We propose a direct and robust method for quantifying the variance risk premium on financial assets. We theoretically and numerically show that the risk-neutral expected value of the return variance, also known as the variance swap rate, is well approximated by the value of a particular portfolio of options. Ignoring the small approximation error, the difference between the realized variance an...

The discussion of "error" has gained momentum in forensic science in the wake of the Daubert guidelines and has intensified with the National Academy of Sciences' Report. Error has many different meanings, and too often, forensic practitioners themselves as well as the courts misunderstand scientific error and statistical error rates, often confusing them with practitioner error (or mistakes). ...

We report on the development of a compact commercial instrument for measuring carotenoids in skin tissue. The instrument uses two light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for dual-wavelength excitation and four photomultiplier tubes for multichannel detection. Bandpass filters are used to select the excitation detection wavelengths. The f1.3 optical system has high optical throughput and single photon sens...

A program to develop calibration services for colormeasuring instruments has been established recently at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to address commercial and industrial needs for higher-accuracy measurements of displays. In particular, a reference spectroradiometer has been built with the goal of enabling measurements of displays with the smallest possible uncert...

Remote-sensing datasets obtained by each instrument aboard Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE) and Chandrayaan-1 have not been compared directly, and the characteristics of each instrument’s data, which may reflect the observation conditions of each instrument and/or residual error in instrument calibration, are unknown. This paper describes the basic characteristics of the data der...

BACKGROUND New health status survey instruments are often described by their psychometric (measurement) properties, such as Validity, Reliability, Effect Size, and Responsiveness. For cluster-randomized trials, another important statistic is the Intraclass Correlation (ICC) for the instrument within clusters. Studies using better instruments can be performed with smaller sample sizes, but bette...

We have developed an instrument for monitoring real-time PCR using fluorescence anisotropy, enabling an assay chemistry in which the fluorescence from a labeled primer elucidates amplification. The instrument holds the sample temperature constant to within +/-0.03 degrees C during measurement in the extension phase of each PCR cycle and achieves 0.116 mP FA resolution. Primer conjugation with A...

We describe regularized methods for image reconstruction and focus on the question of hyperparameter and instrument parameter estimation, i.e. unsupervised and myopic problems. We developed a Bayesian framework that is based on the posterior density for all unknown quantities, given the observations. This density is explored by a Markov Chain Monte-Carlo sampling technique based on a Gibbs loop...

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) constrains instrument motions to 4 DOF by precluding lateral motion at the incision. Robotic MIS systems can interpose arbitrary mappings between the surgeon’s motions at the master controller and the motions of instrument tips within the patient’s body. Our goal was to find the interface that was easiest to learn. We investigated the effects of different coordi...

The paper is concerned with a new instrument, nanobalance, measuring thrust and noise of space micro-thrusters in the range 0-1 mN with submicronewton accuracy. Low-noise micro-thrusters will be essential for upcoming "drag-free" space missions like GOCE, SMART-2, LISA, and Darwin. Nanobalance departs from traditional thrust measuring concepts so as to exploit sensitivity of in-vacuum Fabry-Pér...