What Will it Take to Make Solar Panels Cool?

With the predicted results of climate change looming, humanity must do all it can to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Maintaining a habitable environment along with the high quality of living associated with developed nations requires investment in renewable energy. Because national governments often fail to make responsible decisions for their country\u27s future, this burden falls to institutions like UMass Amherst. Although costly investments like solar panels substantially improve the sustainability of campus, some innovative improvements of existing solar energy infrastructure can go a long way. For example, when solar panels heat up they lose photovoltaic efficiency. We propose that UMass institute cooling systems on current and future solar panel structures. This may sound extravagant, but in this paper we outline a plan for a simple and affordable cooling system that can be constructed from supplies bought at a local hardware store. The University spent approximately $1.5 million dollars on the new solar canopy atop the Robsham’s Visitor Center. This structure generates an estimated$40,000 worth of electricity each year, with a 38 year return on investment. We expect a cooling system for each canopy to cost around $500 and to improve power output by more than 10 percent. This means that by the most conservative estimate, a$500 investment will generate an additional $4,000 worth of electricity, reducing the return on investment time by 4 years. Compared with the initial solar canopy investment, this magnitude of electricity generation would have cost$150,000. By comparison, $500 is peanuts. Read on to see how a little ingenuity can go a long way to save money and the environment

Effects of male telomeres on probability of paternity in sand lizards

Standardized swim-up trials are used in in vitro fertilization clinics to select particularly motile spermatozoa in order to increase the probability of a successful fertilization. Such trials demonstrate that sperm with longer telomeres have higher motility and lower levels of DNA damage. Regardless of whether sperm motility, and successful swim-up to fertilization sites, is a direct or correlational effect of telomere length or DNA damage, covariation between telomere length and sperm performance predicts a relationship between telomere length and probability of paternity in sperm competition, a prediction that for ethical reasons cannot be tested on humans. Here, we test this prediction in sand lizards (Lacerta agilis) using experimental data from twice-mated females in a laboratory population, and telomere length in blood from the participating lizards. Female identity influenced paternity (while the mechanism was not identified), while relatively longer male telomeres predicted higher probability of paternity. We discuss potential mechanisms underpinning this result

Planning for whole-farm systems research at a credible scale: subdividing land into farmlets with equivalent initial conditions

Most research comparing different farming systems has been conducted on relatively uniform plots at small scales made necessary by the desire for sufficient replication of the systems and cost limitations. This paper describes an alternative approach to plan the allocation of land to three unreplicated whole-farm management systems such that each farmlet had equivalent starting conditions and yet was at a scale credible to both livestock producers and researchers. The paddocks of each farmlet were distributed across the landscape in a 'patchwork quilt' pattern after six iterations of a mapping exercise using a Geographic Information System. Allocation of paddocks took into account those variables of the landscape and natural resource capacity that were not able to be altered. An important benefit of the procedure was that it ensured that the farmlets were co-located with contiguous paddock boundaries so that all farmlets experienced the same climatic as well as biophysical conditions. An electromagnetic survey was conducted of the entire property and used in conjunction with a detailed soils map in order to classify areas into soil conductivity groupings. Equivalent areas of each soil type were allocated across the three farmlets. Similarly, land was distributed according to its topography so that no farmlet would be compromised by being allocated more low lying, flood-prone land than any other farmlet. The third factor used to allocate land to each farmlet was the prior fertiliser history of the original paddocks. This process ensured that each farmlet was objectively allocated equivalent areas of soil type, topography and fertiliser history thus avoiding initial bias among the farmlets. After the plan for all paddocks of each farmlet was finalised, new paddock boundaries were drawn and where necessary, fencing was removed, modified and added, along with re-arranged watering points. The farmlet treatments commenced in July 2000 when the first pasture establishment and differential fertiliser applications were carried out. Evidence from the electromagnetic survey and the Landsat imagery confirmed that the distribution of hydrologic soil conductivity and vegetation greenness were similar between all farmlets just before the commencement of the experiment

Learning and Change in 20th-Century British Economic Policy

Despite considerable interest in the means by which policy learning occurs, and in how it is that the framework of policy may be subject to radical change, the “black box” of economic policy making remains surprisingly murky. This article utilizes Peter Hall’s concept of “social learning” to develop a more sophisticated model of policy learning; one in which paradigm failure does not necessarily lead to wholesale paradigm replacement, and in which an administrative battle of ideas may be just as important a determinant of paradigm change as a political struggle. It then applies this model in a survey of U.K. economic policy making since the 1930s: examining the shift to “Keynesianism” during the 1930s and 1940s; the substantial revision of this framework in the 1960s; the collapse of the“Keynesian-plus” framework in the 1970s; and the major revisions to the new “neoliberal” policy framework in the 1980s and 1990s

Observation of the suppressed Λb0→DpK- decay with D→K+π- and measurement of its CP asymmetry

International audienceA study of Λb0 baryon decays to the DpK- final state is presented based on a proton-proton collision data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9  fb-1 collected with the LHCb detector. Two Λb0 decays are considered, Λb0→DpK- with D→K-π+ and D→K+π-, where D represents a superposition of D0 and D¯0 states. The latter process is expected to be suppressed relative to the former, and is observed for the first time. The ratio of branching fractions of the two decays is measured, and the CP asymmetry of the suppressed mode, which is sensitive to the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa angle γ, is also reported