THE VALUE OF USDA OUTLOOK INFORMATION: AN INVESTIGATION USING EVENT STUDY ANALYSIS

The economic value of public situation and outlook information has long been a subject of debate. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic value of USDA WASDE reports in corn and soybean markets. The investigation is based on event study analysis, with the "events" consisting of the release of all monthly USDA WASDE reports for corn and soybeans from 1985 through 1998. The WASDE reports during the sample period are divided into two groups: one that represents "pure" outlook information and one that represents a "mix" of situation and outlook information. The statistical tests can be placed into two categories: mean price reaction and volatility reaction. Overall, the results suggest that USDA outlook information has a significant impact in corn and soybean markets. The most notable impact is found in options markets, where implied volatility consistently declines after the release of WASDE reports. For the group of monthly reports containing only outlook information, implied volatility for both corn and soybeans was lower on the report day than on the previous day about 60 percent of the time. The difference in mean implied volatility on the day of the report and on the previous day for both corn and soybeans was significantly different from zero. The average magnitude of the drop was between about two- and three-tenths of a percentage point (of annualized implied volatility), which would appear to be an economically non-trivial decrease. Hence, it can be concluded that USDA outlook information reduces the uncertainty of market participants' expected distribution of future prices. This reduction in market uncertainty is unambiguously welfare-enhancing.Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

THE ROLE OF MARKET ADVISORY SERVICES IN CROP MARKETING AND RISK MANAGEMENT: A PRELIMINARY REPORT OF SURVEY RESULTS

The purpose of this report is to provide a preliminary summary of the results of a survey designed to help answer the questions about subscriber use of market advisory services. Importantly, this research is a cooperative partnership between the University of Illinois and the Data Transmission Network. The survey participants are commercial producers of major grain, oilseed and fiber crops, representing important agricultural areas of the US. The survey has three broad objectives, including 1) how US producers perceive the riskiness of various aspects of farming; 2) how US producers manage farm business risk, and 3) how US producers select and use market advisory services.Marketing, Risk and Uncertainty,

The Impact of Situation and Outlook Information in Corn and Soybean Futures Markets: Evidence from WASDE Reports

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of situation and outlook information from World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) in corn and soybean futures markets over the period 1985 to 2006. Results indicate that WASDE reports containing National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) crop production estimates and other domestic and international situation and outlook information have the largest impact; causing return variance on report sessions to be 7.38 times greater than normal return variance in corn futures and 6.87 times greater than normal return variance in soybean futures. WASDE reports limited to international situation information and domestic and international outlook information have a smaller impact. The results show that the impact of WASDE reports has increased over time.corn, market impact, outlook, situation, soybeans, WASDE, Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries, Financial Economics, Q100, Q110, Q130,

Pair Plasma Dominance in the Parsec-Scale Relativistic Jet of 3C345

We investigate whether a pc-scale jet of 3C345 is dominated by a normal plasma or an electron-positron plasma. We present a general condition that a jet component becomes optically thick for synchrotron self-absorption, by extending the method originally developed by Reynolds et al. The general condition gives a lower limit of the electron number density, with the aid of the surface brightness condition, which enables us to compute the magnetic field density. Comparing the lower limit with another independent constraint for the electron density that is deduced from the kinetic luminosity, we can distinguish the matter content. We apply the procedure to the five components of 3C345 (C2, C3, C4, C5, and C7) of which angular diameters and radio fluxes at the peak frequencies were obtainable from literature. Evaluating the representative values of Doppler beaming factors by their equipartition values, we find that all the five components are likely dominated by an electron-positron plasma. The conclusion does not depend on the lower cutoff energy of the power-law distribution of radiating particles.Comment: 17 page

Controls of extreme isotopic enrichment in modern microbialites and associated abiogenic carbonates

