Substitutability between Equity REITs and Mortgage REITs

This study extends Seck’s (1996) approach to investigate the degree of substitutability between equity real estate investment trusts (EREITs) and mortgage real estate investment trusts (MREITs). The variance ratio test and the variance decomposition of forecast errors yield results indicating the existence of informational commonality between EREITs and MREITs. The findings indicate that the two types of REITs are substitutable. A direct implication is that investors who believe they have superior forecasting ability will be indifferent to invest in either type of REIT. Another implication is that REITs can be treated as a single asset class in constructing a diversified multi-asset portfolio.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CONCENTRIC AND ECCENTRIC CONTRACTION INDUCED MUSCLE FATIGUE

Studies of neuromuscular activation often evaluated through isometric contractions. However, this type of contraction may not truly represent muscle actions during activities. EMG analysis is not only used to determine motor unit activations, but also used to determine muscle conduction velocity by transforming signals into frequency spectrum. Studies have shown that fatigue mucles produced a relativly slower conduction velocity measured by mean power frequency (MPF). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the effects of muscle fatigue generated by two different types of contraction. We hypothesized that muscle fatigue generated by concentric contractions (CC) would cause gretaer muscle contraction frequency reduction than eccentric contractions (EC)

Effects of fabric counts and weave designs on the properties of laminated woven kenaf carbon fibre reinforced epoxy hybrid composites

The effects of different fabric materials namely weave designs (plain and satin) and fabric counts (5 × 5 and 6 × 6) on the properties of laminated woven kenaf/carbon fibre reinforced epoxy hybrid composites were evaluated. The hybrid composites were fabricated from two types of fabric, i.e., woven kenaf that was made from a yarn of 500tex and carbon fibre, by using vacuum infusion technique and epoxy resin as matrix. The panels were tested for tensile, flexural, and impact strengths. The results have revealed that plain fabric is more suitable than satin fabric for obtaining high tensile and impact strengths. Using a fabric count of 5 × 5 has generated composites that are significantly higher in flexural modulus as compared to 6 × 6 which may be attributed to their structure and design. The scanned electron micrographs of the fractured surfaces of the composites demonstrated that plain woven fabric composites had better adhesion properties than satin woven fabric composites, as indicated by the presence of notably lower amount of fibre pull out

Optimal Sub-Gaussian Mean Estimation in Very High Dimensions

We address the problem of mean estimation in very high dimensions, in the high probability regime parameterized by failure probability ?. For a distribution with covariance ?, let its "effective dimension" be d_eff = {Tr(?)}/{?_{max}(?)}. For the regime where d_eff = ?(log^2 (1/?)), we show the first algorithm whose sample complexity is optimal to within 1+o(1) factor. The algorithm has a surprisingly simple structure: 1) re-center the samples using a known sub-Gaussian estimator, 2) carefully choose an easy-to-compute positive integer t and then remove the t samples farthest from the origin and 3) return the sample mean of the remaining samples. The core of the analysis relies on a novel vector Bernstein-type tail bound, showing that under general conditions, the sample mean of a bounded high-dimensional distribution is highly concentrated around a spherical shell

Single Crystal Growth of Skutterudite CoP3 under High Pressure

A new method to grow single crystals of skutterudite compounds is examined. Using a wedge-type, cubic-anvil, high-pressure apparatus, single crystals of CoP3 were grown from stoichiometric melts under a pressure of 3.5 GPa. Powder x-ray diffraction and electron probe microanalysis measurements indicate that the as-grown boules are a single phase of CoP3. The results suggest that CoP3 is a congruent melting compound under high pressure.Comment: 6pages,5 figures, J. Crystal Growth (in press

Entanglement of a qubit with a single oscillator mode

We solve a model of a qubit strongly coupled to a massive environmental oscillator mode where the qubit backaction is treated exactly. Using a Ginzburg-Landau formalism, we derive an effective action for this well known localization transition. An entangled state emerges as an instanton in the collective qubit-environment degree of freedom and the resulting model is shown to be formally equivalent to a Fluctuating Gap Model (FGM) of a disordered Peierls chain. Below the transition, spectral weight is transferred to an exponentially small energy scale leaving the qubit coherent but damped. Unlike the spin-boson model, coherent and effectively localized behaviors may coexist.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; added calculation of entanglement entrop

Resonance structures in the multichannel quantum defect theory for the photofragmentation processes involving one closed and many open channels

The transformation introduced by Giusti-Suzor and Fano and extended by Lecomte and Ueda for the study of resonance structures in the multichannel quantum defect theory (MQDT) is used to reformulate MQDT into the forms having one-to-one correspondence with those in Fano's configuration mixing (CM) theory of resonance for the photofragmentation processes involving one closed and many open channels. The reformulation thus allows MQDT to have the full power of the CM theory, still keeping its own strengths such as the fundamental description of resonance phenomena without an assumption of the presence of a discrete state as in CM.Comment: 7 page

Design procedure and performance estimation of tidal current power system

The demand to secure an alternative resource has been increased recently rather than fossil or nuclear\ud powers. One of the affordable ocean energy is the tidal energy since it is considered as a reliable and predictable power\ud source. The turbine is one of the essential components which can convert the tidal current into the rotational force. The\ud design optimization of turbine can contribute significantly to the performance of system. There are several key aspects\ud in the design of turbine. Also the estimation of the device performance is to be carried out by the proven technologies.\ud This paper introduces the design procedure of the tidal current turbine considering number of blades, shape, sectional\ud profile, diameter, etc. Also the performance evaluations of the system with single and multi-arrangements are discussed

FAST: FAST Analysis of Sequences Toolbox.

FAST (FAST Analysis of Sequences Toolbox) provides simple, powerful open source command-line tools to filter, transform, annotate and analyze biological sequence data. Modeled after the GNU (GNU's Not Unix) Textutils such as grep, cut, and tr, FAST tools such as fasgrep, fascut, and fastr make it easy to rapidly prototype expressive bioinformatic workflows in a compact and generic command vocabulary. Compact combinatorial encoding of data workflows with FAST commands can simplify the documentation and reproducibility of bioinformatic protocols, supporting better transparency in biological data science. Interface self-consistency and conformity with conventions of GNU, Matlab, Perl, BioPerl, R, and GenBank help make FAST easy and rewarding to learn. FAST automates numerical, taxonomic, and text-based sorting, selection and transformation of sequence records and alignment sites based on content, index ranges, descriptive tags, annotated features, and in-line calculated analytics, including composition and codon usage. Automated content- and feature-based extraction of sites and support for molecular population genetic statistics make FAST useful for molecular evolutionary analysis. FAST is portable, easy to install and secure thanks to the relative maturity of its Perl and BioPerl foundations, with stable releases posted to CPAN. Development as well as a publicly accessible Cookbook and Wiki are available on the FAST GitHub repository at https://github.com/tlawrence3/FAST. The default data exchange format in FAST is Multi-FastA (specifically, a restriction of BioPerl FastA format). Sanger and Illumina 1.8+ FastQ formatted files are also supported. FAST makes it easier for non-programmer biologists to interactively investigate and control biological data at the speed of thought