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An important breeding issue in buckwheat is to increase its resistance to lodging, which can result in the loss of yield and quality of buckwheat foods. We developed the semidwarf buckwheat 'Kyukei 50', which has a short plant height and a strong lodging resistance. The internode length of 'Kyukei 50' was shorter than that of the summer‐sown standard variety 'HITACHIAKISOBA'. Progeny analysis revealed that the semidwarf trait was dominated by at least one recessive gene. Compared with 'HITACHIAKISOBA', in 'Kyukei 50', the time of maturation was earlier, and the pre‐harvest sprouting resistance was the same, indicating that 'Kyukei 50' is suitable for sowing in both spring and summer. 'Kyukei 50' exhibits the 'green flower type' shattering resistance trait and, therefore, has a thick pedicel; breaking tensile strength is approximately two‐fold stronger than that of 'HITACHIAKISOBA'. The yield of 'Kyukei 50' is the same as that of 'HITACHIAKISOBA'. In addition, the lowest seed height of 'Kyukei 50' was >17 cm. These results indicate that the 'Kyukei 50' is a promising breeding line for lodging resistance and loss of harvesting machinery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reservoir computing (RC), which utilizes physical phenomena, is a candidate for low energy consumption recurrent neural networks. Recently, we proposed RC which uses a dipole-coupled nanomagnet array as a reservoir, which applies the direction of the static magnetic moment of each nanomagnet as a node state in the array. It is possible to learn binary tasks with one-bit input data using this reservoir. Moreover, more complex tasks such as motion detection utilize multi-bit input data. This study simulates a two-bit binary input RC by employing the dipole coupled nanomagnet array as a reservoir. We apply a binary task with two-bit input data, which requires a memory capacity and non-linear computing capability of the reservoir. Due to the simulations with a macrospin model at a temperature of 0 K, this RC was able to learn these binary tasks by utilizing 24 nanomagnets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Ti, Zn, and Bi were doped into the Sb2S3 extremely thin absorber (ETA) of an all-solid-state, fully inorganic printed solar cell. Bi doping shifted the Sb2S3 absorption edge to longer wavelength and Bi-doped Sb2S3 was aggregated on the TiO2 electrodes, which resulted in photocurrent deterioration. In contrast, Ti and Zn doping did not shift the absorption edge, but improved the photocurrent. The best photocurrent density of 16.3 mA cm−2 was achieved with Ti doping (5 at% to Sb), resulting in the best conversion efficiency of 5.7%. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Three-dimensional (3D) compound solar cells with the structure of 2/Inx(OH)ySz/porous TiO2/compact TiO2/florin-doped tin-oxide-coated glass plates> have been fabricated by spray pyrolysis deposition of CuInS2 and chemical-bath deposition of Inx(OH)ySz for the light absorber and buffer layer, respectively. The effect of deposition and annealing conditions of Inx(OH)ySz on the photovoltaic properties of 3D CuInS2 solar cells was investigated. Inx(OH)ySz annealed in air ambient showed a better cell performance than those annealed in nitrogen ambient and without annealing. The improvement of the performance of cells with Inx(OH)ySz buffer layers annealed in air ambient is due to the increase in oxide concentration in the buffer layers [confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurement]. Among cells with Inx(OH)ySz buffer layers deposited for 1, 1.5, 1.75, and 2 h, that with Inx(OH)ySz deposited for 1.75 h showed the best cell performance. The best cell performance was observed for Inx(OH)ySz deposited for 1.75 h with annealing at 300 °C for 30 min in air ambient, and cell parameters were 22 mA cm-2 short-circuit photocurrent density, 0.41 V open-circuit voltage, 0.35 fill factor, and 3.2% conversion efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]