Final proposal for encoding the Bassa Vah script in the SMP of the UCS

This is a proposal to encode the Bassa Vah script in the international character encoding standard Unicode. This script was published in Unicode Standard version 7.0 in June 2014. The Bassa Vah script was used to write the Bassa language of Liberia

Proposal to encode modern Bamum in the BMP of the UCS

This is a proposal to encode the modern Bamum script in the international character encoding standard Unicode. The script was published in Unicode Standard version 5.2 in October 2009. The script was developed between 1896 and 1910, primarily by King Ibrahim Njoya of the Bamum Kingdom. The script went through six stages; the modern version, contained in this proposal, is a simplified version of the historic script (which was separately proposed in and published in Unicode 6.0)

Proposal for encoding additional Bamum characters in the SMP of the UCS

This is a proposal to encode the historic characters of the Bamum script in the international character encoding standard Unicode. This set of extensions, which appear in the Bamum Supplement block, was published in Unicode Standard version 6.0 in October 2010. The Bamum scripts developed through a series of phases. The characters in this proposal were used to write the Bamum language of the Cameroon in the earlier phases of the script. (The modern orthography uses characters in the main Bamum block and were proposed in .

Speech Recognition by Composition of Weighted Finite Automata

We present a general framework based on weighted finite automata and weighted finite-state transducers for describing and implementing speech recognizers. The framework allows us to represent uniformly the information sources and data structures used in recognition, including context-dependent units, pronunciation dictionaries, language models and lattices. Furthermore, general but efficient algorithms can used for combining information sources in actual recognizers and for optimizing their application. In particular, a single composition algorithm is used both to combine in advance information sources such as language models and dictionaries, and to combine acoustic observations and information sources dynamically during recognition.Comment: 24 pages, uses psfig.st

Comparison of Hedging Cost with Other Variable Input Costs

Recent spikes in commodity prices have led to higher margin amounts and option premiums. For the most part, producers have always attributed their lack of use in reducing risk via futures and options markets to the high cost associated with the use of these markets. This study determines the relative costs of hedging with futures and options and compares these with the costs of other variable inputs. We find that with the exception of hedging corn with both tools and soybeans with options the costs of hedging has only increased at roughly the same rate as all other inputs.Hedging costs, Costs of production, Risk management, Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, Demand and Price Analysis, Farm Management, Marketing, Risk and Uncertainty,

Optimal Marketing Strategies for Southeastern Cattle Producers

Hedging, Cattle, Simulation, Expected Utility, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing, Q13,

Producer Perceptions of Corn, Soybean and Cotton Price Risk

Risk is an inevitable part of agricultural production and all producers face various forms of risk. This study used the subjective price expectations and price distributions of survey participants to determine how producer’s expectations compare with that of the market. Data used for this study were gathered through survey responses from Mississippi State University Extension meeting and workshop participants. Individual respondent’s discreet stated price and price distribution information was fitted to a continuous distribution and an implied mean and standard deviation was determined. This was compared to market price and price risk data. Participants largely over-estimated price. Individual volatilities resulting from each fitted distribution were lower than that implied by the market.price risk, price perception, subjective probability elicitation, Production Economics, Q13,

Application of formal optimization techniques in thermal/structural design of a heat-pipe-cooled panel for a hypersonic vehicle

Nonlinear mathematical programming methods are used to design a radiantly cooled and heat-pipe-cooled panel for a Mach 6.7 transport. The cooled portion of the panel is a hybrid heat-pipe/actively cooled design which uses heat pipes to transport the absorbed heat to the ends of the panel where it is removed by active cooling. The panels are optimized for minimum mass and to satisfy a set of heat-pipe, structural, geometric, and minimum-gage constraints. Two panel concepts are investigated: cylindrical heat pipes embedded in a honeycomb core and an integrated design which uses a web-core heat-pipe sandwich concept. The latter was lighter and resulted in a design which was less than 10 percent heavier than an all actively cooled concept. The heat-pipe concept, however, is redundant and can sustain a single-point failure, whereas the actively cooled concept cannot. An additional study was performed to determine the optimum number of coolant manifolds per panel for a minimum-mass design