The World War II Experience and the Leadership of Entrepreneurship and Venture Investing around Stanford University

Dr. Frederick Terman has been widely recognized as the godfather of Silicon Valley (Lowood, 1982). Terman, a Stanford University electrical engineering professor, managed Harvard University\u27s Radio Research Laboratory during World War II and returned as Stanford\u27s dean of engineering. His commitment to seeing California companies in science-based industries seize postwar opportunities to push ahead of their Eastern counterparts influenced the venture investing as well as the entrepreneurship that built a thriving high-technology industrial community around Stanford University. Terman\u27s wartime experience shaped his postwar role as a leader of high-technology entrepreneurship. Wartime experiences similarly influenced individuals who invested in California ventures after the war. Environmental shifts during World War II did much to foster the industrial community now known as Silicon Valley

Avtex: A Clash of Environmental Business and Defense Interests

Avtex: A Clash of Environmental, Business, and Defense Interests is based on the continuously unfolding conflict between the only certified U.S. supplier of carbonized rayon for the Department of Defense and NASA with state and federal water and air quality regulators. Avtex, a privately held and financially strapped corporation, is the biggest water and air polluter in Virginia and one of the worst nationwide. It is also a major employer in Front Royal, Virginia, a small community nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. Complicating the Avtex controversy are the $22.6 million federal bailout in November 1989 and recent charges by environmental regulators of ongoing water and air violations. Avtex primarily focuses on this continuing case with respect to government and business relationships deemed ethically necessary to protect the environment

Grain boundary assisted photocurrent collection in thin film solar cells

The influence of absorber grain boundaries on the photocurrent transport in chalcopyrite based thin film solar cells has been calculated using a two dimensional numerical model. Considering extreme cases, the variation in red response is more expressed than in one dimensional models. These findings may offer an explanation for the strong influence of buffer layer preparation on the spectral response of cells with small grained absorbers

Women In The Records Of The Virginia Company Of London

My thesis presents women from the Records of the Virginia Company of London, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1906, Library of Congress online. During the 1619-1624 years of the records’ Court Book, Lady Lawarr, widow of Virginia’s first governor named by the Company, was important in distributing Virginia Company shares. Lady Lawarr worked, usually with an agent, to transfer shares from Lawarr’s estate to diverse people. Women had surprising agency in dealing with the Company, but there were some limits. There were delays in implementing grants for compensations. Some women worked with agents to get property owed to them. Petitions filed in Virginia during the migration considered women’s own interests and deceased husbands’ property Small as well as large sets of land shares were distributed. Although the colony saw scarcity and dissension during 1619, transactions in Court generally proceeded according to expectations. Women were treated as valid transactors and complainants, although they sometimes worked with agents and sometimes did not achieve the specific results they hoped for. Women sometimes petitioned for their husbands’ interests. Men sometimes petitioned for interests of female as well as male family members. A November 3, 1619, proposal to bring to Virginia 100 young women to marry residents was intended so that residents would not want to leave the colony. After the initial settlement of women, the migration idea continued to appeal. The City of London and some livery company guilds supported colonization, although Court records show some strategic hesitation comparing costs of raising apprentices in England with the costs of sending young people abroad. November 15, 1620, the City’s continuing support of colonization benefits to individuals was adapted after there were complaints that the young migrants received too generous terms. The City did ask the Court to provide funds toward the migrants’ care and travel. After the large group of women and girls was sent to Virginia, bringing or taking wives to Virginia became somewhat common. For example, the Court learned June 13, 1621, that an apothecary would bring himself and his wife, paying transport himself, if the Company would transport two Children. July 16, 1621, a joint stock company was proposed for the subscription roll for sending women to Virginia to become wives. Governance was important to the colonists. They filed many petitions, and discussion of these generally appeared in Court records. Among the proposals was one to consolidate land and call it Mayds Towne. One conflict about the money to be paid to children brought to Virginia, settled at five marks rather than five pounds each, reflects a broader ambivalence about colonization. Women brought to Virginia came to a colony moving toward tobacco dominance in agriculture. Lady Lawarr’s dealings interacted with those of Henry Rolfe, brother of John Rolfe, who had been married to Pocahontas before she died. Religion was a significant part of colony formation

Corporate Philanthropy: Strategic Responses to the Firm\u27s Stakeholders

Corporate decisions about philanthropic contributions have become more strategic in recent years. Contributions are targeted not only to benefit recipient nonprofit organizations, but also to fulfill major business objectives. This article develops a typology of strategic corporate philanthropy that distinguishes between strategic process and three strategic outcomes. It reports the extent of strategic philanthropy categories in an exploratory study of large firms headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. Relationships between philanthropy and industry sector, organizational placement of the philanthropy function, firm age, and firm size are identified

Junction formation by Zn(O,S) sputtering yields CIGSe-based cells with efficiencies exceeding 18%

In an effort to reduce the complexity and associated production costs of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe)-based solar cells, the commonly used sputtered undoped ZnO layer has been modified to eliminate the requirement for a dedicated buffer layer. After replacing the ZnO target with a mixed ZnO/ZnS target, efficient solar cells could be prepared by sputtering directly onto the as- grown CIGSe surface. This approach has now been tested with high-quality lab- scale glass/Mo/CIGSe substrates. An efficiency of 18.3% has been independently confirmed without any post-deposition annealing or light soaking

11.3% efficiency Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 thin film solar cells via drop-on-demand inkjet printing

