Radio frequency coaxial high pass filter Patent

Radio frequency coaxial filter to provide dc isolation and low frequency signal rejection in audio rang

Bi-polar phase detector and corrector for split phase PCM data signals Patent

Bipolar phase detector and corrector for split phase PCM data signal

Statistical Arbitrage Mining for Display Advertising

We study and formulate arbitrage in display advertising. Real-Time Bidding (RTB) mimics stock spot exchanges and utilises computers to algorithmically buy display ads per impression via a real-time auction. Despite the new automation, the ad markets are still informationally inefficient due to the heavily fragmented marketplaces. Two display impressions with similar or identical effectiveness (e.g., measured by conversion or click-through rates for a targeted audience) may sell for quite different prices at different market segments or pricing schemes. In this paper, we propose a novel data mining paradigm called Statistical Arbitrage Mining (SAM) focusing on mining and exploiting price discrepancies between two pricing schemes. In essence, our SAMer is a meta-bidder that hedges advertisers' risk between CPA (cost per action)-based campaigns and CPM (cost per mille impressions)-based ad inventories; it statistically assesses the potential profit and cost for an incoming CPM bid request against a portfolio of CPA campaigns based on the estimated conversion rate, bid landscape and other statistics learned from historical data. In SAM, (i) functional optimisation is utilised to seek for optimal bidding to maximise the expected arbitrage net profit, and (ii) a portfolio-based risk management solution is leveraged to reallocate bid volume and budget across the set of campaigns to make a risk and return trade-off. We propose to jointly optimise both components in an EM fashion with high efficiency to help the meta-bidder successfully catch the transient statistical arbitrage opportunities in RTB. Both the offline experiments on a real-world large-scale dataset and online A/B tests on a commercial platform demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed solution in exploiting arbitrage in various model settings and market environments.Comment: In the proceedings of the 21st ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining (KDD 2015

Biaxial loading effects on fracture toughness of reactor pressure vessel steel

The preliminary phases of a program to develop and evaluate fracture methodologies for assessing crack-tip constraint effects on fracture toughness of reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels have been completed by the Heavy-Section Steel Technology (HSST) Program. Objectives were to investigate effect of biaxial loading on fracture toughness, quantify this effect through existing stress-based, dual-parameter, fracture-toughness correlations, or propose and verify alternate correlations. A cruciform beam specimen with 2-D, shallow, through-thickness flaw and a special loading fixture was designed and fabricated. Tests were performed using biaxial loading ratios of 0:1 (uniaxial), 0.6:1, and 1:1 (equi-biaxial). Critical fracture-toughness values were calculated for each test. Biaxial loading of 0.6:1 resulted in a reduction in the lower bound fracture toughness of {approximately}12% as compared to that from the uniaxial tests. The biaxial loading of 1:1 yielded two subsets of toughness values; one agreed well with the uniaxial data, while one was reduced by {approximately}43% when compared to the uniaxial data. Results were evaluated using J-Q theory and Dodds-Anderson (D-A) micromechanical scaling model. The D-A model predicted no biaxial effect, while the J-Q method gave inconclusive results. When applied to the 1:1 biaxial data, these constraint methodologies failed to predict the observed reduction in fracture toughness obtained in one experiment. A strain-based constraint methodology that considers the relationship between applied biaxial load, the plastic zone width in the crack plane, and fracture toughness was formulated and applied successfully to the data. Evaluation of this dual-parameter strain-based model led to the conclusion that it has the capability of representing fracture behavior of RPV steels in the transition region, including the effects of out-of-plane loading on fracture toughness. This report is designated as HSST Report No. 150

A Model of Vertical Oligopolistic Competition

This paper develops a model of successive oligopolies with endogenous market entry, allowing for varying degrees of product differentiation and entry costs in both markets. Our analysis shows that the downstream conditions dominate the overall profitability of the two-tier structure while the upstream conditions mainly affect the distribution of profits. We compare the welfare effects of upstream versus downstream deregulation policies and show that the impact of deregulation may be overvalued when ignoring feedback effects from the other market. Furthermore, we analyze how different forms of vertical restraints influence the endogenous market structure and show when they are welfare enhancing

Shallow Flaws Under Biaxial Loading Conditions, Part II: Application of a Weibull Stress Analysis of the Cruciform Bend Specimen Using a Hydrostatic Stress Criterion

