Affordable and adequate annuities with stable payouts: Fantasy or reality?

This paper introduces a class of unit-linked annuities that extends existing annuities by allowing portfolio shocks to be gradually absorbed into the annuity payouts. Consequently, our new class enables insurers to offer an affordable and adequate annuity with a stable payout stream. We show how to price and adequately hedge the annuity payouts in a general financial environment. In particular, our model accounts for various stylized facts of stock returns such as asymmetry and heavy-tailedness. Furthermore, the generality of our framework makes it possible to explore the impact of a parameter misspecification on the annuity price and the hedging performance.     

Tm3+/Yb3+ ∶LaF3纳米体系中掺杂Yb3+ 离子对Tm3+ 离子荧光发射的影响

为研究Yb³⁺离子浓度变化对Tm³⁺离子在蓝色波段荧光强度的影响,以NaF和La(NO₃)₃为原料,采用水热法制备了Tm³⁺和Yb³⁺共掺的Tm³⁺/ Yb³⁺∶LaF₃纳米颗粒.用X射线衍射对LaF₃纳米颗粒进行表征的结果显示,纳米晶体结构呈六方相.透射电镜的观测结果显示,纳米颗粒样品大小均匀、分散性良好.在波长为800 nm的激光激发下,观测到了上转换蓝光发射,其中包括波长为474 nm和479 nm的较强的荧光辐射(相应的跃迁为1G4→3H6)和波长位于450 nm的强度较弱的荧光发射(相应的跃迁为1D2→3F4).通过观测不同Yb³⁺离子浓度条件下共掺Tm³⁺/Yb³⁺∶LaF₃样品的荧光光谱,研究了Yb³⁺离子掺杂浓度对于Tm³⁺离子的荧光发射的影响,并探讨了产生这种现象的原因.研究结果显示,对于1G4→3H6跃迁产生的荧光发射(474 nm),当Yb³⁺离子浓度增大时,反向能量传递速率的增加导致了荧光强度的增大.然而,当Yb³⁺离子浓度增大到一定程度时,Yb³⁺离子激发态能级寿命的减少将引发荧光强度的下降.相比较而言,Yb³⁺离子的浓度的变化对于1D2→3F4跃迁产生的位于450 nm处荧光强度的影响较弱.     

含有格点势的一维Fibonacci链热传导性质的研究

用传输矩阵的方法,研究了格点势(on-site势)对一维Fibonacci链的热传导性质(透射系数、Lyapunov指数及热导率κ)的影响.研究结果表明:当固定原子质量比和力作用常数比时,随着格点势的增大,低频区域的透射系数减小,对应的Lyapunov指数增大,透射谱向高频方向移动.同时,格点势越大,同样大小的体系对应的κ越小,当格点势足够大时,κ会趋近零.在热导率κ对振动频率ω²作图中,κ呈现台阶式缓慢上升的趋势,且在高频     

单负材料一维光子晶体的透射谱特性

利用传输矩阵法研究了单负材料一维光子晶体(AB)m(ADBDB)n(AB)mA的透射谱,发现:透射谱中出现2个共振隧穿模,其位置和间距可由周期数m或n,以及介质层厚度d调节控制。改变m,会出现2个恒定间距的共振隧穿模;改变dA,共振隧穿模间距增大,且当dA≥25mm时,间距增大加剧;改变n,共振隧穿模逐渐趋于简并,当n≥6时,两隧穿模合二为一;改变dD,两共振隧穿模亦逐渐趋于简并,当dD≥20mm时,两隧穿模亦合二为一。这些特性可为利用光子晶体设计可调性高品质单通道、双通道滤波器提供参考。     

碰撞诱导振动能量转移：Cs2[B1∏u(v′=5)]+ N2→Cs2[B1∏u(v′=4，6)]+ N2

利用激光诱导荧光方法研究了Cs_2B~1Π_u[(v′=5)]与N2的碰撞能量转移.脉冲激光激发Cs_2基态至B~1Π_u[(v′=5)]态,池温保持在410 K,N_2气压在1.5×10~2 Pa～2.5×10~3 Pa之间变化.荧光中含有直接荧光和碰撞转移荧光成分,记录直接荧光B~1Πu(v′=5)→Χ~1∑~+_g(v″=0)的时间分辨强度.从荧光强度的对数值给出的直线斜率得到B~1Π_u(v′=5)→Χ~1∑~+_g(v″=0)的有效寿命,由Stern-Volmer方程,得到B~1Π_u(v′=5)→Χ~1∑~+_g(v″=0)的辐射寿命为(45±9)ns.B~1Π_u(v′=5)态与N_2碰撞的猝灭总截面为(9.8±1.5)×10~(-15)cm~2.用类似的方法得到B~1Π_u(v′=4,6)能级的辐射寿命.在不同的N_2气压下,测量B~1Π_u(v′=5,4,6)→Χ~1∑~+_g(v″=0)的时间积分荧光强度,首次得到v′=5→v′=4及v′=5→v′=6的碰撞转移截面分别为(3.9±0.8)×10~(-15) cm~2和(4.1±0.8)×10~(-15)cm~2.     

