Variability of Performance Indices of Photovoltaic Solar Panels in Operating Conditions in the Littoral Zone of Cameroon

Photovoltaic cells are generally manufactured under standard test conditions. The operating conditions, very often induce performance losses different from those initially given by the manufacturer. This article presents an experimental acquisition and analysis system that integrates the synthetic efficiency ratio (SER) as a hybrid analysis tool to evaluate the performance of a monocrystalline photovoltaic solar panel, in this case the LW-MS90 panel in the city of Douala. The meteorological data obtained experimentally was used to evaluate these performances according to the manufacturer’s model in MATLAB/Simulink. By comparison with the experimental performances, the results quantify through a certain number of indices, a minimal power drop according to the acquired irradiance estimated at 3.45%. The interest of this approach is to contribute to the prediction of the operating performance of PV panels in the installation phase in non-standard areas.

The CRISPR/Cas revolution continues: From efficient gene editing for crop breeding to plant synthetic biology

Since the discovery that nucleases of the bacterial CRISPR(clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeat)-associated(Cas) system can be used as easily programmable tools for genome engineering,their application massively transformed different areas of plant biology. In this review, we assess the current state of their use for crop breeding to incorporate attractive new agronomical traits into specific cultivars of various crop plants. This can be achieved by the use of Cas9/12 nucleases for double-strand break induction,resulting in mutations by non-homologous recombinatr e-tion. Strategies for performing such experiments à from Rthe design of guide RNA to the use of different transformation technologies à are evaluated. Furtherweive-more, we sum up recent developments regarding the use of nuclease-deficient Cas9/12 proteins, as DNAbinding moieties for targeting different kinds of enzyme activities to specific sites within the genome. Progress in base deamination, transcriptional induction and transcriptional repression, as well as in imaging in plants, is also discussed. As different Cas9/12 enzymes are at hand, the simultaneous application of various enzyme activities, to multiple genomic sites, is now in reach to redirect plant metabolism in a multifunctional manner and pave the way for a new level of plant synthetic biology.