Absence of a Periodic Component in Quasar z-Distribution

Since the discovery of quasars in papers often appeared and appear the assertions that the redshift quasar distribution includes a periodic component with the period $\Delta z = 0.063$ or 0.11. A statement of such kind, if it is correct, may manifest the existence of a far order in quasar distribution in cosmological time, that might lead to a fundamental revision all the cosmological paradigm. In the present time there is a unique opportunity to check this statement with a high precision, using the rich statictics of 2dF and SDSS catalogues (about 85000 quasars). Our analysis indicates that the periodic component in distribution of quasar redshifts is absent at high confidence level

Fear and Greed in Financial Markets: A Clinical Study of Day-Traders

We investigate several possible links between psychological factors and trading performance in a sample of 80 anonymous day-traders. Using daily emotional-state surveys over a five-week period as well as personality inventory surveys, we construct measures of personality traits and emotional states for each subject and correlate these measures with daily normalized profits-and-losses records. We find that subjects whose emotional reaction to monetary gains and losses was more intense on both the positive and negative side exhibited significantly worse trading performance. Psychological traits derived from a standardized personality inventory survey do not reveal any specific "trader personality profile", raising the possibility that trading skills may not necessarily be innate, and that different personality types may be able to perform trading functions equally well after proper instruction and practice.

Experimental results on mass-thickness distribution in spacecraft equipment

A technique is described for evaluating the shielding properties of spacecraft equipment with respect to cosmic radiation. A gamma-ray source is used in conjunction with a scintillation detector to determine mass-thickness distribution both in plane geometry for equipment units, and in spherical geometry for given points within the spacecraft. Equations are presented for calculating mass-thickness distribution functions, and the results are compared with experimental measurements

A gamma-ray testing technique for spacecraft

The simulated cosmic radiation effect on a spacecraft structure is evaluated by gamma ray testing in relation to structural thickness. A drawing of the test set-up is provided and measurement errors are discussed

Symplectic methods for Hamiltonian systems with additive noise

Stochastic systems, phase flows of which have integral invariants, are considered. Hamiltonian systems with additive noise being a wide class of such systems possess the property of preserving symplectic structure. For them, numerical methods preserving the symplectic structure are constructed. A special attention is paid to systems with separable Hamiltonians, to second order differential equations with additive noise, and to Hamiltonian systems with small additive noise

Quantitative Biological Electron Probe Microanalysis with a Wavelength Dispersive Spectrometer

This paper describes the details of quantitative electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) performed with a wavelength dispersive spectrometer (WDS). EPMA was carried out on the giant neuron of a fresh frozen ganglion from the snail Lymnaea stagnalis. The freeze-dried cryosections were compared with sections of freeze-dried, embedded tissue. It was found, that in the ganglion there are two kinds of neurons with a different chlorine concentration of 11 mmole/liter and 32 mmole/liter. Isolated neurons in culture were shown to differ in elemental composition from those in the ganglion tissue

Mean-square symplectic methods for Hamiltonian systems with multiplicative noise

Stochastic systems with multiplicative noise, phase flows of which have integral invariants, are considered. For such systems, numerical methods preserving the integral invariants are constructed using full implicit schemes of a new type for stochastic differential equations. In these full implicit schemes increments of Wiener processes are substituted by some truncated random variables. They are important for both theory and practice of numerical integration of stochastic differential equations. A special attention is paid to systems with separable Hamiltonians and to Hamiltonian systems with small noise. Liouvillian methods for stochastic systems preserving phase volume are also proposed. Some results of numerical experiments are presented