Engineering spatially-confined conduits to tune nerve self-organization and allodynic responses via YAP-mediated mechanotransduction.

Chronic allodynia stemming from peripheral stump neuromas can persist for extended periods, significantly compromising patients' quality of life. Conventional managements for nerve stumps have demonstrated limited effectiveness in ensuring their orderly termination. In this study, we present a spatially confined conduit strategy, designed to enhance the self-organization of regenerating nerves after truncation.

A Whole-Body Coordinated Motion Control Method for Highly Redundant Degrees of Freedom Mobile Humanoid Robots.

Humanoid robots are becoming a global research focus. Due to the limitations of bipedal walking technology, mobile humanoid robots equipped with a wheeled chassis and dual arms have emerged as the most suitable configuration for performing complex tasks in factory or home environments. To address the high redundancy issue arising from the wheeled chassis and dual-arm design of mobile humanoid robots, this study proposes a whole-body coordinated motion control algorithm based on arm potential energy optimization.

Harvesting ionic power from a neutralization reaction through a heterogeneous graphene oxide membrane.

Nanofluidics is a system of fluid transport limited to a nano-confined space, including the transport of ions and molecules. The use of intelligent nanofluidics has shown great potential in energy conversion. However, ion transport is hindered by homogeneous membranes with uniform charge distribution and concentration polarization, which often leads to an undesirable power conversion performance.

Study of the N2 vibrational relaxation behaviors via the CO rovibrational thermometry.

This paper performed a comprehensive study of the thermal nonequilibrium effects of CO/Ar mixtures with various degrees of N2 additions and probed the N2 relaxation behaviors via the CO rovibrational thermometry. The rovibrational temperature time histories of shock-heated CO/N2/Ar mixtures were measured via a laser-absorption technique, and the corresponding vibrational relaxation data were summarized at 1890-3490 K. The measured results were compared with predictions from the Schwartz-Slawsky-Herzfeld (SSH) formula and the state-to-state (StS) approach (treating CO and N2 as pseudo-species).

Bicontinuous Block Copolymer Microparticles through Hydrogen-Bonding-Mediated Dual Phase Separation between Polymer Segments and Fluorinated Additives.

Bicontinuous microparticles have advanced transport, mechanical, and electrochemical properties and show promising applications in energy storage, catalysis, and other fields. However, it remains a great challenge to fabricate bicontinuous microparticles of block copolymers (BCPs) by controlling the microphase separation due to the extremely narrow region of a bicontinuous structure in the phase diagram. Here, we demonstrate a strategy to balance the phase separation of BCPs and fluorinated additives at different length scales in emulsion droplets, providing a large window to access bicontinuous microparticles.

Fish Fin-Derived Non-Invasive Flexible Bioinspired Contact Lens for Continuous Ophthalmic Drug Delivery.

Efficient drug delivery is crucial for glaucoma patients. Flexible biomedical devices that enable sustained ocular drug delivery and can regulate the drug release rate according to physiological conditions are highly desirable for glaucoma treatments, addressing both low drug bioavailability and poor patient compliance from manual drug administration, and improving treatment outcomes. Inspired by the structure and reciprocating motion of fish dorsal fins, a drug-eluting contact lens based on deformable microstructures for non-invasive ocular surface drug delivery is developed.

Core Payload of the Space Gravitational Wave Observatory: Inertial Sensor and Its Critical Technologies.

Since Einstein's prediction regarding the existence of gravitational waves was directly verified by the ground-based detector Advanced LIGO, research on gravitational wave detection has garnered increasing attention. To overcome limitations imposed by ground vibrations and interference at arm's length, a space-based gravitational wave detection initiative was proposed, which focuses on analyzing a large number of waves within the frequency range below 1 Hz. Due to the weak signal intensity, the TMs must move along their geodesic orbit with a residual acceleration less than 10 m/s/Hz.

Attention-Based Lightweight YOLOv8 Underwater Target Recognition Algorithm.

Underwater object detection is highly complex and requires a high speed and accuracy. In this paper, an underwater target detection model based on YOLOv8 (SPSM-YOLOv8) is proposed. It solves the problems of high computational complexities, slow detection speeds and low accuracies.

Robust Distributed Observers for Simultaneous State and Fault Estimation over Sensor Networks.

This paper focuses on simultaneous estimation of states and faults for a linear time-invariant (LTI) system observed by sensor networks. Each sensor node is equipped with an observer, which uses only local measurements and local interaction with neighbors for monitoring. The observability of said observer is analyzed where non-local observability of a sensor node is required in terms of the system state and faults.

