The current status of oral reading in professional literature

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Discovery of a Shell of Neutral Atomic Hydrogen Surrounding the Carbon Star IRC+10216

We have used the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope to perform the most sensitive search to date for neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) in the circumstellar envelope (CSE) of the carbon star IRC+10216. Our observations have uncovered a low surface brightness HI shell of diameter ~1300" (~0.8 pc), centered on IRC+10216. The HI shell has an angular extent comparable to the far ultraviolet-emitting astrosphere of IRC+10216 previously detected with the GALEX satellite, and its kinematics are consistent with circumstellar matter that has been decelerated by the local interstellar medium. The shell appears to completely surround the star, but the highest HI column densities are measured along the leading edge of the shell, near the location of a previously identified bow shock. We estimate a total mass of atomic hydrogen associated with IRC+10216 CSE of M_HI~3x10e-3 M_sun. This is only a small fraction of the expected total mass of the CSE (<1%) and is consistent with the bulk of the stellar wind originating in molecular rather than atomic form, as expected for a cool star with an effective temperature T_eff<~2200 K. HI mapping of a 2 deg x 2 deg region surrounding IRC+10216 has also allowed us to characterize the line-of-sight interstellar emission in the region and has uncovered a link between diffuse FUV emission southwest of IRC+10216 and the Local Leo Cold Cloud.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS. 16 pages. A version with full resolution figures may be found at http://www.haystack.mit.edu/hay/staff/lmatthew/Matthews_etal_IRC+10216.pd

The Trading Performance of Dynamic Hedging Models: Time Varying Covariance and Volatility Transmission Effects

In this paper, we investigate the value of incorporating implied volatility from related option markets in dynamic hedging. We comprehensively model the volatility of all four S&P 500 cash, futures, index option and futures option markets simultaneously. Synchronous half-hourly observations are sampled from transaction data. Special classes of extended simultaneous volatility systems (ESVL) are estimated and used to generate out-of-sample hedge ratios. In a hypothetical dynamic hedging scheme, ESVLbased hedge ratios, which incorporate incremental information in the implied volatilities of the two S&P 500 option markets, generate profits from interim rebalancing of the futures hedging position that are incremental over competing hedge ratios. In addition, ESVL-based hedge ratios are the only hedge ratios that manage to generate sufficient profit during the hedging period to cover losses incurred by the physical portfolio .volatility transmission, dynamic hedging, optimal hedge ratio, S&P 500

Dynamic Sampling from a Discrete Probability Distribution with a Known Distribution of Rates

In this paper, we consider a number of efficient data structures for the problem of sampling from a dynamically changing discrete probability distribution, where some prior information is known on the distribution of the rates, in particular the maximum and minimum rate, and where the number of possible outcomes N is large. We consider three basic data structures, the Acceptance-Rejection method, the Complete Binary Tree and the Alias Method. These can be used as building blocks in a multi-level data structure, where at each of the levels, one of the basic data structures can be used. Depending on assumptions on the distribution of the rates of outcomes, different combinations of the basic structures can be used. We prove that for particular data structures the expected time of sampling and update is constant, when the rates follow a non-decreasing distribution, log-uniform distribution or an inverse polynomial distribution, and show that for any distribution, an expected time of sampling and update of $O\left(\log\log{r_{max}}/{r_{min}}\right)$ is possible, where $r_{max}$ is the maximum rate and $r_{min}$ the minimum rate. We also present an experimental verification, highlighting the limits given by the constraints of a real-life setting

Run-time adaptation of a reconfigurable mobile UMTS receiver

UMTS receivers are mobile devices, which should have a low energy consumption and operates in a frequently changing environment. The idea of this paper is to adapt the amount of signal processing for the reception within an UMTS mobile to this changing environment. In this way the amount of signal processing can be decreased for a good channel to decrease the energy consumption and for a bad channel the signal processing can be increased to guarantee a minimum Quality of Service for the signal. Due to space limitation, this paper only describes the approach. For full details see [1]

Run-time Mapping of Applications to a Heterogeneous SoC

This paper presents an iterative hierarchical approach to map an application to a parallel heterogeneous SoC architecture at run-time. The application is modeled as a set of communicating processes. The optimization objective is to minimize the energy consumption of the SoC, while still providing the required Quality of Service. This approach is flexible, scalable and the performance looks promisin

BER estimation for wireless links using BPSK/QPSK modulation

This paper introduces a method that computes an estimation of the bit error rate (BER) based on the RAKE receiver soft output only. For this method no knowledge is needed about the channel characteristics nor the precise external conditions. Simulations show that the mean error of the estimation is below 2%, with only a small variance. Also an estimation of the BER for a different spreading factor or a different number of RAKE finger can be made. Implementation issues for a practical use of the method are discussed