A fundamental mass transport model based on molecular insights for pervaporation desalination.

Pervaporation (PV) desalination, a promising technology to produce clean water, lacks some fundamental understanding of the molecular transport mechanism. We perform molecular dynamic simulations to unravel the molecular transport mechanism in polyvinyl alcohol PV desalination membranes. It is revealed that the dispersion forms of confined water molecules transform from nano-sized clusters to single molecules as the concentration gradient decreases within the membrane.

Interest paradigm for early identification of autism spectrum disorder: an analysis from electroencephalography combined with eye tracking.

Introduction: Early identification of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is critical for effective intervention. Restricted interests (RIs), a subset of repetitive behaviors, are a prominent but underutilized domain for early ASD diagnosis. This study aimed to identify objective biomarkers for ASD by integrating electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking (ET) to analyze toddlers' visual attention and cortical responses to RI versus neutral interest (NI) objects.

Quantitatively mapping local quality of super-resolution microscopy by rolling Fourier ring correlation.

In fluorescence microscopy, computational algorithms have been developed to suppress noise, enhance contrast, and even enable super-resolution (SR). However, the local quality of the images may vary on multiple scales, and these differences can lead to misconceptions. Current mapping methods fail to finely estimate the local quality, challenging to associate the SR scale content.

Space-variant Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing based on affine transformation estimation.

The space-variant wavefront reconstruction problem inherently exists in deep tissue imaging. In this paper, we propose a framework of Shack-Hartmann wavefront space-variant sensing with extended source illumination. The space-variant wavefront is modeled as a four-dimensional function where two dimensions are in the spatial domain and two are in the Fourier domain with priors that both gently vary.

Phase-locked constructing dynamic supramolecular ionic conductive elastomers with superior toughness, autonomous self-healing and recyclability.

Stretchable ionic conductors are considerable to be the most attractive candidate for next-generation flexible ionotronic devices. Nevertheless, high ionic conductivity, excellent mechanical properties, good self-healing capacity and recyclability are necessary but can be rarely satisfied in one material. Herein, we propose an ionic conductor design, dynamic supramolecular ionic conductive elastomers (DSICE), via phase-locked strategy, wherein locking soft phase polyether backbone conducts lithium-ion (Li) transport and the combination of dynamic disulfide metathesis and stronger supramolecular quadruple hydrogen bonds in the hard domains contributes to the self-healing capacity and mechanical versatility.

Escape steering by cholecystokinin peptidergic signaling.

Escape is an evolutionarily conserved and essential avoidance response. Considered to be innate, most studies on escape responses focused on hard-wired circuits. We report here that a neuropeptide NLP-18 and its cholecystokinin receptor CKR-1 enable the escape circuit to execute a full omega (Ω) turn.

Sparse deconvolution improves the resolution of live-cell super-resolution fluorescence microscopy.

A main determinant of the spatial resolution of live-cell super-resolution (SR) microscopes is the maximum photon flux that can be collected. To further increase the effective resolution for a given photon flux, we take advantage of a priori knowledge about the sparsity and continuity of biological structures to develop a deconvolution algorithm that increases the resolution of SR microscopes nearly twofold. Our method, sparse structured illumination microscopy (Sparse-SIM), achieves ~60-nm resolution at a frame rate of up to 564 Hz, allowing it to resolve intricate structures, including small vesicular fusion pores, ring-shaped nuclear pores formed by nucleoporins and relative movements of inner and outer mitochondrial membranes in live cells.

Phase separation drives the self-assembly of mitochondrial nucleoids for transcriptional modulation.

Mitochondria, the only semiautonomous organelles in mammalian cells, possess a circular, double-stranded genome termed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). While nuclear genomic DNA compaction, chromatin compartmentalization and transcription are known to be regulated by phase separation, how the mitochondrial nucleoid, a highly compacted spherical suborganelle, is assembled and functions is unknown. Here we assembled mitochondrial nucleoids in vitro and show that mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) undergoes phase separation with mtDNA to drive nucleoid self-assembly.

Fast whole-body motor neuron calcium imaging of freely moving Caenorhabditis elegans without coverslip pressed.

Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is an ideal model organism for studying neuronal functions at the system level. This article develops a customized system for whole-body motor neuron calcium imaging of freely moving C.

Current-Density Regulating Lithium Metal Directional Deposition for Long Cycle-Life Li Metal Batteries.

Uncontrolled dendrite formation in the high energy density of lithium (Li) metal batteries (LMBs) may pose serious safety risks. While numerous studies have attempted to protect separators, these proposed methods fail to effectively inhibit upward dendrite growth that punctures through the separator. Here, we introduce a novel "orientated-growth" strategy that transfers the main depositional interface to the anode/current collector interface from the anode/separator interface.

Two-Photon Fluorescence Imaging.

Two-photon fluorescence imaging is a powerful tool for observing the dynamics of cells in vivo in intact tissue and is well suitable for imaging neuronal activity for neuroscience research. Due to the nonlinear two-photon absorption, the optical sectioning ability is inherent, resulting in two-photon images with high signal contrast and signal-to-noise ratio with efficient illumination. In addition, the longer wavelength excitation light in two-photon imaging compared to one-photon imaging suffers less scattering and absorption by tissue, which allows deeper penetration.

