Spherical silicon photonic microcavities: From amorphous to polycrystalline

[EN] Shaping silicon as a spherical object is not an obvious task, especially when the object size is in the micrometer range. This has the important consequence of transforming bare silicon material in a microcavity, so it is able to confine light efficiently. Here, we have explored the inside volume of such microcavities, both in their amorphous and in their polycrystalline versions. The synthesis method, which is based on chemical vapor deposition, causes amorphous microspheres to have a high content of hydrogen that produces an onionlike distributed porous core when the microspheres are crystallized by a fast annealing regime. This substantially influences the resonant modes. However, a slow crystallization regime does not yield pores, and produces higher-quality-factor resonances that could be fitted to the Mie theory. This allows the establishment of a procedure for obtaining size calibration standards with relative errors of the order of 0.1%.This work was supported by Projects ENE2013-49987-EXP, MAT2012-35040, and MAT2015-69669-P of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and Project PROMETEOII/2014/026 of the Regional Valencian Government. The authors greatly acknowledge the Electron Microscopy Service of the UPV for their valuable help in the structural characterization of the microspheres.Fenollosa Esteve, R.; Garín Escrivá, M.; Meseguer Rico, FJ. (2016). Spherical silicon photonic microcavities: From amorphous to polycrystalline. Physical review B: Condensed matter and materials physics. 93(23):235307-1-235307-8. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.235307S235307-1235307-8932

One body, many heads; the Cerberus of catalysis. A new multipurpose in-situ cell for XAS at ALBA

A new multi-purpose in-situ cell and its control system have been developed for synchrotron-based techniques as are X-Ray Absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The cell is made of a stainless steel body and three different exchangeable heads to tackle different scientific areas that include solid-gas catalysis, solidliquid catalysis and electrocatalysis. The different versions of the cell are herein described and their functionality is exemplified by some case studies.Guilera, G.; Rey Garcia, F.; Hernandez Fenollosa, J.; Cortés Vergaz, JJ. (2013). One body, many heads; the Cerberus of catalysis. A new multipurpose in-situ cell for XAS at ALBA. Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 430:12057-12061. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/430/1/012057S120571206143

Spain's Budget Neglects Research

Letter.-- Carlos Fenollosa et al.Peer Reviewe

Atopic dermatitis incidence and risk factors in young adults in Castellon (Spain): A prospective cohort study

Introduction: There are few atopic dermatitis (AD) incidence cohort studies in young adults, the etiology of this disease remains obscure, and AD risk factors in adults are not well understood. The objective of this study was to estimate AD ten-year incidence and prevalence in a cohort of adolescent aged 14–16 at inception in Castellon province in Valencia Region, Spain and describe related risk factors. Material and methods: From 2002 to 2012, a population-based prospective cohort study was carried out. Questionnaires from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) were used with an additional questionnaire for related factors completed by participants and their parents, respectively, in 2002. In 2012 the same questionnaires were completed by the participants’ through a telephone interview, and incidence and prevalence of AD were estimated. Directed acyclic graphs, Poisson regression and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment were used. Results: The participation rate was 79.5% (1435/1805) with AD lifetime prevalence of 34.9% and AD incidence of 13.5 per 1000 person years. Females presented higher prevalence and incidence than males. After adjustment significant risk factors were being female, history of asthma or allergic rhinitis, family history of AD, history of respiratory infections, history of bronchitis, history of pneumonia, history of sinusitis, and birthplace outside Castellon province. The highest AD population attributable risks were female, 30.3%, and history of respiratory infections 15.3%. Differences with AD childhood risk factors were found. Conclusions: AD incidence in our cohort was high and several risks factors were related to AD

Silicon particles as trojan horses for potential cancer therapy

[EN] Background: Porous silicon particles (PSiPs) have been used extensively as drug delivery systems, loaded with chemical species for disease treatment. It is well known from silicon producers that silicon is characterized by a low reduction potential, which in the case of PSiPs promotes explosive oxidation reactions with energy yields exceeding that of trinitrotoluene (TNT). The functionalization of the silica layer with sugars prevents its solubilization, while further functionalization with an appropriate antibody enables increased bioaccumulation inside selected cells. Results: We present here an immunotherapy approach for potential cancer treatment. Our platform comprises the use of engineered silicon particles conjugated with a selective antibody. The conceptual advantage of our system is that after reaction, the particles are degraded into soluble and excretable biocomponents. Conclusions: In our study, we demonstrate in particular, specific targeting and destruction of cancer cells in vitro. The fact that the LD50 value of PSiPs-HER-2 for tumor cells was 15-fold lower than the LD50 value for control cells demonstrates very high in vitro specificity. This is the first important step on a long road towards the design and development of novel chemotherapeutic agents against cancer in general, and breast cancer in particular.The authors acknowledge financial support from the following projects FIS2009-07812, MAT2012-35040, PROMETEO/2010/043, CTQ2011-23167, CrossSERS, FP7 MC-IEF 329131, and HSFP (project RGP0052/2012) and Medcom Tech SA. Xiang Yu acknowledges support by the Chinese government (CSC, Nr. 2010691036).Fenollosa Esteve, R.; Garcia-Rico, E.; Alvarez, S.; Alvarez, R.; Yu, X.; Rodriguez, I.; Carregal-Romero, S.... (2014). Silicon particles as trojan horses for potential cancer therapy. 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A standard protocol to report discrete stage-structured demographic information

