An Optimal Rule for Switching over to Renewable fuels with Lower Price Volatility: A Case of Jump Diffusion Process

This study investigates the optimal switching boundary to a renewable fuel when oil prices exhibit continuous random fluctuations along with occasional discontinuous jumps. In this paper, oil prices are modeled to follow jump diffusion processes. A completeness result is derived. Given that the market is complete the value of a contingent claim is risk neutral expectation of the discounted pay off process. Using the contingent claim analysis of investment under uncertainty, the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation is derived for finding value function and optimal switching boundary. We get a mixed differential-difference equation which would be solved using numerical methods.Demand and Price Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Modeling Site Specific Heterogeneity in an On-Site Stratified Random Sample of Recreational Demand

Using estimation of demand for the George Washington/Jefferson National Forest as a case study, it is shown that in a stratified/clustered on-site sample, latent heterogeneity needs to be accounted for twice: first to account for dispersion in the data caused by unobservability of the process that results in low and high frequency visitors in the population, and second to capture unobservable heterogeneity among individuals surveyed at different sites according to a stratified random sample (site specific effects). It is shown that both of the parameters capturing latent heterogeneity are statistically significant. It is therefore claimed in this paper, that the model accounting for site-specific effects is superior to the model without such effects. Goodness of fit statistics show that our empirical model is superior to models that do not account for latent heterogeneity for the second time. The price coefficient for the travel cost variable changes across model resulting in differences in consumer surplus measures. The expected mean also changes across different models. This information is of importance to the USDA Forest Service for the purpose of consumer surplus calculations and projections for budget allocation and resource utilization.Recreational Demand models, Clustering, Subject-specific effects, Truncated Stratified Negative Binomial Model, Overdispersion, Environmental Economics and Policy,

“NOT TAINTED BY THE PAST”: RE-CONSTRUCTIONS AND NEGOTIATIONS OF COLOURED IDENTITIES AMONG UNIVERSITY COLOURED STUDENTS IN POST- APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

The South African coloured identity is a profoundly complex construction that, on the one hand, is interpreted as an ambiguous and ‘in-between’ identity and, on the other hand, its own ambiguity and complexity provides multiple means and strategies of production and articulation within various contexts. This dissertation seeks to examine a production of multiple discourses by post-apartheid coloured youth in order to re-construct and negotiate their identities moving through various social contexts of everyday experiences within diverse university settings. Similarly to other minority and marginalized youth, coloured students produce various discourses and practices as the medium of counter-hegemonic formation and negotiation of their minoritized and marginalized identities. In this sense, coloured students implement produced discourses and practices as instrumental agency to create resistance and challenge the dominant discourses on their marginalized and minoritized identities, simultaneously determining alternate characteristics for the same identities. Turning to the current conceptualizations of coloured identities as heterogeneous, non-static and highly contextual, I analyze two dominant discourses produced by the coloured students: coloured as an ethnic/hybrid cultural identity and an adoption of an inclusive South African national identity, simultaneously rejecting coloured identity as a product of the apartheid social engineering. Additionally, integrating an ecological approach and ecology model of identity development, created and utilized by Renn (1998, 2004) in her work that explores how multiracial students construct their identities in the context of higher education, I develop an ecology model of coloured students’ identity development and present the data to determine what factors and opportunities, provided by microsystems, mesosystem, exosystems and macrosystem of identity development, are significant and how they influence coloured students’ identities production, development and negotiation in and out of the university environments. The dissertation analysis on coloured identities builds on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Western Cape, South Africa, including limited participant observation and semi-structured interviews with the undergraduate and graduate coloured students of the University of the Western Cape and University of Stellenbosch, the Western Cape, South Africa

Modeling Demand for Outdoor Recreation Settings with Choice Based Data Accounting for Exogenous and Endogenous Stratification

Estimating regional demand models by pooling different samples without correcting for such differences causes model misspecification as each sample belongs to a different population. Weighted regression using Pseudolikelihood to account for differences in sample population with adjustment for heteroskedasticity improves efficiency but the estimates are biased. We estimate regional demand for National Forest settings types in the southeastern states of U.S using weighted and unweighted regression. Using estimation of demand for National Forests as a case study, we resolve problems relating to inference about the data generating process when different samples are pooled together. We show that though efficiency of weighted estimates improves after correcting for heteroskedasticity, they still remain biased as the weights interact with covariates to explain part of model misspecification. In this paper, we show that it is best to use unweighted regression including interactions with weights as covariates.exogenous stratification, endogenous stratification, choice based data, outdoor recreation, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q000, Q500,

