Investment in Treasury Bills as a Means of Stock Portfolio Revenue Generation

In a world with differing opinions regarding capital investments, it is necessary to understand the expected returns for each investment option an investor may exercise. All investors seek maximum returns on their investments, and here the study evaluates the projected incomes of initial investments when exposed to two different strategies. Approximately $36,000 was invested into each, a portfolio of stocks entered into a Dividend Reinvestment Plan, and a portfolio of stocks exposed to a new strategy. This new strategy was a risk averse alternative to the DRIP and its portfolio market value was compared to that of the DRIP portfolio for eleven years. The immediate purposes of this study are 1) to measure the effect that dividend reinvestment has on a high dividend yielding portfolio, and 2) analyze the implications of using these dividend payments as capital for treasury bill investments. The findings of this thesis can be used by investment managers to implement new strategies that go beyond the realm of typical investment approaches

Population Curation in Swarms: Predicting Top Performers

In recent years, new Artificial Intelligence technologies have mimicked examples of collective intelligence occurring in the natural world including flocks of birds, schools of fish, and swarms of bees. One company in particular, Unanimous AI, built a platform (UNU Swarm) that enables a group of humans to make decisions as a single mind by forming a real-time closed-loop feedback system for individuals. This platform has proven the ability to amplify the predictive ability of groups of humans in realms including sports, medicine, politics, finance, and entertainment. Previous research has demonstrated it is possible to further enhance knowledge accumulation within a crowd through curation and bias methods applied to individuals in the crowd.\newline This study explores the efficacy of applying a machine learning pipeline to identify the top performing individuals in the crowd based on a structural profile of survey responses. The ultimate goal is to select these users as Swarm participants to improve the accuracy of the overall system. Unanimous AI provided 24 weeks of survey data collection consisting of 1,139 users from the NHL 2017-2018 season. By applying a machine learning pipeline, this study able to curate a crowd consisting of users that had an average z-score 0.309 and Wisdom of the Crowd prediction accuracy of 61.5%, which is 4.1% higher than a randomly selected crowd and 1.4% lower than Vegas favorite picks

Invariant imbedding technique applied to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through inhomogeneous reentry plasmas

Invariant imbedding technique applied to electromagnetic wave propagation through inhomogeneous reentry plasma

A non-circadian role for clock-genes in sleep homeostasis:a strain comparison

BACKGROUND: We have previously reported that the expression of circadian clock-genes increases in the cerebral cortex after sleep deprivation (SD) and that the sleep rebound following SD is attenuated in mice deficient for one or more clock-genes. We hypothesized that besides generating circadian rhythms, clock-genes also play a role in the homeostatic regulation of sleep. Here we follow the time course of the forebrain changes in the expression of the clock-genes period (per)-1, per2, and of the clock-controlled gene albumin D-binding protein (dbp) during a 6 h SD and subsequent recovery sleep in three inbred strains of mice for which the homeostatic sleep rebound following SD differs. We reasoned that if clock genes are functionally implicated in sleep homeostasis then the SD-induced changes in gene expression should vary according to the genotypic differences in the sleep rebound. RESULTS: In all three strains per expression was increased when animals were kept awake but the rate of increase during the SD as well as the relative increase in per after 6 h SD were highest in the strain for which the sleep rebound was smallest; i.e., DBA/2J (D2). Moreover, whereas in the other two strains per1 and per2 reverted to control levels with recovery sleep, per2 expression specifically, remained elevated in D2 mice. dbp expression increased during the light period both during baseline and during SD although levels were reduced during the latter condition compared to baseline. In contrast to per2, dbp expression reverted to control levels with recovery sleep in D2 only, whereas in the two other strains expression remained decreased. CONCLUSION: These findings support and extend our previous findings that clock genes in the forebrain are implicated in the homeostatic regulation of sleep and suggest that sustained, high levels of per2 expression may negatively impact recovery sleep

