EVALUATION OF HEDGING IN THE PRESENCE OF CROP INSURANCE AND GOVERNMENT LOAN PROGRAMS

This research evaluates the interaction of new alternative insurance designs, forward pricing tools and the government revenue protection program while assuming a government loan program is in place. A numerical analysis is conducted using a revenue simulation model that incorporates futures prices, basis, and yield variability. Three crop insurance designs at 75 percent of yield guarantee are evaluated. Optimal futures and at-the-money put option hedge ratios are derived for expected utility maximizing of soybean producers. Sensitivity to loan rate levels are examined. Our results suggest that loan programs profoundly alter the optimal producer strategy.Agricultural Finance, Marketing,

IMPLICATIONS OF CROP YIELD AND REVENUE INSURANCE FOR PRODUCER HEDGING

New types of crop insurance have expanded the tools from which crop producers may choose to manage risk. Little is known regarding how these products interact with futures and options. This analysis examines optimal futures and put ratios in the presence of four alternative insurance coverages. An analytical model investigates the comparative statics of the relationship between hedging and insurance. Additional numerical analysis is conducted which incorporates futures price, basis, and yield variability. Yield insurance is found to have a positive effect on hedging levels. Revenue insurance tends to result in slightly lower hedging demand than would occur given the same level of yield insurance coverage.Risk and Uncertainty,

A cure for unstable numerical evolutions of single black holes: adjusting the standard ADM equations

Numerical codes based on a direct implementation of the standard ADM formulation of Einstein's equations have generally failed to provide long-term stable and convergent evolutions of black hole spacetimes when excision is used to remove the singularities. We show that, for the case of a single black hole in spherical symmetry, it is possible to circumvent these problems by adding to the evolution equations terms involving the constraints, thus adjusting the standard ADM system. We investigate the effect that the choice of the lapse and shift has on the stability properties of numerical simulations and thus on the form of the added constraint term. To facilitate this task, we introduce the concept of quasi well-posedness, a version of well-posedness suitable for ADM-like systems involving second-order spatial derivatives.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

Experimental investigation of radio signal propagation in scientific facilities for telerobotic applications

Understanding the radio signal transmission characteristics in the environment where the telerobotic application is sought is a key part of achieving a reliable wireless communication link between a telerobot and a control station. In this paper, wireless communication requirements and a case study of a typical telerobotic application in an underground facility at CERN are presented. Then, the theoretical and experimental characteristics of radio propagation are investigated with respect to time, distance, location and surrounding objects. Based on analysis of the experimental findings, we show how a commercial wireless system, such as Wi-Fi, can be made suitable for a case study application at CERN

Spatial sampling methods for improved communication for wireless relay robots

Having reliable wireless communication in a network of mobile robots is an ongoing challenge, especially when the mobile robots are given tasks in hostile or harmful environments such as radiation environments in scientific facilities, tunnels with large metallic components and complicated geometries as found at CERN. In this paper, we propose a decentralised method for improving the wireless network throughput by optimizing the wireless relay robot position to receive the best wireless signal strength using implicit spatial diversity concepts and gradient-search algorithms. We experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solutions with a KUKA Youbot omni-directional mobile robot. The performance of the algorithms is compared under various scenarios in an underground scientific facility at CERN

Hydrothermal alteration and fluid pH in alkaline-hosted epithermal systems

Epithermal gold mineralisation is found in a wide compositional range of host lithologies, but despite the diversity the alteration mineral assemblages are often similar between deposits. Notable exceptions are those gold deposits hosted in alkaline host rocks. Alkaline-hosted epithermal deposits are rare, but important, as they include some of the world’s largest known epithermal deposits by contained metal (e.g. Ladolam, Cripple Creek, Porgera). As well as the exceptional gold contents, the alkaline-hosted systems tend to exhibit different alteration mineral assemblages, with less quartz and widespread silicification than sub-alkaline-hosted equivalents, and greater enrichments in tellurium, and a scarcity of acid alteration (advanced argillic) types. In this study, geochemical modelling is used to demonstrate that 300 °C hydrothermal fluids in equilibrium with alkali, silica-undersaturated host rocks at low water/rock ratios reach significantly higher pH than equivalents in sub-alkaline lithologies. A maximum, near-neutral pH (5.5–6) is buffered by reactions involving quartz in silica-saturated alkaline and calc-alkaline lithologies. In silica-undersaturated, alkaline host rocks, quartz is exhausted by progressive water-rock interaction, and pH increases to 7 and above. Both tellurium and gold solubility are favoured by neutral to high fluid pH, and thus there is a clear mechanism within these hydrothermal systems that can lead to effective transport and concentration to produce gold telluride ore deposits in alkaline igneous hosts. This modelling demonstrates that alkaline rocks can still be altered to advanced argillic assemblages; the paucity of this alteration type in alkaline hosts instead points to NaCl ≫ HCl in magmatic volatile phases at the initiation of hydrothermal alteration