The objective of the present study was to estimate genetic trends for lactation milk yield, persistency of milk yield, somatic cell count and interval between first and second calving in Holstein dairy cows of Iran. The dataset consisted of 210,625 test day and 25,883 first parity cows with milk yield recorded from July 2002 to September 2007 comprising 97 herds in Iran. Breeding values of anim...

We consider the problem of hedging and pricing claims for delivery of crude oil or natural gas to a given location. We work with a three factor model for the asset spot, the convenience yield and the locational basis. The convenience yield is taken to be unobserved and must be filtered. We study the value function corresponding to utility pricing with exponential utility. Assuming the basis is ...

The objective of this study was to develop a flow model for grain combinesbased on the laboratory and field response of an impact based grain flow sensor. The grainflow model developed in this study is of first order with constant coefficients. A computercode was written to solve the model and to simulate the response of a yield sensor whoseresponse had been determined previously for various ty...

Conventionally, methane is reformed into syngas, and subsequently converted into C1-oxygenates (methanol and formaldehyde). A novel option is the catalyst-free single-step conversion of methane to C1-oxygenates. This study presents a comprehensive model of methane partial oxidation to formaldehyde as an intermediate chemical species in methane oxidation process using microreactor. The dependenc...

This paper proposes a density ratio estimator of crop yield distributions, wherein the number of observations for individual distributions is often quite small. The density ratio approach models individual densities as distortions from a common baseline density. We introduce a probability integral transformation to the density ratio method that simplifies the modeling of distortion functions. W...

Outbred suckling mice (NMRI strain) were used as hosts. They were initially inoculated with oocysts of human origin, and subsequently with parasites recovered from the mouse ileal mucosa. Cryptosporidia were counted in an aliquot of whole-ileum homogenate. Parasite load was expressed as cryptosporidia per centimeter of ileum. Serial passage of C. parvum in NMRI mouse litters led to a gradual am...

The paper deals with the problem of nonlocal generalization of constitutive models such as microplane model M4 for concrete, in which the yield limits, called stress–strain boundaries, are softening functions of the total strain. Such constitutive models call for a different nonlocal generalization than those for continuum damage mechanics, in which the total strain is reversible, or for plasti...