Fabrication and Applications of Flexible Transparent Electrodes Based on Silver Nanowires

There has been an explosion of interests in using flexible transparent electrodes for next-generation flexible electronics, such as touch panels, flexible lighting, flexible solar cells, and wearable sensors. Silver nanowires (AgNWs) are a promising material for flexible transparent electrodes due to high electrical conductivity, optical transparency and mechanical flexibility. Despite many efforts in this field, the optoelectronic performance of AgNW networks is still not sufficient to replace the present material, indium tin oxide (ITO), due to the high junction resistance. Also, the environmental stability and the mechanical properties need enhancement for future commercialization. Many studies have attempted to overcome such problems by tuning the AgNW synthesis and optimizing the film-forming process. In this chapter, we survey recent progresses of AgNWs in flexible electronics by describing both fabrication and applications of flexible transparent AgNW electrodes. The synthesis of AgNWs and the fabrication of AgNW electrodes will be demonstrated, and the performance enhanced by various methods to suit different applications will be also discussed. Finally, technical challenges and future trends are presented for the application of transparent electrodes in flexible electronics

Deformable Convolutional Networks

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are inherently limited to model geometric transformations due to the fixed geometric structures in its building modules. In this work, we introduce two new modules to enhance the transformation modeling capacity of CNNs, namely, deformable convolution and deformable RoI pooling. Both are based on the idea of augmenting the spatial sampling locations in the modules with additional offsets and learning the offsets from target tasks, without additional supervision. The new modules can readily replace their plain counterparts in existing CNNs and can be easily trained end-to-end by standard back-propagation, giving rise to deformable convolutional networks. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of our approach on sophisticated vision tasks of object detection and semantic segmentation. The code would be released

A Survey on Recent Advances in LLM-Based Multi-turn Dialogue Systems

This survey provides a comprehensive review of research on multi-turn dialogue systems, with a particular focus on multi-turn dialogue systems based on large language models (LLMs). This paper aims to (a) give a summary of existing LLMs and approaches for adapting LLMs to downstream tasks; (b) elaborate recent advances in multi-turn dialogue systems, covering both LLM-based open-domain dialogue (ODD) and task-oriented dialogue (TOD) systems, along with datasets and evaluation metrics; (c) discuss some future emphasis and recent research problems arising from the development of LLMs and the increasing demands on multi-turn dialogue systems.Comment: 35 pages, 10 figures, ACM Computing Survey

Super quasi-bound state in the continuum

Avoided crossing of resonances and merging multiple bound states in the continuum (BICs) are parallel means for tailoring the physical properties of bound states in the continuum. Herein, we introduce a new concept of super quasi-bound state in the continuum for photonic crystal systems where its Q factor is boosted in both parametric and momentum spaces. A super quasi-BIC with substantial enhancement of quality Q factor can be achieved in a finite PhC by combining avoiding crossing of two symmetry protected (SP) quasi-BICs in parametric space and merging BICs in momentum space simultaneously. More importantly, analytical results show that the proposed mechanism will modify the asymptotic behavior of the quasi-BIC's Q factor over the numbers of resonators from N^2 to N^3, which is of vital importance for realizing quasi-BICs in a compact PhC. Microwave experiments are performed to validate the theoretical results. Our results provide a paradigm shift for manipulating the physical properties quasi-BICs in finite PhC structures, which would facilitate various applications, including but not limited to low threshold lasing, wireless power transfer and high figure of merit sensing etc.Comment: Comments are welcome ([email protected]

Computational study of atomic mobility for bcc phase in Ti-Al-Fe system

Experimental diffusion data were critically assessed to develop the atomic mobility for the bcc phase of the Ti–Al–Fe system by using the DICTRA software. Good agreements were obtained from comprehensive comparisons made between the calculated and the experimental diffusion coefficients. The developed atomic mobility was then validated by well predicting the interdiffusion behavior observed from the diffusion-couple experiments in available literature

Knockdown of Notch1 inhibits nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell growth and metastasis via downregulation of CCL2, CXCL16, and uPA

