Anger and aggressiveness in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and the mediating role of responsibility, non-acceptance of emotions, and social desirability

According to psychodynamic and cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anger and aggression play an important role in the development and maintenance of the disorder. (Sub-) clinical samples with OCD have reported higher anger and anger suppression. Patients with checking-related symptoms of OCD showed a less aggressive self-concept as assessed by an Implicit Association Test (IAT). This study assessed anger and aggressiveness self-concepts in OCD as well as possible mediators of the link between OCD and aggressiveness. A total of 48 patients with OCD and 45 healthy controls were included. Measures included the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-II and an aggressiveness self-concept IAT (Agg-IAT). An inflated sense of responsibility, non-acceptance of emotions, and social desirability were tested as mediators. As expected, patients with OCD reported higher trait anger and anger suppression compared to healthy controls. Contrary to hypotheses, the aggressiveness self-concept (Agg-IAT) did not differ between groups. The inflated sense of responsibility mediated the relationship between group and anger suppression. Non-acceptance of negative emotions mediated the relationship between group and trait anger, as well as anger suppression. However, comorbidities and medication may account for some effect in anger suppression. Elevated trait anger and anger suppression in OCD patients could be explained by dysfunctional beliefs or maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. Emotion regulation therapy might help to enhance awareness and acceptance of emotions and possibly improve treatment outcomes

On-water surface synthesis of crystalline, few-layer two-dimensional polymers assisted by surfactant monolayers

Despite rapid progress in recent years, it has remained challenging to prepare crystalline two-dimensional polymers. Here, we report the controlled synthesis of few-layer two-dimensional polyimide crystals on the surface of water through reaction between amine and anhydride monomers, assisted by surfactant monolayers. We obtained polymers with high crystallinity, thickness of ~2 nm and an average crystal domain size of ~3.5 μm2. The molecular structure of the materials, their grain boundaries and their edge structures were characterized using X-ray scattering and transmission electron microscopy techniques. These characterizations were supported by computations. The formation of crystalline polymers is attributed to the pre-organization of monomers at the water–surfactant interface. The surfactant, depending on its polar head, promoted the arrangement of the monomers—and in turn their polymerization—either horizontally or vertically with respect to the water surface. The latter was observed with a surfactant bearing a carboxylic acid group, which anchored amine monomers vertically through a condensation reaction. In both instances, micrometre-sized, few-layer two-dimensional polyamide crystals were grown

Highly Crystalline and Semiconducting Imine-Based Two-Dimensional Polymers Enabled by Interfacial Synthesis

Single‐layer and multi‐layer 2D polyimine films have been achieved through interfacial synthesis methods. However, it remains a great challenge to achieve the maximum degree of crystallinity in the 2D polyimines, which largely limits the long‐range transport properties. Here we employ a surfactant‐monolayer‐assisted interfacial synthesis (SMAIS) method for the successful preparation of porphyrin and triazine containing polyimine‐based 2D polymer (PI‐2DP) films with square and hexagonal lattices, respectively. The synthetic PI‐2DP films are featured with polycrystalline multilayers with tunable thickness from 6 to 200 nm and large crystalline domains (100–150 nm in size). Intrigued by high crystallinity and the presence of electroactive porphyrin moieties, the optoelectronic properties of PI‐2DP are investigated by time‐resolved terahertz spectroscopy. Typically, the porphyrin‐based PI‐2DP 1 film exhibits a p‐type semiconductor behavior with a band gap of 1.38 eV and hole mobility as high as 0.01 cm2 V−1 s−1, superior to the previously reported polyimine based materials

Orientation dependent molecular electrostatics drives efficient charge generation in homojunction organic solar cells

Organic solar cells usually utilise a heterojunction between electron-donating (D) and electron-accepting (A) materials to split excitons into charges. However, the use of D-A blends intrinsically limits the photovoltage and introduces morphological instability. Here, we demonstrate that polycrystalline films of chemically identical molecules offer a promising alternative and show that photoexcitation of α-sexithiophene (α-6T) films results in efficient charge generation. This leads to α-6T based homojunction organic solar cells with an external quantum efficiency reaching up to 44% and an open-circuit voltage of 1.61 V. Morphological, photoemission, and modelling studies show that boundaries between α-6T crystalline domains with different orientations generate an electrostatic landscape with an interfacial energy offset of 0.4 eV, which promotes the formation of hybridised exciton/charge-transfer states at the interface, dissociating efficiently into free charges. Our findings open new avenues for organic solar cell design where material energetics are tuned through molecular electrostatic engineering and mesoscale structural control

Integrated arrays of air-dielectric graphene transistors as transparent active-matrix pressure sensors for wide pressure ranges

