Investor heterogeneity and the cross-section of U.K. investment trust performance

We use the upper and lower bounds derived by Ferson and Lin (2010) to examine the impact of investor heterogeneity on the performance of U.K. investment trusts relative to alternative linear factor models. We find using the upper bounds that investor heterogeneity has an important impact for nearly all investment trusts. The upper bounds are large in economic terms and significantly different from zero. We find no evidence of any trusts where all investors agree on the sign of performance beyond what we expect by chance. Using the lower bound, we find that trusts with a larger disagreement about trust performance have a weaker relation between the trust premium and past Net Asset Value (NAV) performance

Almost optimal asynchronous rendezvous in infinite multidimensional grids

Two anonymous mobile agents (robots) moving in an asynchronous manner have to meet in an infinite grid of dimension δ> 0, starting from two arbitrary positions at distance at most d. Since the problem is clearly infeasible in such general setting, we assume that the grid is embedded in a δ-dimensional Euclidean space and that each agent knows the Cartesian coordinates of its own initial position (but not the one of the other agent). We design an algorithm permitting the agents to meet after traversing a trajectory of length O(d δ polylog d). This bound for the case of 2d-grids subsumes the main result of [12]. The algorithm is almost optimal, since the Ω(d δ) lower bound is straightforward. Further, we apply our rendezvous method to the following network design problem. The ports of the δ-dimensional grid have to be set such that two anonymous agents starting at distance at most d from each other will always meet, moving in an asynchronous manner, after traversing a O(d δ polylog d) length trajectory. We can also apply our method to a version of the geometric rendezvous problem. Two anonymous agents move asynchronously in the δ-dimensional Euclidean space. The agents have the radii of visibility of r1 and r2, respectively. Each agent knows only its own initial position and its own radius of visibility. The agents meet when one agent is visible to the other one. We propose an algorithm designing the trajectory of each agent, so that they always meet after traveling a total distance of O( ( d)), where r = min(r1, r2) and for r ≥ 1. r)δpolylog ( d r

Some aspects of vibration control. Part I: Active and passive correction

The paper presents a general approach to mechanical system modification aimed at controlling the steady harmonic vibrations by means of passive and active methods. The relaŹtive decrease of harmonic vibration amplitudes of selected elements of the mechanical system has been chosen as a measure of the quality of the introduced modification. The proposed theoretical method enables to determine the parameters of the system’s dynamic flexibility matrix, which show the most remarkable effect on the dynamic behaviour of the whole system. When active control is considered the method is useful in designing the structure and choosing the parameters of the control system. In certain in cases of self-excited vibration the approach helps examining the elements of the system, most responsible for this kind of excitation

Some aspects of vibration control. Part II: An optimal active controller.

The paper presents a theoretical method for determining the optimal correction to be introduced in a mechanical system. The active control of harmonic vibrations may be achived by applying a control unit which ought to reduce the vibration amplitude of the selected elements of the system. The proposed method makes it possible to determine the controller parameters which provide an optimum value of the chosen quality index. This criterion includes the reduction of weighted amplitudes of the elements on the one hand, and minimizes energy of the control signal on the other. The described method is suitable for determination of an optimum controller of turbine rotor vibrations caused by bearing oil whip, bearing oil whirl or aerodynamic forces. For the case of rotor self-excited vibrations of aerodynamic type the linear model of excitations was compared with the neural network method

Application of 3D flow solver in education of students

The development of 3D numerical methods enables the estimation of flow parameters in any section of the channels and in this way the complex phenomenon of generation of losses can be investigated. Application of 3D solver helps in better understanding of flow behaviour in turbine stages, while basing on the results of calculations of stages of different geometries, it is possible to show the effect of different design parameters on the turbine stage output and its efficiency. The paper presents the examples of application of modern computer programs for teaching turbomachinery problems, for research flows in turbine stages and for solving design tasks. Some examples of students' projects are also included

On the modelling of aerodynamic force coefficients for over-shroud seals of turbine stages

This paper presents experimental investigations which made it possible to determine dynamic coefficients of labyrinth over-shroud seal of a model air turbine. The coefficients associate pressure forces with turbine rotor displacement, velocity and acceleration respective to turbine casing (linear model) and play important role in analyzing turbine-set dynamics. The obtained results indicated that involving serious errors can be expected in the case of application of the simplification consisting in neglecting inertia coefficients, proposed in the literature. It was simultaneously demonstrated that seals can be also met of weak damping qualities, for which to neglect damping coeffcients is allowable