Trend in the financial structure and results of firms in 2006

In 2006, growth of total value added generated by Belgian non-financial corporations accelerated to reach 6.4 p.c. At the same time, operating costs rose by 5.5 p.c. So, for the fourth year in a row, value added rose faster than operating costs. As a consequence, net operating profit saw a further noticeable increase (+9.2 p.c.), reaching a total of nearly 33 billion euro. After taking into account the other elements of the profit and loss account, non-financial corporations generated an overall net profit after tax of 43 billion euro, representing a new year-on-year increase. The financial position of firms also continued to improve in 2006. Globalised as well as median measures confirm the exceptional levels of profitability, solvency and liquidity that have been reached today. Finally, the article focuses on the effects of the corporation tax reforms of 2003 and 2005. Although an increase in revenue from corporate taxation can be noted from 2002 onwards, the tax burden has declined for non-financial corporations as a result of these reforms. The most recent reform, which introduced a notional interest deduction from the 2007 tax year onwards, has had a structural impact on the financial behavior of corporations. Share issues grew by more than 250 p.c. to reach a record level of 114 billion euro. Large companies, in particular, resorted to techniques to optimise the impact of the tax deduction. Their rectified equity capital, which is used as a base to calculate the size of the tax deduction, increased by 30 p.c. and their payment of dividends decreased by 20 p.c. in 2006.firms results, financial structure, corporate tax, sectoral analysis

BCB Based Packaging for Low Actuation Voltage RF MEMS Devices

This paper outlines the issues related to RF MEMS packaging and low actuation voltage. An original approach is presented concerning the modeling of capacitive contacts using multiphysics simulation and advanced characterization. A similar approach is used concerning packaging development where multi-physics simulations are used to optimize the process. A devoted package architecture is proposed featuring very low loss at microwave range

Adaptive estimation of the hazard rate with multiplicative censoring

We propose an adaptive estimation procedure of the hazard rate of a random variable X in the multiplicative censoring model, Y = XU , with U ∼ U([0, 1]) independent of X. The variable X is not directly observed: an estimator is built from a sample {Y1, ..., Yn} of copies of Y. It is obtained by minimisation of a contrast function over a class of general nested function spaces which can be generated e.g. by splines functions. The dimension of the space is selected by a penalised contrast criterion. The final estimator is proved to achieve the best bias-variance compromise and to reach the same convergence rate as the oracle estimator under conditions on the maximal dimension. The good behavior of the resulting estimator is illustrated over a simulation study

Intra-annual radial growth and water relations of trees: implications towards a growth mechanism

There is a missing link between tree physiological and wood-anatomical knowledge which makes it impossible mechanistically to explain and predict the radial growth of individual trees from climate data. Empirical data of microclimatic factors, intra-annual growth rates, and tree-specific ratios between actual and potential transpiration (T PET−1) of trees of three species (Quercus pubescens, Pinus sylvestris, and Picea abies) at two dry sites in the central Wallis, Switzerland, were recorded from 2002 to 2004 at a 10 min resolution. This included the exceptionally hot and dry summer of 2003. These data were analysed in terms of direct (current conditions) and indirect impacts (predispositions of the past year) on growth. Rain was found to be the only factor which, to a large extent, consistently explained the radial increment for all three tree species at both sites and in the short term as well. Other factors had some explanatory power on the seasonal time-scale only. Quercus pubescens built up much of its tree ring before bud break. Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies started radial growth 1-2 weeks after Quercus pubescens and this was despite the fact that they had a high T PET−1 before budburst and radial growth started. A high T PET−1 was assumed to be related to open stomata, a very high net CO2 assimilation rate, and thus a potential carbon (C)-income for the tree. The main period of radial growth covered about 30-70% of the productive days of a year. In terms of C-allocation, these results mean that Quercus pubescens depended entirely on internal C-stores in the early phase of radial growth and that for all three species there was a long time period of C-assimilation which was not used for radial growth in above-ground wood. The results further suggest a strong dependence of radial growth on the current tree water relations and only secondarily on the C-balance. A concept is discussed which links radial growth over a feedback loop to actual tree water-relations and long-term affected C-storage to microclimat

Flicker as a tool for characterizing planets through Asterodensity Profiling

Variability in the time series brightness of a star on a timescale of 8 hours, known as 'flicker', has been previously demonstrated to serve as a proxy for the surface gravity of a star by Bastien et al. (2013). Although surface gravity is crucial for stellar classification, it is the mean stellar density which is most useful when studying transiting exoplanets, due to its direct impact on the transit light curve shape. Indeed, an accurate and independent measure of the stellar density can be leveraged to infer subtle properties of a transiting system, such as the companion's orbital eccentricity via asterodensity profiling. We here calibrate flicker to the mean stellar density of 439 Kepler targets with asteroseismology, allowing us to derive a new empirical relation given by $\log_{10}(\rho_{\star}\,[\mathrm{kg}\,\mathrm{m}^{-3}]) = 5.413 - 1.850 \log_{10}(F_8\,[\mathrm{ppm}])$. The calibration is valid for stars with $4500$K$<T_{\mathrm{eff}}<6500$K, $K_P<14$ and flicker estimates corresponding to stars with $3.25<\log g_{\star}<4.43$. Our relation has a model error in the stellar density of 31.7% and so has $\sim8$ times lower precision than that from asteroseismology but is applicable to a sample $\sim40$ times greater. Flicker therefore provides an empirical method to enable asterodensity profiling on hundreds of planetary candidates from present and future missions.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted to ApJ Letters. Code available at https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~dkipping/flicker.htm

L'apprentissage en autonomie. Exemple de formation en ligne sur les fondamentaux de la cristallisation

National audienceUn cours en ligne sur les fondamentaux de la cristallisation et la précipitation a été conçu par une communauté de chercheurs et d'enseignants-chercheurs en cristallisation/précipitation. Ce cours vise plusieurs publics : élèves ingénieurs, étudiants de master, doctorants, enseignants, industriels. Aussi correspond-il en pratique à plusieurs types de prestations et d'outils pédagogiques, qui vont au-delà d'un simple document consultable à distance. Le cours propose déjà des outils pédagogiques originaux : - auto-apprentissage avec multiples animations illustratives et entrées possibles, - auto-évaluation à distance, sur la base d'exercices applicatifs interactifs. Pour aller plus loin dans la compréhension de ce qui se passe lors d'une cristallisation, l'intégration de programmes de simulation interactifs dans le support pédagogique a été réalisée. Ces simulateurs pédagogiques permettent de mettre en évidence la sensibilité d'une opération de cristallisation aux valeurs de ses paramètres opératoires

Discovery of a Transiting Planet Near the Snow-Line

In most theories of planet formation, the snow-line represents a boundary between the emergence of the interior rocky planets and the exterior ice giants. The wide separation of the snow-line makes the discovery of transiting worlds challenging, yet transits would allow for detailed subsequent characterization. We present the discovery of Kepler-421b, a Uranus-sized exoplanet transiting a G9/K0 dwarf once every 704.2 days in a near-circular orbit. Using public Kepler photometry, we demonstrate that the two observed transits can be uniquely attributed to the 704.2 day period. Detailed light curve analysis with BLENDER validates the planetary nature of Kepler-421b to >4 sigmas confidence. Kepler-421b receives the same insolation as a body at ~2AU in the Solar System and for a Uranian albedo would have an effective temperature of ~180K. Using a time-dependent model for the protoplanetary disk, we estimate that Kepler-421b's present semi-major axis was beyond the snow-line after ~3Myr, indicating that Kepler-421b may have formed at its observed location.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables. Accepted in Ap