Measures of Gasoline Price Change

[Excerpt] No prices are more visible to the public than gasoline prices. Even for people who don’t have to fill up a tank on a regular basis, gasoline prices are likely to be in their view, posted every day. In addition, no prices have more of an impact on short-run movements in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Gasoline prices are so much more volatile than other CPI components that, even though gasoline makes up less than 6 percent of the CPI, it is often the main source of monthly price movements in the all items index. Moreover, because they are so visible and gasoline is purchased so frequently, gasoline prices have a major impact on the perception of prices. Constantly seeing prices at the pump creep ever higher will often create a perception of broader inflation—and, of course, higher gasoline prices are likely to eventually have an impact on other prices as transportation costs increase. So, it is particularly important that gasoline price changes be measured accurately and reliably. Fortunately, gasoline is one of the few consumer goods for which there are many sources of price data. In fact, the ease of price collection makes it feasible for other government agencies and even private sources to create reliable measures. On the government side, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes extensive gasoline price data. Among private sources are the American Automobile Association, the Oil Price Information Service, and the Lundberg Survey. Furthermore, gasoline is one of the few nonfood items for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes an average price series as well as an index; the fact that gasoline is a relatively homogenous product makes meaningful average price data possible. This article examines three measures of gasoline prices: the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) U.S. city average for all types of gasoline, the BLS CPI average price series for all types of gasoline, and the EIA Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices for all grades of gasoline. The purpose of the article is to identify how these measures have behaved over the 10-year period from December 2002 to December 2012

The basic cohomology of the twisted N=16, D=2 super Maxwell theory

We consider a recently proposed two-dimensional Abelian model for a Hodge theory, which is neither a Witten type nor a Schwarz type topological theory. It is argued that this model is not a good candidate for a Hodge theory since, on-shell, the BRST Laplacian vanishes. We show, that this model allows for a natural extension such that the resulting topological theory is of Witten type and can be identified with the twisted N=16, D=2 super Maxwell theory. Furthermore, the underlying basic cohomology preserves the Hodge-type structure and, on-shell, the BRST Laplacian does not vanish.Comment: 9 pages, Latex; new Section 4 showing the invariants added; 2 references and relating remarks adde

Superfield Approach to Nilpotency and Absolute Anticommutativity of Conserved Charges: 2D non-Abelian 1-Form Gauge Theory

We exploit the theoretical strength of augmented version of superfield approach (AVSA) to Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) formalism to express the nilpotency and absolute anticommutativity properties of the (anti-)BRST and (anti-)co-BRST conserved charges for the two $(1+1)$-dimensional (2D) non-Abelian 1-form gauge theory (without any interaction with matter fields) in the language of superspace variables, their derivatives and suitable superfields. In the proof of absolute anticommutativity property, we invoke the strength of Curci-Ferrari (CF) condition for the (anti-)BRST charges. No such outside condition/restriction is required in the proof of absolute anticommutativity of the (anti-)co-BRST conserved charges. The latter observation (as well as other observations) connected with (anti-)co-BRST symmetries and corresponding conserved charges are novel results of our present investigation. We also discuss the (anti-)BRST and (anti-)co-BRST symmetry invariance of the appropriate Lagrangian densities within the framework of AVSA. In addition, we dwell a bit on the derivation of the above fermionic (nilpotent) symmetries by applying the AVSA to BRST formaism where only the (anti-)chiral superfields are used.Comment: LaTeX file, 33 pages, journal referenc

CP1CP^{1} model with Hopf interaction: the quantum theory

The $CP^1$ model with Hopf interaction is quantised following the Batalin-Tyutin (BT) prescription. In this scheme, extra BT fields are introduced which allow for the existence of only commuting first-class constraints. Explicit expression for the quantum correction to the expectation value of the energy density and angular momentum in the physical sector of this model is derived. The result shows, in the particular operator ordering that we have chosen to work with, that the quantum effect has a divergent contribution of ${\cal O} (\hbar^2)$ in the energy expectation value. But, interestingly the Hopf term, though topological in nature, can have a finite ${\cal O} (\hbar)$ contribution to energy density in the homotopically nontrivial topological sector. The angular momentum operator, however, is found to have no quantum correction, indicating the absence of any fractional spin even at this quantum level. Finally, the extended Lagrangian incorporating the BT auxiliary fields is computed in the conventional framework of BRST formalism exploiting Faddeev-Popov technique of path integral method.Comment: LaTeX, 28 pages, no figures, typos corrected, journal ref. give

Twisted N=8, D=2 super Yang-Mills theory as example of a Hodge-type cohomological theory

It is shown that the dimensional reduction of the N_T=2, D=3 Blau-Thompson model to D=2, i.e., the novel topological twist of N=8, D=2 super Yang-Mills theory, provides an example of a Hodge-type cohomological theory. In that theory the generators of the topological shift, co-shift and gauge symmetry, together with a discrete duality operation, are completely analogous to the de Rham cohomology operators and the Hodge *-operation.Comment: 8 pages, Late

Geometrical Aspects Of BRST Cohomology In Augmented Superfield Formalism

In the framework of augmented superfield approach, we provide the geometrical origin and interpretation for the nilpotent (anti-)BRST charges, (anti-)co-BRST charges and a non-nilpotent bosonic charge. Together, these local and conserved charges turn out to be responsible for a clear and cogent definition of the Hodge decomposition theorem in the quantum Hilbert space of states. The above charges owe their origin to the de Rham cohomological operators of differential geometry which are found to be at the heart of some of the key concepts associated with the interacting gauge theories. For our present review, we choose the two $(1 + 1)$-dimensional (2D) quantum electrodynamics (QED) as a prototype field theoretical model to derive all the nilpotent symmetries for all the fields present in this interacting gauge theory in the framework of augmented superfield formulation and show that this theory is a {\it unique} example of an interacting gauge theory which provides a tractable field theoretical model for the Hodge theory.Comment: LaTeX file, 25 pages, Ref. [49] updated, correct page numbers of the Journal are give