Shear wave structure of a transect of the Los Angeles basin from multimode surface waves and H/V spectral ratio analysis

We use broad-band stations of the ‘Los Angeles Syncline Seismic Interferometry Experiment’ (LASSIE) to perform a joint inversion of the Horizontal to Vertical spectral ratios (H/V) and multimode dispersion curves (phase and group velocity) for both Rayleigh and Love waves at each station of a dense line of sensors. The H/V of the autocorrelated signal at a seismic station is proportional to the ratio of the imaginary parts of the Green’s function. The presence of low-frequency peaks (∼0.2 Hz) in H/V allows us to constrain the structure of the basin with high confidence to a depth of 6 km. The velocity models we obtain are broadly consistent with the SCEC CVM-H community model and agree well with known geological features. Because our approach differs substantially from previous modelling of crustal velocities in southern California, this research validates both the utility of the diffuse field H/V measurements for deep structural characterization and the predictive value of the CVM-H community velocity model in the Los Angeles region. We also analyse a lower frequency peak (∼0.03 Hz) in H/V and suggest it could be the signature of the Moho. Finally, we show that the independent comparison of the H and V components with their corresponding theoretical counterparts gives information about the degree of diffusivity of the ambient seismic field

Canadian City Housing Prices and Urban Market Segmentation

The authors provide a detailed empirical analysis of Canadian city housing prices. They examine the long-run relationship between city house prices in Canada from 1981 to 2005 as well as idiosyncratic relations between city prices and city-specific variables. The results suggest that city house prices are only weakly correlated in the long run, and that there is a disconnect between house prices and interest rates. City-specific variables such as union wage levels, new-housing prices, and the issuance of building permits tend to be positively related to city existing-house prices. Surprisingly, there is mixed evidence with respect to standard measures of economic activity, such as labour force and per capita GDP.Regional economic developments

Microsofts Monopoly: Anti-Competitive Behavior, Predatory Tactics, And The Failure Of Governmental Will

Thirty years ago, Microsoft Corp. was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.  To understand how the company has gained competitive advantage we examine how the company used unfair, anti-competitive, and predatory approaches in their business.  We discuss how we have come to the belief that the government settlement in United States and State of New York, et al., v. Microsoft Corporation imposing restrictions on Microsoft’s behavior and monitoring its actions for compliance is not enough to keep it from abusing its monopolistic power and does too little to prevent it from dominating the software and operating system industry today

Reduced auger recombination in mid-infrared semiconductor lasers

A quantum-design approach to reduce the Auger losses in two micron InGaSb type-I quantum well edge-emitting lasers is reported. Experimentally realized structures show a 3X reduction in the threshold, which results in 4.6 lower Auger current loss at room temperature. This is equivalent to a carrier lifetime improvement of 5.7 and represents about a 19-fold reduction in the equivalent “Auger coefficient.

A 4-Planet System Orbiting the K0V Star HD 141399

We present precision radial velocity (RV) data sets from Keck-HIRES and from Lick Observatory's new Automated Planet Finder Telescope and Levy Spectrometer on Mt. Hamilton that reveal a multiple-planet system orbiting the nearby, slightly evolved, K-type star HD 141399. Our 91 observations over 10.5 years suggest the presence of four planets with orbital periods of 94.35, 202.08, 1070.35, and 3717.35 days and minimum masses of 0.46, 1.36, 1.22, and 0.69 Jupiter masses respectively. The orbital eccentricities of the three inner planets are small, and the phase curves are well sampled. The inner two planets lie just outside the 2:1 resonance, suggesting that the system may have experienced dissipative evolution during the protoplanetary disk phase. The fourth companion is a Jupiter-like planet with a Jupiter-like orbital period. Its orbital eccentricity is consistent with zero, but more data will be required for an accurate eccentricity determination.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, To appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Compressive Object Tracking using Entangled Photons

We present a compressive sensing protocol that tracks a moving object by removing static components from a scene. The implementation is carried out on a ghost imaging scheme to minimize both the number of photons and the number of measurements required to form a quantum image of the tracked object. This procedure tracks an object at low light levels with fewer than 3% of the measurements required for a raster scan, permitting us to more effectively use the information content in each photon.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

State of the Art of Financial Decision Support Systems based on Problem, Requirement, Component and Evaluation Categories

Financial decision support has become an important information systems research topic and is also of highest interest to practitioners. Two rapidly emerging trends, the increasing amount of available data and the evolution of data mining methods, pose challenges for researchers. Thus, a review of existing research with the goal to guide future research efforts in this domain is timely. To structure our literature review and future research in this area, we propose a framework in the paper that integrates elements of decision support systems, design theory, and information mining. The framework is then applied in the paper. Our analysis reveals that the focus of existing research can be grouped into three major domain categories. More research is needed in two of the categories for which we found only very few IS studies, despite the high relevance of these topics due to increased turbulences in worldwide financial markets. Furthermore, we discuss the opportunities to make stronger use of heterogeneous data and of combined data mining techniques and to build upon the rich set of available evaluation methods