• Title/Summary/Keyword: Solar Activity

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Green Technology Innovation in the United States: The Obama Administration's Ambitious Program and its Prospects

  • Teich, Albert H.
    • STI Policy Review
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    • v.1 no.1
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    • pp.23-42
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    • 2010
  • The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), known widely as the "stimulus" bill, developed by the U.S. Congress and President-elect Obama in late 2008 and early 2009, is investing a significant portion of its $787 billion infusion of funds in future-oriented programs intended not only to "jump-start" the stalled American economy, but to promote the development of renewable energy sources and increase energy efficiency in appliances, buildings, transportation, and other sectors of the economy. These investments are expected both to create immediate employment in green industries and to build a more sustainable society in the long term. The Obama Administration's green energy initiatives are part of a larger emphasis on science and technology within its agenda. It has roots in the Obama campaign and is supported by an unusually strong science and technology team. Much of the activity is centered in the Department of Energy, which received a huge one-time increase in its fiscal year 2009 budget to support the new and expanded programs. Areas that have been neglected by the federal government R&D program for many years, including smart grid technology, solar, wind, and geothermal energy, received large boosts. Many of these programs - and, in fact, the broader concept of government involvement in commercial innovation - are politically controversial Previous attempts to expand research in these areas by liberal Democratic administrations and Congresses have been criticized and sometimes thwarted by conservatives. Whether President Obama's efforts will meet with more success, both politically and technologically, remains to be seen.

Protection of the Flowers of Prunus persica Extract from Ultraviolet B-Induced Damage of Normal Human Keratinocytes

  • Kim, Young-Ha;Yang, Hye-Eun;Kim, Jong-Ha;Heo, Moon-Young;Kim, Hyun-Pyo
    • Archives of Pharmacal Research
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.396-400
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    • 2000
  • For an attempt to develop safe materials protecting solar ultraviolet (UV)-induced skin damage, plant extracts were evaluated for their inhibitory activities of free radical generation and arachidonic acid/metabolites release from UVB-irradiated normal human keratinocytes. From the results of these screening procedures, the ethanol extract of the flowers of Prunus persica (Ku-35) was selected for further study. It was found that Ku-35 (100-1,000 ${u}g/m\ell$) inhibited the amount of $^{14}C$-arachidonic acid/metabolites release from UVB-irradiated keratinocytes. It was also demonstrated that Ku-35 possessed the protective activity against UV-induced cytotoxicity of keratinocytes and fibroblasts. In addition, Ku-35 was revealed to protect UVB-induced erythema formation using guinea pigs in preliminary in vivo study. All these results indicate that the flowers of P. persica extract may be beneficial for protecting UV-induced skin damage when topically applied.

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Reduced Titania Films with Ordered Nanopores and Their Application to Visible Light Water Splitting

  • Shahid, Muhammad;Choi, Seo-Yeong;Liu, Jingling;Kwon, Young-Uk
    • Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.34 no.8
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    • pp.2271-2275
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    • 2013
  • We report on the photoelectrochemical properties of partially reduced mesoporous titania thin films. The fabrication is achieved by synthesizing mesoporous titania thin films through the self-assembly of a titania precursor and a block copolymer, followed by aging and calcination, and heat-treatment under a $H_2$ (1 torr) environment. Depending on the temperature used for the reaction with $H_2$, the degree of the reduction (generation of oxygen vacancies) of the titania is controlled. The oxygen vacancies induce visible light absorption, and decrease of resistance while the mesoporosity is practically unaltered. The photoelectrochemical activity data on these films, by measuring their photocurrent-potential behavior in 1 M NaOH electrolyte under AM 1.5G 100 mW $cm^{-2}$ illumination, show that the three effects of the oxygen vacancies contribute to the enhancement of the photoelectrochemical properties of the mesoporous titania thin films. The results show that these oxygen deficient $TiO_2$ mesoporous thin films hold great promise for a solar hydrogen generation. Suggestions for the materials design for improved photoelectrochemical properties are made.

Pc1/EMIC waves observed at subauroral latitude during sudden magnetospheric compressions

  • Kim, Khan-Hyuk;Shiokawa, Kazuo;Lee, Dong-Hun;Kwon, Hyuck-Jin;Lee, Ensang
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.37 no.2
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    • pp.117.2-117.2
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    • 2012
  • It is generally accepted that sudden compressions of the magnetosphere cause electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) wave growth by increasing the proton temperature anisotropy. These compression-associated EMIC waves are expected to be on higher latitudes (i.e., higher-L regions close to the magnetopause). In this study we examine Pc1 pulsations, which are believed to be generated by the EMIC instability, observed at subauroral latitude near the nominal plasmapause when the magnetosphere is suddenly compressed by solar wind dynamic pressure variations, using induction magnetometer data obtained from Athabasca, Canada (geomagnetic latitude = 61.7 N, L ~ 4.5). We identified 9 compression-associated Pc1 waves with frequencies of ~0.5-2.0 Hz. The wave activity appears in the horizontal H (positive north) and D (positive eastward) components. All of events show low coherence between H and D components. This indicates that the Pc1 pulsations in H and D oscillate with a different frequency. Thus, we cannot determine the polarization state of the waves. We will discuss the occurrence location of compression-associated Pc1 pulsations, their spectral structure, and wave properties.

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Prediction of Sunspot Number Time Series using the Parallel-Structure Fuzzy Systems (병렬구조 퍼지시스템을 이용한 태양흑점 시계열 데이터의 예측)

  • Kim Min-Soo;Chung Chan-Soo
    • The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers D
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    • v.54 no.6
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    • pp.390-395
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    • 2005
  • Sunspots are dark areas that grow and decay on the lowest level of the sun that is visible from the Earth. Shot-term predictions of solar activity are essential to help plan missions and to design satellites that will survive for their useful lifetimes. This paper presents a parallel-structure fuzzy system(PSFS) for prediction of sunspot number time series. The PSFS consists of a multiple number of component fuzzy systems connected in parallel. Each component fuzzy system in the PSFS predicts future data independently based on its past time series data with different embedding dimension and time delay. An embedding dimension determines the number of inputs of each component fuzzy system and a time delay decides the interval of inputs of the time series. According to the embedding dimension and the time delay, the component fuzzy system takes various input-output pairs. The PSFS determines the final predicted value as an average of all the outputs of the component fuzzy systems in order to reduce error accumulation effect.

Environmental Implications of an Increasingly Erratic Climate (기후변화에 대한 생태계 적응전략)

  • Taylor, S. Elwynn
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.22-27
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    • 2006
  • Many aspects of climate have been observed to be increasingly volatile during the past several decades. Episodic climate change is not considered to be uncommon. However, there are substantial environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with climate variability that can be managed if the climate and its impacts are properly understood. Plants and natural communities exhibit several types of adaptive strategy to climate change. There is ample reason to relate increasingly erratic weather with a warming climate. Historic climate extremes, the adaptive mechanisms plants exhibit, and how people have (or have not) responded with strategically sound concepts and policy to facilitate a sustainable environmental ethic are reviewed with a vision of international needs and economic stability.

Synthesis of CoSe2/RGO Composites and Its Application as a Counter Electrode for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

  • Ko, Yohan;Choi, Wooyeol;Kim, Youbin;Lee, Chanyong;Jun, Yongseok;Kim, Junhee
    • Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.313-320
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    • 2019
  • In this study, cobalt diselenide ($CoSe_2$) and the composites ($CoSe_2@RGO$) of $CoSe_2$ and reduced graphene oxide (RGO) were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal reaction using cobalt ions and selenide source with or without graphene oxide (GO). The formation of $CoSe_2@RGO$ composites was identified by analysis with X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Electrochemical analyses demonstrated that the $CoSe_2@RGO$ composites have excellent catalytic activity for the reduction of $I_3{^-}$, possibly indicating a synergetic effect of $CoSe_2$ and RGO. As a consequence, the $CoSe_2@RGO$ composites were applied as a counter electrode in DSSC for the reduction of redox couple electrolyte, and exhibiting the comparable power conversion efficiency (7.01%) to the rare metal platinum (Pt) based photovoltaic device (6.77%).

