SiO2-MgF2/TiO2 double-layer films with antireflective, self-cleaning and adherent properties were prepared by spin-coating SiO2-MgF2 and TiO2 sol on glass substrate successively and subsequently being calcined at 250°C. The optical and structural properties of films have been investigated by visible spectrophotometer and field emission scanning electron microscope, respectively. At the same time, self-cleaning property generated from superhydrophilicity and photocatalysis was obtained. The results indicated that the as-prepared SiO2-MgF2/TiO2 double-layer films show a maximum increase in transmittance near 520 nm wavelength of 2.8% and photocatalytic property with the R value of 4.7(JIS R 1703–2).It has been demonstrated that high transmittance, self-cleaning and adherent composite has been obtained by a simple sol–gel route presenting good potential to be applied on photovoltaics systems.

In order to better understand the individual-level motives for ticket-splitting, Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study has since 2001 included a question aimed at measuring respondents’ preferences for checks and balances. We argue that this set of questions, designed to measure a combination of Fiorina's policy-balancing hypothesis and Ladd's cognitive Madisonianism, is inconsistent with principles of survey methodology and thus produces data that are suboptimal. Following a method developed by Carsey and Layman, we propose an alternative concept, the policy-balancing index derived from the perceived ideological distance between respondent and political parties, which both avoids methodological violations and provides us with a more precise concept to work with. We test the index and find it to be a significant determinant of ticket-splitting behavior.

Whole-mount immunofluorescence technique provides a way to reveal integrated expression patterns of biological molecules in individuals. Well-documented morphological preservation ability in biology makes aldehydes the fixative of choice. Cross-linking among biocomponents and aldehydes is the key for maintaining morphology but masks the biological molecules for immunodetection. This study performs an easily accessible method by applying heat-induced retrieval, which can rescue the antigenicity of the proteins and also enhance the labeling sensitivity of the fluorescence dye in overfixed zebrafish embryos. The results show that the immunoreactivities of antibodies to myosin in the muscles, green fluorescent protein in the blood vessels and the nuclei in the cells can be recovered significantly, and the morphology of the zebrafish embryos, even the fragile mutants, is at the same time well maintained. Therefore, we provide a choice for antigen retrieval, which is effective for whole-mount immunofluorescence microscopy.

High efficiency photovoltaic devices are normally fabricated on single crystalline substrates. These single crystalline substrates are expensive and volume production for widespread usage has not been realistic. To date, large volume production of solar cells is on less expensive non-crystalline substrates such as glass. Typically the films grown on glass are polycrystalline with less than ideal efficiency. It was proposed that a dramatic gain in the efficiency may be achieved if one uses a biaxially oriented buffer layer on glass to grow biaxial semiconductor films to fabricate solar devices compared to that of films grown directly on glass. Biaxial films are not exactly single crystal but have strongly preferred crystallographic orientations in both the out-of-plane and in-plane directions. Typically the misorientation between grains can be small (within a few degrees) and may possess low carrier recombination rate. In this paper we shall discuss growth techniques that would allow one to produce biaxial buffer layers on glass. A specific strategy using an atomic shadowing mechanism in an oblique angle deposition configuration that allows one to grow biaxial buffer layers such as CaF2 on glass substrate will be discussed in detail. Results of heteroepitaxy of semiconductor materials such as CdTe and Ge on these biaxial buffer/glass substrates characterized by x-ray pole figure, reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) pole figure and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) will be presented.

A series of tetrahedral tetramers of 2,5-diphenyl substituted 1,3,4-oxadiazole compounds were synthesized and characterized for electron-transporting layer (ETL) in organic light-emitting diode (OLED). The multiple-branch design of the oxadiazole tetramers intends to increase the melting temperature and to generate glass phase of the low molar mass derivative such as 2-(4-biphenylyl)-5-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (PBD). We observed temperatures of the glass phase transition for the oxadiazole tetramer with appropriate peripheral substituents, indicative of amorphous characteristics of the molecule in spite of highly symmetrical molecular framework. The luminescence-current-voltage characteristics of multilayer OLED devices containing the oxadiazole tetramer or PBD as ETL were examined to evaluate the efficiency of our multiple-branch molecular design.