The study of the Earth’s electromagnetic fields prior to the occurrence of strong seismic events has repeatedly revealed cases were transient anomalies, often deemed as possible earthquake precursors, were observed on electromagnetic field recordings of surface, atmosphere and near space carried out measurements. In an attempt to understand the nature of such signals several models have been pr...

In this work we present a solution for the transmission of H.263 bitstream over error prone channels. The significance of each H.263 syntactical element has been investigated. This allows designing Equal (EEP) and Unequal Error Protection (UEP) schemes. By using a joint source-channel coding scheme we achieved video PSNR improvements over 20 dB.

The paper deals with strategies for optimizing the transmission of JPEG2000 coded images over a MIMO quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel, by exploiting different available MIMO STBC (Space Time Block Codes), as well as the image content to be transmitted. The aim is to propose a link adaptation scheme based on the variable radio channel’s conditions, by establishing an UEP (Unequal Error Prote...

This paper presents a quantitative analysis of prepayment data based on the historical prepayment experience of two banks in Hong Kong. One of the most distinctive features of mortgages as an asset class is the existence of prepayment risk. Research in prepayment has matured into a coherent body of work that has a sound theoretical framework and consistent empirical validation. Previous researc...

Brazil has adopted price-level indexation of financial contracts to a much greater degree than any other country. Indexation was adopted during the mid-1960s, following a period of extremely high and volatile inflation, in response to virtual stagnation in financial markets and a host of related problems. Although there is considerable controversy over the ex ~nt to which indexation has contrib...

Modeling energy demand at local scales (district, city or region) becomes more and more relevant in view of massive implementation of energy efficiency actions and energy solutions based on renewable. For instance, the knowledge of energy needs for space heating, cooling or domestic hot water production enables to imagine solutions adapted to these scales, either to reduce the needs or to meet ...

4-{[4-({(3R)-1-Butyl-3-[(R)-cyclohexyl(hydroxy)methyl]-2,5dioxo-1,4,9-triazaspiro[5.5]undec-9-yl}methyl)phenyl]oxy}benzoic acid hydrochloride (873140) is a potent noncompetitive allosteric antagonist of the CCR5 receptor (pK(B) = 8.6 +/- 0.07; 95% CI, 8.5 to 8.8) with concomitantly potent antiviral effects for HIV-1. In this article, the receptor-based mechanism of action of 873140 is compared ...

The primary concern of this research is to reassess the British foreign policy, focusing on its military withdrawal in 1971 from the Persian Gulf and its return in 2014. The Persian Gulf, as a region of geo-strategic importance, has always been at the center of attention for the UK and other great world powers. This study will therefore attempt to answer the following question: what are the rea...

Acid rain has been a big problem for urban area during recent decades. Acid rain comes from high concentration of air pollutant, including man made or artificial and natural, in the atmosphere. Mashhad, as the biggest religious town in Iran, has also been imposed with this problem. In this investigation the samples of rains during autumn 2002 and spring 2003 are analyzed. The results showed tha...

In this paper, the Turbo-based unequal protection mechanism for reliable transmission of speech signal is studied. In order to obtain the hierarchical importance regularity of information bits for each sampling point, the changing value caused by the variation of each bit in 8-bit folded code of pulse-code modulation is first calculated. According to the obtained hierarchical importance of info...