Piezoelectric Based Touch Sensing for Interactive Displays—A Short Review

Interactive display is an important part of electronic devices. It is widely used in smartphones, laptops, and industrial equipment. To achieve 3-dimensional detection, the piezoelectric touch panel gains great popularity for its advantages of high sensitivity, low cost, and simple structure. In order to help readers understand the basic principles and the current technical status, this article introduces the work principles of the piezoelectric touch panel, widely-used piezoelectric materials and their characteristics, as well as the applications of the piezoelectric touch panel. The challenges and future trends are also discussed

Conservation tillage increases soil bacterial diversity in the dryland of northern China

International audienceAbstractAgricultural practices change soil’s physical and chemical properties, therefore modifying soil microbial communities. Conservation tillage is widely used to improve the soil texture and nutrient status in the dryland regions of northern China. However, little is known about the influence of soil properties on microbes, in particular on the effect of conservation tillage on soil bacterial communities. Here, we studied the effect of a 5-year tillage treatment on soil properties and soil bacterial communities in the dryland regions of northern China using a high-throughput sequencing technology and quantitative PCR of 16S rRNA genes. We compared the changes in soil bacterial diversity, and composition was measured for conservation tillage, including zero plow or chisel plow, and for conventional tillage using plow. Our results show that conservation tillage increased the Simpson index by 378 % and exhibited significantly dissimilar polygenetic diversity, with r of 1, and taxonomic diversity, of r higher than 0.49, compared to conventional tillage. This finding demonstrates that conservation tillage modifies soil bacterial diversity. Chisel plow and zero tillage increase the abundance of the genus Bacillus, including 85 % of the phylum Firmicutes, and of Rhizobiales belonging to the Alphaproteobacteria. Overall conservation tillage increased the abundance of profitable functional bacteria species

Polyoxovanadate-modified SnO2 electron transport layer for perovskite photodetectors

SnO2 is widely used in perovskite photodetectors as an electron transport layer material. The matching of the energy levels of SnO2 and perovskite is important in carrier transport. Polyoxovanadates (POVs), as semiconductor-like molecules, exhibit good redox and excellent optical properties, which can regulate the energy band structure of SnO2. Here, K5MnV11O32·10H2O (MnV11), K7MnV13O38·18H2O (MnV13), (NH4)8[V19O41(OH)9]·11H2O (V19), and K10[V34O82]·20H2O (V34) were used to modify an SnO2 colloidal solution. Energy level tests demonstrated that the conduction band potential (ECB) of MnV13-modified SnO2 increased from −4.43 to −4.03 eV, which matched more with the energy level of perovskite. This facilitated the extraction and transmission of photogenerated carriers. X-ray diffraction showed that POV-modified SnO2 exhibited better crystallinity. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the grain size of perovskite increased to 580 nm after modification using MnV13. The final results showed that the MnV13-modified perovskite photodetector demonstrated the best efficiency. The photocurrent of the photodetector increased from 26 to 80 μA, and its stability was good. After 720 h, the normalized current values of unencapsulated devices on the MnV13@SnO2 substrate were maintained at more than 70% of the initial values. The study findings show that introducing POVs into photodetectors is a potential strategy for optimizing the performance of photovoltaic devices

Microbiome analysis and biocontrol bacteria isolation from rhizosphere soils associated with different sugarcane root rot severity