Design and performance of the Fermilab Constant Fraction Discriminator ASIC

We present the design and performance characterization results of the novel Fermilab Constant Fraction Discriminator ASIC (FCFD) developed to readout low gain avalanche detector (LGAD) signals by directly using a constant fraction discriminator (CFD) to measure signal arrival time. Silicon detectors with time resolutions less than 30 ps will play a critical role in future collider experiments, and LGADs have been demonstrated to provide the required time resolution and radiation tolerance for many such applications. The FCFD has a specially designed discriminator that is robust against amplitude variations of the signal from the LGAD that normally requires an additional correction step when using a traditional leading edge discriminator based measurement. The application of the CFD directly in the ASIC promises to be more reliable and reduces the complication of timing detectors during their operation. We will present a summary of the measured performance of the FCFD for input signals generated by internal charge injection, LGAD signals from an infrared laser, and LGAD signals from minimum-ionizing particles. The mean time response for a wide range of LGAD signal amplitudes has been measured to vary no more than 15 ps, orders of magnitude more stable than an uncorrected leading edge discriminator based measurement, and effectively removes the need for any additional time-walk correction. The measured contribution to the time resolution from the FCFD ASIC is also found to be 10 ps for signals with charge above 20 fC

Combination Therapy of Brain Natriuretic Peptide and Sildenafil Attenuates Pulmonary Hypertension in Rats [abstract]

Abstract only availableFaculty Mentor: Dr. Vincent DeMarco, Child HealthBackground: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a lethal disease characterized by changes in pulmonary vascular structure and function. We tested the hypothesis that Sildenafil, a phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitor, and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), a guanosine cyclase stimulator, in combination synergistically attenuates PAH when compared to individual therapy in rats through different mechanisms to increase cGMP while minimizing systemic side effects. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were subcutaneously injected with monocrotaline (n=30, 50 mg/kg). After approximately 5 weeks, rats were anesthetized and instrumented to measure systemic pressure (MAP) and right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP) during infusions of vehicle solution (n=5), intravenous Sildenafil (84 mg/kg/min; n=8), and intravenous BNP (100 ng/kg/min; n=7) alone and a combination of Sildenafil and BNP (n=10). Results: Sildenafil alone decreased RVSP (-17 ±13.2 mmHg) and had a relatively minimal effect on MAP (-4±9.9 mmHg). BNP decreased RVSP (-19±14 mmHg) but also significantly effected MAP (-11±15.3mmHg). Combination therapy with Sildenafil and BNP lowered RVSP (-20±18.7 mmHg), however it also induced the greatest systemic hypotensive effect (MAP = -19±9.9 mmHg). Conclusion: The combination of Sildenafil and BNP, at these doses, significantly attenuates monocrotaline-induced pulmonary hypertension. However, compared with individual treatment, there is no significant difference in effect on RVSP. Furthermore, additive systemic side effects are too significant to consider combination therapy safe. With a different dosing regime, this combination is a potentially viable option in the treatment of patients with PAH

Hyperspectral Microscopy of Near-Infrared Fluorescence Enables 17-Chirality Carbon Nanotube Imaging

The intrinsic near-infrared photoluminescence (fluorescence) of single-walled carbon nanotubes exhibits unique photostability, narrow bandwidth, penetration through biological media, environmental sensitivity, and both chromatic variety and range. Biomedical applications exploiting this large family of fluorophores will require the spectral and spatial resolution of individual (n,m) nanotube species € fluorescence and its modulation within live cells and tissues, which is not possible with current microscopy methods. We present a wide-field hyperspectral approach to spatially delineate and spectroscopically measure single nanotube fluorescence in living systems. This approach resolved up to 17 distinct (n,m) species (chiralities) with single nanotube spatial resolution in live mammalian cells, murine tissues ex vivo, and zebrafish endothelium in vivo. We anticipate that this approach will facilitate multiplexed nanotube imaging in biomedical applications while enabling deep-tissue optical penetration, and single-molecule resolution in vivo