DISPUTE OF CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE AND DOMINATION AND THE RESOLUTION IN BULELENG REGENCY

ABSTRACT Customary Land Tenure and Domination not infrequently can lead to disputes, such as custom land disputes that occurred in the customary village of Rules, Buleleng District. Therefore, efforts to resolve the dispute need to be known. How is the Implementation of Customary Land Tenure and Domination in Buleleng Regency as well as the Settlement? Furthermore, the type of research used in this study is empirical legal research. The results of this study indicated that (1) the implementation of Customary Land Tenure and Domination in Buleleng Regency is said to have legitimization due to the control and ownership of customary land especially in the village of Anturan, Buleleng Subdistrict, Buleleng Regency has been based on land tenure system according to customary law (2) The settlement of customary land dispute cases that occurred in Anturan Village and Buleleng District was preceded by mediation dispute settlement efforts, but because it could not be resolved through mediation so that the case of this customary land dispute was filed suit to the Singaraja District Court by examining the evidence and witnesses presented by both parties to the dispute. Keywords: Dispute, Customary Land, Land Tenur

Pilot Project: Plant Hormones and Soil Bacterial Populations in Plant Growth Enhancement

The way microorganisms affect plant health, through the contribution of nitrogen or phosphorus fixation by bacteria to the growing plants, has been thoroughly studied. Commonly referred to as Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria (PGPBs), these organisms play a key role in enhancing plant growth by assisting in the production of indole acetic acid (IAA), facilitating the uptake of nutrients via mechanisms like phosphorus solubilization, and producing inhibitory substances that protect plants from pathogens. However, the reverse of this phenomenon has not been studied as deeply. This study will focus on how the addition of plant hormones, more specifically, gibberellins, affects the soil bacteria population. Biolog EcoPlates will be used to analyze microbial communities and keep track of their growth. By analyzing various factors such as the selected hormone, concentrations applied, and other variables, we aim to discover whether alterations in bacterial population diversity correlate with plant growth, the introduction of exogenous hormone treatments, or a combination of both

Syahadat Kanjeng Nabi Muhammad dalam prosesi pernikahan Baduy : studi tentang proses islamisasi Suku Baduy Luar di Kanekes Leuwidamar Lebak Banten