Notch pathway is a highly conserved cell signaling system that plays very important roles in controlling multiple cell differentiation processes during embryonic and adult life. Multiple lines of evidence support the oncogenic role of Notch signaling in several human solid cancers; however, the pleiotropic effects and molecular mechanisms of Notch signaling inhibition on nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remain unclear. In this study, we evaluated Notch1 expression in NPC cell lines (CNE1, CNE2, SUNE1, HONE1, and HK1) by real-time quantitative PCR and Western blot analysis, and we found that CNE1 and CNE2 cells expressed a higher level of Notch1 compared with HONE1, SUNE1, and HK1 cells. Then Notch1 expression was specifically knocked down in CNE1 and CNE2 cells by Notch1 short hairpin RNA (shRNA). In Notch1 knockdown cells, cell proliferation, migration, and invasion were significantly inhibited. The epithelial-mesenchymal transition of tumor cells was reversed in Notch1-shRNA-transfected cells, accompanied by epithelioid-like morphology changes, increased protein levels of E-cadherin, and decreased expression of vimentin. In addition, knockdown of Notch1 markedly inhibited the expression of urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) and its receptor uPAR, and chemokines C-C motif chemokine ligand 2 and C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 16, indicating that these factors are downstream targets of Notch1. Furthermore, deleting uPA expression had similar effects as Notch1. Finally, knockdown of Notch1 significantly diminished CNE1 cell growth in a murine model concomitant with inhibition of cell proliferation and induction of apoptosis. These results suggest that Notch1 may become a novel therapeutic target for the clinical treatment of NPC.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151248/1/mc23082_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151248/2/mc23082.pd

Effects of S. cerevisiae strains on the sensory characteristics and flavor profile of kiwi wine based on E-tongue, GC-IMS and 1H-NMR

The fermentation of kiwifruit into kiwi wine (KW) can represent a strategy to reduce the economic losses linked to fruits imperfections, spoilage, over production and seasonality. In the study, Pujiang kiwifruit, a China National Geographical Indication Product, was used as raw material to produce KW fermented by four commercial S. cerevisiae strains, namely Drop Acid Yeast, DV10, SY and RW. The sensory characteristics and flavor profile of KW were assessed by means of sensory evaluation, E-tongue, GC-IMS and 1H-NMR. KW fermented by RW strain obtained the higher sensory evaluation score. E-tongue could clearly distinguish the taste differences of KW fermented by distinct S. cerevisiae strains. A total of 128 molecules were characterized by GC-IMS and 1H-NMR, indicating that the combinations of multiple technologies could provide a comprehensive flavor profile of KW. The main flavor compounds in KW pertained to the classes of esters and alcohols. Several pathways were found to be differently altered by the fermentation with the different yeast strains, namely butanoate metabolism, glycerolipid metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, arginine biosynthesis, arginine and proline metabolism. The present study will facilitate screening suitable S. cerevisiae strains for KW production and provide a theoretical basis for large-scale production of KW

Analysis of Differences in Flavor Characteristics among Different Grades of Stir-Fried Pixian Broad Bean Paste by SPME-GC-MS and GC-IMS

In order to identify the differences in flavor among different grades of stir-fried Pixian broad bean paste, solid-phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS), GC-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS), principal component analysis (PCA), orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and odor activity value (OAV) were applied to determine the key flavor compounds. The results showed that SPME-GC-MS identified 88 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including 15 aldehydes, 11 alcohols, 17 esters, 13 ketones, 5 acids, 5 olefins, 6 alkanes, 7 heterocycles, 2 phenols, 7 ethers and other compounds. Among them, 34 were common to all samples. A total of 57 compounds were identified by GC-IMS, and 16 key flavor compounds with variable importance in the projection (VIP) values > 1 were identified by OPLS-DA. According to their OAV values, ethyl butyrate contributed to the apple-like aroma of super grade Pixian broad bean paste, and isovaleraldehyde contributed to its malty aroma; ethyl isovalerate contributed to the fruity aroma of first grade Pixian broad bean paste, and 3-methylthiopropionaldehyde was responsible for its roasted potato-like and soy sauce-like aroma; ethyl isbutyric acid contributed to the fruity aroma of second grade Pixian broad bean paste, and isovaleraldehyde and isobutyraldehyde were responsible for its malty aroma. Finally, it was determined that the overall aroma characteristics of stir-fried Pixian broad bean paste were fruity, wine-like, malty, sour, herbaceous, cocoa-like, almond-like and soy sauce-like. These results can serve as references for determining the aroma characteristics of stir-fried Pixian bean paste in the future, and provide a basis for the early design of sensory descriptors for quantitative descriptive analysis