Alternative Pricing and Delivery Strategies for Alberta Cattle Feeders

This study evaluates the risk and returns to cattle feeding in Alberta from the application of alternative marketing and pricing strategies. Feedlot finishing of 650 pound calves and 800 pound yearlings is modeled over the years from 1980 to 1993. The results of the study are based on the domestic and US marketing of live cattle using traditional cash marketing, futures contracts, put options, and forward production contracting systems. Use of the Western Domestic Feed Barley contract is also simulated. The results showed that barley price changes produced relatively small return changes compared to feeder and fat cattle price changes. An important source of return risk was found to be basis risk. Production contracting strategies which eliminated basis risk were found to provide the best returns in a market based risk-return comparison. The use of put options did not add value to cattle feeding investments.Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing,

Optimal Summation and Integration by Deterministic, Randomized, and Quantum Algorithms

We survey old and new results about optimal algorithms for summation of finite sequences and for integration of functions from Hoelder or Sobolev spaces. First we discuss optimal deterministic and randomized algorithms. Then we add a new aspect, which has not been covered before on conferences about (quasi-) Monte Carlo methods: quantum computation. We give a short introduction into this setting and present recent results of the authors on optimal quantum algorithms for summation and integration. We discuss comparisons between the three settings. The most interesting case for Monte Carlo and quantum integration is that of moderate smoothness k and large dimension d which, in fact, occurs in a number of important applied problems. In that case the deterministic exponent is negligible, so the n^{-1/2} Monte Carlo and the n^{-1} quantum speedup essentially constitute the entire convergence rate. We observe that -- there is an exponential speed-up of quantum algorithms over deterministic (classical) algorithms, if k/d tends to zero; -- there is a (roughly) quadratic speed-up of quantum algorithms over randomized classical algorithms, if k/d is small.Comment: 13 pages, contribution to the 4th International Conference on Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods, Hong Kong 200

Evaluating Alternative Safety Net Programs in Alberta: A Firm-level Simulation Analysis

This paper examines alternative risk management strategies in terms of their effectiveness for three representative Alberta farm operations. Stochastic dynamic simulation methods are used to model financial performance for these farms, and alternative risk management programs are compared in terms of their ability to stabilize returns, support income and reduce the probability of bankruptcy. The results suggest that government programs such as the Net Income Stabilization Account (NISA) program or the Farm Income Disaster Program (FIDP) in Alberta have some benefits in terms of supporting income levels and reducing the chances of farm failure. Neither program is very effective, however, in stabilizing year to year income or cash flow for the farm operations. As a risk management program, FIDP is more effective than NISA but this improved performance comes at the price of higher government costs. Performance of NISA and FIDP, relative to alternative risk management programs and strategies such as forward contracting or crop insurance, is mixed. In some cases, NISA does not seem to provide benefits beyond those available from other strategies, while FIDP tends to perform better than the alternatives. Finally, while increased debt load weakens firm financial performance, NISA and FIDP still provide some benefits in terms of supporting income and reducing the probability of bankruptcy.Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty,

PORK RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR THE ALBERTA HOG INDUSTRY

Risk and Uncertainty,

Flexible Pricing and Payment Alternatives on Canadian Wheat Board Pooling For Wheat

Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

Radiative Transfer and Radiative driving of Outflows in AGN and Starbursts

To facilitate the study of black hole fueling, star formation, and feedback in galaxies, we outline a method for treating the radial forces on interstellar gas due to absorption of photons by dust grains. The method gives the correct behavior in all of the relevant limits (dominated by the central point source; dominated by the distributed isotropic source; optically thin; optically thick to UV/optical; optically thick to IR) and reasonably interpolates between the limits when necessary. The method is explicitly energy conserving so that UV/optical photons that are absorbed are not lost, but are rather redistributed to the IR where they may scatter out of the galaxy. We implement the radiative transfer algorithm in a two-dimensional hydrodynamical code designed to study feedback processes in the context of early-type galaxies. We find that the dynamics and final state of simulations are measurably but only moderately affected by radiative forces on dust, even when assumptions about the dust-to-gas ratio are varied from zero to a value appropriate for the Milky Way. In simulations with high gas densities designed to mimic ULIRGs with a star formation rate of several hundred solar masses per year, dust makes a more substantial contribution to the dynamics and outcome of the simulation. We find that, despite the large opacity of dust to UV radiation, the momentum input to the flow from radiation very rarely exceeds L/c due to two factors: the low opacity of dust to the re-radiated IR and the tendency for dust to be destroyed by sputtering in hot gas environments. We also develop a simplification of our radiative transfer algorithm that respects the essential physics but is much easier to implement and requires a fraction of the computational cost.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, submitted to MNRA

Bose-Einstein or HBT correlations and the anomalous dimension of QCD

Bose-Einstein (or HBT) correlation functions are evaluated for the fractal structure of QCD jets. These correlation functions have a stretched exponential (or Levy-stable) form. The anomalous dimension of QCD determines the Levy index of stability, thus the running coupling constant of QCD becomes measurable with the help of two-particle Bose-Einstein correlation functions. These considerations are tested on NA22 and UA1 two-pion correlation data.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, presented by T. Csorgo at the XXXIV International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics, Sonoma County, California, USA, July 2004, to appear in Acta Physica Polonica

Pair Correlation Function of Wilson Loops

We give a path integral prescription for the pair correlation function of Wilson loops lying in the worldvolume of Dbranes in the bosonic open and closed string theory. The results can be applied both in ordinary flat spacetime in the critical dimension d or in the presence of a generic background for the Liouville field. We compute the potential between heavy nonrelativistic sources in an abelian gauge theory in relative collinear motion with velocity v = tanh(u), probing length scales down to r_min^2 = 2 \pi \alpha' u. We predict a universal -(d-2)/r static interaction at short distances. We show that the velocity dependent corrections to the short distance potential in the bosonic string take the form of an infinite power series in the dimensionless variables z = r_min^2/r^2, uz/\pi, and u^2.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, Revtex. Corrected factor of two in potential. Some changes in discussio

Chelydra serpentina

Number of Pages: 4Integrative BiologyEarth and Planetary Science

Bose-Einstein or HBT correlation signature of a second order QCD phase transition

For particles emerging from a second order QCD phase transition, we show that a recently introduced shape parameter of the Bose-Einstein correlation function, the Levy index of stability equals to the correlation exponent - one of the critical exponents that characterize the behavior of the matter in the vicinity of the second order phase transition point. Hence the shape of the Bose-Einstein / HBT correlation functions, when measured as a function of bombarding energy and centrality in various heavy ion reactions, can be utilized to locate experimentally the second order phase transition and the critical end point of the first order phase transition line in QCD.Comment: 8 pages, talk given by T. Csorgo at the Workshop on Particle Correlations and Femtoscopy 2005, Kromeriz, Czech Republic, August 200