Although Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGSe) based thin film solar cells have reached efficiencies exceeding 22% based on vacuum processed CIGSSe absorbers, the supply of indium and gallium might become an issue if CIGSSe thin-film solar cells are produced in very large volumes. It is therefore mandatory to reduce the wastage of indium and gallium during the fabrication process. In this work, we report on a highly efficient precursor utilization, and a vacuum- free, and scalable route to the deposition of Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGSSe) thin films via drop-on-demand inkjet-printing. The precursor ink, which shows long- term stability in air at room temperature, is formulated by dissolving metal nitrate salts in alcohol-based solvents. Crack free CIGSSe absorbers consisting of a layer with large grains at the surface and a layer with small grains at the back have been prepared by annealing the inkjet-printed Cu–In–Ga nitrate precursors in a Se/H2S containing atmosphere. Ga accumulation has been observed within the layer with small grains. A solar cell with a total area efficiency of 11.3% under standard AM 1.5 illumination has been achieved based on the printed CIGSSe absorbers

Point contacts at the copper indium gallium selenide interface a theoretical outlook

For a long time, it has been assumed that recombination in the space-charge region of copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) is dominant, at least in high efficiency solar cells with low band gap. The recent developments like potassium fluoride post deposition treatment and point-contact junction may call this into question. In this work, a theoretical outlook is made using three-dimensional simulations to investigate the effect of point-contact openings through a passivation layer on CIGS solar cell performance. A large set of solar cells is modeled under different scenarios for the charged defect levels and density, radius of the openings, interface quality, and conduction band offset. The positive surface charge created by the passivation layer induces band bending and this influences the contact (CdS) properties, making it beneficial for the open circuit voltage and efficiency, and the effect is even more pronounced when coverage area is more than 95%, and also makes a positive impact on the device performance, even in the presence of a spike at CIGS/CdS heterojunction

Fogarty International Center collaborative networks in infectious disease modeling:Lessons learnt in research and capacity building

Due to a combination of ecological, political, and demographic factors, the emergence of novel pathogens has been increasingly observed in animals and humans in recent decades. Enhancing global capacity to study and interpret infectious disease surveillance data, and to develop data-driven computational models to guide policy, represents one of the most cost-effective, and yet overlooked, ways to prepare for the next pandemic. Epidemiological and behavioral data from recent pandemics and historic scourges have provided rich opportunities for validation of computational models, while new sequencing technologies and the ‘big data’ revolution present new tools for studying the epidemiology of outbreaks in real time. For the past two decades, the Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies (DIEPS) of the NIH Fogarty International Center has spearheaded two synergistic programs to better understand and devise control strategies for global infectious disease threats. The Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study (MISMS) has strengthened global capacity to study the epidemiology and evolutionary dynamics of influenza viruses in 80 countries by organizing international research activities and training workshops. The Research and Policy in Infectious Disease Dynamics (RAPIDD) program and its precursor activities has established a network of global experts in infectious disease modeling operating at the research-policy interface, with collaborators in 78 countries. These activities have provided evidence-based recommendations for disease control, including during large-scale outbreaks of pandemic influenza, Ebola and Zika virus. Together, these programs have coordinated international collaborative networks to advance the study of emerging disease threats and the field of computational epidemic modeling. A global community of researchers and policy-makers have used the tools and trainings developed by these programs to interpret infectious disease patterns in their countries, understand modeling concepts, and inform control policies. Here we reflect on the scientific achievements and lessons learnt from these programs (h-index = 106 for RAPIDD and 79 for MISMS), including the identification of outstanding researchers and fellows; funding flexibility for timely research workshops and working groups (particularly relative to more traditional investigator-based grant programs); emphasis on group activities such as large-scale modeling reviews, model comparisons, forecasting challenges and special journal issues; strong quality control with a light touch on outputs; and prominence of training, data-sharing, and joint publications. Keywords: Infectious diseases, Transmission models, Computational models, Pathogen evolution, Capacity building, Emerging disease threats, Influenza, Control, Polic

Genetic Diversity and Association Studies in US Hispanic/Latino Populations: Applications in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos

US Hispanic/Latino individuals are diverse in genetic ancestry, culture, and environmental exposures. Here, we characterized and controlled for this diversity in genome-wide association studies (GWASs) for the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL). We simultaneously estimated population-structure principal components (PCs) robust to familial relatedness and pairwise kinship coefficients (KCs) robust to population structure, admixture, and Hardy-Weinberg departures. The PCs revealed substantial genetic differentiation within and among six self-identified background groups (Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Central and South American). To control for variation among groups, we developed a multi-dimensional clustering method to define a “genetic-analysis group” variable that retains many properties of self-identified background while achieving substantially greater genetic homogeneity within groups and including participants with non-specific self-identification. In GWASs of 22 biomedical traits, we used a linear mixed model (LMM) including pairwise empirical KCs to account for familial relatedness, PCs for ancestry, and genetic-analysis groups for additional group-associated effects. Including the genetic-analysis group as a covariate accounted for significant trait variation in 8 of 22 traits, even after we fit 20 PCs. Additionally, genetic-analysis groups had significant heterogeneity of residual variance for 20 of 22 traits, and modeling this heteroscedasticity within the LMM reduced genomic inflation for 19 traits. Furthermore, fitting an LMM that utilized a genetic-analysis group rather than a self-identified background group achieved higher power to detect previously reported associations. We expect that the methods applied here will be useful in other studies with multiple ethnic groups, admixture, and relatedness