Modeling On-Line Art Auction Dynamics Using Functional Data Analysis

In this paper, we examine the price dynamics of on-line art auctions of modern Indian art using functional data analysis. The purpose here is not just to understand what determines the final prices of art objects, but also the price movement during the entire auction. We identify several factors, such as artist characteristics (established or emerging artist; prior sales history), art characteristics (size; painting medium--canvas or paper), competition characteristics (current number of bidders; current number of bids) and auction design characteristics (opening bid; position of the lot in the auction), that explain the dynamics of price movement in an on-line art auction. We find that the effects on price vary over the duration of the auction, with some of these effects being stronger at the beginning of the auction (such as the opening bid and historical prices realized). In some cases, the rate of change in prices (velocity) increases at the end of the auction (for canvas paintings and paintings by established artists). Our analysis suggests that the opening bid is positively related to on-line auction price levels of art at the beginning of the auction, but its effect declines toward the end of the auction. The order in which the lots appear in an art auction is negatively related to the current price level, with this relationship decreasing toward the end of the auction. This implies that lots that appear earlier have higher current prices during the early part of the auction, but that effect diminishes by the end of the auction. Established artists show a positive relationship with the price level at the beginning of the auction. Reputation or popularity of the artists and their investment potential as assessed by previous history of sales are positively related to the price levels at the beginning of the auction. The medium (canvas or paper) of the painting does not show any relationship with art auction price levels, but the size of the painting is negatively related to the current price during the early part of the auction. Important implications for auction design are drawn from the analysis.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000196 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Creation of a Single National ID: Challenges & Opportunities for India

A National ID for all citizens and residents of India has long being considered a critical necessity, albeit the related projects have been in pilot mode for the past several years and no distinct road ahead seems to be coming out. The government has been focusing on inclusive growth and has launched several schemes at different levels to facilitate the same. However, monitoring the execution of these schemes and understanding clearly if the targeted citizens actually have got benefited, would demand for substantial granularity of information and doing away with information bottlenecks. Interestingly, proper execution of the National ID project by the government can prove to be useful for execution of various schemes and projects as well as in accessing multiple government and private sector services. This paper focuses on the need for a single national identity system in India and its proposed execution which may actually be linked to citizen life cycle. The other aspects covered and analyzed include current Indian scenario, challenges, existing identification systems and loopholes in the existing systems. Major challenges seem to be coming from enrolments, technology platform choice and strategic design, corresponding policy and legal frameworks. The paper also discusses about international scenario of single national id projects undertaken in 27 countries across the globe to understand current status, adoption and usage. To reinforce the need for national ID, the existing IDs were analysed based on a scoring model considering various dimensions. Primary research was conducted, based on which it was found none of the existing IDs was able to satisfy as a National ID based on the scoring model. The proposed road map has been discussed in length i.e technology platform, smart card technology, legal and administrative framework, business model based on Private-Public Partnership (PPP) considering the mammoth and diverse population. A ranking matrix may be created to come up with a composite score for all districts based on various dimensions. The execution may be planned to be executed without asking Indians to stand in queue for one more ID and accelerating towards a more secured society and more importantly ensuring better delivery of Government services to citizens.

Dilepton asymmetries at BB factories in search of ΔB=−ΔQ\Delta B =- \Delta Q transitions

In order to detect the possible presence of $\Delta B = - \Delta Q$ amplitudes in neutral $B$ meson decays, we consider the measurement of decay time asymmetries involving like-sign dilepton events at the $B$ factories.Comment: 5 pages, latex, no fig

Two-Particle Correlations and B0Bˉ0B^0\bar{B}^0 Mixing

We study the EPR correlation implied by the entangled wavefunction of the $B^0\bar{B}^0$ pair created by the $\Upsilon$(4S) resonance. The analysis uses the basis provided by the mass eigenstates $B_1,B_2$ rather than the flavour states $B^0, \bar{B}^0$. Data on the inclusive dilepton charge ratio are close to the expectation of quantum mechanics, but nearly 8 standard deviations away from that of complete decoherence.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, no figure