Stage-based demographic methods, such as matrix population models (MPMs), are powerful tools used to address a broad range of fundamental questions in ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation science. Accordingly, MPMs now exist for over 3000 species worldwide. These data are being digitised as an ongoing process and periodically released into two large open-access online repositories: the COMPADRE Plant Matrix Database and the COMADRE Animal Matrix Database. During the last decade, data archiving and curation of COMPADRE and COMADRE, and subsequent comparative research, have revealed pronounced variation in how MPMs are parameterized and reported. Here, we summarise current issues related to the parameterisation and reporting of MPMs that arise most frequently and outline how they affect MPM construction, analysis, and interpretation. To quantify variation in how MPMs are reported, we present results from a survey identifying key aspects of MPMs that are frequently unreported in manuscripts. We then screen COMPADRE and COMADRE to quantify how often key pieces of information are omitted from manuscripts using MPMs. Over 80% of surveyed researchers (n = 60) state a clear benefit to adopting more standardised methodologies for reporting MPMs. Furthermore, over 85% of the 300 MPMs assessed from COMPADRE and COMADRE omitted one or more elements that are key to their accurate interpretation. Based on these insights, we identify fundamental issues that can arise from MPM construction and communication and provide suggestions to improve clarity, reproducibility and future research utilising MPMs and their required metadata. To fortify reproducibility and empower researchers to take full advantage of their demographic data, we introduce a standardised protocol to present MPMs in publications. This standard is linked to www.compa dre-db.org, so that authors wishing to archive their MPMs can do so prior to submission of publications, following examples from other open-access repositories such as DRYAD, Figshare and Zenodo. Combining and standardising MPMs parameterized from populations around the globe and across the tree of life opens up powerful research opportunities in evolutionary biology, ecology and conservation research. However, this potential can only be fully realised by adopting standardised methods to ensure reproducibility

Analysis of initial stabilization of cell efficiency in amorphous silicon photovoltaic modules under real outdoor conditions

[EN] This contribution presents a field study in which the initial stabilization of thin-film amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is investigated. Two grid-connected a-Si:H photovoltaic plants have been monitored and analyzed under real outdoor conditions. A per-unit approach is proposed to compare PV plants with differences in their electrical characteristic and the start-up date. The representation of a normalized per unit PV power versus the accumulated incoming irradiation reveals an evolution that can be characterized through an exposure-response function. By this function, two populations of defects in the cells are detected. It is found that the stabilization process in the first year of operation produces a decrease of 10% in the peak power, equivalent to a decrease of 0.5% in cell efficiency. The use of the accumulated PSH for conducting the analysis of the initial stabilization produces similarities that cannot be obtained if a time scale is used. These results provide a powerful tool for PV plant designers because they enable a prediction to be made of the time-scale stabilization response in terms of unitary power, correlated with the peak sun hours received. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work was supported by Generalitat Valenciana (PROM-ETEOII/2014/059) and Spanish MINECO (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness TEC2014-53727-C2-1-R).Mateo-Guerrero, C.; Hernández Fenollosa, MDLÁ.; Montero Reguera, ÁE.; Segui-Chilet, S. (2018). Analysis of initial stabilization of cell efficiency in amorphous silicon photovoltaic modules under real outdoor conditions. Renewable Energy. 120:114-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2017.12.054S11412512

Nucleant layer effect on nanocolumnar ZnO films grown by electrodeposition

Different ZnO nanostructured films were electrochemically grown, using an aqueous solution based on ZnCl2, on three types of transparent conductive oxides grow on commercial ITO (In2O3:Sn)-covered glass substrates: (1) ZnO prepared by spin coating, (2) ZnO prepared by direct current magnetron sputtering, and (3) commercial ITO-covered glass substrates. Although thin, these primary oxide layers play an important role on the properties of the nanostructured films grown on top of them. Additionally, these primary oxide layers prevent direct hole combination when used in optoelectronic devices. Structural and optical characterizations were carried out by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and optical transmission spectroscopy. We show that the properties of the ZnO nanostructured films depend strongly on the type of primary oxide-covered substrate used. Previous studies on different electrodeposition methods for nucleation and growth are considered in the final discussion.We thank Prof. A. Segura of the Universitat de Valencia for the facilities with the sputtering equipment. This work was supported by the project PROMETEO/2009/074 from the Generalitat Valenciana.Reyes Tolosa, MD.; Damonte, LC.; Brine, H.; Bolink, HJ.; Hernández Fenollosa, MDLÁ. (2013). Nucleant layer effect on nanocolumnar ZnO films grown by electrodeposition. Nanoscale Research Letters. 8:135-144. https://doi.org/10.1186/1556-276X-8-135S1351448Franklin JB, Zou B, Petrov P, McComb DW, Ryanand MP, McLachlan MA,J: Optimised pulsed laser deposition of ZnO thin films on transparent conducting substrates. Mater Chem 2011, 21: 8178–8182. 10.1039/c1jm10658aJaroslav B, Andrej V, Marie N, Šuttab P, Miroslav M, František U: Cryogenic pulsed laser deposition of ZnO. 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