The identification of clinical and biological markers of disease in persons at risk for Huntington Disease (HD) has increased in efforts to better quantify and characterize the epoch of prodrome prior to clinical diagnosis. Such efforts are critical in the design and implementation of clinical trials for HD so that interventions can occur at a time most likely to increase neuronal survival and maximize daily functioning. A prime consideration in the examination of prodromal individuals is their proximity to diagnosis. It is necessary to quantify proximity so that individual differences in key marker variables can be properly interpreted. We take a data-driven approach to develop an index that can be viewed as a proxy for time to HD diagnosis known as the CAG-Age Product Scaled or CAPS. CAPS is an observed utility variable computed for all genetically at-risk individuals based on age at study entry and CAG repeat length. Results of a longitudinal receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that CAPS had a relatively strong ability to predict individuals who became diagnosed, especially in the first 2 years. Bootstrap validation provided evidence that CAPS computed on a new sample from the same population could have similar discriminatory power. Cutoffs for the empirical CAPS distribution can be used to create a classification for mutation-positive individuals (Low-Med-High) that is useful for comparison with the naturally occurring mutation-negative Control group. The classification is an improvement over the one currently in use as it is based on observed data rather than model-based estimated values.

Secondary batteries have received huge attention due to their attractive features in applications of large-scale energy storage and portable electronic devices, as well as electrical vehicles. In a secondary battery, a membrane plays the role of separating the anode and cathode to prevent the occurrence of a short circuit, while allowing the transport of charge carriers to achieve a complete circuit. The properties of a membrane will largely determine the performance of a battery. In this article, we review the research and development progress of porous membranes in secondary battery technologies, such as lithium-based batteries together with flow batteries. The preparation methods as well as the required properties of porous membranes in different secondary battery technologies will be elucidated thoroughly and deeply. Most importantly, this review will mainly focus on the optimization and modification of porous membranes in different secondary battery systems. And various modifications on commercial porous membranes along with novel membrane materials are widely discussed and summarized. This review will help to optimize the membrane material for different secondary batteries, and favor the understanding of the preparation-structure-performance relationship of porous membranes in different secondary batteries. Therefore, this review will provide an extensive, comprehensive and professional reference to design and construct high-performance porous membranes.

Zinc deposition and dissolution is a significant process in zinc‐based batteries. During this process, the formation of zinc dendrites is pervasive, which leads to the loss of efficiency and capacity of batteries. The continually growing dendrites will finally pierce the separator and cause the batteries to short circuit. Thus, employing effective methods to inhibit the formation and growth of zinc dendrites is vital for the practical application of zinc‐based batteries. This Minireview first clarifies the formation and growth principles of zinc dendrites. Then, the research and development of methods to solve the problem of zinc dendrites are reviewed, including ways to suppress the further formation and growth of dendrites as far as possible, to minimize the adverse effects of dendrites, along with ways to produce dendrite‐free deposition processes. The mechanisms, advantages, drawbacks, and perspectives of these methods are illustrated. Thus, this overview of these methods will aid understanding of the formation process of zinc dendrites and provide an extensive, comprehensive, and professional reference to resolve the problem of zinc dendrites completely.

A zinc–iodine single flow battery with super high energy density was designed and fabricated.

Figure 7. (a) Behavior of bare zinc and Zn|In anodes in an aqueous ZnSO 4 electrolyte and (b) operando optical microscopy images of bare zinc and Zn|In anode in the aqueous ZnSO 4 electrolyte to characterize the gas evolution. Panels a and b reproduced with permission from ref 57.

No abstract

Activating room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) emission in aqueous environments is a challenging feat because of the releasing of nonradiative decay pathways. Here, a design strategy was presented that effectively promotes the presence of RTP of carbon dots (CDs) in aqueous solutions by utilizing CDs and melamine to construct hydrogen-bonded networks to form a polymer (M-CDs). The obtained M-CDs not only enjoy an ultralong phosphorescence lifetime of 664 ms, but also relatively high quantum yield of 25% in an aqueous environment at 468 nm excitation. This is also a rare example of achieving RTP of CDs with a solid state in an aqueous environment. Further investigations reveal that the hydrogen-bonded networks are critical to the implementation of RTP in an aqueous environment. The existence of covalent bonds in CDs and melamine further stabilizes the hydrogen-bond skeleton and triplet state. Furthermore, the bound water formed inside the M-CDs also plays an indispensable role in stabilizing the RTP in the aqueous solution. Given the feature, the M-CDs are used to effectively implement double data encryption and decryption. In addition, this strategy is universal for most phosphorescence materials. This result will pave the way toward expanding RTP materials and their applications in aqueous environments.

Owing to their diverse properties, fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) have attracted more attention and present enormous potential in development of sensors, bioimaging, drug delivery, microfluidics, photodynamic therapy, light emitting diode, and so forth. Herein, a multifunctional sensing platform based on bright yellow fluorescent CDs (Y-CDs) was designed for the label-free detection of fluoroquinolones (FQs) and histidine (His). The Y-CDs with superior optical and biological merits including high chemical stability, good biocompatibility, and low cytotoxicity were simply synthesized via one-step hydrothermal treatment of o-phenylenediamine (o-PD) and 4-aminobutyric acid (GABA). The Y-CDs can be utilized to directly monitor the amount of FQs based on fluorescence static quenching owing to the specific interaction between FQs and Y-CDs. Then, the fluorescence of this system can be effectively recovered upon addition of His. The multifunctional sensing platform exhibited high sensitivity and selectivity toward three kinds of FQs and His with low detection limits of 17–67 and 35 nM, respectively. Benefiting from these outstanding characters, the Y-CDs were successfully employed for trace detection of FQs in real samples such as antibiotic tablets and milk products. Furthermore, the probe was also extended to cellular imaging. All of the above prove that this multifunctional sensing platform presents great prospect in multiple applications such as biosensing, biomedicine, disease diagnosis, and environmental monitoring.