Severity of delayed (“secondary”) cerebral energy failure after acute hypoxia-ischemia is related to the time integral of acute ATP depletion

The aim of this study was to reproduce the delayed (secondary) cerebral energy failure previously described in birth-asphyxiated newborn infants and to investigate relationships between primary insult severity and the extent of the delayed energy failure. Phosphorus (³¹P) magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) at 7 T was used to study the brains of 12 newborn piglets during an acute, reversible, cerebral hypoxic-ischemic episode which continued until nucleotide triphosphates (NTP) were depleted. After reperfusion and reoxygenation, spectroscopy was continued for 48 h. High-energy metabolite concentrations returned to near normal levels after the insult, but later they fell as delayed energy failure developed. The time integral of NTP depletion in the primary insult correlated strongly with the minimum [phosphocreatine (PCr)]/[inorganic orthophosphate (P_i)] observed 24–48 h after the insult. (Linear regression analysis gave slope –8.04 h^–1; ordinate intercept=1.23;r=0.92;P<0.0001.) This model is currently being used to investigate the therapeutic potential of various cerebroprotective strategies including hypothermia.     

Filamentary preforms of Al-13wt % Si alloy reinforced with TiC-coated and pre-treated carbon fibres

Filamentary preforms of aluminium-13 wt % Si alloy reinforced with TiC-coated carbon fibres were obtained by liquid metal infiltration using K₂ZrF₆ as wetting agent. The interfacial structure was investigated using analytical electron microscopy (TEM, SEM) and the fibre strength measured following each step of processing. The reaction between the K₂ZrF₆ deposit and the molten alloy is discussed on the basis of the reaction products formed at the fibre-matrix interface, which mainly consisted of fluoride compounds (K₃AlF₆), different zirconium-rich suicides (Si₂Zr, SiZr (Al), (Al, Si)₂Zr) and crystalline -alumina. Large amounts and/or inhomogeneous distributions of the K₂ZrF₆ deposit should be avoided, because the massive precipitation of colonies of intermetallics around fibres is conducive for the formation of harmful aluminium carbides and favours brittle fracture of the composite. The utilization of TiC-coatings formed by the reactive chemical vapour deposition process gave satisfactory results, both in terms of composite elaboration and fibre protection during liquid infiltration.     

Laser-Printed Plasmonic Metasurface Supporting Bound States in the Continuum Enhances and Shapes Infrared Spontaneous Emission of Coupled HgTe Quantum Dots

In order to advance the development of quantum emitter-based devices, it is essential to enhance light-matter interactions through coupling between semiconductor quantum dots with high quality factor resonators. Here, efficient tuning of the emission properties of HgTe quantum dots in the infrared spectral region is demonstrated by coupling them to a plasmonic metasurface that supports bound states in the continuum. The plasmonic metasurface, composed of an array of gold nanobumps, is fabricated using single-step direct laser printing, opening up new opportunities for creating exclusive 3D plasmonic nanostructures and advanced photonic devices in the infrared region. A 12-fold enhancement of the photoluminescence in the 900–1700 nm range is observed under optimal coupling conditions. By tuning the geometry of the plasmonic arrays, controllable shaping of the emission spectra is achieved, selectively enhancing specific wavelength ranges across the emission spectrum. The observed enhancement and shaping of the emission are attributed to the Purcell effect, as corroborated by systematic measurements of radiative lifetimes and optical simulations based on the numerical solution of Maxwell's equations. Moreover, coupling of the HgTe photoluminescence to high quality factor modes of the metasurface improves emission directivity, concentrating output within an ≈20° angle.     

Toward Stable Cycling of a Cost-Effective Cation-Disordered Rocksalt Cathode via Fluorination

The recently developed Li-excess cation-disordered rock salts (DRXs) exhibit an excellent chemical diversity for the development of alternative Co/Ni-free high-energy cathodes. Herein, the synthesis of a highly fluorinated DRX cathode, Li_1.2Mn_0.6Ti_0.2O_1.8F_0.2, based on cost-effective and earth-abundant transition metals, via a solid-state reaction, is reported. The fluorinated DRX cathode using ammonium fluoride precursor exhibits more uniform particle size and delivers a specific discharge capacity of 233 mAh g⁻¹ and specific energy of 754 Wh kg⁻¹, with 206 mAh g⁻¹ retained after 200 cycles. The combined synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering spectroscopy analysis reveals that the remarkable cycling performance is attributed to the high fluorination and thus enhanced Mn content, enabling the utilization of more Mn redox than the oxide analog. This study demonstrates a great promise to develop next-generation cost-effective DRX cathodes with enhanced capacity retention for high-energy Li-ion batteries.     

