Scenario-based forecast for the electricity demand in Qatar and the role of energy efficiency improvements

We model the electricity consumption in the market segment that compose the Qatari electricity market. We link electricity consumption to GDP growth and Population Growth. Building on the estimated model, we develop long-range forecasts of electricity consumption from 2017 to 2030 over different scenarios for the economic drivers. In addition, we proxy for electricity efficiency improvements by reducing the long-run elasticity of electricity consumption to GDP and Population. We show that electricity efficiency has a crucial role in controlling the future development of electricity consumption. Energy policies should consider this aspect and support both electricity efficiency improvement programs, as well as a price reform

Novel light trapping techniques for silicon solar cells.

Thin-film silicon photovoltaic (PV) solar cells have attracted significant interest for decades due to the increasing demand for clean and sustainable energy resources. Further reduction of the cost of materials and manufacturing processes is required to reach the grid parity where the cost of electricity from solar PV cells is equal to the cost of other nonrenewable resources. Crystalline and thin-film silicon solar cells are anticipated to continue to be one of the dominant solar PV cell technologies. This anticipation is due to the abundance of silicon and the successful history of a continuous drop in cost in silicon-based PV cells. In this thesis, several designs were investigated to enhance absorption of sunlight in the active layers of silicon-based solar cells. In the first design, a plasmonic enhancement to silicon solar cells using (Titanium nitride) TiN as a replacement for silver is studied. In the second, a new design for tandem thin-film silicon solar cells is proposed using a periodic layer between the two subcells. Finally, a low-cost easily fabricated nanocone facial textures is proposed and showed promising experimental and simulation antireflection properties. 3D electromagnetic analysis was performed using finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations to all structures and 3D Device simulations were additionally used to study the tandem cell structure. These contributions which were published are believed to contribute towards achieving high efficiency and cost-effective solar cells

Multi-scale Spatial Analysis of the Water-Food-Climate Nexus in the Nile Basin using Earth Observation Data

Securing enough water and food for everyone is a great challenge that the humanity faces today. This challenge is aggravated by many external drivers such as population growth, climate variability, and degradation of natural resources. Solutions for weak water and food securities require holistic knowledge of the different involved drivers through a nexus approach that looks at the interlinkages and the multi-directional synergies to be promoted and increased and trade-offs to be reduced or eliminated. In particular, the interlinkages between water, food, and climate, the so-called Water-Food-Climate Nexus (WFC Nexus) is critical for the given challenge in many regions around the world such as the Nile Basin (NB). Studying the WFC Nexus synergies and trade-offs might provide entry points for the required interventions that are potential to induce positive impacts on water and food securities. However, these synergies and trade-offs are not well known due to factors such as the complexity of the interactions which involve many dimensions within and across spatial and temporal domains and unavailability of reliable ground observations that could be used for such analysis. Therefore, multidisciplinary research that encompasses different methodologies and employs datasets with adequate spatial and temporal resolutions is required. The recent advancement in Earth Observation (EO) sensors and data processing algorithms have resulted in the accumulation of big data that are produced in rates faster than their usage in solving real challenges such as the one that is in the focus of the current research. The availability of public-domain datasets for several parameters with spatial and temporal coverage offers an excellent opportunity to discover the WFC Nexus interlinkages. To this end, the main goal of the current research is to employ EO data derived from public-domain datasets and supplemented with other primary and secondary data to identify WFC Nexus synergies and trade-offs in the NB region, taking the agricultural systems in Sudan as a central focus of this assessment. By concentrating mainly on the agricultural systems in Sudan, which are characterized by low performance and efficiency despite the huge potentials for food production, the current research provides a representative case study that could deliver helpful and transferrable knowledge to many areas within and outside the NB region. In the current research, multi-scale analysis of the WFC Nexus synergies and trade-offs was conducted. The assessment involved investigations on a country scale as a strategic level, and on river basin, agricultural scheme (both irrigated and rainfed systems) and field scales as operational levels. On a country scale, a general analysis of the vegetation’s Net Primary Productivity (NPP) and Water and Carbon Use Efficiencies (WUE and CUE, respectively) in different land cover types was carried out. A comparison between the land cover types in Sudan and Ethiopia was conducted to understand and compare the impact of inter-annual climate variability on the NPP, WUE and CUE indicators of these different land cover types under relatively different climate regimes. The results of this analysis indicate low magnitude of the three indicators in the land cover types that are in Sudan compared to their counterparts in Ethiopia. Moreover, the response of these indicators to climate variability varies widely among the land cover types. In addition, land cover types such as forests and woody savannah represent important natural sinks for the atmospheric CO2 that need to be protected. These observations suggest the need for effective policies that enhance crop productivity, especially in Sudan, and at the same time ensure preserving the land cover types that are important for climate change mitigation. On a river basin scale, which represented by the Blue Nile Basin (BNB), precipitation estimation is of utmost importance, as it is not only the main source of water in the basin but also because precipitation variability is controlling food production in the agricultural systems, especially in the rainfed schemes. The high spatial and temporal variation in precipitation within the BNB suggests the need for water storage and water harvesting be promoted and practiced. This would ensure water transfer spatially from wet to dry areas and temporally from wet to dry seasons. As a major staple cereal crop in Sudan, the performance of sorghum production in irrigated and rainfed schemes was investigated on agriculture schemes and field scales. A noticeable low and unstable sorghum yield is detected under both agricultural systems. This low performance represents a serious challenge, not only for food production but also for water availability. The current low performance was found to be controlled by many factors of physical, socio-economic and management nature. As many of these factors are closely linked, effectively addressing some of them might induce positive impacts on the other controlling factors. To conclude, the identified synergies and trade-offs of the WFC Nexus could be used as entry points to increase the efficiency of water use and bridge the crop yield gap. Even simple interventions in the field might induce positive effects to the total crop production of the agricultural schemes and water use efficiency. The increase of water availability in the river basin and improved production in the schemes would enhance the overall water and food security in the country and would minimize the need to convert land covers that are important for climate change mitigation into croplands. This paradigm shift needs to be done through a comprehensive sustainable intensification (SI) framework that is not only aimed at increasing crop yield but also targets promoting a healthy environment, improved livelihood, and a growing economy

Does visual letter similarity modulate masked form priming in young readers of Arabic?

Available online 19 January 2018 Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.004.Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.004.We carried out a masked priming lexical decision experiment to study whether visual letter similarity plays a role during the initial phases of word processing in young readers of Arabic (fifth graders). Arabic is ideally suited to test these effects because most Arabic letters share their basic shape with at least one other letter and differ only in the number/position of diacritical points (e.g., ض - ص ;ظ - ط ;غ - ع ;ث - ت - ن ب ;ذ - د ;خ - ح - ج ;ق - ف ;ش - س ;ز - ر). We created two one-letter-different priming conditions for each target word, in which a letter from the consonantal root was substituted by another letter that did or did not keep the same shape (e.g., خدمة - حدمة vs. خدمة - فدمة). Another goal of the current experiment was to test the presence of masked orthographic priming effects, which are thought to be unreliable in Semitic languages. To that end, we included an unrelated priming condition. We found a sizable masked orthographic priming effect relative to the unrelated condition regardless of visual letter similarity, thereby revealing that young readers are able to quickly process the diacritical points of Arabic letters. Furthermore, the presence of masked orthographic priming effects in Arabic suggests that the word identification stream in Indo-European and Semitic languages is more similar than previously thought.This article was made possible by a National Priorities Research Program (NPRP) award (Grant No. 6-378-5-035z) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation)