Investigation of parameters of new MAPD-3NM silicon photomultipliers

In the presented work, the parameters of a new MAPD-3NM-II photodiode with buried pixel structure manufactured in cooperation with Zecotek Company are investigated. The photon detection efficiency, gain, capacitance and gamma-ray detection performance of photodiodes are studied. The SPECTRIG MAPD is used to measure the parameters of the MAPD-3NM-II and scintillation detector based on it. The obtained results show that the newly developed MAPD-3NM-II photodiode outperforms its counterparts in most parameters and it can be successfully applied in space application, medicine, high-energy physics and security.

Performance Analysis of a Floating Photovoltaic System and Estimation of the Evaporation Losses Reduction

Our research aims to achieve dual-positive effects in the presented study by raising photovoltaic (PV) panels over the water surface. With this, target experiments were primarily conducted to evaluate the efficiency increments of the PV panel while reducing its operating temperature through passive convective cooling obtained by raising it over water. The following objective was to estimate the reduction in water evaporation due to the shading effect induced by the panel placed inside the same basin. The performance of two PV panels was analyzed, one used for tests, the other as a reference. The characteristic curves were determined under the local environmental conditions of Cagliari, Italy. The true temperature reduction and efficiency gain calculations of panel P1 due to water cooling was achieved via the measured temperatures and calculated efficiencies of panel P2 at environmental conditions. The water height inside the basin was constantly monitored and maintained at approximately 7.5 cm below panel P1, which covered about 17% of the total water surface area. The presence of water underneath P1 leads to its efficiency increment on average by 2.7% (absolute) and about 17.22% (relative). At the same time, temperature of panel P1 dropped by 2.7 °C on average. The comparative water evaporation study conducted with and without P1 inside the basin showed a 30% reduction in water evaporation.

A Novel Cooperative Network Using Down-link Non-orthogonal Multiple Access Scheme

A novel downlink cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (DC-NOMA) scheme is proposed in this paper to achieve higher performance in the spectral efficiency compared to the classical NOMA schemes. The communication system consists of one base station and two users (e.g., strong user and weak user). In down link phase, the base station transmits a superimposed signal to both users, and in the cooperative phase, the weak user sends its decoded message to the strong user. The main idea is how the weak user can help the strong user to improve the performance of both users. This occurs by enabling the weak user to perform a cooperative transmission with the strong user during the cooperative phase. The outage probability, outage throughput, and diversity order are derived and analyzed. Numerical results are provided to show that the spectral efficiency gain achieved through our proposed scheme is better than the conventional cooperative NOMA schemes.

Second-Order Least Squares Estimation in Nonlinear Time Series Models with ARCH Errors

Many financial and economic time series exhibit nonlinear patterns or relationships. However, most statistical methods for time series analysis are developed for mean-stationary processes that require transformation, such as differencing of the data. In this paper, we study a dynamic regression model with nonlinear, time-varying mean function, and autoregressive conditionally heteroscedastic errors. We propose an estimation approach based on the first two conditional moments of the response variable, which does not require specification of error distribution. Strong consistency and asymptotic normality of the proposed estimator is established under strong-mixing condition, so that the results apply to both stationary and mean-nonstationary processes. Moreover, the proposed approach is shown to be superior to the commonly used quasi-likelihood approach and the efficiency gain is significant when the (conditional) error distribution is asymmetric. We demonstrate through a real data example that the proposed method can identify a more accurate model than the quasi-likelihood method.