Hardware Implementation of a Fixed-Point Decoder for Low-Density Lattice Codes

Journal of Signal Processing Systems - This paper describes a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of a fixed-point low-density lattice code (LDLC) decoder where the Gaussian mixture...     

Parallel best-first search algorithms for planning problems on multi-core processors

The Journal of Supercomputing - The multiplication of computing cores in modern processor units permits revisiting the design of classical algorithms to improve computational performance in complex...     

Instructing students on effective sequences of examples and problems: Does self-regulated learning improve from knowing what works and why?

Nowadays, students often practice problem-solving skills in online learning environments with the help of examples and problems. This requires them to self-regulate their learning. It is questionable how novices self-regulate their learning from examples and problems and whether they need support. The present study investigated the open questions (1) to what extent students' (novices) task selections align with instructional design principles and (2) whether informing them about these principles would improve their task selections, learning outcomes, and motivation. Higher education students (N = 150) learned a problem-solving procedure by fixed sequences of examples and problems (FS-condition), or by self-regulated learning (SRL). The SRL participants selected tasks from a database, varying in format, complexity, and cover story, either with (ISRL-condition) or without (SRL-condition) watching a video detailing the instructional design principles. Students' task-selection patterns in both SRL conditions largely corresponded to the principles, although tasks were built up in complexity more often in the ISRL-condition than in the SRL-condition. Moreover, there was still room for improvement in students' task selections after solving practice problems. The video instruction helped students to better apply certain principles, but did not enhance learning and motivation. Finally, there were no test performance or motivational differences among conditions. Although these findings might suggest it is relatively ‘safe’ to allow students to independently start learning new problems-solving tasks using examples and problems, caution is warranted: It is unclear whether these findings generalize to other student populations, as the students participating in this study have had some experience with similar tasks or learning with examples. Moreover, as there was still room for improvement in students' task selections, follow-up research should investigate how we can further improve self-regulated learning from examples and practice problems.     

Measuring Mental Workload Using ERPs Based on FIR,ICA, and MARA

Mental workload is considered to be strongly linked to human performance, and the ability to measure it accurately is key for balancing human health and work. In this study, brain signals were elicited by mental arithmetic tasks of varying difficulty to stimulate different levels of mental workload. In addition, a finite impulse response (FIR) filter, independent component analysis (ICA), and multiple artifact rejection algorithms (MARAs) were used to filter event-related potentials (ERPs). Then, the data consisting of ERPs, subjective ratings of mental workload, and task performance, were analyzed through the use of variance and Spearman’s correlation during a simulated computer task. We found that participants responded faster and performed better in the easy task condition, followed by the medium and high-difficulty conditions, which verifies the validity of the ERP filtering. Moreover, larger P2 and P3 waveforms were evoked as the task difficulty increased, and a higher task difficulty elicited a more enhanced N300. Correlation analysis revealed a negative relationship between the amplitude of P3 and the subjective ratings, and a positive relationship between the P3 amplitude and accuracy. The results presented in this paper demonstrate that a combination of FIR, ICA, and MARA methods can filter ERPs in the non-invasive real-time measurement of workload. Additionally, frontocentral P2, N3, and parietal P3 components showed differences between genders. The proposed measurement of mental workload can be useful for real-time identification of mental states and can be applied to human–computer interaction in the future.     

Anticipating Cutoff Diameters in Deterministic Lateral Displacement (DLD) Microfluidic Devices for an Optimized Particle Separation

Deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) devices enable to separate nanometer to micrometer‐sized particles around a cutoff diameter, during their transport through a microfluidic channel with slanted rows of pillars. In order to design appropriate DLD geometries for specific separation sizes, robust models are required to anticipate the value of the cutoff diameter. So far, the proposed models result in a single cutoff diameter for a given DLD geometry. This paper shows that the cutoff diameter actually varies along the DLD channel, especially in narrow pillar arrays. Experimental and numerical results reveal that the variation of the cutoff diameter is induced by boundary effects at the channel side walls, called the wall effect. The wall effect generates unexpected particle trajectories that may compromise the separation efficiency. In order to anticipate the wall effect when designing DLD devices, a predictive model is proposed in this work and has been validated experimentally. In addition to the usual geometrical parameters, a new parameter, the number of pillars in the channel cross dimension, is considered in this model to investigate its influence on the particle trajectories.