Microbialites and abiogenic carbonates of the closed-basin hypersaline lake Laguna Negra (Catamarca Province, Argentina) are highly enriched in both 13C and 18O. These carbonates precipitate in the zone of recharge where lake water mixes with groundwater. We examined the processes controlling the isotopic evolution of input waters in order to better interpret the isotopic compositions of the carbonates. Large enrichments of 13C in dissolved inorganic carbon and 18O in water occur as input groundwater chemically evolves. These enrichments can be explained through the abiotic processes of water-equilibration, evaporation, degassing, and carbonate precipitation. The 13C and 18O contents of lake carbonates are consistent with equilibrium precipitation from lake water indicating that the currently ongoing processes can explain the isotopic patterns observed in carbonates. Isotopic compositions of these microbialites are largely unrelated to the biological processes controlling microbialite formation – a pattern that may be generalizable to other settings. However, the isotopic compositions of these microbialites record information about their depositional environment.Fil: Beeler, Scott R.. Washington University in St. Louis; Estados UnidosFil: Gomez, Fernando Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra; ArgentinaFil: Bradley, Alexander. Washington University in St. Louis; Estados Unido

Principios Éticos para Amarnos a sí Mismo

Según Francisco De Roux nuestro país no construyó una ética civil, pues la moral católica, que recibimos por generaciones, se confundía, identificaba y correspondía con la ética ciudadana. Nuestras manifestaciones públicas, nuestra celebración de las fiestas religiosas era al mismo tiempo la celebración de las cosechas de nuestros campesinos. Y cuando considerábamos nuestro país al "Sagrado Corazón" lo hacíamos con la presencia de las instituciones civiles y militares. En Colombia se identifican tres morales, a saber: La vieja moral católica, reguladora de la sociedad tradicional. La moral capitalista del éxito, individualista, competitiva y acumulativa. La incipiente moral democrática, participativa y pluralista, que está en la base de nuestra Constitución Política de 1991. Antes obramos obedeciendo a la iglesia y a los partidos políticos, y la voz que se escuchaba era igual tanto en la familia como en la escuela. Vivíamos en un país esencialmente rural, en el cual se fueron dando grandes cambios económicos y una modernización a medias que fueron rompiendo las redes de solidaridad tradicionales y construyendo nuevas formas de convivencia ciudadana pero no lo suficientemente sólidas para reconocer al otro como diferente; En este proceso tampoco se fortaleció la Nación-Estado. Todos estos fenómenos unidos a nuestra historia de violencia acumulada fue preparando el camino para que cualquier comportamiento moral fuera permitido, desde la corrupción hasta la generalización de la violencia, el asesinato y la barbarie de las masacres

Bright Type IIP Supernovae in Low-Metallicity Galaxies

We present measurements of the pseudo-equivalent width of the Fe II,$\lambda$5018 absorption feature in the spectra of 12 Type IIP supernovae (SNe II) in low luminosity ($M>-17$) dwarf host galaxies. The Fe II,$\lambda$5018 line has been suggested to be a useful diagnostic of the metallicity of the SN progenitor stars. The events in our sample were discovered photometrically by the Pan-STARRS Survey for Transients (PSST), and classified spectroscopically by us. Comparing our sample to 24 literature SNe II, we find that those in low luminosity hosts have significantly weaker Fe II features, with a probability of $10^{-4}$ that the two samples are drawn from the same distribution. Since low-mass galaxies are expected to contain a lower fraction of metals, our findings are consistent with a metallicity dependence for Fe II,$\lambda$5018, and therefore support the use of this line as a metallicity probe, in agreement with a number of recent works. In addition, we find that the SNe in faint (low-metallicity) hosts may be more luminous on average than those in the literature sample, suggesting possible physical differences between Type IIP SNe at low and high metallicity. However, accurate determinations of host galaxy extinction will be needed to quantify such an effect.Comment: Accepted in ApJ

UC-263 IT4983 Cybersecurity Capstone

For the Cybersecurity capstone project, our team was given a webserver and website for the company Akwaaba. We were tasked to fix all vulnerabilities, keep the server up to date, and help maintain the site with uptime being the priority. After the first two milestones were complete, we were to attempt to hack another team’s server while they attempted to do the same to us. When the attack phase began on Wednesday 10/26, our team discovered the other team had not changed any of their original passwords, so we took control within thirty minutes and took it down soon after. As of 10/30, their site is still down while we haven’t noticed any issues with our own. The attack phase has two weeks to go (ending on 11/14), so our group is actively monitoring both servers. Should the other team recover their server, we will make attempts to get back in and shut it down again. In the meantime, we have full confidence in our own server and do not anticipate any downtime