699 research outputs found
Member Commitment and the Market and Financial Performance of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool
Since 2001 several of the largest agricultural co-operatives in Western Canada and the United States have battled impending bankruptcy or ceased operations. In February 2001 Dairyworld Foods was bought out by Montreal dairy processor and cheese producer Saputo Inc. (Saputo; Toronto Stock Exchange). In November 2001, Agricore, formed through a 1998 merger of Alberta Wheat Pool Ltd. and Manitoba Pool Elevators, merged with United Grain Growers to form Agricore United (Agricore United). In the United States, AgWay and Farmland Industries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002 (Reuters, 2000), while the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (hereinafter referred to as SWP or the Pool) underwent a massive debt restructuring in 2003 after four years of consecutive multi-million dollar net losses (SWP Annual Report, 2003). This decline in the market and financial performance of agricultural co-operatives has been associated with a decline in the commitment of the members to their co-operatives (Fulton, 1999; Fulton and Giannakas, 2001; Richards, Klein and Walburger, 1998; Burt and Wirth, 1990). The purpose of this article is to examine the market and financial performance of one of a number of co-operatives that have faced recent financial and market hardships, and to link this performance to member commitment. Specifically, the article examines whether the Pool’s declining market and financial performance is consistent with the predictions that emerge from a model that examines the impact of falling member commitment in a co-operative.Marketing,
Mechanisms for electron transport in atomic-scale one-dimensional wires: soliton and polaron effects
We study one-electron tunneling through atomic-scale one-dimensional wires in
the presence of coherent electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling. We use a full quantum
model for the e-ph interaction within the wire with open boundary conditions.
We illustrate the mechanisms of transport in the context of molecular wires
subject to boundary conditions imposing the presence of a soliton defect in the
molecule. Competition between polarons and solitons in the coherent transport
is examined. The transport mechanisms proposed are generally applicable to
other one-dimensional nanoscale systems with strong e-ph coupling.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Europhys. Let
Electron self-trapping in intermediate-valent SmB6
SmB6 exhibits intermediate valence in the ground state and unusual behaviour
at low temperatures. The resistivity and the Hall effect cannot be explained
either by conventional sf-hybridization or by hopping transport in an impurity
band. At least three different energy scales determine three temperature
regimes of electron transport in this system. We consider the ground state
properties, the soft valence fluctuations and the spectrum of band carriers in
n-doped SmB6. The behaviour of excess conduction electrons in the presence of
soft valence fluctuations and the origin of the three energy scales in the
spectrum of elementary excitations is discussed. The carriers which determine
the low-temperature transport in this system are self-trapped electron-polaron
complexes rather than simply electrons in an impurity band. The mechanism of
electron trapping is the interaction with soft valence fluctuations.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Geometric Phase, Curvature, and Extrapotentials in Constrained Quantum Systems
We derive an effective Hamiltonian for a quantum system constrained to a
submanifold (the constraint manifold) of configuration space (the ambient
space) by an infinite restoring force. We pay special attention to how this
Hamiltonian depends on quantities which are external to the constraint
manifold, such as the external curvature of the constraint manifold, the
(Riemannian) curvature of the ambient space, and the constraining potential. In
particular, we find the remarkable fact that the twisting of the constraining
potential appears as a gauge potential in the constrained Hamiltonian. This
gauge potential is an example of geometric phase, closely related to that
originally discussed by Berry. The constrained Hamiltonian also contains an
effective potential depending on the external curvature of the constraint
manifold, the curvature of the ambient space, and the twisting of the
constraining potential. The general nature of our analysis allows applications
to a wide variety of problems, such as rigid molecules, the evolution of
molecular systems along reaction paths, and quantum strip waveguides.Comment: 27 pages with 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.
On the spherical-axial transition in supernova remnants
A new law of motion for supernova remnant (SNR) which introduces the quantity
of swept matter in the thin layer approximation is introduced. This new law of
motion is tested on 10 years observations of SN1993J. The introduction of an
exponential gradient in the surrounding medium allows to model an aspherical
expansion. A weakly asymmetric SNR, SN1006, and a strongly asymmetric SNR,
SN1987a, are modeled. In the case of SN1987a the three observed rings are
simulated.Comment: 19 figures and 14 pages Accepted for publication in Astrophysics &
Space Science in the year 201
Large-space shell-model calculations for light nuclei
An effective two-body interaction is constructed from a new Reid-like
potential for a large no-core space consisting of six major shells and is used
to generate the shell-model properties for light nuclei from =2 to 6. (For
practical reasons, the model space is partially truncated for =6.) Binding
energies and other physical observables are calculated and compare favorably
with experiment.Comment: prepared using LaTex, 21 manuscript pages, no figure
Angle-resolved photoemission in doped charge-transfer Mott insulators
A theory of angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) in doped cuprates and other
charge-transfer Mott insulators is developed taking into account the realistic
(LDA+U) band structure, (bi)polaron formation due to the strong electron-phonon
interaction, and a random field potential. In most of these materials the first
band to be doped is the oxygen band inside the Mott-Hubbard gap. We derive the
coherent part of the ARPES spectra with the oxygen hole spectral function
calculated in the non-crossing (ladder) approximation and with the exact
spectral function of a one-dimensional hole in a random potential. Some unusual
features of ARPES including the polarisation dependence and spectral shape in
YBa2Cu3O7 and YBa2Cu4O8 are described without any Fermi-surface, large or
small. The theory is compatible with the doping dependence of kinetic and
thermodynamic properties of cuprates as well as with the d-wave symmetry of the
superconducting order parameter.Comment: 8 pages (RevTeX), 10 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
On the Geometry of Super Yang-Mills Theories: Phases and Irreducible Polynomials
We study the algebraic and geometric structures that underly the space of
vacua of N=1 super Yang-Mills theories at the non-perturbative level. Chiral
operators are shown to satisfy polynomial equations over appropriate rings, and
the phase structure of the theory can be elegantly described by the
factorization of these polynomials into irreducible pieces. In particular, this
idea yields a powerful method to analyse the possible smooth interpolations
between different classical limits in the gauge theory. As an application in
U(Nc) theories, we provide a simple and completely general proof of the fact
that confining and Higgs vacua are in the same phase when fundamental flavors
are present, by finding an irreducible polynomial equation satisfied by the
glueball operator. We also derive the full phase diagram for the theory with
one adjoint when Nc is less than or equal to 7 using computational algebraic
geometry programs.Comment: 87 pages; v2: typos and eq. (4.44) correcte
Mutation of Ser172 in Yeast β Tubulin Induces Defects in Microtubule Dynamics and Cell Division
Ser172 of β tubulin is an important residue that is mutated in a human brain disease and phosphorylated by the cyclin-dependent kinase Cdk1 in mammalian cells. To examine the role of this residue, we used the yeast S. cerevisiae as a model and produced two different mutations (S172A and S172E) of the conserved Ser172 in the yeast β tubulin Tub2p. The two mutants showed impaired cell growth on benomyl-containing medium and at cold temperatures, altered microtubule (MT) dynamics, and altered nucleus positioning and segregation. When cytoplasmic MT effectors Dyn1p or Kar9p were deleted in S172A and S172E mutants, cells were viable but presented increased ploidy. Furthermore, the two β tubulin mutations exhibited synthetic lethal interactions with Bik1p, Bim1p or Kar3p, which are effectors of cytoplasmic and spindle MTs. In the absence of Mad2p-dependent spindle checkpoint, both mutations are deleterious. These findings show the importance of Ser172 for the correct function of both cytoplasmic and spindle MTs and for normal cell division
- …