To explore the causal pathogen and the correlated rhizosphere soil microecology of sugarcane root rot, we sampled the sugarcane root materials displaying different disease severity, and the corresponding rhizosphere soil, for systematic root phenotype and microbial population analyses. We found that with increased level of disease severity reflected by above-ground parts of sugarcane, the total root length, total root surface area and total volume were significantly reduced, accompanied with changes in the microbial population diversity and structure in rhizosphere soil. Fungal community richness was significantly lower in the rhizosphere soil samples from mildly diseased plant than that from either healthy plant, or severely diseased plant. Particularly, we noticed that a peculiar decrease of potential pathogenic fungi in rhizosphere soil, including genera Fusarium, Talaromyces and Neocosmospora, with increased level of disease severity. As for bacterial community, Firmicutes was found to be of the highest level, while Acidobacteria and Chloroflexi of the lowest level, in rhizosphere soil from healthy plant compared to that from diseased plant of different severity. FUNGuild prediction showed that the proportion of saprophytic fungi was higher in the rhizosphere soil of healthy plants, while the proportion of pathogenic fungi was higher in the rhizosphere soil of diseased plants. By co-occurrence network analysis we demonstrated the Bacillus and Burkholderia were in a strong interaction with Fusarium pathogen(s). Consistently, the biocontrol and/or growth-promoting bacteria isolated from the rhizosphere soil were mostly (6 out of 7) belonging to Bacillus and Burkholderia species. By confrontation culture and pot experiments, we verified the biocontrol and/or growth-promoting property of the isolated bacterial strains. Overall, we demonstrated a clear correlation between sugarcane root rot severity and rhizosphere soil microbiome composition and function, and identified several promising biocontrol bacteria strains with strong disease suppression effect and growth-promoting properties

Green Electrode Processing Enabled by Fluoro‐Free Multifunctional Binders for Lithium‐Ion Batteries

The eco-friendly processing of conjugated polymer binder for lithium-ion batteries demands improved polymer solubility by introducing functional moieties, while this strategy will concurrently sacrifice polymer conductivity. Employing the polyfluorene-based binder poly(2,7-9,9 (di(oxy-2,5,8-trioxadecane))fluorene) (PFO), soluble in water-ethanol mixtures, a novel approach is presented to solve this trade-off, which features integration of aqueous solution processing with subsequent controlled thermal-induced cleavage of solubilizing side chains, to produce hierarchically ordered structures (HOS). The thermal processing can enhance the intermolecular π-π stacking of polyfluorene backbone for better electrochemical performance. Notably, HOS-PFO demonstrated a substantial 6-7 orders of magnitude enhancement in electronic conductivity, showcasing its potential as a functional binder for lithium-ion batteries. As an illustration, HOS-PFO protected SiOx anodes, utilizing in situ side chain decomposition of PFO surrounding SiOx particles after aqueous processing are fabricated. HOS-PFO contributed to the stable cycling and high-capacity retention of practical SiOx anodes (3.0 mAh cm-2), without the use of any conducting carbon additives or fluorinated electrolyte additives. It is proposed that this technique represents a universal approach for fabricating electrodes with conjugated polymer binders from aqueous solutions without compromising conductivity

Ferroptosis-related gene HIC1 in the prediction of the prognosis and immunotherapeutic efficacy with immunological activity

BackgroundHypermethylated in Cancer 1 (HIC1) was originally confirmed as a tumor suppressor and has been found to be hypermethylated in human cancers. Although growing evidence has supported the critical roles of HIC1 in cancer initiation and development, its roles in tumor immune microenvironment and immunotherapy are still unclear, and no comprehensive pan-cancer analysis of HIC1 has been conducted.MethodsHIC1 expression in pan-cancer, and differential HIC1 expression between tumor and normal samples were investigated. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was employed to validate HIC1 expression in different cancers by our clinical cohorts, including lung cancer, sarcoma (SARC), breast cancer, and kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC). The prognostic value of HIC1 was illustrated by Kaplan-Meier curves and univariate Cox analysis, followed by the genetic alteration analysis of HIC1 in pan-cancer. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was conducted to illustrate the signaling pathways and biological functions of HIC1. The correlations between HIC1 and tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), and the immunotherapy efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors were analyzed by Spearman correlation analysis. Drug sensitivity analysis of HIC1 was performed by extracting data from the CellMiner™ database.ResultsHIC1 expression was abnormally expressed in most cancers, and remarkable associations between HIC1 expression and prognostic outcomes of patients in pan-cancer were detected. HIC1 was significantly correlated with T cells, macrophages, and mast cell infiltration in different cancers. Moreover, GSEA revealed that HIC1 was significantly involved in immune-related biological functions and signaling pathways. There was a close relationship of HIC1 with TMB and MSI in different cancers. Furthermore, the most exciting finding was that HIC1 expression was significantly correlated with the response to PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in cancer treatment. We also found that HIC1 was significantly correlated with the sensitivity of several anti-cancer drugs, such as axitinib, batracylin, and nelarabine. Finally, our clinical cohorts further validated the expression pattern of HIC1 in cancers.ConclusionsOur investigation provided an integrative understanding of the clinicopathological significance and functional roles of HIC1 in pan-cancer. Our findings suggested that HIC1 can function as a potential biomarker for predicting the prognosis, immunotherapy efficacy, and drug sensitivity with immunological activity in cancers

