics of ZnO films exposed to various environmental conditions, focusing on changes in oxygen species including oxygen ions, oxygen vacancies, and hydroxyl groups. UV-C light irradiation modified the surface chemistry by generating oxygen vacancies and desorbing adsorbed oxygen through photogenerated holes, thereby reducing surface defects and enhancing n-type conductivity. Thus, the ZnO films irradiated with UV-C, without exposure to an oxygen-rich environment, exhibited the highest n-type characteristics due to the removal of adsorbed oxygen. In contrast, the non-irradiated ZnO films exposed to an oxygen-rich environment had the lowest n-type characteristics because the additional adsorbed oxygen created new surface defects, resulting in the lowest electron mobility. Consequently, organic photovoltaics employing UV-C-irradiated ZnO films without exposure to an oxygen-rich environment achieved the best performance.

This study explores crystallization rate control to improve grain size and surface roughness. Traditional binary solvent engineering has limitations for FAPbI3 films because of rapid solvent evaporation at high annealing temperatures. Accordingly, this research proposes ternary solvent engineering (TSE) using dimethylformamide (DMF), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and anisole (AN), which delays crystallization by forming hydrogen bonding. This finding demonstrates that AN, which is typically used as an antisolvent, can be effectively utilized as a PbI2 precursor solvent. This approach affords larger grain sizes, reduces surface roughness, and improves charge transport, leading to an improvement in PCE from 12.23% to 13.85% by enhancing the fill factor. The results of this study suggest that TSE with AN can significantly enhance the performance of PSCs, providing a new pathway for efficient perovskite film fabrication.

Transparent heaters are gaining significant attention for applications such as antifog glass, smart windows, and smart farm greenhouses. A transparent heater basically consists of transparent conducting materials that serve as a heating area and contact pad electrode to apply power. To fabricate a transparent heater, materials with excellent light transmittance and low sheet resistance are required. Among various transparent conducting materials, such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), carbon nanotube (CNT), graphene, and silver nanowires (AgNWs), AgNWs are particularly favored due to their good electrical, optical, and mechanical properties. However, in order to improve the heating characteristics of transparent heaters, research is essential not only on improving the properties of transparent conducting materials but also on the design of contact pad electrodes that can uniformly improve current distribution. Here, we explore various shapes of contact pad electrodes for AgNW-based transparent heaters to improve current distribution. Shapes such as line, spot, twisted, and parallel-type contact pad electrodes are designed and investigated to optimize overall heating characteristics. We analyze the heating properties of these transparent heaters with various contact pad electrodes, demonstrating how their specific shape and size affect heating characteristics and uniformity. We also investigate the optimal shape of the contact pad electrode to minimize transmission loss through UV-VIS spectroscopy. As a result, we confirm that the shape of the contact pad electrode was important for simultaneously achieving high heating characteristics of 120 °C, good heating uniformity, and over 80% transparency in an AgNW-based transparent heater.

As smart farming technology in livestock has advanced and the importance of data has been emphasized, the need for standardization has grown. As of 2023, a total of five national standards have been established in the field of smart livestock farm. The first is the 'Sensor interface for smart livestock barn(KS X 3279)', which includes specifications for ICT-based sensors used in smart livestock barn and common mechanical and electrical interface standards applicable to these sensors. The next standard is 'Livestock feeding equipment — criteria for data collection(KS B 7956-1~4)', which is a series standard divided into four parts: Part 1: common aspects, Part 2: Swine, Part 3: Cattle, and Part 4: Chicken. Part 1 defines common aspects such as communication methods and wired/wireless connection methods that are applicable across the devices mentioned in Parts 2 to 4. Parts 2 to 4 specify the standards for accurate data collection from smart farm devices used for swine, cattle, and chickens, including transmission information, measurement specifications, and protection grades. Currently, there is a significant shortage of national standards in the smart livestock farm sector that can be used for the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs' policy projects. In the future, there is a need for national standardization of terminology in the livestock sector, verification methods and procedures for smart farm devices, communication interfaces, and metadata. For a leap forward in smart livestock farm, additional national standards that can serve as the foundation for technological advancement are necessary.

With respect to how to answer polar questions, languages are taken to employ either the polarity-based system (e.g., English) or the truth-based one (e.g., Japanese). This dichotomy, however, is challenged when speakers make use of different negation forms and contextual information, particularly when answering negative polar questions (NPQs). This study investigates how two negation forms (short-form and long-form) and contextual bias affect the way speakers answer NPQs in Korean. The acceptability judgment experiment we conducted in this study shows that contextual bias, interacting with the negation form, often overrides the two-way distinction of answering systems. The results imply that a proper description of the variations in the Korean answering system to NPQs requires tight interactions among various grammatical components, including the discourse structure, rather than a syntax-based account that resorts solely to the syntactic structures of negation forms involved. (c) 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

The nominal (often called N') ellipsis construction in English includes an understood material other than the remaining determiner. This elliptical NP tends to occur in contexts where its antecedent exhibits a similar or parallel structure. Popular analyses have derived such a construction with the postulation of the unexpressed materials and deletion operations, referring to the linguistic antecedent. However, our empirical investigation reveals a significant number of attested examples where the understood head noun refers to a discourse correlate, challenging such structure -based and movement operations. In this paper, based on such an empirical observation, we suggest a construction based analysis that allows us to refer to the inherently anaphoric (or deictic) or contextually anaphoric correlate of the understood head. This direction brings about a wider coverage of the empirical data.