Bayesian inference for the power law process

The power law process has been used to model reliability growth, software reliability and the failure times of repairable systems. This article reviews and further develops Bayesian inference for such a process. The Bayesian approach provides a unified methodology for dealing with both time and failure truncated data. As well as looking at the posterior densities of the parameters of the power law process, inference for the expected number of failures and the probability of no failures in some given time interval is discussed. Aspects of the prediction problem are examined. The results are illustrated with two data examples.     

Results from an X-band coaxial extended length cavity

Experiments and simulations demonstrate high-power microwave generation at 9 GHz in a coaxial geometry. The 9 cm diameter annular electron beam is propagated between inner and outer drift tube conductors, a configuration which increases the beam current and reduces the structure fields from existing high-power sources, Since the TEM mode of the coaxial guide reduces the quality factor of small-gap cavities, especially at high frequency, the interaction is provided by an extended length cavity loaded with dielectric. A single 16 cm cavity generates 200 MW of power from the 400 keV, 7 kA electron beam. Although the cavity can oscillate at a number of resonances, a single mode is selected with 10-30 kW of input power from a magnetron. A coupler samples 25 MW of the power from the interaction region, precisely measured using a single-shot calorimeter. Simulations indicate that the efficiency of the device is limited to 7% by saturation effects, and can be improved by reducing the length of the cavity     

Distinctive field dependence of the longitudinal muon polarization for Mu* in polycrystalline silicon

A distinctive longitudinal magnetic field dependence of the muon polarization for anomalous muonium in polycrystalline semiconductor targets has been predicted. The polarization exhibits a cusp,i.e., a discontinuous jump in the slope from negative to positive. Measurements of the longitudinal polarization for polycrystalline silicon in fields up to 0.5 T, and temperatures 53 and 200 K have been made at LAMPF. A cusp in the field dependence indeed occurs at 0.345 T, in excellent agreement with the prediction. No cusp is observed at 200 K because Mu^* has been thermally ionized.     

Note of correction: Broadening of NO γ-band lines

Errors in Ref. 1 are corrected. Using the new data, the collisional broadening coefficient of NO γ-band lines by N₂ is 2390 (±220) atm^-1-K (old value = 1270±200) and the optical collision diameter is 13.3±0.6 Å (instead of 3.5±0.3 Å). Values for argon (2150±200 atm^-1-K) and CO₂ (2040±200 atm^-1-K) yield the optical collision diameters of 13.2 and 13.1 Å, respectively.     

The p-chain Spectral Sequence

We introduce a new spectral sequence called the p-chain spectral sequence which converges to the (co-)homology of a contravariant C-space with coefficients in a covariant C-spectrum for a small category C. It is different from the corresponding Atiyah–Hirzebruch-type spectral sequence. It can be used in combination with the Isomorphism Conjectures of Baum and Connes and Farrell and Jones to compute algebraic K- and L-groups of group rings and topological K-groups of reduced group C*-algebras.     

A Construction of Difference Sets in High Exponent 2-Groups Using Representation Theory

Nontrivial difference sets in groups of order a power of 2 are part of the family of difference sets called Menon difference sets (or Hadamard), and they have parameters (2^2d+2, 2^2d+1±2 ^d , 2^2d ±2 ^d ). In the abelian case, the group has a difference set if and only if the exponent of the group is less than or equal to 2 ^d+2. In [14], the authors construct a difference set in a nonabelian group of order 64 and exponent 32. This paper generalizes that result to show that there is a difference set in a nonabelian group of order 2^2d+2 with exponent 2 ^d+3. We use representation theory to prove that the group has a difference set, and this shows that representation theory can be used to verify a construction similar to the use of character theory in the abelian case.     

Regenerative simulation of TES processes

Regenerative simulation has become a familiar and established tool for simulation-based estimation. However, many applications (e.g., traffic in high-speed communications networks) call for autocorrelated stochastic models to which traditional regenerative theory is not directly applicable. Consequently, extensions of regenerative simulation to dependent time series is increasingly gaining in theoretical and practical interest, with Markov chains constituting an important case. Fortunately, a regenerative structure can be identified in Harris-recurrent Markov chains with minor modification, and this structure can be exploited for standard regenerative estimation. In this paper we focus on a versatile class of Harris-recurrent Markov chains, called TES (Transform-Expand-Sample). TES processes can generate a variety of sample paths with arbitrary marginal distributions, and autocorrelation functions with a variety of functional forms (monotone, oscillating and alternating). A practical advantage of TES processes is that they can simultaneously capture the first and second order statistics of empirical sample paths (raw field measurements). Specifically, the TES modeling methodology can simultaneously match the empirical marginal distribution (histogram), as well as approximate the empirical autocorrelation function. We explicitly identify regenerative structures in TES processes and proceed to address efficiency and accuracy issues of prospective simulations. To show the efficacy of our approach, we report on a TES/M/1 case study. In this study, we used the likelihood ratio method to calculate the mean waiting time performance as a function of the regenerative structure and the intrinsic TES parameter controlling burstiness (degree of autocorrelation) in the arrival process. The score function method was used to estimate the corresponding sensitivity (gradient) with respect to the service rate. Finally, we demonstrated the importance of the particular regenerative structure selected in regard to the estimation efficiency and accuracy induced by the regeneration cycle length.