1,637 research outputs found
Price Pooling and the Gains from Hedging: Application to a Swedish Grain Cooperative
Optimal hedging strategies are analyzed for a cooperative operating a price pooling system in the presence of price and quantity risk. A three-period model, accounting for default risk and storage, is developed. Hedging allows the cooperative to increase the pool price offered to farmers by 2.8 - 4% for moderate risk parameters.Agribusiness, Marketing,
The quantitative soil pit method for measuring belowground carbon and nitrogen stocks
Many important questions in ecosystem science require estimates of stocks of soil C and nutrients. Quantitative soil pits provide direct measurements of total soil mass and elemental content in depth-based samples representative of large volumes, bypassing potential errors associated with independently measuring soil bulk density, rock volume, and elemental concentrations. The method also allows relatively unbiased sampling of other belowground C and nutrient stocks, including roots, coarse organic fragments, and rocks. We present a comprehensive methodology for sampling these pools with quantitative pits and assess their accuracy, precision, effort, and sampling intensity as compared to other methods. At 14 forested sites in New Hampshire, nonsoil belowground pools (which other methods may omit, double-count, or undercount) accounted for upward of 25% of total belowground C and N stocks: coarse material accounted for 4 and 1% of C and N in the O horizon; roots were 11 and 4% of C and N in the O horizon and 10 and 3% of C and N in the B horizon; and soil adhering to rocks represented 5% of total B-horizon C and N. The top 50 cm of the C horizon contained the equivalent of 17% of B-horizon carbon and N. Sampling procedures should be carefully designed to avoid treating these important pools inconsistently. Quantitative soil pits have fewer sources of systematic error than coring methods; the main disadvantage is that because they are time-consuming and create a larger zone of disturbance, fewer observations can be made than with cores
Ash, carbon isotope discrimination, and silicon as estimators of transpiration efficiency in crested wheatgrass
Breeding and selection for higher transpiration efficiency (W) has been hampered by tedious and costly
methodology. Rapid and less costly methods are needed for screening W in plant improvement
programmes. We report the relationship of ash, silicon (Si) concentration, and Si uptake to W in
crested wheatgrass (Agropyron desertorum [Fischer ex Link] Schultes), an important C3 range grass in
western North America. Clones of crested wheatgrass were grown under three water levels in a field
rainout shelter and as potted plants under two water levels in the field and greenhouse. Ash and Si
concentrations were compared to previously determined values of shoot mass, transpiration, W, and
carbon isotope discrimination (A). Ash and Si concentrations were not consistently related to ? and W
across all environments; however, ash concentration was positively correlated with ? (r=0•69**,
df = 22) and negatively correlated with W (r= -0•61**, df=22) in the well-watered field environment.
Across all environments and studies, the ranges in the coefficients of variation (CV, %) for clonal
means were: W, 4-15; ?, 1-4; ash concentration, 6-14; Si concentration, 13-30; and Si uptake, 21-33.
The generally lower CV for W, ?, and ash concentration suggest that these traits were more repeatable
than Si concentration or uptake. Although a consistent relationship was not observed between Si and
W and between ash and W, the correlations of ash and W from the well-watered field environment
were encouraging. In view of the low cost for ash analysis, we conclude that further research is needed
to evaluate the potential of ash as a criterion in selecting for improved W, particularly during the
early phases of a breeding programme when large populations are usually involved. Later selections
could be based on the more precise and accurate, but costly, ? analysis
Vibrations and Berry Phases of Charged Buckminsterfullerene
A simple model of electron-vibron interactions in buckminsterfullerene ions
is solved semiclassically. Electronic degeneracies of C induce
dynamical Jahn-Teller distortions, which are unimodal for and
bimodal for . The quantization of motion along the Jahn-Teller
manifold leads to a symmetric-top rotator Hamiltonian. I find Molecular
Aharonov-Bohm effects where electronic Berry phases determine the vibrational
spectra, zero point fluctuations, and electrons' pair binding energies. The
latter are relevant to superconductivity in alkali-fullerenes.Comment: Latex 11 pages. IIT-00
Feasibility study of high volume slag as cement replacement for sustainable structural lightweight oil palm shell concrete
