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Understanding information flow in the brain can be facilitated by arranging neurons in the fly connectome to form a maximally “feedforward” structure. This task is naturally formulated as the Minimum Feedback Arc Set (MFAS)—a well-known NP-hard problem, especially for large-scale graphs. To address this, we propose the Rocket-Crane algorithm, an efficient two-phase method for solving MFAS. In the first phase, we develop a continuous-space optimization method that rapidly generates excellent solutions. In the second phase, we refine these solutions through advanced exploration techniques that integrate randomized and heuristic strategies to effectively escape local minima. Extensive experiments demonstrate that Rocket-Crane outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of solution quality, scalability, and computational efficiency. On the primary benchmark—the fly connectom—our method achieved a feedforward arc set with a total forward weight of 35,459,266 (about 85$$\%$$ $\%$), the highest among all competing methods. The algorithm is open-source and available on GitHub. 

p-Donor/Acceptor charge-transfer (CT) interactions between redox-complementary p-systems often give rise to non-native optical and electronic properties that are beneficial for modern electronics and energy technologies. However, the formation of extended supramolecular p-donor/acceptor stacks capable of long-range charge transport requires ingenious design strategies that can help reinforce otherwise weak p-donor/acceptor noncovalent interactions. Herein, we demonstrate that a large tetragonal prismatic metal–organic cage (MOC28+) having two parallel p-donor tetrakis(4- carboxyphenyl)-Zn-porphyrin (ZnTCPP) faces located B14 Å apart can accommodate up to three redox-complementary planar aromatic guests (either three p-acceptor guests or two p-acceptors surrounding one p-donor guest) between the ZnTCPP faces, forming extended p-donor/acceptor stacks. While empty MOC28+ behaves as an insulator due to the lack of charge delocalization across its large cavity, its inclusion complexes saturated with p-acidic hexaazatriphenylene hexacarbonitrile (HATHCN) and hexacyanotriphenylene (HCTP) displayed noticeably higher electrical conductivity (8.7   10 6 and 1.3   10 6 S m 1, respectively) owing to more facile charge transport through the p-donor/ acceptor stacks composed of the p-acidic guests intercalated between the ZnTCPP faces. Thus, this work demonstrates that tetragonal prismatic metallacages with two parallel electroactive faces can facilitate the creation of extended p-donor/acceptor stacks by encapsulating redox-complementary planar guests, which in turn facilitates through-space charge delocalization, generating non-native electrical conductivity.