Reduction of Yield and Income Risk Under Alternative Crop Insurance and Disaster Assistance Plans

This study compares the effectiveness of five crop insurance/disaster assistance plans: an individual farm yield insurance plan similar to the current FCIC multi-peril program ; two area yield insurance plans; a farm yield disaster assistance plan; and an area yield disaster assistance plan. These methods are examined for reduction in yield and gross income variability with and without participation in the government deficiency payment programs using farm-level yield data from 98 dryland wheat farms and 38 dryland corn farms in Kansas . Although individual farm yield insurance is complex, suffers from moral hazard and adverse selection problems, and is likely to be the most expensive to administer , it provides more yield and gross income risk reduction than any of the alternative insurance/disaster assistance plans.Crop Insurance, Crop Disaster Assistance, Risk, Wheat, Corn, Risk and Uncertainty,

On elliptic factors in real endoscopic transfer I

This paper is concerned with the structure of packets of representations and some refinements that are helpful in endoscopic transfer for real groups. It includes results on the structure and transfer of packets of limits of discrete series representations. It also reinterprets the Adams-Johnson transfer of certain nontempered representations via spectral analogues of the Langlands-Shelstad factors, thereby providing structure and transfer compatible with the associated transfer of orbital integrals. The results come from two simple tools introduced here. The first concerns a family of splittings of the algebraic group G under consideration; such a splitting is based on a fundamental maximal torus of G rather than a maximally split maximal torus. The second concerns a family of Levi groups attached to the dual data of a Langlands or an Arthur parameter for the group G. The introduced splittings provide explicit realizations of these Levi groups. The tools also apply to maps on stable conjugacy classes associated with the transfer of orbital integrals. In particular, they allow for a simpler version of the definitions of Kottwitz-Shelstad for twisted endoscopic transfer in certain critical cases. The paper prepares for spectral factors in twisted endoscopic transfer that are compatible in a certain sense with the standard factors discussed here. This compatibility is needed for Arthur's global theory. The twisted factors themselves will be defined in a separate paper.Comment: 48 pages, to appear in Progress in Mathematics, Volume 312, Birkha\"user. Also renumbering to match that of submitted versio

Dirac cohomology, elliptic representations and endoscopy

The first part (Sections 1-6) of this paper is a survey of some of the recent developments in the theory of Dirac cohomology, especially the relationship of Dirac cohomology with (g,K)-cohomology and nilpotent Lie algebra cohomology; the second part (Sections 7-12) is devoted to understanding the unitary elliptic representations and endoscopic transfer by using the techniques in Dirac cohomology. A few problems and conjectures are proposed for further investigations.Comment: This paper will appear in `Representations of Reductive Groups, in Honor of 60th Birthday of David Vogan', edited by M. Nervins and P. Trapa, published by Springe

Detection and Estimation Theory

Contains reports on theses completed and four research projects.Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U. S. Air Force) under Contract DA 28-043-AMC-02536(E

Flight Deck Technologies to Enable NextGen Low Visibility Surface Operations

Many key capabilities are being identified to enable Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), including the concept of Equivalent Visual Operations (EVO) . replicating the capacity and safety of today.s visual flight rules (VFR) in all-weather conditions. NASA is striving to develop the technologies and knowledge to enable EVO and to extend EVO towards a Better-Than-Visual operational concept. This operational concept envisions an .equivalent visual. paradigm where an electronic means provides sufficient visual references of the external world and other required flight references on flight deck displays that enable Visual Flight Rules (VFR)-like operational tempos while maintaining and improving safety of VFR while using VFR-like procedures in all-weather conditions. The Langley Research Center (LaRC) has recently completed preliminary research on flight deck technologies for low visibility surface operations. The work assessed the potential of enhanced vision and airport moving map displays to achieve equivalent levels of safety and performance to existing low visibility operational requirements. The work has the potential to better enable NextGen by perhaps providing an operational credit for conducting safe low visibility surface operations by use of the flight deck technologies

Development of a low-aspect ratio fin for flight research experiments

A second-generation flight test fixture, developed at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, offers a generic testbed for aerodynamic and fluid mechanics research. The new fixture, a low-aspect ratio vertical fin shape mounted on the centerline of an F-15B aircraft lower fuselage, is designed for flight research at Mach numbers up to 2.0. The new fixture is a composite structure with a modular configuration and removable components for functional flexibility. This report describes the multidisciplinary design and analysis approach used to develop the fixture. The approach integrates conservative assumptions with simple analysis techniques to minimize the time and cost associated with its development. Presented are the principal disciplines required for this effort, which include aerodynamics, structures, stability, and operational considerations. In addition, preliminary results from the first phase of flight testing are presented. Acceptable directional stability and flow quality are documented and show agreement with predictions. Future envelope expansion activities will minimize current limitations so that the fixture can be used for a wide variety of high-speed aerodynamic and fluid mechanics research experiments

Asymptotics and local constancy of characters of p-adic groups

In this paper we study quantitative aspects of trace characters $\Theta_\pi$ of reductive $p$-adic groups when the representation $\pi$ varies. Our approach is based on the local constancy of characters and we survey some other related results. We formulate a conjecture on the behavior of $\Theta_\pi$ relative to the formal degree of $\pi$, which we are able to prove in the case where $\pi$ is a tame supercuspidal. The proof builds on J.-K.~Yu's construction and the structure of Moy-Prasad subgroups.Comment: Proceedings of Simons symposium on the trace formul