Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301637805?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Friday, April 26, 2013
Nanostructures improve the efficiency of solar cells
Apr. 25, 2013 ? Researchers have been able to improve the efficiency of solar cells by coating the cell surface with extremely small nanoscale structures. The new technology has been shown to nearly eliminate the reflection losses of solar radiation. Cost-effective solar photovoltaic materials are being developed within the Academy of Finland's research programme Photonics and Modern Imaging Techniques.
The nanostructured black silicon coating features very low reflectivity, meaning that a larger portion of the Sun's radiation can be exploited. At Aalto University, a research team led by Assistant Professor Hele Savin is conducting studies on crystalline silicon solar cells, which are the main type of solar cells that are currently on the market.
"The advantages of silicon include the long-term stability, sufficiency, low cost and non-toxicity of the element, as well as the advanced production technology. Another benefit of these solar cells is their relatively high efficiency and technological compatibility with the manufacturing technologies currently used by the semiconductor industry," Savin explains. The technology, however, still calls for development and improvement.
According to Savin, the researchers are motivated in their work by the fact that the manufacturing technology players are major corporations in the industry, which allows for immediate large-scale experimenting of new ideas and improvement methods in collaboration with the partner corporations.
Promising techniques in the test bench
The efficient operation of solar cells may be compromised by impurities in silicon. In solar cells, it is not possible to use as pure a form of silicon as in, for example, microelectronics, and thus they exhibit a higher degree of impurities. Moreover, the solar cell utilises the silicon disk in its entirety, whereas transistors, for example, are located on the surface of the silicon disk, and accordingly, impurities cannot be controlled in solar cells by means of the same methods as those used in microelectronics.
One goal of the research led by Savin is to find ways to produce equally efficient solar cells using the less expensive but impure silicon rather than the more expensive purified silica. "We've already succeeded rather well in this respect. Certain promising techniques are currently being tested in production by a leading European solar cell manufacturer."
Another new research topic involves the so-called light-induced degradation of silicon solar cells. Light degradation is a harmful effect that reduces the solar cell efficiency by several percentage units during the first 24 hours of use, after which the situation becomes stabilised. The aim is to gain an understanding about the phenomenon itself and its causes. Understanding the phenomenon will contribute to the development of methods to minimise the harmful degradation and, possibly, to eliminate it completely. Hele Savin has been granted major funding for this research by the European Research Council (ERC).
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland).
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Letta sees improving chances of forming Italy government
By Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister-designate Enrico Letta saw "improving" chances of success as he began negotiations on Thursday to form a new government and end a nearly two-month-old stalemate in the euro zone's third-largest economy.
The 46-year-old deputy head of the badly fractured center-left Democratic Party (PD), was the President Giorgio Napolitano's surprise choice to head a broad-based coalition.
"He told us that as the hours pass, he feels things are improving, whereas at the start he felt desperate," said Massimo Bitonci, an opposition lawmaker who held talks with him.
Markets have reacted favorably to the prospect of an end to the political deadlock, with bond yields and the spread with comparable 10-year German bonds falling.
Letta is viewed as a politician capable of governing by consensus. An opinion poll for Italian state television said he would enter office with a 43 percent approval rating.
The government will include the PD's traditional rivals, Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL), as well as caretaker Prime Minister Mario Monti's centrist group, both of which have said they will support the government.
Letta is a moderate who speaks fluent English and at 46 would be one of Italy's youngest prime ministers, representing a generational change from the era of Berlusconi and Monti.
Berlusconi told an Italian television station it did not matter who headed the government as long as it enacted reforms.
"The important thing is that there is a government and that there is a parliament that can approve measures that we absolutely need to emerge from the crisis of recession and get back on the path of growth," he said.
