Is Futures Market Mitigating Price Risk: An Exploration of Wheat and Maize Market

Instability of commodity prices has always been a major concern of the producers as well as the consumers in an agriculture-dominated country like India. Farmers in a bid to avert the price risk often tend to go for distress sale and thereby reduce the potential returns. In order to cope up with this problem, futures trading has emerged as a viable option for providing a greater degree of assurance on the price front. Thus, futures markets serve as a risk -shifting function. In the present study, an attempt has been made to look into the mechanism of movement of spot and futures prices for two important food crops in Indian agriculture. The Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test has been used for both the crops to check the stationarity of the time series data. Most of the series have been observed to follow the stationary pattern at the first difference. The cointegration test has been attempted to find out whether there exists a longrun relationship between spot and futures prices of various contract months for maize and wheat crops. However, there exists a short run disequilibrium between these two. It has been observed that the futures contract behave in an expected manner and there exists a mechanism for long-run equilibrium in the maize as well as wheat crops. This phenomenon of price convergence for both maize and wheat crops clearly states that the farmers are mitigating price risk as spot prices and future prices converges.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Chronic Lung inflammation in victims of toxic gas leak at Bhopal

Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) studies in 20 patients at Bhopal. 1.3 ± 0.4 yr and 2.7 ± 0.6 yr after toxic gas exposure had revealed that the lower respiratory tract inflammation had progressed from initial macrophage alveolitis to macrophage-neutrophilic alveolitis. The interval between the two lavages was 1.4 ± 0.6 yr. BAL studies in a new group of 14 patients 5.1 ± 1.0 yr after exposure had confirmed chronic inflammation of the lower respiratory tract as evidenced by macrophage-neutrophilic alveolitis in these subjects as well. Clinical. radiographic and pulmonary function abnormalities were persistent in a proportion of subjects in both groups. Fibronectin (FN) levels were estimated in BAL fluid in 41 patients. Elevated FN levels were seen in 12 (29.3%) subjects and nine of these 12 had radiographic abnormalities. Severely exposed subjects (n=30) had significantly higher BAL fibronectin levels compared to normal subjects and mild/moderately exposed subjects. Repeat FN estimations in BAL samples from 10 patients had revealed that five had abnormally high FN including three who had high FN on both occasions. The number of patients showing abnormal decline in pulmonary function was higher in patients with elevated FN than in patients with normal FN. Thus, persisting clinical, roentgenographic and ventilatory abnormalities, as well as macrophageneutrophilic alveolitis alon g with abnormally elevated FN levels in a proportion of subjects, suggest the possibility that lung fibrosis can occur in subjects exposed to toxic gas at Bhopal

"Tomography" of the cluster structure of light nuclei via relativistic dissociation

These lecture notes present the capabilities of relativistic nuclear physics for the development of the physics of nuclear clusters. Nuclear track emulsion continues to be an effective technique for pilot studies that allows one, in particular, to study the cluster dissociation of a wide variety of light relativistic nuclei within a common approach. Despite the fact that the capabilities of the relativistic fragmentation for the study of nuclear clustering were recognized quite a long time ago, electronic experiments have not been able to come closer to an integrated analysis of ensembles of relativistic fragments. The continued pause in the investigation of the "fine" structure of relativistic fragmentation has led to resumption of regular exposures of nuclear emulsions in beams of light nuclei produced for the first time at the Nuclotron of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, Dubna). To date, an analysis of the peripheral interactions of relativistic isotopes of beryllium, boron, carbon and nitrogen, including radioactive ones, with nuclei of the emulsion composition, has been performed, which allows the clustering pattern to be presented for a whole family of light nuclei.Comment: ISBN 978-3-319-01076-2. 55 pages, 28 figure

Drought yield index to select high yielding rice lines under different drought stress severities

BACKGROUND Drought is the most severe abiotic stress reducing rice yield in rainfed drought prone ecosystems. Variation in intensity and severity of drought from season to season and place to place requires cultivation of rice varieties with different level of drought tolerance in different areas. Multi environment evaluation of breeding lines helps breeder to identify appropriate genotypes for areas prone to similar level of drought stress. From a set of 129 advanced rice (Oryza sativa L.) breeding lines evaluated under rainfed drought-prone situations at three locations in eastern India from 2005 to 2007, a subset of 39 genotypes that were tested for two or more years was selected to develop a drought yield index (DYI) and mean yield index (MYI) based on yield under irrigated, moderate and severe reproductive-stage drought stress to help breeders select appropriate genotypes for different environments. RESULTS ARB 8 and IR55419-04 recorded the highest drought yield index (DYI) and are identified as the best drought-tolerant lines. The proposed DYI provides a more effective assessment as it is calculated after accounting for a significant genotype x stress-level interaction across environments. For rainfed areas with variable frequency of drought occurrence, Mean yield index (MYI) along with deviation in performance of genotypes from currently cultivated popular varieties in all situations helps to select genotypes with a superior performance across irrigated, moderate and severe reproductive-stage drought situations. IR74371-70-1-1 and DGI 75 are the two genotypes identified to have shown a superior performance over IR64 and MTU1010 under all situations. CONCLUSION For highly drought-prone areas, a combination of DYI with deviation in performance of genotypes under irrigated situations can enable breeders to select genotypes with no reduction in yield under favorable environments compared with currently cultivated varieties. For rainfed areas with variable frequency of drought stress, use of MYI together with deviation in performance of genotypes under different situations as compared to presently cultivated varieties will help breeders to select genotypes with superior performance under all situations.Anitha Raman, Satish Verulkar B, Nimai Mandal P, Mukund Variar, V Shukla D, J Dwivedi L, B Singh N, O Singh N, Padmini Swain, Ashutosh Mall K, S Robin, R Chandrababu, Abhinav Jain, Tilatoo Ram, Shailaja Hittalmani, Stephan Haefele, Hans-Peter Piepho, and Arvind Kuma

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results