Comparison between normal and reverse thin crystalline silicon solar cells

The newly developed ingot growing techniques, as the three-grain and the columnar multigrain ingot processes, are now offering the possibility of slicing thinner wafers (≤ 100 μm). In this paper we present the results obtained on p type large area (≥ 100 cm²) and 100 μm thick wafers by using both conventional and reverse cell manufacturing technologies.The conventional cells are provided with aluminium or boron BSF plus screen-printed silver mirror or a silver-aluminium net; the reverse cells have a FSF and the deep back junction completely covered by a screen-printed or CVD silver layer.The constructing parameters have been chosen on the base of one and two dimensions modeling and both raw material and devices have been completely characterized.This work shows that very thin wafers do not introduce serious problems for the conventional manufacturing of solar cells. The efficiencies of the normal and of the reverse cells are found to be comparable and are of the same order than those of thicker cells, however at a significant lower cost. The main obtained result has to be related to the demonstration of a cell manufacturing feasibility starting from very thin wafers.     

Markets and Hierarchies and (Mathematical) Economic Theory

Over the past decade transaction-cost economics has been partiallytranslated in the more mathematical language of game theory,and understanding of the costs of transactions has been deepened,refined and extended. But the translation is incomplete: a greatdeal of human behaviour is missed, and doing game theory withmore life-like models of individuals will bring theory closerto phenomena. Transaction-cost economics, particulary the economicsof relational contracts, provides a major arena for these developments,since the important issues of bounded rationality and individualbehavior are central to the topic.     

Effective biased estimates for parameters of binomial distributions and allowance fora priori information

We obtain expressions for biased estimates for parameters of binomial distributions with allowance fora priori information; our starting poins is the Rao-Kramer inequality. Translated from Izmeritel'naya Tekhnika, No. 10, pp. 14–16, October, 1996.     

Analysis of macro-dataflow dynamic scheduling on nonuniform memoryaccess architectures

The author studies dynamic scheduling of computational tasks with communication costs using nonuniform memory access architecture. The computing model assumes that data transfer can be partitioned into parallel and sequential parts with respect to the task execution. A scheduling heuristic, called least-communication (LC), together with a two-level scheduler is proposed in an attempt to minimize the finish time. The LC selects the task that removes the largest amount of remaining data transfer, if no such tasks are available the task that has been ready to run at the earliest is selected first. The time complexity of LC is O(n₂). Testing the finish time of LC and first-come first-served scheduling (FCFS) shows that LC is useful for tasks having moderate granularity and whose computation and communication requirements vary widely for different data sets     

Prolonged exposure to intravesical foreign body induces a giant calculus with attendant renal dysfunction

A 31-year-old man came to our hospital complaining of severe voiding pain. He had inserted a fishing line made of nylon into his urethra at the age of eighteen, which was unable to be taken out and had been left there for 13 years. Preoperative ultrasonogram showed severe bilateral hydronephrosis and the serum BUN and creatinine level were as high as 45.2 mg/dl and 4.8 mg/dl, respectively. A huge bladder stone was demonstrated in X-ray film, the patient was admitted and vesicolithotomy was performed. The size of the stone was 10.5 x 7.5 x 7.5 cm and the weight was 360 grams. The fishing line was found inside the stone and the length was over 3 meters. The serum BUN and creatinine level after the operation were still high as 28.4 mg/dl and 4.1 mg/dl, respectively, and they did not improve even after six months following.     

Services and applications: requirements and realizations in theUMTS era

The ACTS program is moving the results of the R&D of the parent RACE program nearer to realization through technology and user trials. Particularly in the mobile domain of ACTS, several projects have been investigating the user dimension in the context of the third-generation Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service. Results so far suggest many opportunities to broaden participation, exploit the inherent benefits of the mobile environment, and take advantage of the enormous improvements in wireless communications to realize the potential of global multimedia mobility. This article considers the needs of users for mobile multimedia applications and the consequences of those needs on the equipment, supporting services and teleservices, and communications bearers     

H∞ control versus disturbance-observer-basedcontrol

In the motion control field, a disturbance observer-based disturbance canceling control is often used as a robust control methodology. However, this method is nothing more than an alternative design of an integral controller, and the robust stability issue cannot be directly accounted for. In this paper, an extended H_∞ control scheme is proposed as a new robust motion control method which achieves the disturbance cancellation ability and guarantees robust stability automatically