Risk analysis regarding a minimum annual utilization of combine harvesters in agricultural companies

ArticleThis article presents the results of entrepreneurial risk analysis concerning a minimum annual utilization of harvesters in a company providing agricultural services where a group of combine harvesters is used. Furthermore, this article presents the following analysed key operating parameters with the greatest influence on reaching the minimum annual utilization and performance: the changing market price of mechanized work, the volatile purchase price of the machines, average maintenance costs). Partial profit which an enterprise can reach through operating combine harvesters is directly affected by the level of their annual utilization. Not reaching the minimum annual utilization of combine harvesters would create losses that could result in termination of business activity in the specific field or even insolvency of the company. It is therefore necessary to monitor the key factors which influence the minimum annual usage and in case of negative developments to take timely corrective actions

Evaluation of break-even point and gross margin economic risks in producing winter oilseed rape

ArticleThe economic result of growing winter oilseed rape is influenced by a number of variables, such as natural influences, input prices and the used technology. One of the ways to improve the business’s prof itability is to use the experience and knowledge provided by consulting companies. This paper analyses two data series covering the period of 5 to 10 years regarding specific selected key parameters for companies using the counselling services of the Union of Oilseeds Growers and Processors in Prague (UOGP) and some other companies that make no use of these services (OTHERS). For the selected key parameters, the risk analysis of reaching the gross margin and the break - even point was conducted with the aid of the Monte Carlo stochastic simulation method. The results of the calculations show that the companies using UOGP consulting achieve on average, at the same level of risk, a gross margin higher by 30% and their break - even point is lower by 11%. Taking adv antage of the knowledge and services provided by a consulting company has positive economic benefits, and it increases the competitiveness of companies

Roundtable: Affordances, Diversity, and Inclusion on Dating Apps - A Dialogue between Sociologists and Media Studies Researchers about ‘Hinge’

This roundtable paper is part of the project ‘Digitized Love and Intimacy on Hinge.’ It aims to investigate how digital dating apps reconfigure cultural attitudes to love and intimacy and, conversely, how said attitudes influence digital dating practices. The conversation is informed by (n)ethnographic usage of the app. As algorithms and affordances of dating applications can implicitly or explicitly privilege certain groups of users and exclude others, this conversation mainly aims to make sense of how Hinge’s interface – or ‘affordances’– facilitates the dating process and how inclusive and diverse the application’s affordances are. We discuss that there is a contradiction between what Hinge portrays itself to be and what it practically ends up being, partly because of its affordances. This roundtable highlights the need to study affordances as relational technologies and to take the perceptions, ideas, and interpretations of users seriously alongside the actual features and designs offered by applications

The CMS Monte Carlo Production System: Development and Design

The CMS production system has undergone a major architectural upgrade from its predecessor, with the goal of reducing the operational manpower needed and preparing for the large scale production required by the CMS physics plan. The new production system is a tiered architecture that facilitates robust and distributed production request processing and takes advantage of the multiple Grid and farm resources available to the CMS experiment

Spectropolarimetric observations of an arch filament system with the GREGOR solar telescope

Arch filament systems occur in active sunspot groups, where a fibril structure connects areas of opposite magnetic polarity, in contrast to active region filaments that follow the polarity inversion line. We used the GREGOR Infrared Spectrograph (GRIS) to obtain the full Stokes vector in the spectral lines Si I 1082.7 nm, He I 1083.0 nm, and Ca I 1083.9 nm. We focus on the near-infrared calcium line to investigate the photospheric magnetic field and velocities, and use the line core intensities and velocities of the helium line to study the chromospheric plasma. The individual fibrils of the arch filament system connect the sunspot with patches of magnetic polarity opposite to that of the spot. These patches do not necessarily coincide with pores, where the magnetic field is strongest. Instead, areas are preferred not far from the polarity inversion line. These areas exhibit photospheric downflows of moderate velocity, but significantly higher downflows of up to 30 km/s in the chromospheric helium line. Our findings can be explained with new emerging flux where the matter flows downward along the fieldlines of rising flux tubes, in agreement with earlier results.Comment: Proceedings 12th Potsdam Thinkshop to appear in Astronomische Nachrichte

Rationality as the Rule of Reason

The demands of rationality are linked both to our subjective normative perspective (given that rationality is a person-level concept) and to objective reasons or favoring relations (given that rationality is non-contingently authoritative for us). In this paper, I propose a new way of reconciling the tension between these two aspects: roughly, what rationality requires of us is having the attitudes that correspond to our take on reasons in the light of our evidence, but only if it is competent. I show how this view can account for structural rationality on the assumption that intentions and beliefs as such involve competent perceptions of downstream reasons, and explore various implications of the account

CMS Monte Carlo production in the WLCG computing Grid

Monte Carlo production in CMS has received a major boost in performance and scale since the past CHEP06 conference. The production system has been re-engineered in order to incorporate the experience gained in running the previous system and to integrate production with the new CMS event data model, data management system and data processing framework. The system is interfaced to the two major computing Grids used by CMS, the LHC Computing Grid (LCG) and the Open Science Grid (OSG). Operational experience and integration aspects of the new CMS Monte Carlo production system is presented together with an analysis of production statistics. The new system automatically handles job submission, resource monitoring, job queuing, job distribution according to the available resources, data merging, registration of data into the data bookkeeping, data location, data transfer and placement systems. Compared to the previous production system automation, reliability and performance have been considerably improved. A more efficient use of computing resources and a better handling of the inherent Grid unreliability have resulted in an increase of production scale by about an order of magnitude, capable of running in parallel at the order of ten thousand jobs and yielding more than two million events per day