Thermoelectric Properties of ZnO-P2O5/(Ni) Composites

The overall purpose of the present study is basically to understand the manifestation of the thermo-electrical properties of the matrix ZnO-P2O5 first, and of the ZnO-P2O5 composites loaded with different volume fractions of nickel (Ni) as conductive fillers. In the matrix ZnO-P2O5, the values of electrical conductivity varied between 1.14 × 10-8 and 7.8 × 10-7 (S/cm), and the Seebeck coefficient value varied between minimal value 265 and maximal value 670 (μV/K) in the studied temperature. In composite ZnO-P2O5/Ni, it was shown that the Seebeck coefficient changed from high positive to negative values when the filler amount was increased, indicating a non-conducting to conducting phase transition. Such behavior exhibits that this transition is accompanied by the passing of carrier charge from p to n type. The study of thermoelectrically transport for high volume fraction of filler enabled the achievement, for the first time on this kind of composites, of an original transition called PTC transition. Thus, highest values of power factor (PF = S2 ≈ 2 × 10-3 W·m-1·K-2 at 407 K) were obtained, giving a possibility of industrial applications.

Bi-revealed utilities in a defaultable universe: A new point of view on consumption

This paper investigates the inverse problem of bi-revealed utilities in a defaultable universe,defined as a standard universe(represented by a filtration F)perturbed by an exogenous defaultable time τ.We assume that the standard universe does not take into account the possibility of the default,thus τ adds an additional source of risk.The defaultable universe is represented by the filtration G up to time τ(τ included),where G stands for the progressive enlargement of F by T.The basic assumption in force is that τ avoids F-stopping times.The bi-revealed problem consists in recovering a consistent dynamic utility from the observable characteristic of an agent.The general results on bi-revealed utilities,first given in a general and abstract framework,are translated in the defaultable G-universe and then are interpreted in the F-universe.The decomposition of G-adapted processes X^(G) provides an interpretation of a Gcharacteristic X^(G)_(τ) stopped at τ as a reserve process.Thanks to the characterization of G-martingales stopped at τ in terms of F-martingales,we establish a correspondence between G-bi-revealed utilities from characteristic and F-bi-revealed pair of utilities from characteristic and reserves.In a financial framework,characteristic can be interpreted as wealth and reserves as consumption.This result sheds a new light on the consumption in utility criterion:the consumption process can be interpreted as a certain quantity of wealth,or reserves,that are accumulated for the financing of losses at the default time.

Information uncertainty related to marked random times and optimal investment

We study an optimal investment problem under default risk where related information such as loss or recovery at default is considered as an exogenous ran-dom mark added at default time.Two types of agents who have different levels of information are considered.We first make precise the insider’s information flow by using the theory of enlargement of filtrations and then obtain explicit logarith-mic utility maximization results to compare optimal wealth for the insider and the ordinary agent.