15,515 research outputs found
Analysis of pressure distributions for a series of tip and trailing-edge controls on a 60 deg wing at Mach numbers of 1.61 and 2.01
Supersonic pressure distributions for tip and trailing edge controls on 60 deg delta win
Measurements of mass and momentum flux in non-ideal molecular beams
Momentum transfer and mass determinations for nonideal molecular beam - fluid mechanic
Project OASIS: The Design of a Signal Detector for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
An 8 million channel spectrum analyzer (MCSA) was designed the meet to meet the needs of a SETI program. The MCSA puts out a very large data base at very high rates. The development of a device which follows the MCSA, is presented
Altered Human Neutrophil Function in Response to Acute Psychological Stress
Objective: To examine the effects of an acute laboratory psychological stress task on neutrophil function, specifically phagocytosis of Escherichia coli and stimulated superoxide production in human neutrophils. There is mounting evidence that acute stress is associated with short-term increases in a number of immune indices. \ud
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Methods: Participants were 40 (n = 20 females) university students (mean age, 25.9 ± 4.56 years). Blood samples to determine neutrophil function by flow cytometry were taken at the end of resting baseline, during an acute stress task, and during recovery. The stress task was a 10-minute time-pressured mental arithmetic challenge with social evaluation. \ud
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Results: There was an acute increase in phagocytic ability, = .047, η2p = 0.076, and a reduction of superoxide production, p = .026, η2p = 0.101, associated with the stress task relative to baseline. \ud
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Conclusion: These findings suggest that neutrophil bactericidal function may be sensitive to mental challenge tasks that provoke acute psychological stress. Further research is needed to replicate the observed psychological stress-induced changes in neutrophil function. \ud
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Efficient pricing algorithms for exotic derivatives
Since the Nobel-prize winning papers of Black and Scholes and Merton in 1973, the
derivatives market has evolved into a multi-trillion dollar market. Structures which were once
considered as exotic are now commonplace, appearing in retail products such as mortgages
and investment notes. At the same time, new and more complex structures are invented on a
regular basis. To price and risk manage such products, a financial engineer will typically: (1)
choose a model which is both economically plausible and analytically tractable, (2) calibrate
the model to the prices of traded options, and (3) price the exotic option with the calibrated
model, using appropriate numerical techniques. This thesis mainly deals with the second and
third steps in this process. For the analytically tractable class of affine models, containing
among others the Black-Scholes model and Heston’s stochastic volatility model, it deals with
topics such as the robust pricing of European options via Fourier inversion, the pricing of
Bermudan options using convolution based methods, the simulation of stochastic volatility
models and the pricing of Asian options. A separate chapter deals with a completely different
topic, the mathematical properties of the principal components of term structure data.
Roger Lord (1977) holds cum laude Master’s degrees in both Applied Mathematics
(Eindhoven University of Technology) and Econometrics (Tilburg University). After
graduating he joined Cardano Risk Management in 2001 as a financial engineer. Deciding to
pursue a PhD degree, he joined Erasmus University Rotterdam as a PhD candidate in 2003.
Throughout his PhD he held a part-time position as a quantitative analyst at the Derivatives
Research & Validation team of Rabobank International. He has published articles in Applied
Mathematical Finance, the Journal of Computational Finance, Mathematical Finance,
Quantitative Finance and SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, and presented his research
at several international conferences. Since October 2006 he joined Rabobank International’s
Financial Engineering team in London as a quantitative analyst, developing front-office
pricing models for interest rate derivatives
Annual Report Readership: A Study of an Agricultural Supply Cooperative
Recent corporate collapses have focussed attention on the (un)reliability of financial information. However, although the agricultural sector, which is significant globally, is run primarily using the cooperative form, there is scant research on these users' perception of financial information. Therefore this paper examines members' readership and understanding of the annual reports of a large, fertiliser cooperative. The findings show that there is a lack of readership of the annual report, due to a lack of understanding and a lack of time. A minority of non-readers trust directors to "do a good job". Preparers of information should focus on making reports more user-friendly and evidence suggests that financial information could be released more strategically using other sources of communication, namely other print media and the internet.cooperatives, annual reports, readership, understanding, Agribusiness,
Proposals for a basic theory of air traffic control
This note serves as an introduction to the work on Air Traffic Control
currently being carried out at The College of Aeronautics.
The basic principles of Air Traffic Control are examined and a mathematical
basis for an analysis of the current and future ATC complex is discussed.
The theory is based upon feedback control concepts using intermittent data.
Examples showing the application to en-route airway and parallel track flying
are given. These demonstrate the effect of positional data up-dating rate
upon separation minima for both subsonic and supersonic aircraft. Application
to both fixed route (Airway Control) and free-route (Area Control) are
currently being considered. A full report is to be published at a later
date
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