Trust in foreseeing neighbours - a novel threshold model of financial market

The three-state agent-based 2D model of financial markets in the version proposed by Giulia Iori in 2002 has been herein extended. We have introduced the increase of herding behaviour by modelling the altering trust of an agent in his nearest neighbours. The trust increases if the neighbour has foreseen the price change correctly and the trust decreases in the opposite case. Our version only slightly increases the number of parameters present in the Iori model. This version well reproduces the main stylized facts observed on financial markets. That is, it reproduces log-returns clustering, fat-tail log-returns distribution and power-law decay in time of the volatility autocorrelation function.Comment: Accepted at Acta Physica Polonica A, to be published in early 201

Methane fluxes, microbial activities and community structures in a wet tundra of the Lena Delta

Wet tundra environments of the Arctic are natural sources of the climate relevant trace gas methane. The underlying biogeochemical processes are not yet well understood. The field investigations were carried out on the island Samoylov (N 72°, E 126°) located in the Lena Delta, Siberia. The study site represented an area of typical polygonal patterned grounds with ice-wedges, which were considered for analyses of methane fluxes, organic matter quality and microbial communities.The mean flux rate of the depression was 53.2 ± 8.7 mg CH4 m-2 d-1, whereas the mean flux rate of the dryer rim part of the polygon was 4.7 ± 2.5 CH4 m-2 d-1. The quantity of dissolved organic matter (DOM), which represents an important C pool for microbial communities, correlated significant with the total concentrations of phospholipid fatty acids and ether lipids (PLFA and PLEL) a measure for microbial biomass. Although permafrost soils represent a large carbon pool, it was shown, that the reduced quality of organic matter leads to a substrate limitation of the microbial metabolism. This is an important finding for modelling and calculating trace gas fluxes from permafrost environments, because the known models are consider only the total carbon amount.It can be concluded by the presented results firstly that microbial communities in permafrost environments are composed by members of all three domains of life at numbers comparable to temperate soil ecosystems and secondly that the permafrost microorganisms are well adapted to the extreme temperature gradient of their environment

Surface Quality of a Work Material Influence on Vibrations in a Cutting Process

The problem of stability in the machining processes is an important task. It is strictly connected with the final quality of a product. In this paper we consider vibrations of a tool-workpiece system in a straight turning process induced by random disturbances and their effect on a product surface. Basing on experimentally obtained system parameters we have done the simulations using one degree of freedom model. The noise has been introduced to the model by the Langevin equation. We have also analyzed the product surface shape and its dependence on the level of noise.Comment: 12 pages, PDF of figures can be obtained from http://archimedes.pol.lublin.pl/~raf/graf/fpic.pd

Detection of high-frequency oscillations by hybrid depth electrodes in standard clinical intracranial EEG recordings

High-frequency oscillations (HFOs) have been proposed as a novel marker for epileptogenic tissue, spurring tremendous research interest into the characterization of these transient events. A wealth of continuously recorded intracranial electroencephalographic (iEEG) data is currently available from patients undergoing invasive monitoring for the surgical treatment of epilepsy. In contrast to data recorded on research-customized recording systems, data from clinical acquisition systems remain an underutilized resource for HFO detection in most centers. The effective and reliable use of this clinically obtained data would be an important advance in the ongoing study of HFOs and their relationship to ictogenesis. The diagnostic utility of HFOs ultimately will be limited by the ability of clinicians to detect these brief, sporadic, and low amplitude events in an electrically noisy clinical environment. Indeed, one of the most significant factors limiting the use of such clinical recordings for research purposes is their low signal to noise ratio, especially in the higher frequency bands. In order to investigate the presence of HFOs in clinical data, we first obtained continuous intracranial recordings in a typical clinical environment using a commercially available, commonly utilized data acquisition system and "off the shelf" hybrid macro-/micro-depth electrodes. These data were then inspected for the presence of HFOs using semi-automated methods and expert manual review. With targeted removal of noise frequency content, HFOs were detected on both macro- and micro-contacts, and preferentially localized to seizure onset zones. HFOs detected by the offline, semi-automated method were also validated in the clinical viewer, demonstrating that (1) this clinical system allows for the visualization of HFOs and (2) with effective signal processing, clinical recordings can yield valuable information for offline analysis. © 2014 Kondylis, Wozny, Lipski, Popescu, DeStefino, Esmaeili, Raghu, Bagic and Richardson

Magnetic Doppler imaging of alpha^2 Canum Venaticorum in all four Stokes parameters. Unveiling the hidden complexity of stellar magnetic fields

