Improved thermal isolation of silicon suspended platforms for an all-silicon thermoelectric microgenerator based on large scale integration of Si nanowires as thermoelectric material

Special suspended micro-platforms have been designed as a part of silicon compatible planar thermoelectric microgenerators. Bottom-up grown silicon nanowires are going to bridge in the future such platforms to the surrounding silicon bulk rim. They will act as thermoelectric material thus configuring an all-silicon thermoelectric device. In the new platform design other additional bridging elements (usually auxiliary support silicon beams) are substituted by low conductance thin film dielectric membranes in order to maximize the temperature difference developed between both areas. These membranes follow a sieve-like design that allows fabricating them with a short additional wet anisotropic etch step. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Testing the convergence hypothesis for OECD countries: A reappraisal

This paper reviews the results of a number of empirical studies of convergence among the OECD countries and discusses some limitations of these studies. Moreover, the paper tries to deal with these limitations by presenting a new and more appropriate methodology: quantile regressions. The results obtained with this specification support the view that, even among the OECD countries, there are different clusters. The parameter representing the convergence hypothesis, despite being negative in every case, is higher in value and more significant as we advance to higher quantiles. These outcomes reveal a faster convergence between the countries that belong to the upper quantiles. Moreover, 1960-1970 is highlighted as the period in which convergence was more intense

The canonical 8-form on manifolds with holonomy group Spin(9)

An explicit expression of the canonical 8-form on a Riemannian manifold with a Spin(9)-structure, in terms of the nine local symmetric involutions involved, is given. The list of explicit expressions of all the canonical forms related to Berger's list of holonomy groups is thus completed. Moreover, some results on Spin(9)-structures as G-structures defined by a tensor and on the curvature tensor of the Cayley planes, are obtained

GLS based unit root tests for bounded processes

We show that the use of generalized least squares (GLS) detrending procedures leads to important empirical power gains compared to ordinary least squares (OLS) detrending method when testing the null hypothesis of unit root for bounded processes. The non-centrality parameter that is used in the GLS-detrending depends on the bounds, so that improvements on the statistical inference are to be expected if a case-speci.c parameter is used. This initial hypothesis is supported by the simulation experiment that has been conducted

Multiscale non-adiabatic dynamics with radiative decay, case study on the post-ionization fragmentation of rare-gas tetramers

In this supplementary material, we recollect, for reader's convenience, the general scheme of suggested multiscale model (Sec. 1), and basic informations about approaches used for pilot study: a detailed description of the interaction model (Sec. 2) and dynamical methods used for the dark dynamics step (Sec. 3) reported previously in two preceding studies [1, 2]. In addition, a detailed description of the treatment of radiative processes is also given (Sec. 4).Comment: supplementary material for parent paper; 9 pages, 1 figure; corrected formulae and misleading notation in Sec.4 (pages 7 and 8

Detecting multiple level shifts in bounded time series

The paper proposes a sequential statistical procedure to test for the presence of level shifts affecting bounded time series, regardless of their order of integration. The paper shows that bounds are relevant for the statistic that assume that the time series are integrated of order one, whereas they do not affect the limiting distribution of the statistic that is defined for time series that are integrated of order zero. The paper proposes a union rejection statistic for bounded processes that does not require information about the order of integration of the stochastic processes. The model specification is general enough to consider the existence of structural breaks that can affect either the level of the time series and/or the bounds that limit its evolution. Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the procedure works well in finite samples. An empirical application that focuses on the Swiss franc against the euro exchange rate evolution illustrates the usefulness of the proposal

The ABCF3 Gene of Arabidopsis Is Functionally Linked with GCN1 but Not with GCN2 During Stress and Development

[EN] One of the main mechanisms regulating translation is the one based on the phosphorylation of the alpha subunit of the translation initiation factor 2 (eIF2 alpha) by the general control non-repressive 2 (GCN2) protein kinase. In yeast, this kinase binds to two scaffold proteins (GCN1 and GCN20), facilitating its activation on translating ribosomes. The homology of the three proteins exists in Arabidopsis. In this species, whereas the kinase is activated under several stress situations, the involvement of the scaffold proteins in those processes is controversial, and a new role for GCN1 in translation, independent of the phosphorylation of eIF2 alpha, has been proposed. Arabidopsis presents five genes with homology to GCN20 (ABCF1 to 5) in its genome. We show here that any of these five genes is needed for eIF2 alpha phosphorylation. Furthermore, plant phenotypes under abiotic stresses and chloroplast development suggest that ABCF3 is functionally linked with GCN1, but not with GCN2. Finally, gcn1 and abcf3 mutants share similar transcriptional reprogramming, affecting photosynthesis and stress responses. The common downregulation of regulators of the flagellin receptor FLS2 in both mutants suggest that the observed defect in pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP)-induced stomatal closure of these two mutants could be mediated by these proteins.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN), reference BFU2011-22526. Vigya Kesari thanks the EC for an Erasmus Mundus postdoctoral fellowship.Faus, I.; Niñoles Rodenes, R.; Kesari, V.; Gadea Vacas, J. (2021). The ABCF3 Gene of Arabidopsis Is Functionally Linked with GCN1 but Not with GCN2 During Stress and Development. Plant Molecular Biology Reporter. 39(4):663-672. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-021-01283-wS66367239

Unbiased estimation of autoregressive models for bounded sthochastic processes

The paper investigates the estimation bias of autoregressive models for bounded stochastic processes and the performance of the standard procedures in the literature that aim to correcting the estimation bias. It is shown that, in some cases, the bounded nature of the stochastic processes worsen the estimation bias effect, which suggests the design of bound-specific bias correction methods. The paper focuses on two popular autoregressive estimation bias correction procedures which are extended to cover bounded stochastic processes. Finite sample performance analysis of the new proposal is carried out using Monte Carlo simulations which reveal that accounting for the bounded nature of the stochastic processes leads to improvements in the estimation of autoregressive models. Finally, an illustration is given using the current account balance of some developed countries, whose shocks persistence measures are computed