512 research outputs found
Optimal Investment in the Development of Oil and Gas Field
Let an oil and gas field consists of clusters in each of which an investor
can launch at most one project. During the implementation of a particular
project, all characteristics are known, including annual production volumes,
necessary investment volumes, and profit. The total amount of investments that
the investor spends on developing the field during the entire planning period
we know. It is required to determine which projects to implement in each
cluster so that, within the total amount of investments, the profit for the
entire planning period is maximum.
The problem under consideration is NP-hard. However, it is solved by dynamic
programming with pseudopolynomial time complexity. Nevertheless, in practice,
there are additional constraints that do not allow solving the problem with
acceptable accuracy at a reasonable time. Such restrictions, in particular, are
annual production volumes. In this paper, we considered only the upper
constraints that are dictated by the pipeline capacity. For the investment
optimization problem with such additional restrictions, we obtain qualitative
results, propose an approximate algorithm, and investigate its properties.
Based on the results of a numerical experiment, we conclude that the developed
algorithm builds a solution close (in terms of the objective function) to the
optimal one
In-Situ Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Investigation of Strain, Temperature, and Strain-Rate Variations of Deformation-Induced Vacancy Concentration in Aluminum
Critical strain to serrated flow in solid solution alloys exhibiting dynamic strain aging (DSA) or Portevin–LeChatelier effect is due to the strain-induced vacancy production. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques can be used to monitor in situ the dynamical behavior of point and line defects in materials during deformation, and these techniques are nondestructive and noninvasive. The new CUT-sequence pulse method allowed an accurate evaluation of the strain-enhanced vacancy diffusion and, thus, the excess vacancy concentration during deformation as a function of strain, strain rate, and temperature. Due to skin effect problems in metals at high frequencies, thin foils of Al were used and experimental results correlated with models based on vacancy production through mechanical work (vs thermal jogs), while in situ annealing of excess vacancies is noted at high temperatures. These correlations made it feasible to obtain explicit dependencies of the strain-induced vacancy concentration on test variables such as the strain, strain rate, and temperature. These studies clearly reveal the power and utility of these NMR techniques in the determination of deformation-induced vacancies in situ in a noninvasive fashion.
Diverse Beliefs and Time Variability of Risk Premia
Why do risk premia vary over time? We examine this problem theoretically and empirically by studying the effect of market belief on risk premia. Individual belief is taken as a fundamental primitive state variable. Market belief is observable; it is central to the empirical evaluation and we show how to measure it. Our asset pricing model is familiar from the noisy REE literature but we adapt it to an economy with diverse beliefs. We derive equilibrium asset prices and implied risk premium. Our approach permits a closed form solution of prices; hence we trace the exact effect of market belief on the time variability of asset prices and risk premia. We test empirically the theoretical conclusions. Our main result is that, above the effect of business cycles on risk premia, fluctuations in market belief have significant independent effect on the time variability of risk premia. We study the premia on long positions in Federal Funds Futures, 3- and 6-month Treasury Bills (T-Bills). The annual mean risk premium on holding such assets for 1-12 months is about 40-60 basis points and we find that, on average, the component of market belief in the risk premium exceeds 50% of the mean. Since time variability of market belief is large, this component frequently exceeds 50% of the mean premium. This component is larger the shorter is the holding period of an asset and it dominates the premium for very short holding returns of less than 2 months. As to the structure of the premium we show that when the market holds abnormally favorable belief about the future payoff of an asset the market views the long position as less risky hence the risk premium on that asset declines. More generally, periods of market optimism (i.e. "bull" markets) are shown to be periods when the market risk premium is low while in periods of pessimism (i.e. "bear" markets) the market's risk premium is high. Fluctuations in risk premia are thus inversely related to the degree of market optimism about future prospects of asset payoffs. This effect is strong and economically very significant
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