High-Resolution Observations of the Molecular Clouds Associated with the Huge H II Region CTB 102 (거대 수소 이온화 영역 CTB 102와 연관된 분자운의 고분해능 관측)

  • Kang, Sung-Ju;Marshall, Brandon;Kerton, C.R.;Kim, Youngsik;Choi, Minho;Kang, Miju
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.44 no.1
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    • pp.71.1-71.1
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    • 2019
  • We report the first high-resolution (sub-arcminute) large-scale mapping $^{12}CO$ and $^{13}CO$ observations of the molecular clouds associated with the giant outer Galaxy H II region CTB 102 (KR 1). These observations were made using a newly commissioned receiver on the 13.7-m radio telescope at the Taeduk Radio astronomy Observatory (TRAO). Our observations show that the molecular clouds have a spatial extent of $60{\times}35pc$ and a total mass of $10^{4.8}-10^{5.0}$ solar mass, Infrared data from WISE and 2MASS were used to identify and classify the YSO population associated with ongoing star formation activity within the molecular clouds. Moving away from the H II region, there is an age/class gradient consistent with sequential star formation. The infrared and molecular line data were combined to estimate the star formation efficiency (SFE) of the entire cloud as well as the SFE for various sub regions of the cloud.

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Promoting Photoelectrochemical Performance Through the Modulation of MoS2 Morphology (MoS2의 형상변조를 통한 광전기화학 성능 촉진)

  • Seo, Dong-Bum;Kim, Eui-Tae
    • Korean Journal of Materials Research
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.30-35
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    • 2022
  • The development of advanced materials to improve the efficiency of photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting paves the way for widespread renewable energy technologies. Efficient photoanodes with strong absorbance in visible light increases the effectiveness of solar energy conversion systems. MoS2 in a two-dimensional semiconductor that has excellent absorption performance in visible light and high catalytic activity, showing considerable potential as an agent of PEC water splitting. In this study, we successfully modulated the MoS2 morphology on indium tin oxide substrate by using the metalorganic chemical vapor deposition method, and applied the PEC application. The PEC photocurrent of the vertically grown MoS2 nanosheet structure significantly increased relative to that of MoS2 nanoparticles because of the efficient transfer of charge carriers and high-density active sites. The enhanced photocurrent was attributed to the efficient charge separation and improved light absorption of the MoS2 nanosheet structure. Meanwhile, the photocurrent property of thick nanosheets decreased because of the limit imposed by the diffusion lengths of carriers. This study proposes a valuable photoelectrode design with suitable nanosheet morphology for efficient PEC water splitting.

Absorption cooling R&D in Europe

  • Kuhn, A.;Petersen, S.;Riebow, D.;Sahin, D.;Ziegler, F.
    • The Magazine of the Society of Air-Conditioning and Refrigerating Engineers of Korea
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    • v.33 no.3
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    • pp.50-57
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    • 2004
  • This article reviews absorption cooling R&D in Europe from the viewpoint of fundamentals, cycle development and applications. The review contains information on R&D, predominantly of public projects in the field of sorption cooling. We report on research which is performed in Europe with some stress on Germany. There is progress in fundamentals, thermodynamic cycle design, and also applications. In the fundamentals part the discussion about thermodynamics, working pairs, and heat and mass transfer is reflected. Today's discussion on thermodynamic cycles is not very strong. Main focus is on special solid sorption cycles, compression­sorption hybrids, and open cycles, In the applications part the chilling business is the main issue. Some interest is given to the improvement of efficiency on and the adaptation to low temperature waste heat use, but the stress is on the use of solar energy as heat source. The area of heat pumping for heating purposes is less prominent but not at all negligible. Finally, industrial heat pumping involves the reverse cycle (heat transformer, heat pump type Ⅱ) also, but there is no significant activity.

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