Exploring Hilbert-Space Fragmentation on a Superconducting Processor

Isolated interacting quantum systems generally thermalize, yet there are several counterexamples for the breakdown of ergodicity, such as many-body localization and quantum scars. Recently, ergodicity breaking has been observed in systems subjected to linear potentials, termed Stark many-body localization. This phenomenon is closely associated with Hilbert-space fragmentation, characterized by a strong dependence of dynamics on initial conditions. Here, we experimentally explore initial-state dependent dynamics using a ladder-type superconducting processor with up to 24 qubits, which enables precise control of the qubit frequency and initial state preparation. In systems with linear potentials, we observe distinct non-equilibrium dynamics for initial states with the same quantum numbers and energy, but with varying domain wall numbers. This distinction becomes increasingly pronounced as the system size grows, in contrast with disordered interacting systems. Our results provide convincing experimental evidence of the fragmentation in Stark systems, enriching our understanding of the weak breakdown of ergodicity.Comment: main text: 7 pages, 4 figures; supplementary: 13 pages, 14 figure

Exploring Hilbert-Space fragmentation on a superconducting processor

Isolated interacting quantum systems generally thermalize, yet there are several examples for the breakdown of ergodicity, such as many-body localization and quantum scars. Recently, ergodicity breaking has been observed in systems subjected to linear potentials, termed Stark many-body localization. This phenomenon is closely associated with Hilbert-space fragmentation, characterized by a strong dependence of dynamics on initial conditions. Here, we explore initial-state-dependent dynamics using a ladder-type superconducting processor with up to 24 qubits, which enables precise control of the qubit frequency and initial-state preparation. In systems with linear potentials, we experimentally observe distinct nonequilibrium dynamics for initial states with the same quantum numbers and energy, but with varying domain-wall numbers. Accompanied by the numerical simulation for systems with larger sizes, we reveal that this distinction becomes increasingly pronounced as the system size grows, in contrast with weakly disordered interacting systems. Our results provide convincing experimental evidence of the fragmentation in Stark systems, enriching our understanding of the weak breakdown of ergodicity

Chronic stress-induced downregulation of MFN1 contributes to fatty liver in chickens

BackgroundChronic stress is a major contributor to Fatty Liver Syndrome (FLS) in fast-growing broilers, leading to physiological dysfunctions that compromise growth and immune response. This study aimed to investigate the effects of chronic stress on hepatic lipid metabolism and mitochondrial dynamics in broilers.MethodForty 1-day-old male AA broilers were randomly allocated into two groups (n = 20): control (CON) and corticosterone-treated (CORT). From day 38, the CORT group received twice-daily subcutaneous injections of CORT (4 mg/kg/day) for 7 days to simulate in vivo chronic stress model. The loss-of-function approaches in cell culture models were also applied to investigate the role of MFN1 in CORT-induced mitochondrial dysfunction.ResultsChronic CORT treatment induced significant hepatic steatosis and liver injury in broilers. Furthermore, CORT disrupted mitochondrial function, as indicated by excessive mitochondrial fragmentation, a pronounced decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), and aberrant oxidative stress responses in both in vivo and in vitro models. Studies showed that glucocorticoid receptor (GR)-mediated downregulation of mitofusin 1 (MFN1) plays a critical role in CORT-induced disruption of lipid metabolism. Importantly, restoration of MFN1 expression effectively rescued mitochondrial morphology and function and attenuated lipid accumulation in hepatocytes.ConclusionThis study reveals a key mechanism by which chronic stress impairs mitochondrial fusion via GR-mediated suppression of MFN1, driving fatty liver development in broilers. These findings underscore the critical role of MFN1 in mitochondrial dynamics and lipid metabolism, offering novel insights for potential therapeutic strategies against fatty liver disease in poultry