The open-endedness objection against sophisticated dispositionalism

Sophisticated dispositionalism proposes a naturalist reduction of mental content by claiming that the semantic content of a mental symbol is determined by the causes of the occurrence of this symbol under ideal conditions, i.e., conditions under which only the referent of a symbol can cause its tokening. However, Paul Boghossian developed the open-endedness objection in order to show that it is not possible to specify these ideal conditions in non-semantic terms, entailing that the naturalist reduction of mental content proposed by sophisticated dispositionalism is not viable. My goal in this paper is to argue that the open-endedness objection is flawed

BRAZIL'S NEW FLOATING EXCHANGE RATE REGIME AND COMPETITIVENESS IN THE WORLD POULTRY MARKET

In early 1999, Brazil devalued its currency, increasing its competitiveness in the poultry industry and capturing world market share. This paper discusses the devaluation and its effects on Brazil's trade, evaluates preliminary statistics on the impact of the devaluation on world poultry markets, and reports the results from a computable general equilibrium (CGE) simulation of the devaluation. The medium-run CGE results are compared to the short-run impacts reflected in the preliminary statistics.Brazil, currency devaluation, GTAP, poultry, world market share, Financial Economics,

S-shaped utility, subprime crash and the black swan

I propose an S-shaped utility function of consumption which, combined with an heterogeneous agents and external habit setting, fits well the first order moments of the American financial and macroeconomic time series relevant for the equity premium puzzle in the second half of XX century. The average relative risk aversion of the agents remains in the 0-3 range. A "black swan"-kind phenomenon makes two of the 50 years considered (the two oil shocks) responsible for half the average of the stochastic discount factor, thus bringing the annual subjective discount factor to a very low level, around 0.5, which solves the risk-free puzzle. The shape of the relative risk aversion function of consumption suggests an explanation for the 2008 suprime crash akin to the breaking of waves on a beach in a lifecycle overlapping generations model.financial puzzles; subprime crash; black swan; S-shaped utility

Simulation of microalgal growth in a continuous photobioreactor with sedimentation and partial biomass recycling

Microalgae are considered as promising feedstocks for the third generation of biofuels. They are autotrophic organisms with high growth rate and can stock an enormous quantity of lipids (about 20 \u2013 40% of their dried cellular weight). This work was aimed at studying the cultivation of Scenedesmus obliquus in a two-stage system composed of a photobioreactor and a settler to concentrate and partially recycle the biomass as a way to enhance the microalgae cellular productivity. It was attempted to specify by simulation and experimental data a relationship between the recycling rate, kinetic parameters of microalgal growth and photobioreactor operating conditions. Scenedesmus obliquus cells were cultivated in a lab-scale flat-plate reactor, homogenized by aeration, and running in continuous flow with a residence time of 1.66 day. Experimental data for the microalgal growth were used in a semi-empirical simulation model. The best results were obtained for Fw = 0.2FI , when R = 1 and kd = 0 and 0.05 day-1, with the biomass production in the reactor varying between 8 g L -1 and 14 g L-1, respectively. The mathematical model fitted to the microalgal growth experimental data was appropriate for predicting the efficiency of the reactor in producing Scenedesmus obliquus cells, establishing a relation between cellular productivity and the minimum recycling rate that must be used in the system

PRICE RISK MANAGEMENT FOR PEANUT MEAL

Peanut meal is cross-hedged with soybean meal using peanut meal cash prices and soybean meal futures prices. Hedge rations are obtained for short- vs. long-term data sets. Evaluation indicates positive gains for cross-hedged poultry/peanut producers, and that soybean meal futures can be used as a cross-hedging vehicle for peanut meal.Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing,