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The present study investigated the electrophysiological correlates of morpheme transposition in two-character Chinese compound words (canonical words and transposed words) and pseudowords at a very short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 83 ms, employing a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that, relative to pseudowords, canonical words elicited increased positivity or decreased negativity in ERP amplitudes beginning with the 200–300 ms (P200) and continuing through the 300–450 ms (N400) into the late time window of 450–600 ms (late positive component, LPC). Critically, the morpheme transposition effects were found on the N400 component and LPC, with larger N400 and smaller LPC amplitudes in the transposed words than in the canonical words. Taken together, these results demonstrated that morpheme transposition hindered the semantic extraction and combinatorial processing of the whole word entities in very rapid succession, as reflected by the modulations of N400 and LPC. • Compared with pseudowords, Chinese canonical words elicited larger P200, smaller N400, and larger LPC amplitudes. • The electrophysiological morpheme transposition effects were found on the N400 component and LPC. • Morpheme transposition hindered the semantic extraction and combinatorial processing of the whole word entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive behavioral and electrophysiological evidence has demonstrated that native translations are automatically activated when bilinguals read non-native words. The present study investigated the impact of cross-language orthography and phonology on Chinese–English bilingual lexicons with a masked priming paradigm. The masked primes and targets were either translation equivalents (TE), orthographically related through translation (OR), phonologically related through translation (PR), or unrelated control (UC). Participants retained the targets in memory and decided whether the delayed catch words matched the targets. ERP data showed significant masked translation priming effects, as reflected by decreased ERP amplitudes in the TE condition in the 300–600 ms time window from frontal to parietal electrode clusters. Importantly, compared with the UC condition, the PR rather than OR condition elicited less negative ERP waveforms in the 300–500 ms time window with a frontal distribution. Taken together, these temporal and spatial dynamics suggested an automatic cross-language co-activation at the phonological and semantic levels for different-script bilinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study measured the effect of retrieval practice in L3 vocabulary learning. • Retrieval practice enhanced French words (L3) learning more than restudying. • Students lack metacognitive awareness of the retrieval practice effect. • Retrieval practice is an effective learning strategy for L3 vocabulary learning. Numerous previous studies have indicated that retrieval practice promotes foreign language learning more than repeated studying. However, few studies have investigated whether retrieval practice enhanced a third language (L3) learning and memory retention. Here, we compared the behavioral performance in retrieval practice with that in repeated studying in French (L3) words learning. Sixty-two Chinese-English bilinguals participated in the experiment consisting of three sessions. Session one began with an initial encoding phase with 120 French (L3) – English (L2) translation word pairs, followed by a short distractor task. In session two, the 120 French-English word pairs from session one were studied under retrieval practice condition or repeated studying condition. The final recognition memory test was conducted after a 30-min retention interval. We found that retrieval practice enhanced French words learning more than repeated studying, as reflected by higher recognition accuracy in retrieval practice condition. The results suggest that retrieval practice is a powerful mnemonic enhancer in promoting L3 vocabulary learning, and it is an effective strategy in learning a new language. However, students rarely realize the important role of retrieval practice in foreign language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated brain activity elicited by character transposition processing of two-character Chinese words using event-related potentials (ERPs) with a two-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. The behavioral results showed higher accuracy with canonical and transposed words than pseudowords in the short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA, 249 ms) condition, but not in the long SOA (581 ms) condition. Additionally, relative to the pseudoword condition, the ERP results indicated that the canonical and transposed words elicited statistically less negative N250 and N400 amplitudes. Furthermore, both the canonical and transposed words revealed no significant differences in the early N100, P200, and N250 components, whereas a significant difference was observed in the N400 amplitude regardless of the SOAs between the two constituent characters, indicating less semantic activation. Taken together, our electrophysiological data indicate that early ERP components are not sensitive to Chinese character transposition. In contrast, such morpheme transposition affects the semantic processing of Chinese compound words. • No differences for N100, P200 and N250 amplitudes between canonical and transposed words • Early ERP components are not sensitive to Chinese character transposition • Transposed words exhibit a more negative N400 amplitude than canonical words • Character transposition affects the lexical representation of compound word in the RSVP task [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Monolayer MoSSe is a polar two-dimensional (2D) material which has gained significant attention in the field of nanodevices, like Li-ion batteries, for its small Li-ion migration barrier and high theoretical capacity. In order to explore the effect of vacancy defects on its performance, we performed a comparative study on the structures and migration of the Li adatom on the Janus MoSSe monolayer, with and without vacancies, from first-principles calculations. We found that multi-Li adatoms always preferred to be dispersed on the top of the Mo atoms in the S layer for the perfect 2D MoSSe monolayer. However, they tended to cluster on the ones near the vacancy when the Se vacancy formed in the 2D MoSSe monolayer. This feature was further demonstrated when the migration of the Li adatom was taken into account in the 2D MoSSe monolayer with vacancy defects. Our previous research showed that a zigzag Se linear vacancy is easily formed in the 2D MoSSe monolayer, based on which a Li adatom was added on it in this study. It was found that the Li adatom far away from the vacancy easily migrated close to the vacancy, and the one close to the vacancy easily migrated along the zigzag Se linear vacancy. These results indicated that vacancy defects can control the distribution and migration path of Li adatoms and provides an important guid to design nanodevices with monolayer MoSSe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuning the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in graphene is highly desired for its application in spintronics. In this paper, we calculated the band gap induced by SOC in graphene under uniaxial strain from a tight-binding model, and found that the band gap has a monotonic increasing dependence on the strain in the range of -20% to 15%. Our results suggest that strain can be used as a reversible and controllable way to tune the SOC in graphene. First-principles calculations were performed, confirming the results of tight-binding approximation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We report a first-principles density functional theory study on the electronic and magnetic properties of transition-metal-doped β-Ge3N4. Transition-metal atoms are found to strongly prefer to occupy substitutional sites and attract each other. The V- and Cr-doped Ge3N4 are ferromagnetic semiconductors; whereas, the Mn- and Fe-doped compounds are ferromagnetic half metals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

First-principles calculations have been employed to investigate magnetic and electronic properties of monolayer and multi-layer ZnO nanoislands which are hexagonal BN (h-BN) prototype structures with zigzag edges and a triangular form. Two types of the zigzag edges, that is, O-terminated and Zn-terminated ones are considered. It has been found that monolayer ZnO nanoislands with the O-terminated edges exhibit magnetic properties, regardless of the nanoislands size. However, the nanoislands with Zn-terminated edges are semiconductors, and the magnetic properties are observed just for some specific sizes. Charge transfer according to Bader charge analysis is introduced to elucidate the magnetic properties of the monolayer ZnO nanoislands. Besides, multi-layer ZnO nanoislands exhibit magnetic features when their layers are odd, while those of even layers are nonmagnetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The atomic structure and edge state of zigzag carbon nanoscrolls (ZCNSs) are investigated using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. The results show a non-monotonic dependence of the total energy of ZCNS on the surface curvature due to a competition between the elasticity and the van der Waals interactions in a scroll. The edge states can be tuned by using different forms of edge hydrogenation and inner radius. It is found that the edge state range of monohydrogenated ZCNSs is smaller than that of monohydrogenated zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs), which is also verified using the tight-binding approximation. With the different edge hydrogenations, ZCNSs prefer the hybridization more than the one. Our present study could suggest the possibility of adjusting the electronic properties of ZCNSs and may provide potential applications in the electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]