5-STAR MOVEMENT, LEAGUE, CONFIRM OPPOSITION
Letta began the consultations at parliament early on Thursday morning with smaller groupings, including the Left Ecology and Freedom party, which reiterated that it would remain in opposition.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, the largest group in the lower house Chamber of Deputies, has also said it would sit in the opposition, but would support specific reforms.
The Northern League, a former ally of Berlusconi's PDL, also reiterated that it would not join the government but said it would cooperate on some reforms.
Thursday was expected to be dedicated to horse-trading over about 18 ministerial posts in the new government, expected to be made up of technocrats and politicians.
The economy ministry could go either to Fabrizio Saccomanni, the Bank of Italy's director general, or Carlo Padoan, chief economist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to Italian media.
Angelino Alfano, the secretary of the PDL, has been tipped by some to become deputy prime minister, a choice that would placate Berlusconi but upset some on the left of the PD .
The industry and labor ministries could go to politicians and the foreign affairs portfolio to Monti or former Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema of the PD, local media speculated.
The PDL is pushing hard for a much-hated tax on primary residences to be abolished, which was a key plank in their campaign ahead of the inconclusive February elections, which gave the PD a majority in the lower house but not in the Senate.
Letta hopes to form the government before markets open on Monday and seek confidence votes from both houses of parliament early next week.
The PDL and PD had previously failed to reach a deal but Napolitano twisted their arms on Saturday when he was re-elected to an unprecedented second term and threatened to resign unless parties tried to find common ground to pull Italy out of its political rut and work on institutional reforms.
Rivalries between the parties as well as rifts within the PD, which fell short of a viable parliamentary majority in February's vote, could still block an accord. But formation of a government after such a long impasse would signal that Italy is finally ready to make a start on much-needed reforms.
Accepting his mandate on Wednesday, Letta said Italy faced an untenable situation and the government must provide answers on jobs, poverty and the crisis facing small businesses in a recession that now matches the longest since World War II.
He also said European Union economic policies had been too focused on austerity, rather than growth.
(Additional reporting by Stephen Jewkes, Stefano Bernabei and Francesca Piscioneri; Editing by Alistair Lyon, Janet McBride)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italy-president-names-center-lefts-letta-premier-103545455--business.html
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Simple Math Works In Investing - Business Insider
Today's nugget of investing wisdom comes courtesy of a refreshing post from?Joshua Brown of The Reformed Broker.
So often in investing, people feel the need to break out fancy trading equipment, glue themselves to their computers all day and employ a host of complicated math equations to make the best decisions.
Not so, says Brown:?
"The fancier the math one uses to justify an entrenched investment opinion, the more obscure and arcane the indicators employed, the more desperate and wrong that person is," he writes.
"We don't resort to algebraic equations when we're on the winning side of a trade and confident that we have gotten the broad strokes right. It is only when our backs are against the wall and the core beliefs we've publicly held have proven to be ineffective or incorrect that we resort to mining for "new" data from decades ago to re-prove our original thesis. This is more about saving face and nursing a bruised ego than it is about making money."
In fact, as an individual investor, you may have insights that the professionals who get paid to trade could never possess.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/simple-math-works-in-investing-2013-4
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Bombers' Times Square plan: Use remaining bombs in New York, FBI says
Bombers' Times Square plan was hatched spontaneously, the FBI told New York officials, based on its interrogation of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
New York Police Department cars park in Times Square in New York, Thursday. The alleged Boston Marathon bombers planned a second bomb attack on New York's Times Square, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
EnlargeAfter carjacking an SUV in Boston, the alleged Marathon bombers came up with a spontaneous plan ? go to New York City?s Times Square and set off more bombs, city officials announced Thursday.
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At an afternoon press conference, New York?s Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the FBI told them that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as part of his 16-hour FBI interrogation, identified New York as ?next on their list of targets.?
Police Commissioner Kelly said that initially, in the first interrogation that stretched from Saturday night into Sunday morning, Mr. Tsarnaev told investigators that he and his older brother, Tamerlan, planned to go to New York to ?party.?
But in the second interrogation, which stretched from Sunday night into Monday morning, Kelly said, Tsarnaev was more ?lucid,? saying the actual plan was to drive to New York in the SUV and detonate their remaining bombs. According to Kelly, they had one pressure cooker bomb and five pipe bombs.
?We know they had the capacity to carry out the attacks,? Mr. Bloomberg said.
If the brothers had arrived in Times Square on a Saturday night at 2 or 3 a.m., Kelly says there would have been a significant number of people in the popular tourist spot.
Would more people have been killed or hurt?
?I would not want to guess,? Kelly replied. ?You saw the power of the bombs in Boston, and you can only guess the damage in New York.?
But if the brothers had arrived in Times Square they would have found a large police presence, Bloomberg said. They probably would not have noticed all the cameras the city has erected in the area in an effort to head off crime. Some of the cameras are designed to quickly identify packages left on the ground, for example.
However, according to the FBI investigators, before the Tsarnaevs could head to New York, they discovered that the Mercedes SUV they had carjacked needed fuel. They stopped at a gas station, and the owner of the vehicle sprinted away and was able to alert police, who quickly found the vehicle. A chase and firefight ensued, and Tamerlan was killed and Dzokhar eventually captured.
The interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev took place under the Public Security Exception that allowed the FBI to question him before his Miranda rights ? the right to remain silent ? were read to him on Monday by a federal magistrate judge. Whether the information in the two FBI interrogations can be used in court is arguable.
After the bombings in Boston, New York was quick to expand the police presence in areas with a lot of foot traffic such as Grand Central Station, Penn Station, and, of course, Times Square.
Times Square is where Faisal Shahad tried to set off a bomb in his car on May 1, 2010. Street vendors called the police when they saw smoke coming out of the trunk of the vehicle, and the bomb never went off.
According to Kelly, Dzhokhar visited Times Square with friends in April and November of 2012. ?Kelly said the NYPD has a copy of a photograph taken of Dzhokhar and his friends in Times Square and that police have been able to identify some of his friends and are working to identify the others.
?We don?t know if those visits were related to the brothers? decision to spontaneously target Times Square,? said Kelly, who added that the NYPD is trying to determine Dzhokhar?s movements when he was in New York City.
At their press conference, Bloomberg and Kelly emphasized that the NYPD was not in the room during the interrogation so they only had limited information. However, Bloomberg said the city always takes bomb threat information seriously.
?The fact is New York City remains a prime target for those who hate Americans and want to kill Americans,? said Bloomberg.
That is one of the reasons why New York has over 1,000 police officers in its anti-terrorism unit. Since 9/11 the city has stopped over a dozen planned attacks.
?We will do all we can to keep everyone in the city safe,? he said. ?Is it safe to go out tonight?? he asked, answering, ?Yes.?
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How to Use Social Media as Your Fitness Partner | Weight Loss Tips
There are thousands of ways on how to motivate yourself to lose weight. If you are harassed by roller-coaster weight shift, then you need an abrupt approach to help maintain a healthy weight.
Overweight can be a precursor to dozens of serious health threats. If you don?t act now and lose weight, it could be too late for you to react. So to avoid health inconveniences in the future, you must think of a fitness plan that will help you overcome weight gain.
Today?s tip is about using social media programs, as your biggest fitness motivator. You might think that social media can?t help you physically as it is designed to socialize or interact online. However, the information that you are about to learn will change your outlook with regards to both fitness and social networking as a whole.
Why Social Media for Weight Loss
Social media might be the best thing happened in the Internet landscape. It literally changed the way people lived. It made life easier and more enjoyable. Why? Because humans are naturally social creatures.
I bet that you have your own social media profiles on different platforms. If you do, then you are well-versed on how to use social media in general. While some social media programs are criticized for some reported negative effects, the truth is that, using social media properly can benefit you in more ways.
