Hedging and speculative pressures and the transition of the spot-futures relationship in energy and metal markets

This paper examines the impact of hedging and speculative pressures on the transition of the spot-futures relationship in metal and energy markets. We build a Markov regime switching (MRS) model where hedging and speculative pressures affect the transition probabilities between a stronger and weaker spot-futures relationship. It is found that hedging pressure increases the likelihood of transition, i.e. destabilises the existing spot-futures relationship, while speculative pressure reduces it, i.e. stabilises the relationship, in the copper, crude oil and natural gas markets, but this effect is relatively weak in the silver and heating oil markets. We also examine whether these findings generate practical benefits by testing the hedging effectiveness of the minimum variance hedge ratios (MVH) derived from the MRS models with hedging and speculative pressures. A relatively strong reduction of the portfolio variance, hedger's utility and value at risk (VaR) is observed in the energy markets

Metallic nanorings for broadband, enhanced extraction of light from solid-state emitters

We report on the increased extraction of light emitted by solid-state sources embedded within high refractive index materials. This is achieved by making use of a local lensing effect by sub-micron metallic rings deposited on the sample surface and centered around single emitters. We show enhancements in the intensity of the light emitted by InAs/GaAs single quantum dot lines into free space as high as a factor 20. Such a device is intrinsically broadband and therefore compatible with any kind of solid-state light source. We foresee the fabrication of metallic rings via scalable techniques, like nano-imprint, and their implementation to improve the emission of classical and quantum light from solid-state sources. Furthermore, while increasing the brightness of the devices, the metallic rings can also act as top contacts for the local application of electric fields for carrier injection or wavelength tuning.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

The Estimation of Minimum Efficient Scale of the Port Industry

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: The estimation of minimum efficient scale of the port industry journaltitle: Transport Policy articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2016.04.012 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The role of seaports in regional employment: evidence from South Korea

<p>The role of seaports in regional employment: evidence from South Korea. <i>Regional Studies</i>. This study examines the seaport’s influence on regional employment in all 16 regions of Korea, including seven metropolitan areas, based on panel data between 2002 and 2013. It expands an economic model of regional unemployment from labour economics and an autoregressive model from econometrics by employing port potentials separately estimated in a Tobit model. The result indicates that port activities significantly reduce regional unemployment rates relative to the national level. The role of population, gross domestic product (GDP) and household income on unemployment rate was highlighted, whilst various determinants of port potentials were investigated about whether they stimulate port potentials.</p

User innovation in Internet businesses

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 39).This paper examines the concept of user innovation, how this concept has been applied to internet businesses, and behaviors and motivation of the users who have participated in user innovative activities for internet businesses. This thesis presents definitions and characteristics of both user innovation activities in web businesses. As a major research method, a survey is conducted to identify the trend and phenomenon of current user innovation activities on the web. Major discoveries from the web user innovation survey are two. First, most lead users who participate in user innovation activity in the web businesses do not significantly differ by gender, age, or profession. Second, most lead users participate in user innovation activities for social-networking purpose as well as the goal of contributing to society. User innovations are seldom oriented or initiated from financial benefit purpose as similar as many traditional user innovations are formed for non financial benefit reasons. Internet businesses can leverage these findings to bring a user innovation to their business more effectively.by Jin Suk Park.S.M