Structured illumination microscopy artefacts caused by illumination scattering.

Despite its wide application in live-cell super-resolution (SR) imaging, structured illumination microscopy (SIM) suffers from aberrations caused by various sources. Although artefacts generated from inaccurate reconstruction parameter estimation and noise amplification can be minimized, aberrations due to the scattering of excitation light on samples have rarely been investigated. In this paper, by simulating multiple subcellular structure with the distinct refractive index from water, we study how different thicknesses of this subcellular structure scatter incident light on its optical path of SIM excitation.

Nitrogen-Doped Hierarchical Porous Carbon-Promoted Adsorption of Anthraquinone for Long-Life Organic Batteries.

Organic quinone molecules are attractive electrochemical energy storage devices because of their high abundance, multielectron reactions, and structural diversity compared with transition metal-oxide electrode materials. However, they have problems like poor cycle stability and low rate performance on account of the inherent low conductivity and high solubility in the electrolyte. Solving these two key problems at the same time can be challenging.

Understanding the Dual-Phase Synergy Mechanism in MnO-MnO Catalyst for Efficient Li-CO Batteries.

Rechargeable Li-CO batteries have been receiving intense interest because of their high theoretical energy density and environmentally friendly CO fixation ability. However, due to the sluggish CO reduction/evolution reaction (CRR/CER) kinetics, the current Li-CO batteries still suffer from severe polarization and poor cycling stability. Herein, we designed and in situ synthesized sea urchinlike MnO-MnO nanocomposite and explored the synergistic effect between MnO and MnO during charge-discharge process in Li-CO batteries.

High loading cotton cellulose-based aerogel self-standing electrode for Li-S batteries.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have attracted considerable attention due to their high energy density (2600 Wh kg). However, its commercialization is hindered seriously by the low loading and utilization rate of sulfur cathodes. Herein, we designed the cellulose-based graphene carbon composite aerogel (CCA) self-standing electrode to enhance the performance of Li-S batteries.

Super-resolution fluorescence-assisted diffraction computational tomography reveals the three-dimensional landscape of the cellular organelle interactome.

The emergence of super-resolution (SR) fluorescence microscopy has rejuvenated the search for new cellular sub-structures. However, SR fluorescence microscopy achieves high contrast at the expense of a holistic view of the interacting partners and surrounding environment. Thus, we developed SR fluorescence-assisted diffraction computational tomography (SR-FACT), which combines label-free three-dimensional optical diffraction tomography (ODT) with two-dimensional fluorescence Hessian structured illumination microscopy.

Upconversion Nanoparticles-Based Multiplex Protein Activation to Neuron Ablation for Locomotion Regulation.

The optogenetic neuron ablation approach enables noninvasive remote decoding of specific neuron function within a complex living organism in high spatiotemporal resolution. However, it suffers from shallow tissue penetration of visible light with low ablation efficiency. This study reports a upconversion nanoparticle (UCNP)-based multiplex proteins activation tool to ablate deep-tissue neurons for locomotion modulation.

Fabrication of PP hollow fiber membrane TIPS using environmentally friendly diluents and its CO degassing performance.

CO removal is an essential water purification process in many fields, such as petrochemical production and thermal power generation. It is challenging to remove low concentrations of CO from RO effluent water. The core component of the membrane degassing technique is a high-performance hydrophobic microporous membrane.

High cost-efficient and computational gigapixel video camera based on commercial lenses and CMOS chips.

The state-of-the-art commercial telephoto lens has already provided us almost one giga space-bandwidth product. Since the single-image sensor cannot take such sampling capacity, we implement a four-parallel-boresight imaging system by using four such lenses and use 64 image sensors to complete full field of view (FOV) imaging for achieving 0.8 gigapixel over 15.

Temporal multiplexing of the scientific grade camera for hyper-frame-rate imaging.

In order to maximize the spatio-temporal resolution of the scientific grade camera at width-limited ROI, this paper proposes a new hyper-frame-rate imaging method by temporal multiplexing the sub-region of the image sensor. In the system, a dual-axis scanning galvanometer is localized at the relay pupil plane and a high quality scan lens is utilized to form an image-side telecentric path. Following this path can overcome bandwidth waste in the conventional exposure and readout mode, and maintain other performances of image sensors.

Fast, long-term, super-resolution imaging with Hessian structured illumination microscopy.

To increase the temporal resolution and maximal imaging time of super-resolution (SR) microscopy, we have developed a deconvolution algorithm for structured illumination microscopy based on Hessian matrixes (Hessian-SIM). It uses the continuity of biological structures in multiple dimensions as a priori knowledge to guide image reconstruction and attains artifact-minimized SR images with less than 10% of the photon dose used by conventional SIM while substantially outperforming current algorithms at low signal intensities. Hessian-SIM enables rapid imaging of moving vesicles or loops in the endoplasmic reticulum without motion artifacts and with a spatiotemporal resolution of 88 nm and 188 Hz.