Temporal dynamics of the flash-induced bouncing effect.

Two identical visual disks moving toward each other on a two-dimensional (2D) display are more likely to be perceived as "streaming through" than "bouncing off" each other after their coincidence. However, either a brief auditory tone or visual flash presented at the coincident moment of the disks can strikingly increase the incidence of the bouncing percept. Despite the neural substrates underlying the sound-induced bouncing effect have been widely investigated, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying the flash-induced bouncing effect. The present study used event-related potential recordings to explore the temporal dynamics of the flash-induced bouncing effect. The results showed that the amplitude of the postcoincidence parietooccipital P2 component (190-230 ms after coincidence) elicited by the visual motion was significantly smaller on bouncing relative to streaming trials only when the flash was presented but not when absent. In addition, the parietal P3 component (330-430 ms) was found to be larger on bouncing than streaming trials when the flash was presented, but the opposite was true when no flash was presented. These electrophysiological findings suggest that the flash-induced bouncing effect may occur at both perceptual and postperceptual stages of processing.

Affective auditory stimulus database: An expanded version of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-E).

Using appropriate stimuli to evoke emotions is especially important for researching emotion. Psychologists have provided several standardized affective stimulus databases-such as the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) as visual stimulus databases, as well as the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) and the Montreal Affective Voices as auditory stimulus databases for emotional experiments. However, considering the limitations of the existing auditory stimulus database studies, research using auditory stimuli is relatively limited compared with the studies using visual stimuli. First, the number of sample sounds is limited, making it difficult to equate across emotional conditions and semantic categories. Second, some artificially created materials (music or human voice) may fail to accurately drive the intended emotional processes. Our principal aim was to expand existing auditory affective sample database to sufficiently cover natural sounds. We asked 207 participants to rate 935 sounds (including the sounds from the IADS-2) using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and three basic-emotion rating scales. The results showed that emotions in sounds can be distinguished on the affective rating scales, and the stability of the evaluations of sounds revealed that we have successfully provided a larger corpus of natural, emotionally evocative auditory stimuli, covering a wide range of semantic categories. Our expanded, standardized sound sample database may promote a wide range of research in auditory systems and the possible interactions with other sensory modalities, encouraging direct reliable comparisons of outcomes from different researchers in the field of psychology.

Fluorine-donating electrolytes enable highly reversible 5-V-class Li metal batteries.

Lithium metal has gravimetric capacity ∼10× that of graphite which incentivizes rechargeable Li metal batteries (RLMB) development. A key factor that limits practical use of RLMB is morphological instability of Li metal anode upon electrodeposition, reflected by the uncontrolled area growth of solid-electrolyte interphase that traps cyclable Li, quantified by the Coulombic inefficiency (CI). Here we show that CI decreases approximately exponentially with increasing donatable fluorine concentration of the electrolyte. By using up to 7 m of Li bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide in fluoroethylene carbonate, where both the solvent and the salt donate F, we can significantly suppress anode porosity and improve the Coulombic efficiency to 99.64%. The electrolyte demonstrates excellent compatibility with 5-V LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 cathode and Al current collector beyond 5 V. As a result, an RLMB full cell with only 1.4× excess lithium as the anode was demonstrated to cycle above 130 times, at industrially significant loading of 1.83 mAh/cm2 and 0.36 C. This is attributed to the formation of a protective LiF nanolayer, which has a wide bandgap, high surface energy, and small Burgers vector, making it ductile at room temperature and less likely to rupture in electrodeposition.

Two-step electrodeposition construction of flower-on-sheet hierarchical cobalt hydroxide nano-forest for high-capacitance supercapacitors.

A novel flower-on-sheet hierarchical morphology of α-Co(OH)2 nanostructures was achieved via an easy two-step synthesis strategy. The method is based on first a galvanostatic electrodeposition (GE) of vertically aligned interconnected Co(OH)2 nanosheets to form a branch layer and second a potentiostatic electrodeposition (PE) of Co(OH)2 microflowers on the obtained branch layer from the secondary growth of their sheet-like precursors. The formation mechanism of this special PE time-dependent nanostructure was proposed and their morphology-dependent supercapacitor properties were also investigated. For a given areas mass loading, high specific capacitances of 1822 F g(-1) have been achieved for the electrode obtained after 200 s GE followed by a 300 s PE in a three-electrode configuration, and it maintained 91% of its initial capacity after 1000 constant-current charge/discharge cycles. Even when the discharge current density was increased from 1 to 50 mA cm(-2), the capacitance was still as high as 1499 F g(-1), indicating an excellent rate performance of the fabricated electrodes. The high performances of the electrodes are attributed to the special porous structure, 3D hierarchical morphology, vertical aligned orientation, and low contact resistance between active material and charge collector.

Solvothermal one-step synthesis of Ni-Al layered double hydroxide/carbon nanotube/reduced graphene oxide sheet ternary nanocomposite with ultrahigh capacitance for supercapacitors.

A Ni-Al layered double hydroxide (LDH), mutil-wall carbon nanotube (CNT), and reduced graphene oxide sheet (GNS) ternary nanocomposite electrode material has been developed by a facile one-step ethanol solvothermal method. The obtained LDH/CNT/GNS composite displayed a three-dimensional (3D) architecture with flowerlike Ni-Al LDH/CNT nanocrystallites gradually self-assembled on GNS nanosheets. GNS was used as building blocks to construct 3D nanostructure, and the LDH/CNT nanoflowers in turn separated the two-dimensional (2D) GNS sheets, which preserved the high surface area of GNSs. Furthermore, the generated porous networks with a narrow pore size distribution in the LDH/CNT/GNS composite were also demonstrated by the N2 adsorption/desorption experiment. Such morphology would be favorable to improve the mass transfer and electrochemical action of the electrode. As supercapacitor electrode material, the LDH/CNT/GNS hybrid exhibited excellent electrochemical performance, including ultrahigh specific capacitance (1562 F/g at 5 mA/cm(2)), excellent rate capability, and long-term cycling performance, which could be a promising energy storage/conversion material for supercapacitor application.