Method of mitigating titanium impurities effects in p-type silicon material for solar cells

Microstructural evaluation tests performed on Cu-doped, Ti-doped and Cu/Ti doped p-type silicon single crystal wafers, before and after the solar cell fabrication, and evaluation of both dark forward and reverse I-V characteristic records for the solar cells produced from the corresponding silicon wafers, show that Cu mitigates the unfavorable effects of Ti, and thus provides for higher conversion efficiency, thereby providing an economical way to reduce the deleterious effects of titanium, one of the impurities present in metallurgical grade silicon material

Characterization of deliberately nickel-doped silicon wafers and solar cells

Microstructural and electrical evaluation tests were performed on nickel-doped p-type silicon wafers before and after solar cell fabrication. The concentration levels of nickel in silicon were 5 x 10 to the 14th power, 4 x 10 to the 15th power, and 8 x 10 to the 15th power atoms/cu cm. It was found that nickel precipitated out during the growth process in all three ingots. Clumps of precipitates, some of which exhibited star shape, were present at different depths. If the clumps are distributed at depths approximately 20 micron apart and if they are larger than 10 micron in diameter, degradation occurs in solar cell electrical properties and cell conversion efficiency. The larger the size of the precipitate clump, the greater the degradation in solar cell efficiency. A large grain boundary around the cell effective area acted as a gettering center for the precipitates and impurities and caused improvement in solar cell efficiency. Details of the evaluation test results are given

Risk and value in labour and capital markets: The UK corporate economy, 1980-2005.

The paper sets out a theoretical model linking stock market financial risk to labour market conditions, including labour intensity and the risk arising from the specification of labour contracts. A value added analysis is conducted combining national and firm level accounts data to examine the relationship between the share of value and the share of risk, contrasting manufacturing and service industries. In conjunction with a firm level analysis, empirical support for the model is established showing rational trade-offs between the risk and value appropriations of investors and employees and a less rational accumulation of structured debt finance as the UK economy has shifted from manufacturing to services in the last 30 years. The shift to services, flexibility and deregulation has tended to promote labour intensity, inflexibility of cost structures, and, as a consequence greater financial risk

IgA Vasculitis and Anti-GBM disease: two ends of a spectrum of immune complex vasculitis

Two immune complex vasculitides, IgA vasculitis (IgAV) and anti-GBM disease, represent polar extremes with regard to our understanding of disease pathogenesis, standardized management protocols and outcomes. This report compares our current approach to these uncommon entities in adults. Both diseases demonstrate degrees of small vessel necrosis and glomerular crescent formation. IgAV has an antibody response directed against unknown antigens, is often treated conservatively and has poorly studied long term renal outcomes. By contrast, anti-GBM disease presents with rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis and often results in end stage renal failure, despite intensive immunosuppression. Rarely, some cases of anti-GBM disease may be IgA predominant and bind other α-chains present in the GBM, but their clinical course is as for other anti-GBM disease patients but not IgAV, suggesting that the antigenic target rather than the antibody subclass is the critical factor in determining disease outcome. However, both conditions are associated with increased mortality in adults and result in significant chronic kidney disease and hypertension

Does Community and Environmental Responsibility Affect Firm Risk? Evidence from UK Panel Data 1994-2006

The question of how an individual firm’s environmental performance impacts its firm risk has not been examined in any empirical UK research. Does a company that strives to attain good environmental performance decreases its market risk or is environmental performance just a disadvantageous cost that increases such risk levels for these firms? Answers to this question have important implications for the management of companies and the investment decisions of individuals and institutions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate environmental performance and firm risk in the British context. Using the largest dataset so far assembled, with Community and Environmental Responsibility (CER) rankings for all rated UK companies between 1994 and 2006, we show that a company’s environmental performance is inversely related to its systematic financial risk. However, an increase of 1.0 in the CER score is associated with only a 0.02 reduction in firm’s risk and cost of capital

The association between accounting and market-based risk measures

The paper derives operating and financial measures of leverage and tests their association with market based measures of equity risk. It is the first such study to use purely accounting-based data to derive the leverage measures. In line with previous literature it conducts a new test on the relative importance of operating and financial leverage. The results suggest that operating costs have a greater impact

Childhood lupus nephritis

Egypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2006; 4(2): 41-5

Patient Knowledge and barriers to care for their Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM) Condition

This project is investigating the patient knowledge and barriers that may be present which may contribute to a lack of effective care of their Type II Diabetes condition. This project is also investigating key components which may improve patient-centered care.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1766/thumbnail.jp

The relationship between the performance of the economy and the costing of building projects : a case study of school buildings in Egypt

Cost estimating and cost modelling for building projects have attracted the attention of many scholars. Previous research has laid emphasis on the product physical variables and did not explicitly include the economic variables. This study aims at investigating the impact of the performance of the economy on the cost of building projects by explicitly considering the relevant economic indicators in the cost estimating process. The unique attributes of the National Project for Building Schools in Egypt that is running since 1992, provided the opportunity to focus the light on the economic variables due to the standard design applied to thousands of school buildings. The study started by reviewing the current practice in cost estimating for building projects in Egypt seeking to identify the influential cost factors and to further investigate the level of awareness of the impact of the economic changes on the cost of buildings as perceived by the experts. In addition, the study aimed at developing an explanatory cost model illustrating the relationship between the relevant economic indicators and the cost of school buildings in order to quantify the impact of the economic changes on the costing of buildings. This research adopted a mixed methodology in a triangulation approach that was conducted in two stages. A set of 18 interviews with experts from the industry was followed by a survey covering a sample of 400 schools. The results indicated that the quantity surveyor’s method is the prevailing cost estimating technique in Egypt. Practitioners in general, showed a blurred understanding of the fundamentals of economic and did not explicitly consider the economic indicators in the cost estimates for building projects. The cost modelling of the survey data adopted a multiple regression technique and factor analysis. Two sets of Cost Models including 6 economic indicators as independent variables, besides other product variables, were developed. The results indicated that the economic indicators were significant cost variables. Hence, the impact of the economic changes on the cost estimates of buildings can be quantified. The produced models indicated that the cost of school buildings, expressed in real terms, tend to increase during periods of economic recession. The produced model is useful to cost estimators working for government clients as well as contractors, given the rising application of standard design in various sectors within the construction industry in Egypt. Further work is required to gauge this impact across various sectors of the construction industr