Exploring eye movement data with image-based clustering

Journal of Visualization - In this article, we describe a new feature for exploring eye movement data based on image-based clustering. To reach this goal, visual attention is taken into account to...     

Full-fledged proteomic analysis of bioactive wheat amylase inhibitors by a 3-D analytical technique: Identification of new heterodimeric aggregation states

Wheat proteinaceous alpha-amylase inhibitors (alpha-AIs) are increasingly investigated for their agronomical role as natural defence molecules of plants against the attack of insects and pests, but also for their effects on human health. The wheat genomes code for several bioactive alpha-AIs that share sequence homology, but differ in their specificity against alpha-amylases from different species and for their aggregation states. Wheat alpha-AIs are traditionally classified as belonging to the three classes of tetrameric, homodimeric and monomeric forms, each class being constituted by a number of polypeptides that display different electrophoretic mobilities. Here we describe a proteomic approach for the identification of bioactive alpha-AIs from wheat and, in particular, a 3-D technique that allows to best identify and characterize the dimeric fraction. The technique takes advantage of the thermal resistance of alpha-AIs (resistant to T > 70 degrees C) and consists in the separation of protein mixtures by 2-D polyacrylamide/starch electrophoresis under nondissociating PAGE (ND-PAGE, first dimension) and dissociating (urea-PAGE or U-PAGE second dimension) conditions, followed by in-gel spontaneous reaggregation of protein complexes and identification of the alpha-amylase inhibitory activity (antizymogram, third dimension) using enzymes from human salivary glands and from the larvae of Tenebrio molitor coleopter (yellow mealworm). Dimeric alpha-AIs from Triticum aestivum (bread wheat) were observed to exist as heterodimers. The formation of heterodimeric complexes was also confirmed by in vitro reaggregation assays carried out on RP-HPLC purified wheat dimeric alpha-AIs, and their bioactivity assayed by antizymogram analysis. The present 3-D analytical technique can be exploited for fast, full-fledged identification and characterization of wheat alpha-AIs.     

Influence of deposition conditions for bottom cell on micromorph tandem device performance

We have realized micromorph tandem solar cells on Asahi U-type TCO-covered glass substrates. The intrinsic layers of both amorphous top cell and microcrystalline bottom cell are grown by very high frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (VHF-PECVD) at 100 MHz at low substrate temperature (150 °C). For the bottom cell different growth regimes have been explored by changing both chamber pressure and plasma power. The effect of the structural composition of the microcrystalline absorber layer on the electrical parameters of the device has been investigated. High short circuit current density and constant FF in a wide silane concentration range are obtained when using large power to pressure ratio (0.5 W/Pa). However, low open circuit voltage is generally found in this regime. The largest V_OC values are found at 67 Pa and power to pressure ratio of 0.3 W/Pa, where the highest efficiency (11.1%) is reached. An evaluation of device stability has been done by exposing the tandem solar cells to white light (AM 1.5-like spectrum) for 200 h.     

Doped SiO x emitter layer in amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cell

In this work we propose to replace the emitter layer of the n-type doped a-Si:H/p-type doped crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cell, with an n-type doped SiO _x amorphous oxide layer. The n-type doped SiO _x :H shows a lower activation energy and higher carrier mobility value with respect to the n-type doped a-Si:H. Moreover, higher transmission, below 500 nm of wavelength, and higher conductivity are measured. The relevance of transparency of the (n) a-SiO _x :H has been studied using that film in solar cells. The electrical parameters revealed a solar cell efficiency of 15.8 %. Moreover, the effect of TCO as a front side cell electrode is considered and discussed on the base of its workfunction when applied on top of the n-type doped SiO _x emitter layer using also numerical simulations.