This paper presents a study on the use of high volume slag as a cement replacement material, and waste oil palm shell (OPS) as a lightweight aggregate to produce a sustainable lightweight concrete (LWC). In order to establish the feasibility of such concrete for structural purposes, the first part of the paper deals with the investigation of the mechanical and bond properties of OPS concrete (OPSC) with varying slag content. The results showed that even though an increase in the slag content led to the reduction in the strength, the OPSC with slag as a 60 cement replacement material exhibited compressive and splitting tensile strengths of 25 and 2.3 MPa, respectively, which exceeded the minimum stipulated strength required for structural LWC. In addition, the use of 60 slag in OPSC showed significant benefits in terms of the reduced cement consumption with improvement in the strength efficiency by almost 2-fold compared to that without slag. On the other hand, it was found that the slag content, albeit as high as a 60 cement replacement level, did not show any significant adverse effects on the normalized bond strength, failure mode, bond strength-slip curve and slip at the ultimate bond strength of the OPSC. To further justify the suitability of the OSPC for structural application, the second part of the paper focuses on the experimental investigation of the flexural behaviour of the actual full-scale reinforced concrete beams. From the flexural tests, it was observed that there were no negative effects on the ultimate moment capacity, failure mode and moment-deflection behaviour of the reinforced concrete beams upon cement replacement with up to 60 slag. Therefore, the utilization of high volume slag-lightweight OPSC could be recommended for actual structural purposes. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Ground state properties of ferromagnetic metal/conjugated polymer interfaces
We theoretically investigate the ground state properties of ferromagnetic
metal/conjugated polymer interfaces. The work is partially motivated by recent
experiments in which injection of spin polarized electrons from ferromagnetic
contacts into thin films of conjugated polymers was reported. We use a
one-dimensional nondegenerate Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) Hamiltonian to
describe the conjugated polymer and one-dimensional tight-binding models to
describe the ferromagnetic metal. We consider both a model for a conventional
ferromagnetic metal, in which there are no explicit structural degrees of
freedom, and a model for a half-metallic ferromagnetic colossal
magnetoresistance (CMR) oxide which has explicit structural degrees of freedom.
The Fermi energy of the magnetic metallic contact is adjusted to control the
degree of electron transfer into the polymer. We investigate electron charge
and spin transfer from the ferromagnetic metal to the organic polymer, and
structural relaxation near the interface. Bipolarons are the lowest energy
charge state in the bulk polymer for the nondegenerate SSH model Hamiltonian.
As a result electrons (or holes) transferred into the bulk of the polymer form
spinless bipolarons. However, there can be spin density in the polymer
localized near the interface.Comment: 7 figure
Pharmacokinetics and antiretroviral activity of lamivudine alone or when coadministered with zidovudine in human immunodeficiency virus type 1-infected pregnant women and their offspring
Coherent spin valve phenomena and electrical spin injection in ferromagnetic/semiconductor/ferromagnetic junctions
Coherent quantum transport in ferromagnetic/ semiconductor/ ferromagnetic
junctions is studied theoretically within the Landauer framework of ballistic
transport. We show that quantum coherence can have unexpected implications for
spin injection and that some intuitive spintronic concepts which are founded in
semi-classical physics no longer apply: A quantum spin-valve (QSV) effect
occurs even in the absence of a net spin polarized current flowing through the
device, unlike in the classical regime. The converse effect also arises, i.e. a
zero spin-valve signal for a non-vanishing spin-current. We introduce new
criteria useful for analyzing quantum and classical spin transport phenomena
and the relationships between them. The effects on QSV behavior of
spin-dependent electron transmission at the interfaces, interface Schottky
barriers, Rashba spin-orbit coupling and temperature, are systematically
investigated. While the signature of the QSV is found to be sensitive to
temperature, interestingly, that of its converse is not. We argue that the QSV
phenomenon can have important implications for the interpretation of
spin-injection in quantum spintronic experiments with spin-valve geometries.Comment: 15 pages including 11 figures. To appear in PR
Western oceanus procellarum as seen by c1xs on chandrayaan-1
We present the analysis of an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) observation of the western part of Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon’s nearside made by the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer on 10th February 2009. Through forward modelling of the X-ray spectra, we provide estimates of the MgO/SiO2 and Al2O3/SiO2 ratios for seven regions along the flare’s ground track. These results are combined with FeO and TiO2 contents derived from Clementine multispectral reflectance data in order to investigate the compositional diversity of this region of the Moon. The ground track observed consists mainly of low-Ti basaltic units, and the XRF data are largely consistent with this expectation. However, we obtain higher Al2O3/SiO2 ratios for these units than for most basalts in the Apollo sample collection. The widest compositional variation between the different lava flows is in wt% FeO content. A footprint that occurs in a predominantly highland region, immediately to the north of Oceanus Procellarum, has a composition that is consistent with mixing between low-Ti mare basaltic and more feldspathic regoliths. In contrast to some previous studies, we find no evidence for systematic differences in surface composition, as determined through X-ray and gamma-ray spectroscopy techniques
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