Forecasting the equity risk premium: The role of technical indicators

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Gains from the upgrade of the cold neutron triple-axis spectrometer FLEXX at the BER-II reactor

The upgrade of the cold neutron triple-axis spectrometer FLEXX is described. We discuss the characterisation of the gains from the new primary spectrometer, including a larger guide and double focussing monochromator, and present measurements of the energy and momentum resolution and of the neutron flux of the instrument. We found an order of magnitude gain in intensity (at the cost of coarser momentum resolution), and that the incoherent elastic energy widths are measurably narrower than before the upgrade. The much improved count rate should allow the use of smaller single crystals samples and thus enable the upgraded FLEXX spectrometer to continue making leading edge measurements.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, 5 table

Stability of the Gains of the STAR Endcap Calorimeter from 2009 to 2012

The Solenoid Tracker at RHIC (STAR) experiment, based at Brookhaven National Laboratory\u27s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, uses polarized-proton collisions to investigate sea quark and gluon contributions to the known proton spin. The STAR detector\u27s Endcap Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EEMC) is of particular interest in this experiment because it covers a kinematic region, which is sensitive to gluons carrying a low fraction of the proton momentum, where the gluon spin is almost entirely unconstrained. The EEMC is located in the intermediate pseudorapidity range, 1 \u3c η \u3c 2, and measures the electromagnetic energy of particles produced by the collisions using a lead-scintillator sampling calorimeter. The calorimeter consists of several layers that include pre-shower, shower maximum, tower, and post-shower detectors. In these detectors, the energy gains, which convert a measured signal into an energy deposition, have been determined using data taken from the years 2009, 2011, and 2012. These gains will be analyzed and studied in order to understand the calibration of the detector

Modelling and Control of an Annular Momentum Control Device

The results of a modelling and control study for an advanced momentum storage device supported on magnetic bearings are documented. The control challenge posed by this device lies in its dynamics being such a strong function of flywheel rotational speed. At high rotational speed, this can lead to open loop instabilities, resulting in requirements for minimum and maximum control bandwidths and gains for the stabilizing controllers. Using recently developed analysis tools for systems described by complex coefficient differential equations, the closed properties of the controllers were analyzed and stability properties established. Various feedback controllers are investigated and discussed. Both translational and angular dynamics compensators are developed, and measures of system stability and robustness to plant and operational speed variations are presented

National Campaign to Reform State Juvenile Justice Systems and the National Communications Effort

Note: This evaluation is accompanied by an evaluation of the Models for Change initiative as well as introduction to the evaluation effort by MacArthur's President, Julia Stasch, and a response to the evaluation from the program team. Access these related materials here.This evaluation's principal focus was to determine if and how the National Communications Effort shaped and elevated a narrative that reached its target audiences and increased their understanding and support for juvenile justice reform. More broadly, the evaluation also examined the ways in which a complementary, experimental communications strategy could help support and sustain a movement of juvenile justice reform. Additionally, the MacArthur Foundation expressed a desire to know whether the National Communications Effort had an impact on policy reform and the broader media landscape, even though these were not objectives or intended outcomes of the National Communications Effort

IDA Consolidation

Multiple IDA’s confuse businesses and force them to navigate too much red tape. There are too many IDA’s and they have overlapping areas of responsibility. Multiple IDA’s contribute to the region’s economic decline. Multiple IDA’s foster a spirit of intramural competition among municipalities rather than fostering a spirit of cooperation to compete at the varsity level (i.e. national and international level. No real growth is generated by multiple IDA’s just business moving from one part of the community to another. “There is no such thing as a successful suburb if the city is dying.” IDA competition lures business from one area of the region to another and very rarely attracts new business from outside the region. Individual IDA’s within Eire County get played-off one another to the detriment of local real-property tax payers

Bridging the copyright and licensing knowledge gap

Objectives: The purpose of this project was to examine the copyright and licensing knowledge gap of academic staff to identify their current understanding of, and attitudes towards, copyright, licensing and the open access movement in relation to the content they use, create, and share in their teaching and research practice. The motivation behind this study was to gather information to assist the Library in creating and providing effective information resources and training for academic staff.Methods: An anonymous online survey was distributed to Faculty of Health academic staff at Deakin University. Seventy individuals in the Faculty of Health completed the survey.Results: The results suggested that most of the academics have used content created by others in their teaching materials, but they are not confident about complying with copyright or licensing conditions whilst doing so. Most had not posted any of their own content online, but would generally be willing for it to be used by others, with attribution. Around half had never posted their published articles in an institutional or discipline repository, but again, would be willing for them to be used for educational purposes. Most academics have never shared their research data online, and some were very unwilling to do so - despite current pushes to broaden access to research data sets. Finally, most had never applied a Creative Commons licence to a piece of work, and over half were unaware of what rights they had retained under publishing agreements for their work. It was strongly indicated that an informational website would be very helpful in providing guidance around topics of copyright, licensing and sharing. Conclusions: Results were largely consistent with other similar studies conducted around these topics. There is a clear role for librarians to continue providing such training and resources as the push for Open Access resources, publishing, and data only gains momentum

Expanding Impact through Evaluation: Insights from the Packard Foundation's Work on Children's Health Insurance

This report explores the Packard Foundation's experience with program evaluation as a strategic intervention in its work on children's health insurance and presents some of the principal lessons learned from that experience. The report also highlights the value of being opportunistic and adaptive to changing circumstances. The Packard Foundation experience suggests that to have a major impact on the issues that it cares about, a foundation has to be on the lookout for windows of opportunity to advance its agenda, and must be highly strategic in leveraging those opportunities if and when they occur

Momentum Control with Hierarchical Inverse Dynamics on a Torque-Controlled Humanoid

Hierarchical inverse dynamics based on cascades of quadratic programs have been proposed for the control of legged robots. They have important benefits but to the best of our knowledge have never been implemented on a torque controlled humanoid where model inaccuracies, sensor noise and real-time computation requirements can be problematic. Using a reformulation of existing algorithms, we propose a simplification of the problem that allows to achieve real-time control. Momentum-based control is integrated in the task hierarchy and a LQR design approach is used to compute the desired associated closed-loop behavior and improve performance. Extensive experiments on various balancing and tracking tasks show very robust performance in the face of unknown disturbances, even when the humanoid is standing on one foot. Our results demonstrate that hierarchical inverse dynamics together with momentum control can be efficiently used for feedback control under real robot conditions.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables in Autonomous Robots (2015