Rational Heat Schemes Using Condensing Boilers in Local Heat Supply Systems

Within the framework of this publication, thermal diagrams of autonomous heat supply systems using condensing heat generators are considered. The insignificant Russian experience of using small condensation boilers in residential construction shows that it is often used to simply replace traditional equipment with condensation technology in existing (or traditionally used) heat schemes, for example, with protection of the boiler from “cold return” by recirculating heat carrier or installing a hydraulic regulator. The consequence of this is almost completely lost the effect of the use of condensing boilers. At the same time, even using the heating temperature schedule of quality regulation 80-60°C and applying water heating to the DHW target up to 45°C you can achieve the effect of the boiler operation in the condensation mode, depending on the construction area, up to 75% of the total working time per year, generating about 70% of thermal energy in the annual cycle. However, it must be borne in mind that the efficiency of the condensing boiler is determined by the part of the latent heat of water vapor in the combustion products, which can be obtained with partial condensation. If this part is small, for example, when cooling the flue gases to 50-45°C (on gas), then the efficiency gain is only 1-3%.

Scaling knowledge based virtual worlds: An efficiency gain through multi-core architectures

This paper investigates the impact of sequential content load algorithm on regional transfer in OpenSimulator framework. It, then, presents an abstract parallel content load algorithm, which is implemented using the basic parallel for and chunk partitioning constructs to exploit the parallelism of multi-core architectures. This work used a set of five example virtual worlds content to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed work and its impact on the reallocation process of regions in OpenSimulator. Simulation results revealed that the implementation using parallel for reduced the timings by 47% to 57% while the implementation using chunk partitioning minimized it by 63% to 72%. Time impact on regional transfer was reduced by 39% to 51% using parallel for while 52% to 66% using chunk partitioning.

Downfolding the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model

Charge-density waves are responsible for symmetry-breaking displacements of atoms and concomitant changes in the electronic structure. Linear response theories, in particular density-functional perturbation theory, provide a way to study the effect of displacements on both the total energy and the electronic structure based on a single ab initio calculation. In downfolding approaches, the electronic system is reduced to a smaller number of bands, allowing for the incorporation of additional correlation and environmental effects on these bands. However, the physical contents of this downfolded model and its potential limitations are not always obvious. Here, we study the potential-energy landscape and electronic structure of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, where all relevant quantities can be evaluated analytically. We compare the exact results at arbitrary displacement with diagrammatic perturbation theory both in the full model and in a downfolded effective single-band model, which gives an instructive insight into the properties of downfolding. An exact reconstruction of the potential-energy landscape is possible in a downfolded model, which requires a dynamical electron-biphonon interaction. The dispersion of the bands upon atomic displacement is also found correctly, where the downfolded model by construction only captures spectral weight in the target space. In the SSH model, the electron-phonon coupling mechanism involves exclusively hybridization between the low- and high-energy bands and this limits the computational efficiency gain of downfolded models.

A Structural Model of a Multitasking Salesforce: Incentives, Private Information, and Job Design

This paper broadens the focus of empirical research on salesforce management to include multitasking settings with multidimensional incentives, where salespeople have private information about customers. This allows us to ask novel substantive questions around multidimensional incentive design and job design while managing the costs and benefits of private information. To this end, the paper introduces the first structural model of a multitasking salesforce in response to multidimensional incentives. The model also accommodates (i) dynamic intertemporal tradeoffs in effort choice across the tasks and (ii) salesperson’s private information about customers. We apply our model in a rich empirical setting in microfinance and illustrate how to address various identification and estimation challenges. We extend two-step estimation methods used for unidimensional compensation plans by embedding a flexible machine learning (random forest) model in the first-stage multitasking policy function estimation within an iterative procedure that accounts for salesperson heterogeneity and private information. Estimates reveal two latent segments of salespeople—a hunter segment that is more efficient in loan acquisition and a farmer segment that is more efficient in loan collection. Counterfactuals reveal heterogeneous effects: hunters’ private information hurts the firm as they engage in adverse selection; farmers’ private information helps the firm as they use it to better collect loans. The payoff complementarity induced by multiplicative incentive aggregation softens adverse specialization by hunters relative to additive aggregation but hurts performance among farmers. Overall, task specialization in job design for hunters (acquisition) and farmers (collection) hurts the firm as adverse selection harm overwhelms efficiency gain. This paper was accepted by Duncan Simester, marketing.