Integrated electronic circuitries with pressure sensors have been extensively researched as a key component for emerging electronics applications such as electronic skins and healthmonitoring devices. Although existing pressure sensors display high sensitivities, they can only be used for specific purposes due to the narrow range of detectable pressure (under tens of kPa) and the difficulty of forming highly integrated arrays. However, it is essential to develop tactile pressure sensors with a wide pressure range in order to use them for diverse application areas including medical diagnosis, robotics or automotive electronics. Here we report an unconventional approach for fabricating fully integrated active-matrix arrays of pressure-sensitive graphene transistors with air-dielectric layers simply formed by folding two opposing panels. Furthermore, this realizes a wide tactile pressure sensing range from 250 Pa to similar to 3MPa. Additionally, fabrication of pressure sensor arrays and transparent pressure sensors are demonstrated, suggesting their substantial promise as next-generation electronics.ope

Tailoring force sensitivity and selectivity by microstructure engineering of multidirectional electronic skins

Electronic skins (e-skins) with high sensitivity to multidirectional mechanical stimuli are crucial for healthcare monitoring devices, robotics, and wearable sensors. In this study, we present piezoresistive e-skins with tunable force sensitivity and selectivity to multidirectional forces through the engineered microstructure geometries (i.e., dome, pyramid, and pillar). Depending on the microstructure geometry, distinct variations in contact area and localized stress distribution are observed under different mechanical forces (i.e., normal, shear, stretching, and bending), which critically affect the force sensitivity, selectivity, response/relaxation time, and mechanical stability of e-skins. Microdome structures present the best force sensitivities for normal, tensile, and bending stresses. In particular, microdome structures exhibit extremely high pressure sensitivities over broad pressure ranges (47,062 kPa(-1) in the range of < 1 kPa, 90,657 kPa(-1) in the range of 1-10 kPa, and 30,214 kPa(-1) in the range of 10-26 kPa). On the other hand, for shear stress, micropillar structures exhibit the highest sensitivity. As proof-of-concept applications in healthcare monitoring devices, we show that our e-skins can precisely monitor acoustic waves, breathing, and human artery/carotid pulse pressures. Unveiling the relationship between the microstructure geometry of e-skins and their sensing capability would provide a platform for future development of high-performance microstructured e-skins

Stretchable Dual-Capacitor Multi-Sensor for Touch-Curvature-Pressure-Strain Sensing

We introduce a new type of multi-functional capacitive sensor that can sense several different external stimuli. It is fabricated only with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films and silver nanowire electrodes by using selective oxygen plasma treatment method without photolithography and etching processes. Differently from the conventional single-capacitor multi-functional sensors, our new multifunctional sensor is composed of two vertically-stacked capacitors (dual-capacitor). The unique dual-capacitor structure can detect the type and strength of external stimuli including curvature, pressure, strain, and touch with clear distinction, and it can also detect the surface-normal directionality of curvature, pressure, and touch. Meanwhile, the conventional single-capacitor sensor has ambiguity in distinguishing curvature and pressure and it can detect only the strength of external stimulus. The type, directionality, and strength of external stimulus can be determined based on the relative capacitance changes of the two stacked capacitors. Additionally, the logical flow reflected on a tree structure with its branches reaching the direction and strength of the corresponding external stimulus unambiguously is devised. This logical flow can be readily implemented in the sensor driving circuit if the dual-capacitor sensor is commercialized actually in the future

Roll-to-Roll Printed Large-Area All-Polymer Solar Cells with 5% Efficiency Based on a Low Crystallinity Conjugated Polymer Blend

The challenge of continuous printing in high-efficiency large-area organic solar cells is a key limiting factor for their widespread adoption. A materials design concept for achieving large-area, solution-coated all-polymer bulk heterojunction solar cells with stable phase separation morphology between the donor and acceptor is presented. The key concept lies in inhibiting strong crystallization of donor and acceptor polymers, thus forming intermixed, low crystallinity, and mostly amorphous blends. Based on experiments using donors and acceptors with different degree of crystallinity, the results show that microphase separated donor and acceptor domain sizes are inversely proportional to the crystallinity of the conjugated polymers. This methodology of using low crystallinity donors and acceptors has the added benefit of forming a consistent and robust morphology that is insensitive to different processing conditions, allowing one to easily scale up the printing process from a small-scale solution shearing coater to a large-scale continuous roll-to-roll (R2R) printer. Large-area all-polymer solar cells are continuously roll-toroll slot die printed with power conversion efficiencies of 5%, with combined cell area up to 10 cm(2). This is among the highest efficiencies realized with R2R-coated active layer organic materials on flexible substrate.Bridging Research Interactions through the collaborative Development Grants in Energy (BRIDGE) program under the SunShot initiative of the Department of Energy program [DE-FOA-0000654-1588]; Office of Naval Research [N00014-14-1-0142]; Department of Defense (DoD) through the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) Program; National Science Foundation Materials Genome Program [1434799]; National Research Fund of Luxembourg [6932623]; Swiss National Science Foundation under the Early Mobility Postdoc Project [P2ELP2_155355]; Department of Energy Basic Science (USA) [DE-SC0016523]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [21674001, 51473003]; Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission [ITC-CNERC14SC01]; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-AC02-76SF00515]; Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231]SCI(E)ARTICLE14