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The adult human visual system maintains the ability to be altered by sensory deprivation. What has not been considered is whether the internal neural states modulate visual sensitivity to short-term monocular deprivation. In this study we manipulated the internal neural state and reported changes in intrinsic neural oscillations with a patched eye open or closed. We investigated the influence of eye open/eye closure on the unpatched eye’s contrast sensitivity and ocular dominance (OD) shifts induced by short-term monocular deprivation. The results demonstrate that internal neural states influence not only baseline contrast sensitivity but also the extent to which the adult visual system can undergo changes in ocular dominance.

The adult human visual system can exhibit a degree of neuroplastic change under the right conditions which has implications for future treatments to recover vision loss that have occurred in infancy. The exogenous factors that promote neuroplastic change have been the focus of human psychophysical, electrophysiological and neuroimaging research over the last decade. What has not been considered is the importance of endogenous factors. In this study we modulate the neural oscillations that determines the internal neural state to demonstrate that endogenous factors play a critical role in not only baseline contrast sensitivity but also the extent to which the adult visual system can undergo neuroplastic change in binocular balance.

Carbon materials have been widely used as microwave susceptors in many chemical processes because they are highly effective at transforming incoming electromagnetic energy for local (hot spot) heating. This property raises the intriguing possibility of using the all-pervasive carbonaceous deposits in operating heterogeneous catalytic processes to augment the catalytic performance of microwave-initiated reactions. Here, the catalytic activities of a range of carbon materials, together with carbon residues produced from a "test" reaction-the dehydrogenation of hexadecane under microwave-initiated heterogeneous catalytic processes, have been investigated. Despite the excellent microwave absorption properties observed among these various carbons, only activated carbons and graphene nanoplatelets were found to be highly effective for the microwave-initiated dehydrogenation of hexadecane. During the dehydrogenation of hexadecane on a Fe/SiC catalyst, active carbon species were formed at the early stage of the reactions but were subsequently transformed into filamentous but catalytically inert carbons that ultimately deactivated the operating catalyst.

A Gibbs monolayer of jammed, or nearly jammed, spherical nanoparticles was imaged at a liquid surface in real time by

The use of solution-processed hole transporting layers (HTLs), without the need of added dopants, is important for the advancement of high-performance perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, a small molecule, N,N′-bis(naphthalen-1-yl)-N,N′-bis(phenyl)benzidine (NPB), is utilized as an efficient, dopant-free HTL in inverted PSCs to replace the commonly used poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS). A best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.96% is realized when using NPB as the HTL, along with a short circuit current density (JSC) of 22.92 mA/cm2, an open circuit voltage (VOC) of 1.11 V, and a fill factor (FF) of 78.4%. This VOC is one of the highest obtained values in CH3NH3PbI3-based inverted PSCs and is comparable to devices with regular structure. The use of NPB as the HTL produced perovskite films with larger grain size and higher crystallinity than obtained with PEDOT:PSS. As a result of this improved perovskite film quality, recombination loss decreased dramatically, ...

The ubiquitous challenge of plastic waste has led to the modern descriptor plastisphere to represent the human-made plastic environment and ecosystem. Here we report a straightforward rapid method for the catalytic deconstruction of various plastic feedstocks into hydrogen and high-value carbons. We use microwaves together with abundant and inexpensive iron-based catalysts as microwave susceptors to initiate the catalytic deconstruction process. The one-step process typically takes 30–90 s to transform a sample of mechanically pulverized commercial plastic into hydrogen and (predominantly) multiwalled carbon nanotubes. A high hydrogen yield of 55.6 mmol g−1plastic is achieved, with over 97% of the theoretical mass of hydrogen being extracted from the deconstructed plastic. The approach is demonstrated on widely used, real-world plastic waste. This proof-of-concept advance highlights the potential of plastic waste itself as a valuable energy feedstock for the production of hydrogen and high-value carbon materials.

Jammed packings of bidisperse nanospheres were assembled on a nonvolatile liquid surface and visualized to the single-particle scale by using an in situ scanning electron microscopy method. The PEGylated silica nanospheres, mixed at different number fractions and size ratios, had large enough in-plane mobilities prior to jamming to form uniform monolayers reproducibly. From the collected nanometer-resolution images, local order and degree of mixing were assessed by standard metrics. For equimolar mixtures, a large-to-small size ratio of about 1.5 minimized correlated metrics for local orientational and positional order, as previously predicted in simulations of bidisperse disk jamming. Despite monolayer uniformity, structural and depletion interactions caused spheres of a similar size to cluster, a feature evident at size ratios above 2. Uniform nanoparticle monolayers of high packing disorder are sought in many liquid interface technologies, and these experiments outlined key design principles, buttressing extensive theory/simulation literature on the topic.

The pair interaction potentials of polymer-grafted silica nanoparticles (NPs) at liquid surfaces were determined by scanning electron microscopy, exploiting the nonvolatility of ionic liquids to stabilize the specimens against microscope vacuum. Even at near contact, individual, two-dimensionally well-dispersed NPs were resolved. The potential of mean force, reduced to the pair interaction potential for dilute NPs, was extracted with good accuracy from the radial distribution function, as both NP diameter and grafted polymer chain length were varied. While NP polydispersity somewhat broadened the core repulsion, the pair potential well-approximated a hard sphere interaction, making these systems suitable for model studies of interfacially bound NPs. For short (5 kDa) poly(ethylene glycol) ligands, a weak (< kB T) long-range attraction was discerned, and for ligands of identical length, pair potentials overlapped for NPs of different diameter; the attraction is suggested to arise from ligand-induced menisci. To understand better the interactions underlying the pair potential, NP surface-binding energies were measured by interfacial tensiometry, and NP contact angles were assessed by atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy.

Previously, urban growth pattern is described and measured by the pixel-by-pixel comparison of satellite images. The geographic extent, patterns and types of urban growth are derived from satellite images separated in time. However, the pixel-by-pixel comparison approach suffers from several drawbacks. Firstly, slight error in image geo-reference can cause false detection of changes. Secondly, it's difficult to recognize and correct artifact changes induced by data noise and data processing errors. Thirdly, only limited information can be derived. In this paper, we present a new objectbased method to describe and quantify urban growth patterns. The different types of land cover are classified from sequential satellite images as urban objects. The geometric and shape attributes of objects and the spatial relationship between them are employed to identify the different types of urban growth pattern. The algorithms involved in the object-based method are implemented by using C++ programming language and the software user interface is developed by using ArcObjects and VB.Net. A simulated example is given to demonstrate the utility and effectiveness of this new method.