High-efficiency Silicon Solar Cells: A Review

Over the past few decades, crystalline silicon solar cells have been extensively studied due to their high efficiency, high reliability, and low cost. In addition, these types of cells lead the industry and account for more than half of the market. For the foreseeable future, Si will still be a critical material for photovoltaic devices in the solar cell industry. In this paper, we discuss key issues, cell concepts, and the status of recent high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells.     

Face verification across age progression.

Human faces undergo considerable amounts of varialions with aging. While face recognition systems have been proven to be sensitive to factors such as illumination and pose, their sensitivity to facial aging effects is yet to be studied. How does age progression affect the similarity between a pair of face images of an individual? What is the confidence associated with establishing the identity between a pair of age separated face images? In this paper, we develop a Bayesian age difference classifier that classifies face images of individuals based on age differences and performs face verification across age progression. Further, we study the similarity of faces across age progression. Since age separated face images invariably differ in illumination and pose, we propose preprocessing methods for minimizing such variations. Experimental results using a database comprising of pairs of face images that were retrieved from the passports of 465 individuals are presented. The verification system for faces separated by as many as nine years, attains an equal error rate of 8.5%.     

Antihyperglycemic activity of phenolics from Pterocarpus marsupium

Glucose levels in rats with hyperglycemia induced by streptozotocin were determined after i.p. administration of marsupsin (1), pterosupin (2), and pterostilbene (3), three important phenolic constituents of the heartwood of Pterocarpus marsupium. Marsupsin and pterostilbene significantly lowered the blood glucose level of hyperglycemic rats, and the effect was comparable to that of 1,1-dimethylbiguanide (metformin).     

Control of volatile organic compounds by an AC energizedferroelectric pellet reactor and a pulsed corona reactor

Two laboratory-scale plasma reactors, an alternating current (AC) energized ferroelectric (high dielectric ceramic) packed bed reactor and a nanosecond pulsed corona reactor, were constructed. This study was done to develop baseline engineering data to demonstrate the feasibility of the application of plasma reactors to the destruction of various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at PPM levels. Complete destruction was obtained for toluene. Conversions of methylene chloride at 95% and trichlorotrifluoroethane (known as CFC-113) at 67% were achieved for the plasma reactors used. The conversion was dependent on the mean electron energy in the reactor and was also related to how strongly halogen species were bonded with carbon     

Exploiting ILP, TLP, and DLP with the polymorphous trips architecture

The Tera-op reliable intelligently adaptive processing system (TRIPS) architecture seeks to deliver system-level configurability to applications and runtime systems. It does so by employing the concept of polymorphism, which permits the runtime system to configure the hardware execution resources to match the mode of execution and demands of the compiler and application.     

Travelling-wave photodetectors with 172-GHz bandwidth and 76-GHzbandwidth-efficiency product

Results of the first fabrication and measurement of travelling-wave photodetectors are reported. The devices have bandwidths as high as 172 GHz, the highest reported for a p-i-n photodetector, and bandwidth-efficiency products as large as 76 GHz, the largest reported for any photodetector without gain. Comparisons with vertically illuminated and waveguide photodetectors fabricated on the same wafer establish the superior performance of travelling-wave photodetectors. Microwave loss on the travelling-wave photodetector structure is identified as a bandwidth limitation