Foreign exchange volatility is priced in equities

This paper finds that standard asset pricing models fail to explain the significantly positive delta hedging errors from writing options on foreign exchange futures. Foreign exchange volatility does influence stock returns, however. The volatility of the JPY/USD exchange rate predicts the time series of stock returns and is priced in the cross-section of stock returns. Foreign exchange volatility risk might be priced because of its relation to foreign exchange level risk. ; Earlier title: Is foreign exchange delta hedging risk priced?Foreign exchange ; Assets (Accounting) ; Prices

Torque Ripple Sensor and Mitigation Mechanism

A torque ripple sensor and method for torque ripple sensing and/or mitigation. A piezoelectric sensor is positioned relative to a motor so that torque fluctuations due to torque ripple of the motor are transmitted to the sensor, resulting in strain of a piezoelectric element. A resulting signal can be amplified and conditioned for determining a magnitude of the torque ripple and/or fed into a feedback loop for applying current control or a counter-torque to the motor for torque ripple mitigation

Utilization of a Piezoelectric Polymer to Sense Harmonics of Electromagnetic Torque

In this paper, the use of a piezoelectric polymer material to measure the harmonics of electromagnetic torque produced by a permanent magnet synchronous machine is described. The advantages of the polymer include low cost, durability, and flexibility. In addition, wide-bandwidth sensors are relatively easy to design and couple to drive system hardware for harmonic evaluation or to use in feedback-based control. To illustrate the use of the polymer, the electrical and mechanical properties of three sensors are described. The results of time-domain simulation and hardware experiments are used to validate that the voltage obtained from the sensors is linearly related to the torque ripple produced by the machine

Measurement and Control of Torque Ripple-Induced Frame Torsional Vibration in a Surface Mount Permanent Magnet Machine

A sensor to measure the stator torsional vibration due to torque ripple produced by a surface mount permanent magnet machine is first described. The sensor is relatively inexpensive and is straight forward to incorporate into a drive system. Experiments are performed to validate that the voltage produced by the sensor is linearly related to torque ripple amplitude. Closed-loop controllers are then described that adjust the stator current harmonics applied to the machine to achieve a commanded average torque while mitigating measured torsional vibration. Simulation and experimental results are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the control techniques

Implications of extinction due to meteoritic smoke in the upper stratosphere

Recent optical observations of aerosols in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere show significant amounts of extinction at altitudes above about 40 km where the stratospheric sulfate aerosol layer ends. Recent modeling of this region reveals that meteoritic smoke settling from the mesosphere and its interaction with the upper part of the sulfate aerosol layer is the origin of the observed extinction. Extinction in this region has major implications for the interpretation and analysis of several kinds of aerosol data (satellite and lidar). We compare observations from the SAGE II satellite and from NOAA's lidar located at Mauna Loa, Hawaii to extinction profiles derived from the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) coupled with the Community Aerosol and Radiation Model for Atmospheres (CARMA). Our results show that a major source of extinction exists in the region above about 30 km that must be addressed by all remote sensing instruments that have traditionally used the stratosphere above about 30 km as an aerosol free region to estimate the molecular component of their total extinction. It is also shown that meteoritic smoke not only contributes to but also becomes the dominant source of aerosol extinction above 35 km and poleward of 30 degrees in latitude, as well as above 40 km in the tropics. After addressing the concerns described here, current and past observations of this region could be reanalyzed to further our understanding of meteoritic dust in the upper stratosphere

Design and development of a field-deployable single-molecule detector (SMD) for the analysis of molecular markers

Single-molecule detection (SMD) has demonstrated some attractive benefits for many types of biomolecular analyses including enhanced processing speed by eliminating processing steps, elimination of ensemble averaging and single-molecule sensitivity. However, it's wide spread use has been hampered by the complex instrumentation required for its implementation when using fluorescence as the readout modality. We report herein a simple and compact fluorescence single-molecule instrument that is straightforward to operate and consisted of fiber optics directly coupled to a microfluidic device. The integrated fiber optics served as waveguides to deliver the laser excitation light to the sample and collecting the resulting emission, simplifying the optical requirements associated with traditional SMD instruments by eliminating the need for optical alignment and simplification of the optical train. Additionally, the use of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser and a single photon avalanche diode serving as the excitation source and photon transducer, respectively, as well as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) integrated into the processing electronics assisted in reducing the instrument footprint. This small footprint SMD platform was tested using fluorescent microspheres and single AlexaFluor 660 molecules to determine the optimal operating parameters and system performance. As a demonstration of the utility of this instrument for biomolecular analyses, molecular beacons (MBs) were designed to probe bacterial cells for the gene encoding Gram-positive species. The ability to monitor biomarkers using this simple and portable instrument will have a number of important applications, such as strain-specific detection of pathogenic bacteria or the molecular diagnosis of diseases requiring rapid turn-around-times directly at the point-of-use.close5

Volcanic Contribution to Decadal Changes in Tropospheric Temperature

Despite continued growth in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, global mean surface and tropospheric temperatures have shown slower warming since 1998 than previously. Possible explanations for the slow-down include internal climate variability, external cooling influences and observational errors. Several recent modelling studies have examined the contribution of early twenty-first-century volcanic eruptions to the muted surface warming. Here we present a detailed analysis of the impact of recent volcanic forcing on tropospheric temperature, based on observations as well as climate model simulations. We identify statistically significant correlations between observations of stratospheric aerosol optical depth and satellite-based estimates of both tropospheric temperature and short-wave fluxes at the top of the atmosphere. We show that climate model simulations without the effects of early twenty-first-century volcanic eruptions overestimate the tropospheric warming observed since 1998. In two simulations with more realistic volcanic influences following the 1991 Pinatubo eruption, differences between simulated and observed tropospheric temperature trends over the period 1998 to 2012 are up to 15% smaller, with large uncertainties in the magnitude of the effect. To reduce these uncertainties, better observations of eruption-specific properties of volcanic aerosols are needed, as well as improved representation of these eruption-specific properties in climate model simulations

Structure and mechanics of supporting cells in the guinea pig organ of Corti.

The mechanical properties of the mammalian organ of Corti determine its sensitivity to sound frequency and intensity, and the structure of supporting cells changes progressively with frequency along the cochlea. From the apex (low frequency) to the base (high frequency) of the guinea pig cochlea inner pillar cells decrease in length incrementally from 75-55 µm whilst the number of axial microtubules increases from 1,300-2,100. The respective values for outer pillar cells are 120-65 µm and 1,500-3,000. This correlates with a progressive decrease in the length of the outer hair cells from >100 µm to 20 µm. Deiters'cell bodies vary from 60-50 µm long with relatively little change in microtubule number. Their phalangeal processes reflect the lengths of outer hair cells but their microtubule numbers do not change systematically. Correlations between cell length, microtubule number and cochlear location are poor below 1 kHz. Cell stiffness was estimated from direct mechanical measurements made previously from isolated inner and outer pillar cells. We estimate that between 200 Hz and 20 kHz axial stiffness, bending stiffness and buckling limits increase, respectively,~3, 6 and 4 fold for outer pillar cells, ~2, 3 and 2.5 fold for inner pillar cells and ~7, 20 and 24 fold for the phalangeal processes of Deiters'cells. There was little change in the Deiters'cell bodies for any parameter. Compensating for effective cell length the pillar cells are likely to be considerably stiffer than Deiters'cells with buckling limits 10-40 times greater. These data show a clear relationship between cell mechanics and frequency. However, measurements from single cells alone are insufficient and they must be combined with more accurate details of how the multicellular architecture influences the mechanical properties of the whole organ