照度对测量三代微光像增强器MTF的影响分析

通过探讨像增强器MTF测试仪用光源的出射光照度对测量结果的影响,对透过测量狭缝的光强分布进行了分析.调节狭缝面的入射光照度,对不同照度作用下的调制传递函数进行了对比测量,经与微光像增强器的饱和输出亮度比较,得出:三代微光像增强器的MTF测试值随入射光照度分布呈抛物线分布,其最大值与微光像增强器的自动亮度控制特性有关.适当选择入射光照度,可确保被测像增强器既有足够的输出信噪比,而不进入饱和区域.     

Periodic orbits, damped transitions and targeted energy transfers in oscillators with vibro-impact attachments

We study complex damped and undamped dynamics and targeted energy transfers (TETs) in systems of coupled oscillators, consisting of single-degree-of-freedom primary linear oscillators (LOs) with vibro-impact attachments, acting, in essence, as vibro-impact nonlinear energy sinks (VI NESs). First, the complicated dynamics of such VI systems is demonstrated by computing the VI periodic orbits of underlying Hamiltonian systems and depicting them in appropriate frequency–energy plots (FEPs). Then, VI damped transitions and distinct ways of passive TETs from the linear oscillators to the VI attachments for various parameter ranges and initial conditions are investigated. As in the case of smooth stiffness nonlinearity [Y. Lee, G. Kerschen, A. Vakakis, P. Panagopoulos, L. Bergman, D.M. McFarland, Complicated dynamics of a linear oscillator with a light, essentially nonlinear attachment, Physica D 204 (1–2) (2005) 41–69], both fundamental and subharmonic TET can be realized in the VI systems under consideration. It is found that the most efficient mechanism for VI TET is through the excitation of highly energetic VI impulsive orbits (IOs), i.e., of periodic or quasiperiodic orbits corresponding to zero initial conditions except for the initial velocities of the linear oscillators. In contrast to NESs with smooth essential nonlinearities considered in previous works, VI NESs are capable of passively absorbing and locally dissipating significant portions of the energies of the primary systems to which they are attached, at fast time scale. This renders such devices suitable for applications, like seismic mitigation, where dissipation of vibration energy in the early, highly energetic regime of the motion is a critical requirement.     

An improved automatic time-of-flight picker for medical ultrasound tomography

Objective and motivationTime-of-flight (TOF) tomography used by a clinical ultrasound tomography device can efficiently and reliably produce sound-speed images of the breast for cancer diagnosis. Accurate picking of TOFs of transmitted ultrasound signals is extremely important to ensure high-resolution and high-quality ultrasound sound-speed tomograms. Since manually picking is time-consuming for large datasets, we developed an improved automatic TOF picker based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC), as described in this paper.MethodsWe make use of an approach termed multi-model inference (model averaging), based on the calculated AIC values, to improve the accuracy of TOF picks. By using multi-model inference, our picking method incorporates all the information near the TOF of ultrasound signals. Median filtering and reciprocal pair comparison are also incorporated in our AIC picker to effectively remove outliers.ResultsWe validate our AIC picker using synthetic ultrasound waveforms, and demonstrate that our automatic TOF picker can accurately pick TOFs in the presence of random noise with absolute amplitudes up to 80% of the maximum absolute signal amplitude. We apply the new method to 1160 in vivo breast ultrasound waveforms, and compare the picked TOFs with manual picks and amplitude threshold picks. The mean value and standard deviation between our TOF picker and manual picking are 0.4 μs and 0.29 μs, while for amplitude threshold picker the values are 1.02 μs and 0.9 μs, respectively. Tomograms for in vivo breast data with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (∼25 dB) and low SNR (∼18 dB) clearly demonstrate that our AIC picker is much less sensitive to the SNRs of the data, compared to the amplitude threshold picker.Discussion and conclusionsThe picking routine developed here is aimed at determining reliable quantitative values, necessary for adding diagnostic information to our clinical ultrasound tomography device - CURE. It has been successfully adopted into CURE, and allows us to generate such values reliably. We demonstrate that in vivo sound-speed tomograms with our TOF picks significantly improve the reconstruction accuracy and reduce image artifacts.     

Logarithmic asymptotics of solutions of the large deviation problem for the boltzmann equation with small transfer of momentum

For the Boltzmann equation with small transfer of momentum, we derive a system of nonlinear integral-differential equations describing the logarithmic asymptotics of the solution to the Cauchy problem in the domain at the distanceO(1) from the support of the initial condition.Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 64, No. 1, pp. 73–94, July, 1998.This research was partially supported by INTAS-RFBR under grant No. 95-91 in the case of the first author, and by INTAS under grant No. 96-0698 in the case of the second author.