Precise Tuning of Flexoelectricity in SrTiO by Ion Irradiation.

Flexoelectric coefficient is a tetradic and its introduction enables centrosymmetric materials to exhibit piezoelectricity. However, the flexoelectric paradigm currently lacks a strategy to effectively tune the strain gradient for optimal electro-mechanical coupling. This study proposes a quantized collision model accessible through ionic irradiation technology to explore the flexoelectricity and precisely modulate the strain gradient.

Triplet Network for One-Shot Raman Spectrum Recognition.

Raman spectroscopy is widely used for material detection due to its specificity, but its application to spectral recognition often faces limitations due to insufficient training data, unlike fields such as image recognition. Traditional machine learning or basic neural networks are commonly used, but they have limited ability to achieve high precision. We have proposed a novel approach that combines the Triplet network (TN) and K-nearest neighbor (KNN) techniques to address this issue.

Chemical Competing Diffusion for Practical All-Solid-State Batteries.

The thermal safety issues of currently available Ni-rich cathode-based power supplies brought in the development of all-solid-state batteries, yet the cascade reactions in Ni-rich materials and the chemo-mechanical degradation between the cathode and solid electrolyte diminished the cycle life. Here, by introducing a new heteroatom chemical competing diffusion strategy, we successfully stabilize the Ni-rich cathode and the contact face with an solid electrolyte. Combining extensive explorations in theoretical calculation and multiscale in/ex situ characterization, we elucidate the atomic-level chemical competing diffusion upon the topological lithiation of layered materials.

The Evolution of Nanoscale Third Body Layer Revealed by Graphite Structural Superlubric Contact.

Revealing the evolution of nanoscale third bodies confined between sliding surfaces is essential to understanding the friction and electrical properties for solid contacts. Here, with graphite/graphite contacts in structural superlubricity, a state of no wear and ultralow friction, we reveal the morphological evolution of a third body layer introduced by air through measuring friction and conductance during cyclic hold-slide tests. The directional transport of confined molecules causes apparent elastic deformation of the third body layer, leading to local graphite/graphite direct contact.

High-Precision Two-Dimensional Angular Sensor Based on Talbot Effect.

The precision of two-dimensional angular sensing is crucial for applications such as navigation, robotics, and optical alignment. Conventional methods often struggle to balance precision, dynamic range, and affordability. We introduce a novel method leveraging the Talbot effect, enhanced by 3D printing technology, to fabricate a grating prototype for high-precision angular measurements.

Analysis of Cushioned Landing Strategies of Cats Based on Posture Estimation.

This article addresses the challenge of minimizing landing impacts for legged space robots during on-orbit operations. Inspired by the agility of cats, we investigate the role of forelimbs in the landing process. By identifying the kinematic chain of the cat skeleton and tracking it using animal posture estimation, we derive the cushioning strategy that cats use to handle landing impacts.

General-purpose machine-learned potential for 16 elemental metals and their alloys.

Machine-learned potentials (MLPs) have exhibited remarkable accuracy, yet the lack of general-purpose MLPs for a broad spectrum of elements and their alloys limits their applicability. Here, we present a promising approach for constructing a unified general-purpose MLP for numerous elements, demonstrated through a model (UNEP-v1) for 16 elemental metals and their alloys. To achieve a complete representation of the chemical space, we show, via principal component analysis and diverse test datasets, that employing one-component and two-component systems suffices.

A Boat-Paddle-Like Molecule Binder with Twining-Blocked and Ultrafast Self-Healing Functionalities for Stable Silicon Anodes.

Self-healing binder is a prospective and efficient strategy to alleviate volume expansion of silicon (Si) anodes. However, excellent mechanical strength and healing ability tend to be mutually exclusive, due to enhanced tensile stress limit by twining polymer chains, while inhibiting polymer diffusion rate and inducing healing failure by blocked chains. Herein, inspired by the planning course of boat and paddles, a novel self-healing binder (PVA-4FBA-PEI) is designed and synthesized with mobile parallel structure and twining-blocked characteristics.

Optical skyrmions from metafibers with subwavelength features.

Optical skyrmions are an emerging class of structured light with sophisticated particle-like topologies with great potential for revolutionizing modern informatics. However, the current generation of optical skyrmions involves complex or bulky systems, hindering the development of practical applications. Here, exploiting the emergent "lab-on-fiber" technology, we demonstrate the design of a metafiber-integrated photonic skyrmion generator.