Strong organized magnetic fields have been studied in the upper main sequence chemically peculiar stars for more than half a century. However, only recently have observational methods and numerical techniques become sufficiently mature to allow us to record and interpret high-resolution four Stokes parameter spectra, leading to the first assumption-free magnetic field models of these stars. Here we present a detailed magnetic Doppler imaging analysis of the spectropolarimetric observations of the prototypical magnetic Ap star alpha^2 CVn. The surface abundance distributions of Fe and Cr and a full vector map of the stellar magnetic field are reconstructed in a self-consistent inversion using our state-of-the-art magnetic Doppler imaging code Invers10. We succeeded in reproducing most of the details of the available spectropolarimetric observations of alpha^2 CVn with a magnetic map which combines a global dipolar-like field topology with localized spots of higher field intensity. We demonstrate that these small-scale magnetic structures are inevitably required to fit the linear polarization spectra; however, their presence cannot be inferred from the Stokes I and V observations alone. Our magnetic Doppler imaging analysis of alpha^2 CVn and previous results for 53 Cam support the view that the upper main sequence stars can harbour fairly complex surface magnetic fields which resemble oblique dipoles only at the largest spatial scales. Spectra in all four Stokes parameters are absolutely essential to unveil and meaningfully characterize this field complexity in Ap stars. We therefore suggest that understanding magnetism of stars in other parts of the H-R diagram is similarly incomplete without investigation of their linear polarization spectra.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures; Accepted for publication by Astronomy & Astrophysic

Friction and Wear of Radiation Resistant Composites, Coatings and Ceramics in Vacuum and Low Temperature Environment

ABSTRACT Superconducting magnets used in accelerators such as the Superconducting Super Collider @SC) are exposed to fast neutron and gamma irradiation. Some of the components used in the SSC cryostat are fabricated from organic materials with low radiation resistance. The slide bearing material presently supporting the magnet assembly contains Teflon and must be replaced with a material of improved radiation resistance. A group of sliding materials, most of which have suitable radiation resistance, were tested under conditions of pressure, temperature, velocity, and vacuum typically encountered in normal cryostat operation. As this was a preliminary screening test, the samples were only cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature. The group of materials tested consists of composites, coated base metals, and ceramics. The criteria was to maintain a low coefficient of friction throughout the experiment in spite of changes in temperature and vacuum. Subsequent tests will expose finalist materials to fast neutron irradiation at liquid helium temperatures. This paper describes the experimental setup and presents data of the friction coefficient measurements taken for the various samples

Cultivation of a novel cold-adapted nitrite oxidizing betaproteobacterium from the Siberian Arctic

Permafrost-affected soils of the Siberian Arctic were investigated with regard to identification of nitrite oxidizing bacteria active at low temperature. Analysis of the fatty acid profiles of enrichment cultures grown at 4°C, 10°C and 17°C revealed a pattern that was different from that of known nitrite oxidizers but was similar to fatty acid profiles of Betaproteobacteria. Electron microscopy of two enrichment cultures grown at 10°C showed prevalent cells with a conspicuous ultrastructure. Sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA genes allocated the organisms to a so far uncultivated cluster of the Betaproteobacteria, with Gallionella ferruginea as next related taxonomically described organism. The results demonstrate that a novel genus of chemolithoautotrophic nitrite oxidizing bacteria is present in polygonal tundra soils and can be enriched at low temperatures up to 17°C. Cloned sequences with high sequence similarities were previously reported from mesophilic habitats like activated sludge and therefore an involvement of this taxon in nitrite oxidation in nonarctic habitats is suggested. The presented culture will provide an opportunity to correlate nitrification with nonidentified environmental clones in moderate habitats and give insights into mechanisms of cold adaptation. We propose provisional classification of the novel nitrite oxidizing bacterium as 'Candidatus Nitrotoga arctica'

Magnetic field topology and chemical spot distributions of the Ap star HD119419

Analysis of high-resolution spectropolarimetric observations of early-type magnetic stars is currently the most advanced method of obtaining detailed information on their surface magnetic field topologies and horizontal spot distributions. In this study we analyse a new set of high-quality four Stokes parameter observations of the magnetic Ap star HD119419 - a member of the 14 Myr old Lower Cen-Cru association - for the purpose of studying the surface field topology and mapping the chemical abundance spots. We made use of the circular and linear polarisation data collected for HD119419 with the HARPSpol instrument at the ESO 3.6-m telescope. These observations were analysed with a multi-line magnetic diagnostic technique and modelled in detail with a Magnetic Doppler imaging code. We present a new set of mean longitudinal magnetic field measurements and derive a revised stellar rotational period. We also redetermine the basic stellar atmospheric parameters. Our four Stokes parameter magnetic inversions reveal a moderately complex surface field topology with a mean field strength of 18 kG and a maximum local strength of 24 kG. A poloidal dipolar component dominates the magnetic energy spectrum of the surface field in HD119419. However, significant contributions of the higher-order spherical harmonic components are also present. We show that the dipole plus quadrupole part of the reconstructed field geometry is incapable of reproducing the observed amplitudes and shapes of the Stokes Q and U profiles. The chemical abundance distributions of Fe, Cr, Ti, and Nd, derived self-consistently with the magnetic field geometry, are characterised by large abundance gradients and a lack of clear correlation with the magnetic field structure. This full Stokes vector analysis of HD119419 extends the modern hot-star magnetic mapping investigations to an open cluster Ap star with a well-determined age.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures; accepted for publication in A&