Study of fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) thin films for photovoltaics applications

With the increasing demand for energy that human beings are faced with, the photovoltaics (PV) technology which converts solar radiation into electricity has undergone increasingly development. Although the current PV market is mainly dominated by the crystalline Si based technologies, thin film PV still bears the hope to become the solution to the energy crisis in the future due to its much lower cost and reasonable efficiency. Transparent conductive materials (TCMs), mostly transparent conductive oxides (TCOs), are an essential component in most types of thin film solar cells as the current-collecting electrode on the sun-facing side of the cell. In order to improve the optical absorption (which is restricted by the limited absorber thickness) in thin film solar cells, the TCOs are often desired to be textured (with significant surface roughness) to show high values of haze factor. Haze factor is defined as the ratio of the diffuse transmittance/reflectance to the total transmittance/reflectance. The hazier a TCO is (i.e. with higher haze factor), the more light it scatters. As a consequence, the optical path length is increased and thus the light trapping in the solar cell is improved, giving rise to higher light absorption in the active layers and photon-to-current conversion efficiency of the solar cells. In this work, innovative nanocomposites of fluorine doped SnO2 (FTO) in combination with ZnO, S:TiO2 and Al2O3 nanoparticles have been developed using an economic and facile 2-step process. These FTO nanocomposites exhibit 70-80% total transmittance and 10-15 Ω/sq sheet resistance, satisfying the basic requirements as transparent conductive oxides used in photovoltaics devices. By changing the nanoparticle suspension concentration, the haze factor of these nanocomposites can be varied, in a controlled way, from almost 0% up to 60%. The morphological, structural, electrical, and optical properties of these FTO nanocomposites are investigated in great details and are found to be closely related to the underlying nanoparticles. Before discussing the integration of the FTO nanocomposites into real solar cell devices, efforts have also been made to shed some light on the understanding of FTO/TiO2 interface commonly adopted in various types of emerging thin film solar cells such as dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Finally, the hazy FTO nanocomposites have been used as transparent electrodes in different types of thin film solar cells and the effect of haze factor on the device performance has been examined. By properly tuning the type and concentration of the underlying nanoparticles, the properties of the FTO nanocomposites can be tuned to meet the electrode requirement for specific photovoltaic technology. Our concept of preparing TCO nanocomposite by combining TCOs and nanoparticles provides a general guideline to design hazy electrodes as light management structures in thin film photovoltaics

Folate-deficiency induced acyl-CoA synthetase short-chain family member 2 increases lysine crotonylome involved in neural tube defects

Maternal folate deficiency increases the risk of neural tube defects (NTDs), but the mechanism remains unclear. Here, we established a mouse model of NTDs via low folate diets combined with MTX-induced conditions. We found that a significant increase in butyrate acid was observed in mouse NTDs brains. In addition, aberrant key crotonyl-CoA-producing enzymes acyl-CoA synthetase short-chain family member 2 (ACSS2) levels and lysine crotonylation (Kcr) were elevated high in corresponding low folate content maternal serum samples from mouse NTD model. Next, proteomic analysis revealed that folate deficiency led to global proteomic modulation, especially in key crotonyl-CoA-producing enzymes, and dramatic ultrastructural changes in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). Furthermore, we determined that folate deficiency induced ACSS2 and Kcr in mESCs. Surprisingly, folic acid supplementation restored level of ACSS2 and Kcr. We also investigated overall protein post-translational Kcr under folate deficiency, revealing the key regulation of Kcr in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, and the citric acid cycle. Our findings suggest folate deficiency leads to the occurrence of NTDs by altering ACSS2. Protein crotonylation may be the molecular basis for NTDs remodeling by folate deficiency

Multiplexing of TMT labeling reveals folate-deficient diet-specific proteome changes in NTDs

Introduction: In the early stage of embryonic development, the neural tube (NT) cannot be closed properly due to some complex factors, including environmental factors, genetic factors, and the relationship between various factors, leading to the occurrence of neural tube defects (NTDs).Methods: In this study, we induced a mouse model of NTDs by feeding mice with a low-folate diet and intraperitoneally injecting them with 1.5 mg/kg methotrexate on E7.5. Fetal mice were achieved at E13.5, and we extracted proteins from brain tissues with trypsin digestion. After enzymatic digestion, peptides were labeled with TMT/iTRAQ and separated in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for subsequent liquid chromatography tandem mass spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS) analysis. We used gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway annotation to analyze proteomic changes and analyze the functional enrichment of differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) in the NTD mice tissues.Results: A low-folate-induced mouse model was successfully constructed. Folate was used as a sensitizing agent, and the teratogenicity rate of the NTD fetal mice increased to 36.5% when the concentration of methotrexate was at 1.5 mg/kg. Mass spectrometry was used to identify 6,614 proteins, and among them, 5,656 proteins were quantified. In the following proteomic analysis, GO classification and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were conducted, and heatmaps were drawn for differentially expressed proteins (DEPs). The main pathways associated with NTDs, such as the Hedgehog, Wnt, p53, and Hippo signaling pathways and the one-carbon pool mediated by folate, can be identified through a protein–protein interaction (PPI) network. It was also found that the regulation of ribosomal proteins, such as RPL13 and RPL14, which are upregulated in NTDs, has a certain impact on neural tube development.Discussion: Our results revealed proteomic changes in the tissues of low-folate-induced NTD mice. Validation showed that ribosomal proteins play a regulatory role during the development of NTDs and provides new ideas for the pathogenesis and preventive measures of NTDs

Acetylome analyses provide novel insights into the effects of chronic intermittent hypoxia on hippocampus-dependent cognitive impairment

IntroductionChronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) can negatively affect hippocampal function through various molecular mechanisms. Protein acetylation, a frequently occurring modification, plays crucial roles in synaptic plasticity and cognitive processes. However, the global protein acetylation induced by CIH in the hippocampus and its specific effects on hippocampal function and behavior remain poorly understood.MethodsTo address this gap, we conducted a study using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to analyze the lysine acetylome and proteome of the hippocampus in healthy adult mice exposed to intermittent hypoxia for 4 weeks (as a CIH model) compared to normoxic mice (as a control).ResultsWe identified and quantified a total of 2,184 lysine acetylation sites in 1,007 proteins. Analysis of these acetylated proteins revealed disturbances primarily in oxidative phosphorylation, the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, and glycolysis, all of which are localized exclusively to mitochondria. Additionally, we observed significant changes in the abundance of 21 proteins, some of which are known to be associated with cognitive impairments.DiscussionThis study helps to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying CIH-induced changes in protein acetylation in the hippocampus. By providing valuable insights into the pathophysiological processes associated with CIH and their impacts on hippocampal function, our findings contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of CIH-induced changes in protein acetylation in the hippocampus and the potential role of CIH in cognitive impairment

Analogue of collectively induced transparency in metamaterials

Most recently, a brand new optical phenomenon, collectively induced transparency (CIT) has already been proposed in the cavity quantum electrodynamics system, which comes from the coupling between the cavity and ions and the quantum interference of collective ions. Due to the equivalent analogue of quantum optics, metamaterial also is a good platform to realize collectively induced transparency (CIT) which can be useful for highly sensitive metamaterial sensors, optical switches and photo-memory. In this paper, we propose the coupling of bright mode and interference of dark modes, to realize the CIT in terahertz (THz) metamaterial system. We give the theoretical analysis, analytical solutions, simulations and experiments to demonstrate our idea

DeSTSeg: Segmentation Guided Denoising Student-Teacher for Anomaly Detection

Visual anomaly detection, an important problem in computer vision, is usually formulated as a one-class classification and segmentation task. The student-teacher (S-T) framework has proved to be effective in solving this challenge. However, previous works based on S-T only empirically applied constraints on normal data and fused multi-level information. In this study, we propose an improved model called DeSTSeg, which integrates a pre-trained teacher network, a denoising student encoder-decoder, and a segmentation network into one framework. First, to strengthen the constraints on anomalous data, we introduce a denoising procedure that allows the student network to learn more robust representations. From synthetically corrupted normal images, we train the student network to match the teacher network feature of the same images without corruption. Second, to fuse the multi-level S-T features adaptively, we train a segmentation network with rich supervision from synthetic anomaly masks, achieving a substantial performance improvement. Experiments on the industrial inspection benchmark dataset demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance, 98.6% on image-level ROC, 75.8% on pixel-level average precision, and 76.4% on instance-level average precision

Survey on Dim Small Target Detection in Clutter Background: Wavelet, Inter-Frame and Filter Based Algorithms

AbstractDim small target is an active and important research area in image processing and pattern recognition. Various algorithms have been proposed to detect and track dim small target. This paper reviews some algorithms for dim small target detection, including the wavelet based algorithms, inter-frame difference based algorithms and filter based algorithms. Also, the further development of the technologies has been briefly analyzed

Short-Term Traffic Prediction Based on Genetic Algorithm Improved Neural Network

This paper takes the time series of short-term traffic flow as research object. The delay time and embedding dimension are calculated by C-C algorithm, and the chaotic characteristics of the time series are verified by small data sets method.Then based on the neural network prediction model and the chaotic phase space reconstruction theory, the network topology is determined, and the prediction is conducted by the wavelet neural network and RBF neural network using Lan-Hai expressway experimental data. The results show that the prediction effect of RBF neural network is better. Due to the poor stability of the network caused by the initial parameters randomness, the genetic algorithm is used to optimize the initial parameters. The results show that the prediction error of the optimized wavelet neural network or RBF neural network is reduced by more than 10%, and prediction accuracy of the latter is better

2,4-Dihydr­oxy-N′-(4-methoxy­benzyl­idene)benzohydrazide

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C15H14N2O4, displays a trans configuration with respect to the hydrazide C=N bond. The dihedral angle between the two benzene rings is 15.0 (2)°. In the crystal structure, mol­ecules are linked through inter­molecular O—H⋯N and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming layers parallel to the ab plane; an intramolecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bond is also present

Research progress of polyphenols in edible plant enzymes

Polyphenol is one of the characteristic physical and chemical indexes of edible plant enzyme, which has the effects of anti-oxidation, reducing fat and anti-tumor. This paper reviews the composition of polyphenols in food plant enzyme products, the factors affecting the formation of polyphenols in food plant enzyme products, the health care effects of polyphenols, and the further research directions of polyphenols in edible plant enzymes are also prospected