Radiation tolerance of vertical junction solar cells

Extensive radiation testing of vertical junction (VJ) solar cells demonstrated a radiation tolerance better than both planar silicon cells and at least one type of (AlGa)As-GaAs cell. Due to tradeoffs between short circuit current and open circuit voltage, the end of life (10 to the 16th power 1 MeV electrons/sq cm) maximum power point is nearly independent of bulk resistivity between 2 and 10 ohm cm, increases slightly with increasing wafer thickness between 3 and 11 mils, and increases slightly with increasing groove depth between 1 and 3 mils

RURAL GROWTH IN U.S. HEARTLAND

This study identifies factors that explain growth in rural areas using data from 618 counties in the U.S. rural heartland. We evaluate many of the growth hypotheses in the context of sectoral employment growth for counties in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. Separate estimates for rural and urban counties provide insight into factors that are important in explaining employment growth. The results support the importance of human capital as a factor contributing to sectoral employment growth and show that increased concentration and specialization of employment within a county lead to slower growth in the rural heartland counties.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Coplanar back contacts for thin silicon solar cells

The type of coplanar back contact solar cell described was constructed with interdigitated n(+) and p(+) type regions on the back of the cell, such that both contacts are made on the back with no metallization grid on the front. This cell construction has several potential advantages over conventional cells for space use namely, convenience of interconnects, lower operating temperatures and higher efficiency due to the elimination of grid shadowing. However, the processing is more complex, and the cell is inherently more radiation sensitive. The latter problem can be reduced substantially by making the cells very thin (approximately 50 micrometers). Two types of interdigitated back contact cells are possible, the types being dependent on the character of the front surface. The front surface field cell has a front surface region that is of the same conductivity type as the bulk but is more heavily doped. This creates an electric field at the surface which repels the minority carriers. The tandem junction cell has a front surface region of a conductivity type that is opposite to that of the bulk. The junction thus created floats to open circuit voltage on illumination and injects carriers into the bulk which then can be collected at the rear junction. For space use, the front surface field cell is potentially more radiation resistant than the tandem junction cell because the flow of minority carriers (electrons) into the bulk will be less sensitive to the production of recombination centers, particularly in the space charge region at the front surface

Specific arrangements of species dominance can be more influential than evenness in maintaining ecosystem process and function

The ecological consequences of species loss are widely studied, but represent an end point of environmental forcing that is not always realised. Changes in species evenness and the rank order of dominant species are more widespread responses to directional forcing. However, despite the repercussions for ecosystem functioning such changes have received little attention. Here, we experimentally assess how the rearrangement of species dominance structure within specific levels of evenness, rather than changes in species richness and composition, affect invertebrate particle reworking and burrow ventilation behaviour - important moderators of microbial-mediated remineralisation processes in benthic environments - and associated levels of sediment nutrient release. We find that the most dominant species exert a disproportionate influence on functioning at low levels of evenness, but that changes in biomass distribution and a change in emphasis in species-environmental interactions become more important in governing system functionality as evenness increases. Our study highlights the need to consider the functional significance of alterations to community attributes, rather than to solely focus on the attainment of particular levels of diversity when safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems that provide essential services to society

Translational sensitivity of the Escherichia coli genome to fluctuating tRNA availability

The synthesis of protein from messenger RNA during translation is a highly dynamic process that plays a key role in controlling the efficiency and fidelity of genome-wide protein expression. The availability of aminoacylated transfer RNA (tRNA) is a major factor influencing the speed of ribosomal movement, which depending on codon choices, varies considerably along a transcript. Furthermore, it has been shown experimentally that tRNA availability can vary signifi-cantly under different growth and stress conditions, offering the cell a way to adapt translational dynamics across the genome. Existing models of translation have neglected fluctuations of tRNA pools, instead assuming fixed tRNA availabilities over time. This has lead to an incomplete under-standing of this process. Here, we show for the entire Escherichia coli genome how and to what extent translational speed profiles, which capture local aspects of translational elongation, respond to measured shifts in tRNA availability. We find that translational profiles across the genome are affected to differing degrees, with genes that are essential or related to fundamental processes such as transla-tion, being more robust than those linked to regula-tion. Furthermore, we reveal how fluctuating tRNA availability influences profiles of specific sequences known to play a significant role in translational control of gene expression

