Lexico-semantic Activation of Translation Equivalents During the Attentional Blink.

The attentional blink (AB) refers to the impaired identification of the second target (T2) when presented within approximately 500ms after the first target (T1). Although the AB is eliminated when two targets can be integrated into a single compound word, it remains unclear whether the lexico-semantic organization of translation equivalents modulates the magnitude of the AB. In the present study, we examined consecutive targets' processing in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm using Chinese-English translation equivalents and non-translation equivalents. The results demonstrated that an overall presence of the AB effect was observed when T1 and T2 were non-translation equivalents. However, the AB effect disappeared completely when the two target words were translation equivalents. Taken together, these findings suggest that Chinese-English bilinguals are translating intentionally between Mandarin and English, which facilitates lexical access to word meaning from the two languages at the initial stages of visual word processing. Furthermore, such lexico-semantic activation of translation equivalents attributes to the elimination of the AB.

Borophosphene as a promising Dirac anode with large capacity and high-rate capability for sodium-ion batteries.

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have attracted tremendous attention as potential low-cost energy storage alternatives to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to the intrinsic safety and great abundance of sodium. For developing competitive SIBs, highly efficient anode materials with large capacity and rapid ion diffusion are indispensable. In this study, a two-dimensional (2D) Dirac monolayer, that is, borophosphene, is proposed as a promising anode material for high performance SIBs on the basis of density functional theory calculations. The performances of Na adsorption and diffusion, maximum specific capacity, open circuit voltage, cyclical stability and electronic properties combined with Bader charge analysis are explored. It is found that borophosphene can spontaneously adsorb a Na atom with a binding energy of -0.838 eV. A low diffusion energy barrier of 0.221 eV suggests rapid ion conductivity. More intriguingly, a maximum specific capacity of 1282 mA h g-1 can be achieved in borophosphene, which is one of the largest values reported for 2D anode materials for SIBs. A low average voltage of 0.367 V is estimated, implying a suitable operating voltage of the anode material. The metallic properties, tiny surface expansion, and good kinetic stability of sodiated borophosphene give rise to high electrical conductivity and favorable cyclability. These abovementioned advantages suggest that borophosphene can be used as a Dirac anode material for SIBs with excellent performance including a large specific capacity, high-rate capability, and favorable cyclability.

Structural, elastic, electronic, and optical properties of the tricycle-like phosphorene.

Phosphorene exhibits great potential applications in nanoelectronics due to its relatively large and direct band gap and good charge carrier mobility, and thus has attracted extensive attentions over the past few years. In this study, a novel hybrid phosphorene with a tricycle-like bulge is proposed using density functional theory calculations. Herein, structural stability, elastic, electronic, and optical properties have been addressed. It is found that all the hybrid phosphorenes are stable, and their cohesive energies are very close to that of black phosphorene monolayer. Due to the tricycle-like bulge, these hybrid layers are much softer than the black phosphorene. Their electronic band structures show that they are semiconductors with a robust indirect band gap, and their band gaps are strongly dependent on the sizes. Spatial charge distribution to the valence band maximum and the conduction band minimum is analyzed to explore the origin of the indirect band gap features. By calculating the complex dielectric function, optical properties have been discussed. Our results suggest that the hybrid phosphorenes with well structural stability, robust indirect band gaps, flexible property, and good optical absorption hold great promise for applications in the field of visible light harvesting and flexible nanoelectronic devices.

An ERP investigation of morpheme transposition in rapid serial visual presentation.

The present study investigated the electrophysiological correlates of morpheme transposition in two-character Chinese compound words (canonical words and transposed words) and pseudowords at a very short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 83 ms, employing a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that, relative to pseudowords, canonical words elicited increased positivity or decreased negativity in ERP amplitudes beginning with the 200-300 ms (P200) and continuing through the 300-450 ms (N400) into the late time window of 450-600 ms (late positive component, LPC). Critically, the morpheme transposition effects were found on the N400 component and LPC, with larger N400 and smaller LPC amplitudes in the transposed words than in the canonical words. Taken together, these results demonstrated that morpheme transposition hindered the semantic extraction and combinatorial processing of the whole word entities in very rapid succession, as reflected by the modulations of N400 and LPC.

Electrophysiological correlates of masked orthographic and phonological priming in Chinese-English bilinguals.

Extensive behavioral and electrophysiological evidence has demonstrated that native translations are automatically activated when bilinguals read non-native words. The present study investigated the impact of cross-language orthography and phonology on Chinese-English bilingual lexicons with a masked priming paradigm. The masked primes and targets were either translation equivalents (TE), orthographically related through translation (OR), phonologically related through translation (PR), or unrelated control (UC). Participants retained the targets in memory and decided whether the delayed catch words matched the targets. ERP data showed significant masked translation priming effects, as reflected by decreased ERP amplitudes in the TE condition in the 300-600 ms time window from frontal to parietal electrode clusters. Importantly, compared with the UC condition, the PR rather than OR condition elicited less negative ERP waveforms in the 300-500 ms time window with a frontal distribution. Taken together, these temporal and spatial dynamics suggested an automatic cross-language co-activation at the phonological and semantic levels for different-script bilinguals.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Character Transposition in the Left and Right Visual Fields.

This study examined the brain activity elicited by the hemispheric asymmetries and morpheme transposition of two-character Chinese words (canonical and transposed word) and pseudowords using event-related potentials (ERPs) with a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Electrophysiological results showed facilitation effects for canonical words with centrally presented visual field (CVF) and right visual field (RVF) presentations but not with left visual field (LVF) presentations, as reflected by less negative N400 amplitudes. Moreover, more positive late positive component (LPC) amplitudes were observed for both canonical words and transposed words irrespective of the visual fields. More importantly, transposed words elicited a more negative N400 amplitude and a less positive LPC amplitude compared with the amplitudes elicited by canonical words for CVF and RVF presentations. For LVF presentations, transposed words elicited a less negative N250 amplitude compared with canonical words, and there was no significant difference between canonical words and transposed words in the N400 effect. Taken together, we concluded that character transposition facilitated the mapping of whole-word orthographic representation to semantic information in the LVF, as reflected by the N250 component, and such morpheme transposition influenced whole-word semantic processing in CVF and RVF presentations, as reflected by N400 and LPC components.

Strain-tunable electronic and optical properties of BC3 monolayer.

Two-dimensional layered nanostructures with unique electronic and optical properties may hold great potential in nanoelectronics and optoelectronics applications. In this work, structural stability, elastic, electronic, and optical properties of BC3 monolayers have been investigated using a first-principles study. The BC3 monolayer can be regarded as a series of hexagonal C rings with the connections of B atoms, which has been tested to be highly dynamically stable. The in-plane stiffness is 316.2 N cm-1, potentially rivalling graphene. A screened hybrid density functional HSE06 is used to calculate the electronic and optical properties. It is found that the BC3 monolayer is an indirect band gap semiconductor with a moderate gap energy of 1.839 eV. Spatial charge distribution to the valence band maximum and the conduction band minimum is analyzed to explore the origin of indirect band gap features. By calculating the complex dielectric function, optical properties considered as excitonic effects are discussed. Besides, the effects of various in-plane strains on electronic and optical properties are explored. Our results of good structural stability, moderate and tunable band gap, and strain-controllable optical properties suggest that the BC3 monolayer holds great promise in the applications of nanoelectronic and optoelectronic devices.

[A study on medical image fusion].

Five algorithms with its advantages and disadvantage for medical image fusion are analyzed. Four kinds of quantitative evaluation criteria for the quality of image fusion algorithms are proposed and these will give us some guidance for future research.