A NOTE ON THE FACTORS AFFECTING CORN BASIS RELATIONSHIPS

Empirical tests were made of components of the corn basis in the U.S. utilizing a general theory of intertemporal price relationships for storable commodities. These tests showed that the basis consists of a risk premium, a speculative component, and a maturity basis apart from other factors such as storage costs for storable commodities. The results provide insights into factors affecting basis patterns for corn.Demand and Price Analysis,

Influence of field-like torque in synchronization of spin torque oscillators

The magnetization dynamics of two parallelly coupled spin torque oscillators, destabilization of steady states and removal of multistability, are investigated by taking into account the influence of field-like torque. It is shown that the existence of such torque can cancel the effect of damping and can, therefore, cause the oscillators to exhibit synchronized oscillations in response to direct current. Further, our results show that the presence of field-like torque enhances the power and Q-factor of the synchronized oscillations. The validity of the above results is confirmed by numerical and analytical studies based on the stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert-Slonczewski equation.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Accepted for Publication in IEEE Transactions on Magnetic

Jet stability, dynamics and energy transport

Relativistic jets carry energy and particles from compact to very large scales compared with their initial radius. This is possible due to their remarkable collimation despite their intrinsic unstable nature. In this contribution, I review the state-of-the-art of our knowledge on instabilities growing in those jets and several stabilising mechanisms that may give an answer to the question of the stability of jets. In particular, during the last years we have learned that the limit imposed by the speed of light sets a maximum amplitude to the instabilities, contrary to the case of classical jets. On top of this stabilising mechanism, the fast growth of unstable modes with small wavelengths prevents the total disruption and entrainment of jets. I also review several non-linear processes that can have an effect on the collimation of extragalactic and microquasar jets. Within those, I remark possible causes for the decollimation and decelleration of FRI jets, as opposed to the collimated FRII's. Finally, I give a summary of the main reasons why jets can propagate through such long distances.Comment: For the proceedings of High Energy Phenomena in Relativistic Outflows III (HEPRO III, IJMPD, accepted). 12 page

Simultaneous SNP identification in association studies with missing data

Association testing aims to discover the underlying relationship between genotypes (usually Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, or SNPs) and phenotypes (attributes, or traits). The typically large data sets used in association testing often contain missing values. Standard statistical methods either impute the missing values using relatively simple assumptions, or delete them, or both, which can generate biased results. Here we describe the Bayesian hierarchical model BAMD (Bayesian Association with Missing Data). BAMD is a Gibbs sampler, in which missing values are multiply imputed based upon all of the available information in the data set. We estimate the parameters and prove that updating one SNP at each iteration preserves the ergodic property of the Markov chain, and at the same time improves computational speed. We also implement a model selection option in BAMD, which enables potential detection of SNP interactions. Simulations show that unbiased estimates of SNP effects are recovered with missing genotype data. Also, we validate associations between SNPs and a carbon isotope discrimination phenotype that were previously reported using a family based method, and discover an additional SNP associated with the trait. BAMD is available as an R-package from http://cran.r-project.org/package=BAMDComment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS516 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org