6,004 research outputs found
Does it pay to invest in art? A selection-corrected returns perspective : [draft october 15, 2013]
This paper shows the importance of correcting for sample selection when investing in illiquid assets with endogenous trading. Using a large sample of 20,538 paintings that were sold repeatedly at auction between 1972 and 2010, we find that paintings with higher price appreciation are more likely to trade. This strongly biases estimates of returns. The selection-corrected average annual index return is 6.5 percent, down from 10 percent for traditional uncorrected repeat sales regressions, and Sharpe Ratios drop from 0.24 to 0.04. From a pure financial perspective, passive index investing in paintings is not a viable investment strategy once selection bias is accounted for. Our results have important implications for other illiquid asset classes that trade endogenously
Competing `soft' dielectric phases and detailed balance in thin film manganites
Using frequency dependent complex capacitance measurements on thin films of
the mixed-valence manganite (LaPr)CaMnO, we
identify and resolve the individual dielectric responses of two competing
dielectric phases. We characterize their competition over a large temperature
range, revealing they are in dynamic competition both spatially and temporally.
The phase competition is shown to be governed by the thermodynamic constraints
imposed by detailed balance. The consequences of the detailed balance model
strongly support the notion of an `electronically soft' material in which
continuous conversions between dielectric phases with comparable free energies
occur on time scales that are long compared with electron-phonon scattering
times.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
Quantitative imaging of anisotropic material properties with vectorial ptychography
Following the recent establishment of the formalism of vectorial ptychography
[Ferrand et al., Opt. Lett. 40, 5144 (2015)], first measurements are reported
in the optical range, demonstrating the capability of the proposed method to
map the four parameters of the Jones matrix of an anisotropic specimen, and
therefore to quantify a wide range of optical material properties, including
power transmittance, optical path difference, diattenuation, retardance, and
fast-axis orientation.Comment: 5 figures, accepted for publication in Optics Letter
Doctrine and Deed: Adventism\u27s Encounter with its Society in Nineteenth-century Australia
Since Jesus Christ first confronted Jewish society, a many-sided debate about the relations of Christianity and civilization has been an enduring problem. H. Richard Niebuhr delineates typical Christian answers to the problem of Christ and culture and thus contributes to the mutual understanding of variant and often conflicting Christian groups. Informed by Niebuhr\u27s categories, this paper examines a small slice of the age long experience of Christianity in its double wrestle... with the Lord and with the cultural society with which it lives in symbiosos. In particular, it seeks to understand the encounter between Seventh-day Adventists and Australian society from 1885-1900, the formative years during which the movement was introduced to this country
Tuning and Backreaction in F-term Axion Monodromy Inflation
We continue the development of axion monodromy inflation, focussing in
particular on the backreaction of complex structure moduli. In our setting, the
shift symmetry comes from a partial large complex structure limit of the
underlying type IIB orientifold or F-theory fourfold. The coefficient of the
inflaton term in the superpotential has to be tuned small to avoid conflict
with Kahler moduli stabilisation. To allow such a tuning, this coefficient
necessarily depends on further complex structure moduli. At large values of the
inflaton field, these moduli are then in danger of backreacting too strongly.
To avoid this, further tunings are necessary. In weakly coupled type IIB theory
at the orientifold point, implementing these tunings appears to be difficult if
not impossible. However, fourfolds or models with mobile D7-branes provide
enough structural freedom. We calculate the resulting inflaton potential and
study the feasibility of the overall tuning given the limited freedom of the
flux landscape. Our preliminary investigations suggest that, even imposing all
tuning conditions, the remaining choice of flux vacua can still be large enough
for such models to provide a promising path to large-field inflation in string
theory.Comment: 46 pages, 6 figures; v2: typos removed, references added; v3:
references adde
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