Cruciform beam fracture mechanics specimensl have been developed in the Heavy Section Steel Technology (HSST) Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to introduce a prototypic, far- field, out-of-plane biaxird bending stress component in the test section that approximates the nonlinear biaxial stresses resulting from pressurized-thernxd-shock or pressure-temperature loading of a nuclear reactor pressure vessel (RPV). Matrices of cruciform beam tests were developed to investigate and quantify the effects of temperature, biaxial loading, and specimen size on fracture initiation toughness of two-dimensional (constant depth), shtdlow, surface flaws. Tests were conducted under biaxial load ratios ranging from uniaxial to equibiaxial. These tests demonstrated that biaxial loading can have a pronounced effect on shallow-flaw fracture toughness in the lower transition temperature region for RPV materials. Two and three- parameter Weibull models have been calibrated using a new scheme (developed at the University of Illinois) that maps toughness data from test specimens with distinctly different levels of crack-tip constraint to a small scale yielding (SSY) Weibull stress space. These models, using the new hydrostatic stress criterion in place of the more commonly used maximum principal stress in the kernel of the OW integral definition, have been shown to correlate the experimentally observed biaxiaI effect in cruciform specimens, thereby providing a scaling mechanism between uniaxial and biaxial loading states

Fracture assessment of HSST Plate 14 shallow-flaw cruciform bend specimens tested under biaxial loading conditions

A technology to determine shallow-flaw fracture toughness of reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steels is being developed for application to the safety assessment of RPVs containing postulated shallow surface flaws. Matrices of cruciform beam tests were developed to investigate and quantify the effects of temperature, biaxial loading, and specimen size on fracture initiation toughness of two-dimensional (constant depth), shallow, surface flaws. The cruciform beam specimens were developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to introduce a far-field, out-of-plane biaxial stress component in the test section that approximates the nonlinear stresses resulting from pressurized-thermal-shock or pressure-temperature loading of an RPV. Tests were conducted under biaxial load ratios ranging from uniaxial to equibiaxial. These tests demonstrated that biaxial loading can have a pronounced effect on shallow-flaw fracture toughness in the lower transition temperature region for an RPV material. The cruciform fracture toughness data were used to evaluate fracture methodologies for predicting the observed effects of biaxial loading on shallow-flaw fracture toughness. Initial emphasis was placed on assessment of stress-based methodologies, namely, the J-Q formulation, the Dodds-Anderson toughness scaling model, and the Weibull approach. Applications of these methodologies based on the hydrostatic stress fracture criterion indicated an effect of loading-biaxiality on fracture toughness; the conventional maximum principal stress criterion indicated no effect. A three-parameter Weibull model based on the hydrostatic stress criterion is shown to correlate the experimentally observed biaxial effect on cleavage fracture toughness by providing a scaling mechanism between uniaxial and biaxial loading states

Analysis of warm prestress data

Loading a cracked structure at elevated temperature, or warm prestressing (WPS), enhances its fracture resistance at a lower temperature. Five data sets, comprising 119 unclad pressure vessel steel specimens, were combined to derive correlations for WPS-enhanced fracture toughness (K{sub Ifrac}) in the absence of ductile tearing. New WPS test results for 27 surface flawed specimens, eight subclad flawed specimens, and five strain-aged specimens are discussed. K{sub Ifrac} exceeded non-WPS fracture toughness, K{sub Ic}, for all experiments. The WPS data showed that no specimens failed while K was decreasing, and that at least an additional seven percent additional reloading from the minimum value of applied K{sub I} took place prior to final fracture. The data included complete and partial unloading after WPS prior to final fracture. Crack tip 3-dimensional elastic-plastic finite element (3DEPFE) analysis was performed to support statistical analysis of the data. Regression models were compared with the Chell WPS model. Crack tip 3DEPFE analysis indicated that partially unloaded and completely unloaded data should be treated separately, and that the amount of unloading is unimportant for partially unloaded data. The regression models, which use K{sub I} at WPS (K{sub Iwps}) and K{sub Ic} as independent variables, better represented the WPS benefit than did the more complicated Chell model. An adequate accounting was made for constraint in the WPS experiments. The subclad flaw data support the use of the partial unload regression model, provided that some care is taken to represent the effect of intact cladding if present. The effect of strain aging at or below 260 C (500 F) on WPS benefit was of no consequence for the pressure vessel steels and WPS temperatures used to derive the regression models. The presence of ductile tearing precludes the use of the regression models. The regression model for partial unloading accurately predicted the behavior of full scale pressure vessel WPS experiments. All but one of the 174 experiments considered lie above the lower 2{sigma} estimate of the regressions. The experiments all supported Type I WPS, i.e., there was no fracture during cooling until reloading occurred. However, the regression equations apply to the reload, and are inapplicable to Type I WPS