RISK COSTS AND THE CHOICE OF MARKET RETURN INDEX

Six measures of returns are used to estimate the most "“appropriate"” market index for southeast Kansas farms. Results suggest that localized indices are more appropriate than state indices for use as the market index. The appropriate index was used to estimate systematic and nonsystematic risk and risk costs for farm planning. Estimated risks depend on the choice of market index, whereas risk costs depend on the index choice and the risk aversion are considered. More risk-averse specialized farmers are not completely compensated for risk.Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty,

Systematic and Unsystematic Risk Costs for Southeastern Kansas Farm Enterprises

Six measures of farm returns are used to estimate the most "appropriate" market index for southeastern Kansas farms. Systematic and nonsystematic risks and risk costs are estimated for farm planning. Results suggest that regional indices are more appropriate for use as the market index than state indices.international trade, vector autoregressions, wheat markets, Farm Management,

Towards an Optimal Representation of Tones in the Orthographies of African Languages

Tone is a conundrum for linguists attempting to reduce African languages to writing. Anecdotal, empirical, and experimental data indicate that not marking tone at all leads to reading difficulties. The converse is also true, namely marking tone exhaustively reduces fluency, leads to false starts, and repairs. This article proposes an elegant but simple solution to get out of this catch twenty-two situation. First, a historical overview of various tone marking schemes is discussed. Second, the concept of Tone Optimality Model (TOM) is introduced and exemplified. The proposed model succeeds in reducing tonal density in texts without affecting readability. The main advantage of TOM over other tone marking schemes is that it draws insights from well-established phonological theories, from the Interactive Reading Model, and from research on tone universals. As a result, tone can be written minimally with maximum benefits for readers. L’orthographe du ton représente un véritable casse-tête chinois pour les linguistes travaillant sur les langues africaines. Les études expérimentales, les observations empiriques, et les ouïe-dires confirment que ne pas indiquer le ton conduit à toutes sortes de difficultés de lecture mais en marquer de trop affecte négativement la fluidité de la lecture. Le présent article propose une solution simple et élégante à ce dilemme. La première partie de l’article est consacrée à un rappel historique des différentes propositions faites pour le marquage des tons. La seconde partie introduit le concept du Modèle Optimal des Tons (MOT). L’avantage de ce modèle sur tous les autres c’est qu’il permet de réduire la densité tonale sans affecter la fluidité de la lecture négativement. Ce modèle tire sa source de plusieurs théories phonologiques déjà établies et bénéficie aussi des apports de la théorie de la lecture et des recherches sur les universaux de tons

The Acoustic Vowel Space of Central Minnesota English in Light of the Northern Cities Shift

English vowels have been in a state of flux since the 1400s (Fromkin et al. 2014:342). Around that time mid tense vowels shifted upward and high tense vowels became diphthongs. This is known as the Great Vowel Shift (GVS). English vowels have not stopped their restlessness ever since. In 1972 Labov and a group of sociolinguists “discovered” another shift that had been taking place in the cities of the Great Lakes region of the US. This shift has been nicknamed the “Northern Cities Shifts” (NCS) because it was first noticed in Detroit, Rochester, and Syracuse. Gordon (2006:109) writes that NCS has now spread well beyond its epicenter and is moving across other cities in the upper Midwest and even to rural areas as far west as Minnesota. The goal of this paper is to determine whether or not, and to what extent NCS has reached Central Minnesota, a semi-rural area that is culturally conservative, demographically, and ethnically fairly homogeneous. To this effect, a total of 1,122 vowel tokens produced by 12 male and 22 female Central Minnesotans are studied. The data are compared and contrasted acoustically with the vowels of General American English (GAE) in Peterson and Barney (1952) and those of NCS areas in Labov et al. (2006)

Influence des facteurs technologiques et physico-chimiques sur le taux d’extraction reelle de la raffinerie de canne du perimetre sucrier de ferke 1 en côte d’ivoire

L'étude vise à déterminer les principaux facteurs responsables de  l'extraction réelle à la raffinerie de canne de Ferké 1, en vue de l'amélioration du rendement sucre. La production cannière livrée à l'usine concerne 11 variétés cultivées dans 4 plantations. L'extraction réelle, l'extraction au premier moulin, le rythme de broyage, le taux d'imbibition et la teneur en fibre de la canne à sucre ont été mesurés. Les données ont été traitées à l'aide du logiciel STATISTICA 6 FR. L'extraction a été effectuée après broyage de la canne dans une batterie de 3 moulins associée à un diffuseur. Au cours des années entre 2002 ou 2003 à 2005 ou 2006, l'extraction réelle a été, en moyenne, de 90,6 %. Les principaux facteurs déterminant l'extraction réelle ont été, d'abord, la teneur en fibre de la canne à sucre puis le taux d'imbibition de celle-ci durant le process. Enfin, l'amélioration de l'extraction réelle de l'usine passe par la réduction du délai entre la coupe et le broyagede la canne

Negative VOT in Three Montenegrin-Accented English Idiolects

This investigation of VOT (Voice Onset Time) of stop consonants in Montenegrinaccented English started as linguistic curiosity when Abat realized in Prof. Koffi’s LabPhon (Laboratory Phonology course) that she produced [b, d, g] with negative VOT while many of her American classmates and other L2 students in the course did not. She recorded another female Montenegrin speaker of English whose voiced stops also had negative VOT. This made her more curious and motivated her to record yet another female Montenegrin whose voiced stops also turned out to have negative VOT. It is not uncommon for speakers to produce negative VOT. However, it is unusual for three out of three speakers of the same language to have negative VOT. These phonetic “coincidences” have aroused Koffi’s suspicion that maybe [b, d, g] are produced with negative VOT in Montenegrin. This may turn out to be only a conjecture. However, it is a conjecture worth pursuing because it may conceal a deeper linguistic reality about Montenegrin and/or Montenegrin-accented English waiting to be discovered. A largescale study needs to be undertaken to establish whether this is a case of a negative phonetic transfer of VOT or not

An Acoustic Phonetic Portfolio of a Thai-Accented English Idiolect

This Acoustics Phonetic Portfolio is a compilation of acoustic recordings and analyses that students who take Professor Koffi’s phonology course (English 473/573) complete during the semester. This study is divided into four sections. The first represents the speaker’s use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to describe his pronunciation of English. The second describes the spectrograms of the speaker’s vowels and consonants. The third focuses on the acoustic correlates that the speaker uses to express lexical stress on homographic and multisyllabic words. The fourth and final section investigates the various phonological rules that the speaker implements to produce the word . All the speech samples were recorded directly into an Apple laptop computer. PRAAT, a free online software, was used for the measurement and the quantification of the data. Norm, another free online software, was used to provide the acoustic vowel space in which the speaker’s vowels and General American (GAE) vowels are compared. Throughout the paper, the phrase “the speaker” refers to Ekkarat