CP-Violating Correlations between Lepton-Charge and Jet-Charge in Z -> b\bar b events

Correlations that signal direct CP violation in the bottom sector are suggested. They need data on $Z\to b\bar b$ events which consist of a bottom hadron decay into an exclusive semileptonic channel $h \ell \nu$ (where $h$ is a hadron), and the other bottom hadron decay into a multi-body final state that manifests as a jet in the opposite hemisphere.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, no figures, expanded versio

A New Relation between post and pre-optimal measurement states

When an optimal measurement is made on a qubit and what we call an Unbiased Mixture of the resulting ensembles is taken, then the post measurement density matrix is shown to be related to the pre-measurement density matrix through a simple and linear relation. It is shown that such a relation holds only when the measurements are made in Mutually Unbiased Bases- MUB. For Spin-1/2 it is also shown explicitly that non-orthogonal measurements fail to give such a linear relation no matter how the ensembles are mixed. The result has been proved to be true for arbitrary quantum mechanical systems of finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. The result is true irrespective of whether the initial state is pure or mixed.Comment: 4 pages in REVTE

A Stepwise Planned Approach to the Solution of Hilbert's Sixth Problem. III : Measurements and von Neumann Projection/Collapse Rule

Supmech, the universal mechanics developed in the previous two papers, accommodates both quantum and classical mechanics as subdisciplines (a brief outline is included for completeness); this feature facilitates, in a supmech based treatment of quantum measurements, an unambiguous treatment of the apparatus as a quantum system approximated well by a classical one. Taking explicitly into consideration the fact that observations on the apparatus are made when it has `settled down after the measurement interaction' and are restricted to macroscopically distinguishable pointer readings, the unwanted superpositions of (system + apparatus) states are shown to be suppressed; this provides a genuinely physics based justification for the (traditionally \emph{postulated}) von Neumann projection/collapse rule. The decoherence mechanism brought into play by the stated observational constraints is free from the objections against the traditional decoherence program.Comment: 29 pages; one section and two references added; results unchange

Privacy Violation and Detection Using Pattern Mining Techniques

Privacy, its violations and techniques to bypass privacy violation have grabbed the centre-stage of both academia and industry in recent months. Corporations worldwide have become conscious of the implications of privacy violation and its impact on them and to other stakeholders. Moreover, nations across the world are coming out with privacy protecting legislations to prevent data privacy violations. Such legislations however expose organizations to the issues of intentional or unintentional violation of privacy data. A violation by either malicious external hackers or by internal employees can expose the organizations to costly litigations. In this paper, we propose PRIVDAM; a data mining based intelligent architecture of a Privacy Violation Detection and Monitoring system whose purpose is to detect possible privacy violations and to prevent them in the future. Experimental evaluations show that our approach is scalable and robust and that it can detect privacy violations or chances of violations quite accurately. Please contact the author for full text at [email protected]

Construction of m-Repeated Burst Error Detecting and Correcting Non-binary Linear Codes

Error correcting codes are required to ensure reliable communication of digitally encoded information. One of the areas of practical importance in which a parallel growth of the subject error correcting codes took place is that of burst error detecting and correcting codes. The nature of burst errors differs from channel to channel depending upon the behavior of channels or the kind of errors which occur during the process of transmission. The rate of transmission is efficient if the number of parity-check digits are as minimum as possible. It is usually not possible to give the exact number of parity-check digits required for a given code. However, bounds can be obtained over the number of parity-check digits. An upper bound for a linear code capable of detecting/ correcting burst errors or its variants is many a times established by the technique used to establish Varsharmov-Gilbert-Sacks bound by constructing a parity-check matrix for the requisite code. This technique not only ensures the existence of such a code but also gives a method for constructing such a code. The synthesis method using this technique is cumbersome and to the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic way to construct a parity-check matrix for a burst error correcting non-binary linear code. Extending the algorithm for binary linear codes given by the authors to non-binary codes, the paper proposes a new algorithm for constructing a parity-check matrix for any linear code over GF(q) capable of detecting and correcting a new kind of burst error called `m-repeated burst error of length b or less\u27. Codes based on the proposed algorithm have been illustrated