An Evaluation of Technical Analysis as a Marketing Tool for Farmers

The increased price volatility of the past decade has increased the importance of producer marketing strategies. With wide price ranges, producers now have more monetary incentive to attempt to store when prices are low, and incentive to attempt to sell when prices are high, than when price ranges were relatively narrow. Many farmers are seeking professional marketing advice, in attempts to improve their marketing information. A recent survey indicated that over 57 percent of farmers with sales over $100,000 subscribed to at least one market advisory service. This professional advice often includes technical analysis. However, from the producers\u27 perspective, the benefits and gains, and the problems and drawbacks of charting, have not been adequately studied. Few studies have considered the implications of producers dealing with both the futures market and the cash market. This study deals with this important distinction. Despite a lack of evidence, farmers are paying to receive technical analysis. from experts. One farmer oriented, professional charting service implies that using their charts will improve one\u27s trading proficiency by 10%-20%. Left unanswered is what benefit this is to a grain farmer who sells only two or three times per year. Other charting services make unsupported claims, too. One advertisement stated, Oats are very nice to trade technically. This commodity always goes where it is projected to go--even if only for one trade. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the usefulness of technical analysis for farmers, not futures market speculators. A major objective of this study was to examine the cash market prices that would have been paid or received if cash transactions had been made when futures market price charts signaled to buy or sell. The short-run forecasting accuracy of price chart formations was also analyzed. A second major objective was to analyze the results of three producer marketing strategies which use technical analysis. The first strategy compared hedging for short periods, to selling in the cash market. The goal of this test was to find the effective annual interest rate that a producer could obtain by hedging under certain conditions. The second strategy tested was graphing of the basis with moving averages. As the basis changed, the moving averages changed, causing buy and sell signals. The objective of this test was to evaluate the prices paid and received from this strategy\u27s signals, compared to the overall average price. The third strategy tested the usefulness of selective hedging. The objective was to evaluate the benefits and risks of selective hedging for producers

Forbidden oxygen lines at various nucleocentric distances in comets

To study the formation of the [OI] lines - i.e., 5577 A (the green line), 6300 A and 6364 A (the two red lines) - in the coma of comets and to determine the parent species of the oxygen atoms using the green to red-doublet emission intensity ratio (G/R ratio) and the lines velocity widths. We acquired at the ESO VLT high-resolution spectroscopic observations of comets C/2002 T7 (LINEAR), 73P-C/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, 8P/Tuttle, and, 103P/Hartley 2 when they were close to the Earth (< 0.6 au). Using the observed spectra, we determined the intensities and the widths of the three [OI] lines. We have spatially extracted the spectra in order to achieve the best possible resolution of about 1-2", i.e., nucleocentric projected distances of 100 to 400 km depending on the geocentric distance of the comet. We have decontaminated the [OI] green line from C2 lines blends. It is found that the observed G/R ratio on all four comets varies as a function of nucleocentric projected distance. This is mainly due to the collisional quenching of O(1S) and O(1D) by water molecules in the inner coma. The observed green emission line width is about 2.5 km/s and decreases as the distance from the nucleus increases which can be explained by the varying contribution of CO2 to the O(1S) production in the innermost coma. The photodissociation of CO2 molecules seems to produce O(1S) closer to the nucleus while the water molecule forms all the O(1S) and O(1D) atoms beyond 1000 km. Thus we conclude that the main parent species producing O(1S) and O(1D) in the inner coma is not always the same. The observations have been interpreted in the framework of the coupled-chemistry-emission model of Bhardwaj & Raghuram (2012) and the upper limits of CO2 relative abundances are derived from the observed G/R ratios. Measuring the [OI] lines could indeed provide a new way to determine the CO2 relative abundance in comets.Comment: accepted for publication in A&A, the abstract is shortene

The MAPK hypothesis: immune-regulatory effects of MAPK-pathway genetic dysregulations and implications for breast cancer immunotherapy

With the advent of checkpoint inhibition, immunotherapy has revolutionized the clinical management of several cancers, but has demonstrated limited efficacy in mammary carcinoma. Transcriptomic profiling of cancer samples defined distinct immunophenotypic categories characterized by different prognostic and predictive connotations. In breast cancer, genomic alterations leading to the dysregulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways have been linked to an immune-silent phenotype associated with poor outcome and treatment resistance. These aberrations include mutations of MAP3K1 and MAP2K4, amplification of KRAS, BRAF, and RAF1, and truncations of NF1. Anticancer therapies targeting MAPK signaling by BRAF and MEK inhibitors have demonstrated clear immunologic effects. These off-target properties could be exploited to convert the immune-silent tumor phenotype into an immune-active one. Preclinical evidence supports that MAPK-pathway inhibition can dramatically increase the efficacy of immunotherapy. In this review, we provide a detailed overview of the immunomodulatory impact of MAPK-pathway blockade through BRAF and MEK inhibitions. While BRAF inhibition might be relevant in melanoma only, MEK inhibition is potentially applicable to a wide range of tumors. Context-dependent similarities and differences of MAPK modulation will be dissected, in light of the complexity of the MAPK pathways. Therapeutic strategies combining the favorable effects of MAPK-oriented interventions on the tumor microenvironment while maintaining T-cell function will be presented. Finally, we will discuss recent studies highlighting the rationale for the implementation of MAPK-interference approaches in combination with checkpoint inhibitors and immune agonists in breast cancer

Effect of Copper And/Or Bacitracin On The Sulphur Amino Acid Requirements Of Turkeys

A nonsignificant but consistent depressing effects from additions of combined copper (120 ppm) and zinc bacitracin (50 or 75 g per ton) was observed in a previous study. One of the factors that has been suspected to be affected by copper is utilization of sulfur containing amino acids. Thus, a factorial experiment was conducted to study the effect of copper (120 ppm) and/or zinc bacitracin (25 g per ton) on the level of sulfur amino acids at 85%, 100% and 115% of NRC (1977) requirements. The low protein density series of Guenthner et al. (1978) was used (23, 20, 18, 16, 14 and 12%). Dietary protein level was reduced at 4-week intervals

Pleiotropic functions of the tumor- and metastasis-suppressing Matrix Metalloproteinase-8 in mammary cancer in MMTV-PyMT transgenic mice

Matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8; neutrophil collagenase) is an important regulator of innate immunity which has onco-suppressive actions in numerous tumor types

Demonstration of an automated CFD system for three-dimensional flow simulations

In this paper the capabilities of an automated CFD system which is currently available at NLR are demonstrated. Transonic flow around the AS28G wing/body configuration and hypersonic flow through a generic three-dimensional mixed-compression airbreathing inlet are simulated. An assessment of the level of automation of the current CFD-system is made. The problem-turnaround time lies within the order of a week for both applications

Biosynthesis, primary structure and molecular cloning of snowdrop ( Galanthus nivalis L.) lectin

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65530/1/j.1432-1033.1991.tb16339.x.pd