Sulfite activation by ZnO-encapsulated hydrogels for degradation of trimethylphenol

Trimethylphenol is an organic toxic byproduct of industrial process,which is difficult to be eliminated through conventional degradation without harsh conditions.In this work,a sulfite-based oxidation process activated by ZnO-embedded hydrogel was studied for the degradation of 2,4,6-trimethylphenols in the ambient conditions.The ZnO/Na_(2)SO_(3)oxidative system can effectively degrade trimethylphenol via the generation of radicals such as SO_(4)^(-)·,OH·,and SO_(3)^(−)·.The presence of hydrogel matrix facilitates the distribution and recyclability of ZnO catalysts while maintaining high degradation kinetics and little leaching of metal ions.Results suggest the promising potential of ZnO-hydrogel in wastewater treatment with good performance in terms of pH sensitivity,anion interference,recyclability,etc.The combination of ZnO catalysts,hydrogel,and sulfite-based advanced oxidation process may provide essential support for the current treatment of alkylated phenols with strong potential in the commercial scale-ups.

MouseVenue3D:A Markerless Three-Dimension Behavioral Tracking System for Matching Two-Photon Brain Imaging in Free-Moving Mice

Understanding the connection between brain and behavior in animals requires precise monitoring of their behaviors in three-dimensional(3-D)space.However,there is no available three-dimensional behavior capture system that focuses on rodents.Here,we present MouseVenue3D,an automated and low-cost system for the efficient capture of 3-D skeleton trajectories in markerless rodents.We improved the most time-consuming step in 3-D behavior capturing by developing an automatic calibration module.Then,we validated this process in behavior recognition tasks,and showed that 3-D behavioral data achieved higher accuracy than 2-D data.Subsequently,MouseVenue3D was combined with fast high-resolution miniature two-photon microscopy for synchronous neural recording and behavioral tracking in the freely-moving mouse.Finally,we successfully decoded spontaneous neuronal activity from the 3-D behavior of mice.Our findings reveal that subtle,spontaneous behavior modules are strongly correlated with spontaneous neuronal activity patterns.

An Easily Compatible Eye-tracking System for Freely-moving Small Animals

Measuring eye movement is a fundamental approach in cognitive science as it provides a variety of insightful parameters that reflect brain states such as visual attention and emotions.Combining eye-tracking with multimodal neural recordings or manipulation techniques is beneficial for understanding the neural substrates of cognitive function.Many commercially-available and custom-built systems have been widely applied to awake,head-fixed small animals.However,the existing eyetracking systems used in freely-moving animals are still limited in terms of their compatibility with other devices and of the algorithm used to detect eye movements.Here,we report a novel system that integrates a general-purpose,easily compatible eye-tracking hardware with a robust eye feature-detection algorithm.With ultra-light hardware and a detachable design,the system allows for more implants to be added to the animal's exposed head and has a precise synchronization module to coordinate with other neural implants.Moreover,we systematically compared the performance of existing commonly-used pupil-detection approaches,and demonstrated that the proposed adaptive pupil feature-detection algorithm allows the analysis of more complex and dynamic eye-tracking data in freemoving animals.Synchronized eye-tracking and electroencephalogram recordings,as well as algorithm validation under five noise conditions,suggested that our system is flexibly adaptable and can be combined with a wide range of neural manipulation and recording technologies.