ARE STOCK MARKET PRICES RELATED TO THE WEATHER EFFECTS? Empirical Evidence from New York City

Several behavioral finance studies have proved that investor psychology fluctuations can explain some anomalies in stock market. Moreover, there are links between weather condition and stock prices via human mood. This thesis investigates the possible relationship between four weather elements (precipitation, snowfall, average daily temperature, and average daily wind speed) and stock prices in New York City. In order to examine the weather effects on stocks, daily weather data of New York City and daily closure stock prices logarithm of NASDAQ Indexes from October 3rd, 1994 (Monday) to October 1st, 2014 (Wednesday) as well as severe events data within this 20 years in New York City are used as the observations in the thesis. Through applying both individual and combined tests of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions between weather and stock data, it is found that daily precipitation amount, snowfall amount do not have significant influences on stock prices. Average daily temperature and the dummy variable 1 (good weather) present to have positive influences on stock prices. Both coefficients of them reach the statistically significant level in most of the tests. Besides, the results also prove that average daily wind speed as well as the dummy variable 2 (bad weather) have negative correlations with stock returns. The coefficients of wind speeds are statistically significant in all tests. However, no significant evidence has been found to prove the influence of severe events on the stock market or the existence of Monday or January effect in New York City.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Input Subsidy Programs and Commercial Market Development: Modeling Fertilizer Use Decisions in a Two-Channel Marketing System

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/18/06.crowding out effect, input marketing channels, fertilizer, sub-Saharan Africa, survey data, Marketing,

Vertical Earthquake Response Analysis of Xiaolangdi Earth-Rock Dam With 3-D Shear Wedge Model

The constructing Xiaolangdi dam is the highest earth-rock dam in China. Its maximum height is about 154 m, and the length of dam axis is about 1500 m. In this paper, by application of the three-dimensional shear wedge theory and the Bubnov-Galerkin approach method, the vertical earthquake response analysis is performed for the earth dam. Its dynamic behaviors such as maximum dynamic displacement, velocity, acceleration and stress etc. are obtained. Under the action of the designed earthquakes, the fundamental period of the vertical vibration of the Xiaolangdi earth-rock dam is about 0.803 s, the maximum acceleration response is about 0.976 g, and the maximum absolute acceleration is about 1.476 g

Maize Yield Response to Fertilizer and Profitability of Fertilizer Use Among Small-Scale Maize Producers in Zambia

Multi-year nationwide survey data is used to estimate maize yield response functions and determine profitability of fertilizer use by small-scale farmers in Zambia. There has been a dearth of empirical studies on economics of fertilization in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper we identify major methodological issues arising from using survey data and estimate maize yield response functions for small-scale rural households that have various management practices and soil conditions in two major agro-climatic zones. Profitability of fertilizer use is determined for each group of households. Our findings provide the following key messages. First, households that obtained fertilizer on time and used animal draught power or mechanical power for land preparation are more likely to find fertilizer use profitable than other households with similar agro-ecological and market access conditions. Second, farmers' proximity to the provincial centers has a significant impact on the profitability of fertilizer use. Greater distances and transport costs from provincial centers erode the profitability of fertilizer use. Third, high interest rates also reduce the profitability of fertilizer use. Small farmers may find fertilizer use unprofitable until efforts are made to reduce transportation costs and interest rates as well as to ensure more timely delivery of fertilizer.Maize, Yield, Fertilizer, Profitability, Survey data, Crop Production/Industries,

PROFITABILITY OF FERTILIZER USE ON MAIZE BY SMALL-SCALE FARMING HOUSEHOLDS IN ZAMBIA

Multi-year nationwide survey data is used to estimate maize yield response functions and determine profitability of fertilizer use by small-scale farmers in Zambia. Most previous research on economics of fertilization used estimates of yield response to nutrients based on experimental or simulation data and seldom investigated region-specific and management-specific effects. In this paper we address the main issues arising from using large survey data and estimate maize yield response functions for different groups of households that have various management practices and soil conditions in two major agro-climatic zones. Profitability of fertilizer use is determined for each group in each zone and the results provide the following messages. First, households that obtained fertilizer on time and used animal draught power or mechanical power for land preparation are more likely to find fertilizer use profitable than other groups of households located in the same district. Second, farmers' proximity to the provincial centers has a significant impact on the profitability of fertilizer use. Greater distances and transport costs from provincial centers erode the profitability of fertilizer use. Third, high time preferences for money also reduce the profitability of fertilizer use. Thus, despite achieving relatively high physical crop response rates to fertilizer use in some areas, small farmers may find fertilizer use unprofitable until efforts are made to reduce transportation costs and implicit interest rates as well as to ensure more timely delivery of fertilizer.Farm Management,

Improved micro-continuum approach for capillary-dominated multiphase flow with reduced spurious velocity

A diverse range of multiphase flow and transport occurs in multiscale porous media. The multiphase micro-continuum Darcy-Brinkmann-Stokes (DBS) model has been developed to simulate the multiphase flow at both the pore and continuum scales via single-field equations. However, the unacceptable spurious velocities produced by the conventional micro-continuum DBS model present challenges to the modeling of capillary-dominated flow dynamics. This study improves the micro-continuum DBS model to mitigate these spurious velocities at the gas-liquid interface and contact-line regions. A hybrid interpolation scheme is proposed to improve the computational accuracy of the interface curvature and reduce the spurious velocity around the gas-liquid interface by 1-2 orders of magnitude. At the porous boundary, the normal to the gas-liquid interface is corrected, and the normal to the solid-fluid interface is smoothed to guarantee the prescribed wettability condition and decrease the spurious velocities at the contact-line region by an order of magnitude. A series of static and dynamic benchmark cases are investigated to demonstrate that the improved DBS model can simulate capillary-dominated multiphase flows with negligible spurious velocities at capillary numbers as low as 10-4 in both simple and complex geometries. The improved DBS model can combine X-ray computed micro-tomography images to perform multiscale simulations of capillary-dominated multiphase flow and understand the effect of sub-resolution porosity on fluid dynamics in naturally multiscale rocks