Attention and the motion after effect

We measured the effects of attentional distraction on the time course and asymptote of motion adaptation strength, using visual search performance (percent correct and reaction time). In the first two experiments, participantsadapted to a spatial array of moving Gaborpatches, either all vertically oriented (Experiment 1) or randomly oriented (Experiment 2). On each trial the adaptingarray was followed by a test array in which all of the test patchesexcept one were identical in orientation and movement direction to their retinotopically corresponding adaptors, but thetarget moved in the opposite direction to its adaptor. Participantswere required to identify the location of the changed targetwith a mouse click. The ability to do so increased with the number of adapting trials. Neither search speed nor accuracy was affected by an attentionallydemanding conjunction task at the fixation point during adaptation, suggesting low-level (pre-attentive) sites in the visual pathway for the adaptation. In Experiment 3 the same participants were required to identify the one element in the test array that was slowly moving. Reaction times in this case were elevated following adaptation, but once again there was nosignificant effect of the distracting task upon performance.In Experiment 4 participants were required to make eye movements, so that retinotopically corresponding adaptors could be distinguished from spatiotopically corresponding adaptors.Performance in Experiments 1 and 2 correlated positively with reaction times in Experiment 3, suggesting a general trait for adaptation strength

Complex sequencing rules of birdsong can be explained by simple hidden Markov processes

Complex sequencing rules observed in birdsongs provide an opportunity to investigate the neural mechanism for generating complex sequential behaviors. To relate the findings from studying birdsongs to other sequential behaviors, it is crucial to characterize the statistical properties of the sequencing rules in birdsongs. However, the properties of the sequencing rules in birdsongs have not yet been fully addressed. In this study, we investigate the statistical propertiesof the complex birdsong of the Bengalese finch (Lonchura striata var. domestica). Based on manual-annotated syllable sequences, we first show that there are significant higher-order context dependencies in Bengalese finch songs, that is, which syllable appears next depends on more than one previous syllable. This property is shared with other complex sequential behaviors. We then analyze acoustic features of the song and show that higher-order context dependencies can be explained using first-order hidden state transition dynamics with redundant hidden states. This model corresponds to hidden Markov models (HMMs), well known statistical models with a large range of application for time series modeling. The song annotation with these models with first-order hidden state dynamics agreed well with manual annotation, the score was comparable to that of a second-order HMM, and surpassed the zeroth-order model (the Gaussian mixture model (GMM)), which does not use context information. Our results imply that the hierarchical representation with hidden state dynamics may underlie the neural implementation for generating complex sequences with higher-order dependencies

A compact statistical model of the song syntax in Bengalese finch

Songs of many songbird species consist of variable sequences of a finite number of syllables. A common approach for characterizing the syntax of these complex syllable sequences is to use transition probabilities between the syllables. This is equivalent to the Markov model, in which each syllable is associated with one state, and the transition probabilities between the states do not depend on the state transition history. Here we analyze the song syntax in a Bengalese finch. We show that the Markov model fails to capture the statistical properties of the syllable sequences. Instead, a state transition model that accurately describes the statistics of the syllable sequences includes adaptation of the self-transition probabilities when states are repeatedly revisited, and allows associations of more than one state to the same syllable. Such a model does not increase the model complexity significantly. Mathematically, the model is a partially observable Markov model with adaptation (POMMA). The success of the POMMA supports the branching chain network hypothesis of how syntax is controlled within the premotor song nucleus HVC, and suggests that adaptation and many-to-one mapping from neural substrates to syllables are important features of the neural control of complex song syntax