THE FEASIBILITY OF A BOXED BEEF FUTURES CONTRACT: HEDGING WHOLESALE BEEF CUTS

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of a new futures contract for hedging wholesale transactions in the beef industry based on the USDA boxed beef cutout index (BBCO). The results suggest the live cattle futures contract is not an adequate tool to manage the price risk of wholesale meat transactions in the beef industry. However, a futures contract based on the BBCO index might provide considerably more opportunities for the hedging of wholesale meat cut prices. A pattern of improved hedging effectiveness at more distant horizons also appears to emerge for the individual cuts of meat using the conditional hedge procedures. These results may be of particular interest to members of the meat industry with longer planning horizons, and more diversified transactions.hedge ratio, hedging effectiveness, boxed-beef cutout, wholesale beef prices, Marketing,

Spurious deterministic seasonality

It is sometimes assumed that the R2 of a regression of a first-order differenced time series on seasonal dummy variables reflects the amount of seasonal fluctuations that can be explained by deterministic variation in the series. In this paper we show that neglecting the presence of seasonal unit roots may yield spuriously high values of this coefficient

Mitochondrial Diseases, Treatments, and FDA Orphan Legislation

Mitochondria originated during a key endosymbiotic event, when an enveloped bacterium or invasive parasite adjusted to its intracellular surroundings and formed the first eukaryotic cell. The symbiote evolved into a specialist organelle supplying the vast majority of a cell's ATP energy supply as well as regulation of cellular differentiation, cell death, the cell cycle, and cell growth. Due to its double layered membranes and separate DNA control systems, it has proved an elusive target for medicines, and is responsible for a host of diseases and may be a key contributor to the aging process. Mitochondrial disorders, though a diverse family ranging from cardiac diseases to a subset of Parkinson's syndrome, individually affect relatively small populations and may therefore fall under the purview of the Orphan Drug legislation enforced by the Food and Drug Administration. While no viable delivery mechanism for macromolecules larger than proteins currently exists for the inner mitochondrial matrix, several academic research papers suggest that the unique morphological challenges of mitochondria may be overcome. A survey of these approaches is presented within the context of mitochondrial structure, and a path towards economical drug development via the Orphan Drug system is proposed

Very Few RNA and DNA Sequence Differences in the Human Transcriptome

RNA editing is an important cellular process by which the nucleotides in a mature RNA transcript are altered to cause them to differ from the corresponding DNA sequence. While this process yields essential transcripts in humans and other organisms, it is believed to occur at a relatively small number of loci. The rarity of RNA editing has been challenged by a recent comparison of human RNA and DNA sequence data from 27 individuals, which revealed that over 10,000 human exonic sites appear to exhibit RNA-DNA differences (RDDs). Many of these differences could not have been caused by either of the two previously known human RNA editing mechanisms—ADAR-mediated A→G substitutions or APOBEC1-mediated C→U switches—suggesting that a previously unknown mechanism of RNA editing may be active in humans. Here, we reanalyze these data and demonstrate that genomic sequences exist in these same individuals or in the human genome that match the majority of RDDs. Our results suggest that the majority of these RDD events were observed due to accurate transcription of sequences paralogous to the apparently edited gene but differing at the edited site. In light of our results it seems prudent to conclude that if indeed an unknown mechanism is causing RDD events in humans, such events occur at a much lower frequency than originally proposed

Unusually Divergent Ubiquitin Genes and Proteins in Plasmodium Species

Ubiquitin is an extraordinarily highly conserved 76 amino acid protein encoded by three different types of gene, where the primary translation products are fusions either of ubiquitin with one of two ribosomal proteins (RPs) or of multiple ubiquitin monomers from head to tail. Here, we investigate the evolution of ubiquitin genes in mammalian malaria parasites (Plasmodium species). The ubiquitin encoded by the RPS27a fusion gene is highly divergent, as previously found in a variety of protists. However, we also find that two other forms of divergent ubiquitin sequence, each previously thought to be extremely rare, have arisen recently during the divergence of Plasmodium subgenera. On two occasions, in two distinct lineages, the ubiquitin encoded by the RPL40 fusion gene has rapidly diverged. In addition, in one of these lineages, the polyubiquitin genes have undergone a single codon insertion, previously considered a unique feature of Rhizaria. There has been disagreement whether the multiple ubiquitin coding repeats within a genome exhibit concerted evolution or undergo a birth-and-death process; the Plasmodium ubiquitin genes show clear signs of concerted evolution, including the spread of this codon insertion to multiple repeats within the polyubiquitin gene.</p

Evidence-Based Pediatric Outcome Predictors to Guide the Allocation of Critical Care Resources in a Mass Casualty Event

Objective: ICU resources may be overwhelmed by a mass casualty event, triggering a conversion to Crisis Standards of Care in which critical care support is diverted away from patients least likely to benefit, with the goal of improving population survival. We aimed to devise a Crisis Standards of Care triage allocation scheme specifically for children. Design: A triage scheme is proposed in which patients would be divided into those requiring mechanical ventilation at PICU presentation and those not, and then each group would be evaluated for probability of death and for predicted duration of resource consumption, specifically, duration of PICU length of stay and mechanical ventilation. Children will be excluded from PICU admission if their mortality or resource utilization is predicted to exceed predetermined levels (“high risk”), or if they have a low likelihood of requiring ICU support (“low risk”). Children entered into the Virtual PICU Performance Systems database were employed to develop prediction equations to assign children to the exclusion categories using logistic and linear regression. Machine Learning provided an alternative strategy to develop a triage scheme independent from this process. Setting: One hundred ten American PICUs Subjects: One hundred fifty thousand records from the Virtual PICU database. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: The prediction equations for probability of death had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve more than 0.87. The prediction equation for belonging to the low-risk category had lower discrimination. R2 for the prediction equations for PICU length of stay and days of mechanical ventilation ranged from 0.10 to 0.18. Machine learning recommended initially dividing children into those mechanically ventilated versus those not and had strong predictive power for mortality, thus independently verifying the triage sequence and broadly verifying the algorithm. Conclusion: An evidence-based predictive tool for children is presented to guide resource allocation during Crisis Standards of Care, potentially improving population outcomes by selecting patients likely to benefit from short-duration ICU interventions. (Pediatr Crit Care Med 2015; XX:00–00) Key Words: intensive care unit length of stay; intensive care unit mortality; mass casualty; palliative care; pandemic preparedness; triag