Optimal Investment in a Levy Market

In this paper we consider the optimal investment problem in a market where the stock price process is modeled by a geometric Levy process (taking into account jumps). Except for the geometric Brownian model and the geometric Poissonian model, the resulting models are incomplete and there are many equivalent martingale measures. However, the model can be completed by the so-called power-jump assets. By doing this we allow investment in these new assets and we can try to maximize the expected utility of these portfolios. As particular cases we obtain the optimal portfolios based in stocks and bonds, showing that the new assets are superfluous for certain martingale measures that depend on the utility function we use.     

Characterization of NOx species in dehydrated and hydrated Na- and Ba-Y, FAU zeolites formed in NO2 adsorption

Adsorbed ionic NO_x species formed upon the interaction of NO₂ with dehydrated or hydrated Na- and Ba-Y, FAU zeolites were characterized using FT-IR/TPD, solid state NMR, and XANES techniques. NO₂ disproportionates on both dehydrated catalyst materials forming NO⁺ and NO₃⁻ species. These ionic species are stabilized by their interactions with the negatively charged zeolite framework and the charge compensating cations (Na⁺ and Ba²⁺), respectively. Although the nature of the adsorbed NO_x species formed on the two catalysts is similar, their thermal stabilities are strongly dependent on the charge compensating cations. In the presence of water in the channels of these zeolite materials new paths open for reactions between NO⁺ and H₂O, and NO₂ and H₂O, resulting in significant changes in the adsorbed ionic species observed. These combined spectroscopic investigations afforded the understanding of the interactions between water and NO₂ on these zeolite catalysts.     

Internal standardization for the determination of cadmium,cobalt, chromium and manganese in saline produced water from petroleum industry by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry after cloud point extraction

In the present paper a procedure is proposed for the determination of traces of Cd, Co, Mn and Cr in petroleum industry produced water by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The procedure is based on cloud point extraction of these metals, as their dithizonate complexes, into the surfactant-rich phase of octylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol surfactant (Triton X-114). Extractions were carried out in solutions with salinities between 10‰ and 70‰. Since residual salinity in the surfactant-rich phase caused differences in its transport to the plasma, yttrium was used as an internal standard to correct for this effect. The simultaneous metal extraction procedure was optimized by response surface methodology using a Doehlert design and desirability function. Enhancement factors of 21, 21, 9 and 19, along with limits of quantification of 0.093, 0.20, 0.73 and 1.2 μg L^− 1, and precision expressed as relative standard deviation (n = 8, 20.0 μg L^− 1) of 5.8, 1.2, 1.7 and 5.7% were obtained for Cd, Co, Mn and Cr, respectively. The accuracy was evaluated by spike recovery tests on the high salinity water samples with salinity of 40 and 63‰.     

X-ray diffraction study of some mesogenic copper, nickel and vanadyl complexes

We present a comparative study of various metallomesogenic complexes, using X-ray diffraction methods. For a given ligand linked to different metal atoms (Cu, Ni, VO), the nature of this central atom influences mainly the magnetic susceptibilities of the mesophases. With different ligands, which keep the close neighbourhood of the metal atom unchanged, the apparent length of the mesogenic unit is longer for short ligands than for longer ones. This unexpected behaviour is qualitatively well explained by taking into account the global shape of the different complexes.     

The prediction of coal properties using compressed infrared data from osculating polynomials

Reduction of the representation of infrared spectra from coal samples by osculating polynomials of degree nine is discussed. The reduced representation contains polynomial coefficients of order zero to four. Mathematical models of the original spectra are obtained by linear combination of the coefficients. These compressed models are statistically correlated to coal properties, namely, volatile matter, fixed carbon, ash content, heating value, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, nitrogen, and maximum vitrinite reflectance, and the results are compared with those previously obtained from second derivatives of the same spectra. The use of compressed data, while giving slightly better correlations for some of the properties, has the advantage of requiring less computational time.     

Automatic continuity and representation of group homomorphisms defined between groups of continuous functions

Let C(X,G) be the group of continuous functions from a topological space X into a topological group G with pointwise multiplication as the composition law, endowed with the uniform convergence topology. To what extent does the group structure of C(X,G) determine the topology of X? More generally, when does the existence of a group homomorphism H between the groups C(X,G) and C(Y,G) implies that there is a continuous map h of Y into X such that H is canonically represented by h? We prove that, for any topological group G and compact spaces X and Y, every non-vanishing C-isomorphism (defined below) H of C(X,G) into C(Y,G) is automatically continuous and can be canonically represented by a continuous map h of Y into X. Some applications to specific groups and examples are given in the paper.     

MgO films grown on yttria-stabilized zirconia by molecular beam epitaxy

MgO films were grown on (0 0 1) yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The crystalline structures of these films were investigated using X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Growth temperature was varied from 350 to 550 °C, with crystalline quality being improved at higher temperatures. The MgO films had a domain structure: (1 1 1)[1 1 2¯]_MgO(0 0 1)[1 0 0]_YSZ with four twin variants related by a 90° in-plane rotation about the [1 1 1]_MgO axis. The observed epitaxial orientation was compared to previous reports of films grown by pulsed laser deposition and sputtering and explained as resulting in the lowest interface energy.     

Estimation of the aggregation number and core radius of microemulsions

Summary A simple working method for the estimation of the aggregation numbers and core radii from weight measurements of sodium bis-2-ethylhexylsulphosuccinate (aerosol-OT orAOT)/decane/water microemulsions of several compositions is proposed.Starting out from the hypotheses that (i) the density of the water inside the droplets is the same as that of free water, (ii) all the surfactant is localized as interface, and (iii) the penetration of the organic phase into the interface is negligible, values for the aggregation number and core radii comparable to those determined using more sophisticated methods were obtained.The results/methodological simplicity ratio may be of great advantage in kinetic work on reaction mechanisms in microemulsions.

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Abschätzung von Aggregationszahl und Radius von Mikroemulsionen

Zusammenfassung Es wird eine einfache Methode zur Abschätzung von Aggregationszahl und Core-Radius von Mikroemulsionen aus Gewichtsmessungen von Natriumbis-2-ethylhexylsulphosuccinat (aerosol-OT oderAOT)/Decan/Wasser-Mikroemulsionen verschiedener Zusammensetzung vorgeschlagen. Unter den Annahmen, daß (i) die Dichte von Wasser innerhalb der Aggregationen die gleiche als bei freiem Wasser ist, (ii) das ganze Emulsionsmittel in der Grenzfläche vorliegt und (iii) das Eindringen der organischen Phase in die Grenzfläche vernachlässigbar ist, können Werte für Aggregationszahlen und Core-Radien erhalten werden, die durchaus mit entsprechenden Werten aus aufwendigeren Methoden vergleichbar sind. Das Leistungsverhältnis (Ergebnisse/geringer Aufwand) ist sehr vorteilhaft und macht die Methode für kinetische Arbeiten zur Bestimmung von Reaktionsmechanismen in Mikroemulsionen interessant.