Solar Power Energy: Useful Facts & Information Regarding the Market for Photovoltaics

Modern energy services are crucial to a person’s well-being and to a country’s economic development, and yet globally over 1.3 billion people are without access to electricity. This paper reviews some of the factors behind the demand and growth for solar power

The Democratic Dilemmas of Differentiated Integration: The Views of Political Party Actors

Differentiated integration (DI) appeals as a pragmatic way of accommodating political and economic differences among member states (MS). However, it potentially challenges their equal standing in EU decision‐making, creating the possibility for some MS to dominate others. As such, it risks undermining the democratic legitimacy of the EU. Drawing on 35 interviews with party actors in seven MS, we find many shared these concerns, thereby questioning the acceptance of DI. While they considered DI could support self‐determination at the national level, they worried it might result in arbitrary exclusion and growing inequality at the EU level. To be non‐dominating, they contended differentiated policies must remain open for all to join, be based on clear criteria, and allow all MS a say, though only participating states should be entitled to vote on differentiated policies in the Council, whereas all MEPs should be able to vote in the European Parliament

Guidelines for depth data collection in rivers when applying interpolation techniques (kriging) for river restoration

International audienceRiver restoration appraisal requires the implementation of monitoring programmes that assess the river site before and after the restoration project. However, little work has yet been developed to design effective and efficient sampling strategies. Three main variables need to be considered when designing monitoring programmes: space, time and scale. The aim of this paper is to describe the methodology applied to analyse the variation of depth in space, scale and time so more comprehensive monitoring programmes can be developed. Geostatistical techniques were applied to study the spatial dimension (sampling strategy and density), spectral analysis was used to study the scale at which depth shows cyclic patterns, whilst descriptive statistics were used to assess the temporal variation. A brief set of guidelines have been summarised in the conclusion

Mechanics and materials in the design of a buckling diaphragm wave energy converter

Not sure what acceptance date was so just used publication date

Some combinatorial identities related to commuting varieties and Hilbert schemes

In this article we explore some of the combinatorial consequences of recent results relating the isospectral commuting variety and the Hilbert scheme of points in the plane

Building the Plane While Flying It: School and College Policy Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic

The quandary of how to deliver quality instruction in the midst of a virulent and unabated pandemic for which there are no medications or vaccination is the greatest educational dilemma of our age. Using modified interpretive policy analysis (IPA), the paper reports the results of a study that examined the challenges, responsiveness, and efficacy of policies initiated during the early outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in three sectors of the education community: (1) Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), (2) public schools offering services to disabled students, and (3) research universities in four geographic locations. Specific attention is given to policy formulations, implementations, and modifications during the early advent of COVID-19 in the U.S. The paper concludes with recommendation for moving forward

Investigating Gender Assignment Strategies in Mixed Purepecha–Spanish Nominal Constructions

Purepecha has no grammatical gender, whereas Spanish has a binary masculine–feminine system. In this paper we investigate how early sequential Purepecha–Spanish bilinguals assign gender to Purepecha nouns inserted into an otherwise Spanish utterance, using a director-matcher production task and an online forced-choice acceptability judgement task. The results of the production task indicate a strong preference for masculine gender, irrespective of the gender of the noun’s translation equivalent, the so-called “masculine default” option. Participants in the comprehension task were influenced by the orthography of the Purepecha noun in the -a ending condition, leading them to assign feminine gender agreement to nouns that are masculine in Spanish, but preferred the masculine default strategy again in the -i/-u ending condition. The absence of the “analogical criterion” in both tasks contrasts with the results of some previous studies, underlining the need for more comparable data in terms of task type. Our results also highlight how task type can influence the choices speakers make, in this context, in terms of the choice of grammatical gender agreement strategy. Task type should therefore be carefully controlled in future studies

Near-IR spectroscopy of PKS1549-79: a proto-quasar revealed?

We present a near-IR spectrum of the nearby radio galaxy PKS1549-79 (z=0153). These data were taken with the aim of testing the idea that this object contains a quasar nucleus that is moderately extinguished, despite evidence that its radio jet points close to our line-of-sight. We detect broad Paschen Alpha emission (FWHM ~1745 km/s), relatively bright continuum emission, and a continuum slope consistent with a reddened quasar spectrum (3.1 < Av < 7.3), all emitted by an unresolved point source. Therefore we conclude that we have, indeed, detected a hidden quasar nucleus in PKS1549-79. Combined with previous results, these observations are consistent with the idea that PKS1549-79 is a young radio source in which the cocoon of debric left over from the triggering events has not yet been swept aside by circumnuclear outflows.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Genetic map construction and quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping for nitrogen use efficiency and its relationship with productivity and quality of the biennial crop Belgian endive (Cichorium intybus L.)

A genetic study of the biennial crop Belgian endive (Cichorium intybus) was carried out to examine the effect of nitrogen nutrition during the vegetative phase in the control of the productivity and quality of the chicon (etiolated bud), a crop that grows during the second phase of development (forcing process). A population of 302 recombinant inbred lines (RIL) was obtained from the cross between contrasting lines "NS1" and "NR2". A genetic map was constructed and QTLs of several physiological and agronomical traits were mapped under two levels of nitrogen fertilization during the vegetative phase (N- and N+). The agronomical traits showed high broad sense heritability, whereas the physiological traits were characterized by low broad sense heritability. Nitrogen reserves mobilization during the forcing process was negatively correlated with nitrogen reserves content of the tuberized root and common QTLs were detected for these traits. The chicon productivity and quality were not correlated, but showed one common QTL. This study revealed that chicon productivity and quality were genetically associated with nitrogen reserves mobilization that exerts opposite effects on both traits. Chicon productivity was positively correlated with N reserves mobilization under N- and N+ and a common QTL with the same additive effects was detected for both traits. Chicon quality was negatively correlated with N reserves mobilization under N- and N+ and a common QTL with opposite additive effects was detected for both traits. These results lead to the conclusion that N reserves mobilization is a more effective trait than N reserves content in predicting chicon productivity and quality. Finally, this study revealed agronomical and physiological QTLs utilizable by breeders via marker-assisted selection to aid the optimization of chicon quality under adapted N fertilization