Offering full reproducibility and open source code, software contributions can be more beneficial to the scientific community than classical publications. However, they do not count towards impact metrics like the H-index. To instigate a change, software contributions could become acceptable as a full-value conference submission to be included in the proceedings after an additional independent review. In the blog Better Scientific Software, Hartwig Anzt argues that a community-based assessment would reduce the workload of the independent reviewer and ensure a very high quality.

When being announced 2019 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Stanley Whittingham was at the conference Advanced Lithium Batteries for Automobile Applications at the Helmholtz Institute Ulm. With him were about 380 scientists from 30 nations – among them 3 YIN members specializing in battery research: Dominic Bresser, Julia Maibach, and Roswitha Zeis. Whittingham developed the first functional lithium battery. He shares the honors for developing lithium-ion batteries with John Goodenough, who made them more powerful, and Akira Yoshino, who opened the way for commercial viability.

The 11th YIN anniversary starts with a workshop on Digital Self-Marketing, followed by a working lunch with poster session. One Highlight is the YIN Lecture by YIN alumnus Bastian Rapp. Now professor at the University of Freiburg, he was recently awarded one of the prestigious Consolidator Grants of the European Research Council ERC. He will speak from 3 to 4 p.m. about Advanced Materials for Additive Manufacturing and 3D-printing in glass - for which he is particularly known since his Nature publication in 2017. KIT-Campus North, bldg. 449 - lecture hall 114. Informal get-together afterwards.

Neutrinos and their small non-zero mass play a key role in the evolution of large-scale cosmic structures as well as in the world of elementary particles, where they point to new physics beyond known theories. The upper limit of their absolute mass has now been narrowed down by the initial results of the international Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN) to less than 1 electron-volt (eV) at 90% confidence. YIN speaker Kathrin Valerius coordinates the KATRIN analysis activities at KIT. Overall 20 institutions from 7 countries are part of the collaboration.

Eine neue Methode erlaubt es, das Risiko an einer Herz-Rhythmusstörung zu erkranken, individuell abzuschätzen. Digitale Simulationen des Herzens identifizieren sämtliche Pfade, entlang derer atypische, kreisende elektrische Erregungen auftreten können. „Unsere Modelle des Herzens beziehen anatomische, elektro-physiologische und pharma-kologische Kriterien mit ein“, sagt Gruppenleiter Axel Loewe. Selbst die Wirkung von Therapien wie Katheterverödung oder Medikamenten lässt sich so vorab individuell einschätzen und maßschneidern.

„Wir entwickeln hocheffiziente Dünnschicht-Tandem-Solarmodule mit einem Wirkungsgrad oberhalb von 30 Prozent“, sagt Ulrich Paetzold, Projektpartner am KIT. Dies soll mittels Kombination zweier lichtaktiver Schichten gelingen. Das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie fördert das Verbundprojekt Capitano mit 5,2 Mio. Euro – 2,1 Mio. gehen ans KIT. Partner sind das Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung BW als Koordinator und das Unternehmen NICE Solar Energy, das die Produktion im Industrie-Maßstab sowie die Kosten bemessen wird.