Investment Returns and Risk for Art: Evidence from Auctions of American Paintings

The literature on return and risk for investment in paintings is extended by disaggregating for artist, genre, and quality. A hedonic log price model generates yearly price indices and shadow values for painting characteristics using a large sample of U.S. artists sold at auction from 1971 to 1996. Overall returns to holding paintings are low, and have high annual variation although disparities are found across categories. High quality paintings show the highest returns, second only to equities, and are not offset by higher risk. Buying the highest quality superstar paintings seems to be the best overall investment strategy.Art; Artist

Today's Learner, Preferences In Teaching Techniques

The computer age is here. Students are tuned in to the latest digital devices and methods available today. Most students are exposed to short messages with video enhancements. This gives rise to a student who gets frustrated and bored with the standard lecture technique of years past. To achieve a greater effectiveness and learning outcome in delivering a lecture and subsequent learning, the professor has to know and understand the changes that are occurring in today’s learner. This paper presents findings of a study comparing the perceptions of first year freshmen business students’ with upper class business students’ perceptions as to how learning and assessment should occur in the classroom. The study also evaluates the differences between the various types of business majors

The relevance of point defects in studying silica-based materials from bulk to nanosystems

The macroscopic properties of silica can be modified by the presence of local microscopic modifications at the scale of the basic molecular units (point defects). Such defects can be generated during the production of glass, devices, or by the environments where the latter have to operate, impacting on the devices’ performance. For these reasons, the identification of defects, their generation processes, and the knowledge of their electrical and optical features are relevant for microelectronics and optoelectronics. The aim of this manuscript is to report some examples of how defects can be generated, how they can impact device performance, and how a defect species or a physical phenomenon that is a disadvantage in some fields can be used as an advantage in others

VarIabiLity seLection of AstrophysIcal sources iN PTF (VILLAIN) I. Structure function fits to 71 million objects

Context. Lightcurve variability is well-suited for characterising objects in surveys with high cadence and long baseline. This is especially relevant in view of the large datasets to be produced by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Aims. We aim to determine variability parameters for objects in the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and explore differences between quasars (QSOs), stars and galaxies. We will relate variability and colour information in preparation for future surveys. Methods. We fit joint likelihoods to structure functions (SFs) of 71 million PTF lightcurves with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. For each object, we assume a power law SF and extract two parameters: the amplitude on timescales of one year, $A$, and a power law index, $\gamma$. With these parameters and colours in the optical (Pan-STARRS1) and mid infrared (WISE), we identify regions of parameter space dominated by different types of spectroscopically confirmed objects from SDSS. Candidate QSOs, stars and galaxies are selected to show their parameter distributions. Results. QSOs have high amplitude variations in the $R$ band, and the strongest timescale dependence of variability. Galaxies have a broader range of amplitudes and low timescale dependency. With variability and colours, we achieve a photometric selection purity of 99.3 % for QSOs. Even though hard cuts in monochromatic variability alone are not as effective as seven-band magnitude cuts, variability is useful in characterising object sub-classes. Through variability, we also find QSOs that were erroneously classified as stars in the SDSS. We discuss perspectives and computational solutions in view of the upcoming LSST.Comment: Accepted by A&A on 11/04/2023, 16 pages, 14 figure

The (K-,p) reaction on nuclei with in-flight kaons

We perform a theoretical study of the spectrum of protons with kinetic energies of around 600 MeV, emitted following the interaction of 1 GeV/c kaons with nuclei. A recent experimental analysis of this (K-,p) reaction on 12C, based on the dominant quasielastic process, has suggested a deeply attractive kaon nucleus potential. Our Monte Carlo simulation considers, in addition, the one-and two-nucleon K- absorption processes producing hyperons that decay into \pi N pairs. We find that this kaon in-flight reaction is not well suited to determine the kaon optical potential due, essentially, to the limited sensitivity of the cross section to its strength, but also to unavoidable uncertainties from the coincidence requirement applied in the experiment. A shallow kaon nucleus optical potential obtained in chiral models is perfectly compatible with the observed spectrum.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Hypernuclear and Strange Particle Physics, Tokai, Ibaraki (Japan), 14-18 September, 200

Structural relaxation of E' gamma centers in amorphous silica

We report experimental evidence of the existence of two variants of the E' gamma centers induced in silica by gamma rays at room temperature. The two variants are distinguishable by the fine features of their line shapes in paramagnetic resonance spectra. These features suggest that the two E' gamma differ for their topology. We find a thermally induced interconversion between the centers with an activation energy of about 34 meV. Hints are also found for the existence of a structural configuration of minimum energy and of a metastable state.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Coulomb corrections to low energy antiproton annihilation cross sections on protons and nuclei

We calculate, in a systematic way, the enhancement effect on antiproton-proton and antiproton-nucleus annihilation cross sections at low energy due to the initial state electrostatic interaction between the projectile and the target nucleus. This calculation is aimed at future comparisons between antineutron and antiproton annihilation rates on different targets, for the extraction of pure isospin channels.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures (latex format