In Internet marketing alone, social medias such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are all ?abused? to help advertisers and webmasters to get big online exposures for free. Using it for fitness is no doubt, helpful!
Socializing online can give you powerful motivations to stay fit and healthy all the time. Connecting to right friends that have the same health interests as yours, will truly help in overcoming your weight loss dilemma.
Using Social Media for Fitness
To begin your weight loss journey through social media, you must start on your favarite program. I supposed that is Facebook. So to be able to take advantage of social media, below are some of the tips that you can apply for your fitness program.
Facebook is the best and the most popular social media program today. You can do a lot of things in Facebook especially with regards to health and fitness. You can connect with your friends, post pictures and videos, play games, like some posts, create Facebook pages and groups.
Aside from wall posts, Facebook can help motivate you to lose weight through many channels. One of these channels are through pages and groups. Joining Facebook groups that are inclined to fitness is a perfect way to get ideas on how to lose weight. Pages meanwhile can help you to share your triumphs and weight loss success. Either way, Facebook is a special social media program that can be your complete fitness partner!
Twitter is like the mobile texting of all social media. Why? Because Twitter is a fast-paced interaction, just like texting. You can use Twitter in many ways just like Facebook and any other social networking platforms.
If you like to have immediate and instantaneous information with regards to health and fitness, Twitter is the best program to use. You can find your friends with similar health interests or fitness goals.
Once you do that, you can interact with them constantly by posting ideas within your dashboard or follow links that they suggests that could help you overcome weight gain. These links could be information to healthy recipes, beginners workout or any other details regarding weight loss. No wonder why most people has their own Twitter profiles.
Pinterest is relatively a new social media platforms that was introduced a few years back. This program is simple, it is based on pictures and images, which is basically a database or photo sharing platform.
You can have your own Pinterest dashboard, containing images that you like. You can segregate your images per group. So if you have multiple interests, you can isolate each photos per group inside your Pinterest profile. You can get photos from web pages that you browsed through pinning them on your account.
How can Pinterest help you lose weight? First off, like Twitter and Facebook, you also select the people you connect to or follow. In short, you need to follow people which has interests on health and fitness. Their photos on their dashboards are all related to weight loss, so it would likely help you lose weight. You may follow mine here.
Instagram is a whole-new mobile app that is designed to be your perfect smartphone companion. Not only that, it is a social media program as well that connects you with your friends through Facebook, Twitter and other social media profiles.
To be able to use Instagram, you need to use your smartphone and install the app for free. You need to follow people to be able to have followers, just like Twitter. The program lets you take photographs of anything you like, then share it automatically with your network of friends.
Once you established connection on people with similar interests in health, you will be able to see their daily photos regularly. These photos could be their usual dieting routines, workout programs and many others. Instagram is completely helpful especially if you want to follow someone else weight loss strategy or vice versa.
YouTube
Do I need further introduction for this highly successful Google program? YouTube is the most popular and the best platform when it comes to video sharing. While not your typical social media darling, YouTube is the king when it comes to numbers of visitors. You can literally find any of your favorite shows on YouTube, even those hard to find videos.
So how can a video sharing site help you lose weight? As I have said earlier, you can find almost everything in YouTube. This means that you can essentially get endless ideas on how to lose weight via informative videos such as cooking lessons, healthy recipes, workout sessions, weight loss tips, success stories, weight loss products, and many others. Do I need to elaborate more?
Conclusion on Social Media as Your Fitness Partner
Now you know that your very own social media profiles can be used to help you lose weight. If you can use social media in the right way, it will surely be a big motivator to help you lose weight and keep it off for good! So the next time you look for new ways to acquire knowledge with regards to health and fitness, turn your attention to your social media profiles.
Did you like this article? If yes, then I encourage you to share this to your social media profiles using the share buttons below. Otherwise, you can leave your valuable comment using your Facebook profile. Now, lets start a healthy conversation!
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