Penelitian ini berawal dari ketertarikan penulis untuk mengkaji tentang sosial keagamaan yang tidak lepas dari keanekaragaman Indonesia yang begitu kaya dan unik untuk dikaji. Salah satunya ada pada kampung adat suku Baduy Luar Desa Kanekes Kecamatan Leuwidamar Kabupaten Lebak Banten. Suku yang dikenal primitif dan memiliki kepercayaan terhadap nenek moyang atau leluhur dengan sebutan Slam Sunda Wiwitan. Dewasa ini suku Baduy Luar sudah banyak yang memeluk Islam dan hidup serba modern. Pasalnya pada suku Baduy Luar di dalam adat pernikahan mempelai pria diwajibkan mengucapkan dua kalimat syahadat satu hari sebelum pernikahannya. Namun keputusan untuk memeluk Islam pada masyarakat suku Baduy Luar berdampak pada pengeluaran secara kesukuan Baduy dengan kata lain tidak boleh tinggal di tanah hak Ulayat lagi karena sudah tidak sepaham. Berdasarkan permasalahan di atas, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui bagaimana prosesi pernikahan di kalangan suku Baduy Luar dan bagaimana tindak lanjut masyarakat suku Baduy Luar setelah menikah. Pada penelitian ini penulis menggunakan pendekatan Fenomenologi yang dikembangkan oleh Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). Sedangkan jenis penelitiannya ialah kualitatif yang menghasilkan data deskriptif. Pengumpulan data yang dilakukan dalam penelitian yaitu dengan metode observasi partisipatif aktif, wawancara, dan dokumentasi. Data primer merupakan data yang didapat langsung oleh penulis dari hasil wawancara dengan informan, sedangkan data skunder diperoleh dari dokumen yang dibutuhkan yang berguna melengkapi data dalam penelitian. Di dalam penelitian ini yang menjadi subjek adalah masyarakat suku Baduy Luar, suku Baduy Luar yang sudah muslim, Naib/Amil atau penghulu, tokoh adat serta tokoh masyarakat (Ustadz/Kiyai) suku Baduy Luar dan sekitarnya. Penelitian ini menggunakan teori perubahan sosial Max Weber dengan analisis kualitatif yang bersifat induktif. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa proses pernikahan suku Baduy Luar diawali dengan persiapan pernikahan yang terdiri atas lamaran dan penentuan waktu pernikahan. Waktu yang dibutuhkan pada tahap lamaran sampai menentukan waktu pernikahan ialah selama satu thaun. Kemudian dilanjutkan dengan pelaksanaan pernikahan selama tiga hari berturut-turut. Puncak ritual pernikahan adat Baduy ialah calon pengantin dinyatakan sah kawin setelah melewati turun panganten atau panghurip. Pasca pernikahan, suku Baduy Luar ada yang memutuskan untuk menjadi muslim dan melaksanakan sholat lima waktu, belajar mengaji, dan merayakan perayaan hari besar Islam. Sementara untuk masyarakat suku Baduy Luar yang tetap memutuskan menjadi Baduy tetap tinggal di tanah hak Ulayat Desa Kanekes atau bisa juga menempati pemukiman Baduy Kompol di luar tanah adat. ABSTRACT : This research started from the writer's interest to study about socio-religious which cannot be separated from the diversity of Indonesia which is so rich and unique to study. One of them is in the traditional village of the Outer Baduy tribe, Kanekes Village, Leuwidamar District, Lebak Regency, Banten. The tribe that is known to be primitive and has a belief in their ancestors or ancestors is called Slam Sunda Wiwitan. Today many Outer Baduy tribes have embraced Islam and live a modern life. This is because the Outer Baduy tribe in the marriage custom of the groom is required to say two sentences of the creed one day before the wedding. However, the decision to embrace Islam in the Outer Baduy tribal community has an impact on the expenditure of the Baduy ethnicity, in other words, they are not allowed to live in the land of Ulayat rights anymore because they do not agree. Based on the problems above, this study aims to find out how the wedding procession among the Outer Baduy tribe is and how the Outer Baduy community follows up after marriage. In this study, the author uses a phenomenological approach developed by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). While the type of research is qualitative which produces descriptive data. The data collection carried out in this study is the method of active participatory observation, interviews, and documentation. Primary data is data obtained directly by the author from the results of interviews with informants, while secondary data is obtained from the required documents that are useful in completing the data in the study. In this study, the subjects were the Outer Baduy community, the Outer Baduy tribe who were already Muslim, Naib/Amil or penghulu, traditional leaders and community leaders (Ustadz/Kiyai) of the Outer Baduy tribe and its surroundings. This study uses Max Weber's theory of social change with an inductive qualitative analysis. The results of this study indicate that the marriage process of the Outer Baduy tribe begins with wedding preparations which consist of an application and the determination of the wedding time. The time needed at the application stage to determine the time of marriage is one year. Then proceed with the implementation of the wedding for three consecutive days. The peak of the Baduy traditional wedding ritual is that the bride and groom are declared legally married after passing through the Panghurip or Panghurip. After the marriage, some of the Outer Baduy people decided to become Muslims and perform the five daily prayers, learn the Koran, and celebrate Islamic holidays. Meanwhile, the Outer Baduy people who still decide to become Baduy will stay on the customary land of Kanekes Village or can also occupy the Kompol Baduy settlement outside the customary land

Nail changes in construction site workers: an observational study

Background: Nail changes are common in occupational labourers but no studies have been done pertaining to construction site workers. We studied nail changes in labourers working at various construction sites.Methods: 50 labourers of age group 10-65 years and both sexes were enrolled for the study. Changes in nail apparatus were studied by dividing into nail plate, nail bed and nail fold changes.Results: Males outnumbered females in our study. Most of the labourers were in age group of 10-25 years. Most common nail plate changes were Longitudinal ridging and discoloration of nail plate; nail bed were onycholysis, subungual hemorrhage, onycholysis and nail fold changes were absent cuticle and hang nail.Conclusions: Adequate preventive measures are required at construction site workplace to prevent long standing nail sequalae

Customer Emotions in Strengthening Relationship with Service Provider

Individual emotions act as influential psychological dimension directing their though and eventually decision making process. Earlier studies have examined the link of employee and customer relationship with respect to physical and psychosocial dimensions. Further extending the explanation of linkage, this study aims to examine the relationship in the presence of customer emotions and their overall impact on relationship strength with the organization. The descriptive research design is adopted to analyze the proposed dimensions and validate the model sustainability. Data collection was employed through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using multivariate techniques. Findings support the proposed hypothesis explaining the mediating role of customer emotions and therefore its role in maintaining sustainable relationship with the organization. The analytical results explains the dynamics of relationship between the front-line employee and customer in light of psychological factor i.e. customer emotions. Since emotions are the psychological dimension influenced highly due to cultural and demographic profiles, the relationship strength/intensity among the proposed dimensions within the model cannot be generalized for every industrial platform. Also the study is limited to the geographical area of Gujarat wherein the industry environment does influence the customer interaction process with the organization. Keywords: Employee satisfaction, Employee commitment, Customer emotions, Customer retention