Polymers in Solar Cells

Due to the promising properties of semiconducting polymers they have attracted wide spread interest. During the last decade we have worked on a smart chemistry approach to these substrates and organometallic compounds with special focus on design, synthesis and characterization of materials that could be used in photovoltaic devices. In these materials, one of the most important aspects is high absorbance in the UV-Vis spectrum as a necessary characteristic for high conversion rates of light to electric energy. We were able to show that this can be achieved introducing certain functional groups as, e.g., NO2-moieties. Another important aspect is the interaction with the buffer layers that also form part of the whole photovoltaic device. Here we show that a double layer of CuI/MoO3 increased the energy yield for a large variety of organic substrates along with related results from other leading groups reported in literature

Managing and monitoring sustainable regional devolopment in alpine regions

Alpine landscape always has been affected by human economic activities. Traffic economy, tourism economy and industrial structure dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises have been the drivers of economy development as well as of changes in the alpine landscape throughout the last century. There have been tremendous influences of economic activities on special areas but also on the alpine landscape in general. For years numerous regions have been subjected to a strong structural change. Globalisation leads to an acceleration of this structural change. Also, globalisation leads to a fast transition of companies, branches and economies. This transformation is determined by the conversion of the core elements of economic activities, single companies. Companies and branches of the alpine economy have been affected heavily by this transformation process due to several reasons (former regulation, decline of transport costs, etc.). The regions try to influence the negative effects of this structural change in various ways. The results of their efforts are very different. Some regions manage to improve their economic situation whereas others get worse. It is an open question, which structural and procedural factors are responsible for these differences. There could be a gap between wishful thinking in policy making /development of regional strategies and the possibilities of economic development. All participation processes and works on regional strategies have to be based on a sound understanding of the possibilities to influence the economic development. Regional development has tremendously changed in the past few years. So, the question arises how regions are going to organise and manage their sustainable development in the long run. Therefore, appropriate management tools have to be designed. However the central question of the paper is, how regions manage to remain as attractive living spaces. If we knew, what strategies regions should apply and how they should change their strategies in the light of the growing influence of globalisation, we could be able to develop tools for future regional development, that could take the demands of sustainability better into account. Therefore, the paper focuses on the following four areas: - The long-term changes of the (economic) situation in peripheral regions of the Alps. What have been the most important sources of income/net value creation in the last years? How have factors like income, branches and work force developed? How has the created income and value been distributed to different branches and population groups - The effects of globalisation on relevant branches for peripheral regions (e.g. Tourism, agriculture and forestry, building and industry). Which effects of globalisation have been the most influential ones? What external effects have to be expected in alpine regions through these economic trends? - Evaluation of the regional strategies to cope with economic structural changes. It will be promising to examine the Regional Development Schemes. - Development of a management system for sustainable regional development in peripheral regions, which should be applicable as a standardized tool.

Literatur-Rundschau

Margreth Lünenborg: Joumalismus als kultureller Prozess (Klaus Arnold)Institut zur Förderung publizistischen Nachwuchses/Deutscher Presserat (Hg.): Ethik im Redaktionsalltag (Horst Pöttker)Elisabeth Hurth: "Gute Nacht, John Boy!". Familien vor und auf dem Bildschirm (Eckhard Bieger)Günther Mees: Stimme der Stimmlosen. UCIP - Katholische Weltunion der Presse (Ferdinand Oertel)Harald Schleicher/Alexander Urban (Hg.): Filme machen (Michael Harnischmacher)Heike B. Görtemaker: Ein deutsches Leben. Die Geschichte der Margret Boveri 1900-1975 (Verena Blaum)

Rapid Prototyping for Configurable System-on-a-Chip Platforms: A Simulation Based Approach

The design of any application on a configurable System-on-a-Chip (SoC) like Atmel's FPSLIC is subject to a lot of constraints stemming from requirements of the application and limitations of the architecture. In a top-down approach a real-time MPEG 1 Layer 3 (MP3) decoder is designed on this SoC, which integrates FPGA resources and an AVR microcontroller core within a single chip. An intensive design space exploration based on simulations on different levels of abstractions is fundamental for a real-time implementation on this limited architecture. After determining a suited functional partitioning a special DSP is implemented on the FPGA, wherefore an instruction set simulator is build, which allows concurrent HW/SW development

Biochemical constraints for survival under Martian conditions

A wide variety of terrestrial organisms, the so-called "anhydrobiotes," has learned to survive in a state of extreme dehydration in dry environments. Strategies for survival include the accumulation of certain polyols and nonreducing saccharides, which help to prevent damage to membranes and proteins, but at low water partial pressure DNA is also progressively damaged by various lesions, including strand breaks and cross-linking to proteins. These lesions, if they are not too numerous, can be repaired before the first replication step after rehydration, but long-term exposure to dry conditions finally diminishes the chances of survival as these lesions accumulate. If an organism has no chance to repair the accumulated DNA damage during intermittent periods of active life, survival will not exceed a few decades. The restriction of survival by dryness-induced DNA lesions is corroborated by new data on conidia of Aspergillus and the free plasmid pBR 322. Our results will be discussed with respect to the chance of finding dormant life or biochemical fossils on the surface of Mars

Survival of microorganisms under the extreme conditions of the Atacama Desert

Spores of Bacillus subtilis, conidia of Aspergillus niger, versicolor and ochraceus and cells of Deinococcus radiodurans have been exposed in the dark at two locations (at about 23 degrees S and 24 degrees S) in the Atacama Desert for up to 15 months. B. subtilis spores (survival approximately 15%) and A. niger conidia (survival approximately 30%) outlived the other species. The survival of the conidia and spores species was only slightly poorer than that of the corresponding laboratory controls. However, the Deinococcus radiodurans cells did not survive the desert exposure, because they are readily inactivated at relative humidities between 40 and 80% which typically occur during desert nights. Cellular monolayers of the dry spores and conidia have in addition been exposed to the full sun light for up to several hours. The solar fluences causing 63% loss in viability (F37-values) have been determined. These F37-values are compared with those determined at other global locations such as Punta Arenas (53 degrees S), Key Largo (25 degrees N) or Mainz (50 degrees N) during the same season. The solar UVB radiation kills even the most resistant microorganisms within a few hours due to DNA damages. The data are also discussed with respect to possible similarities between the climatic conditions of the recent Atacama Desert and the deserts of early Mars