Total Endowment Research Articles

KUCUKDA : A NEW, HIGH SULFIDATION EPITHERMAL Au-Ag-Cu DEPOSIT AT THE TV TOWER PROPERTY IN WESTERN TURKEY

The Biga Peninsula in northwestern Turkey hosts a large number of high and low sulfidation epithermal gold-silver-(copper) and associated copper-gold porphyry deposits and prospects, associated with voluminous, Eocene-Miocene calc-alkaline volcanism and plutonism. Approximately 15 million gold-equiv oz have been discovered within the last 10 years in this area, with a number of new discoveries now in the drill-testing stage and two deposits in the development stage. At the TV Tower property in the central Biga Peninsula, Eocene(?) to Oligocene intermediate to felsic volcanic and volcaniclastic strata and associated intrusive rocks overlie metamorphosed basement rocks of the Camlica Group. The volcanic sequence is broadly divisible into a lower sequence of andesitic dikes and flows intruded by monzonite porphyry stocks and dikes, a middle sequence of andesitic breccias and flows, and an upper sequence consisting largely of dacitic tuffs, flows, and epiclastic strata. The middle and upper sequences are strongly altered over an area covering several tens of km2, including argillic, advanced argillic, and massive to vuggy quartz alteration, the latter largely manifested as ledges hosted in dacitic volcaniclastic rocks. Moderate- and high-angle normal and oblique faults are common in the area and may have influenced the distribution of mineralization. The Kucukdag zone was drill-tested in 2010 on the basis of strong surface soil and rock sample data. The second hole returned a near-surface intercept of 136.2 m averaging 4.30 g/t Au, 15.0 g/t Ag, and 0.68% Cu. As of the date of this communication, 169 holes have been drilled to test the zone, which measures approximately 600 × 400 m and consists of a lower gold-rich zone and an upper silver-rich zone. Total mineral endowment is estimated at 966,000 indicated and 351,000 inferred gold-equiv oz. Mineralization is strongly controlled by stratigraphy, with gold hosted primarily within a massive lithic lapilli-bearing tuff unit and silver largely constrained to an overlying fluvial-lacustrine sequence capped by andesite breccias. Copper is distributed throughout the zone in association with both gold and silver. The zone is located primarily in the hanging wall of a moderate-angle fault that separates the dacitic volcaniclastic sequence from andesite breccias in the footwall. Gold is associated with tectonic-hydrothermal breccias, zones of vuggy quartz and veins, and alteration minerals consisting primarily of alunite and dickite with sulfides including pyrite, enargite, and covellite. Spatially, silver is largely separate from gold, and is associated with silicification, very fine grained pyrite, and/or marcasite and enargite. Paragenetic evidence suggests that the silver event may predate the gold event, but that the two may have shared common fluid pathways. A number of other targets are currently being explored on the property, including silicified ledge or rib-style, vuggy quartz-hosted oxide gold, Cu-Au porphyry, and low sulfidation epithermal gold-silver veins.

Comonotone Pareto optimal allocations for law invariant robust utilities on L 1

We prove the existence of comonotone Pareto optimal allocations satisfying utility constraints when decision makers have probabilistic sophisticated variational preferences and thus representing criteria in the class of law invariant robust utilities. The total endowment is only required to be integrable.

Resource Structure and Imports: An Analysis of the Relationship between Skill-Intensive Imports and Skill Endowment

Countries generally import those goods which they do not produce, and there is a possibility that this might be due to unavailability of resources needed to produce the goods which the countries import. Hence, countries with lower levels of total skill endowment are supposed to import more skill-intensive goods than countries with higher levels of total skill endowment. However, the presence of vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade makes this picture complex. Using a theoretical model derived on the basis of earlier theories and some empirical investigation on data of 72 countries of 3 years, this article tries to find out whether there is any relation between total skill endowment and imports of a country. The results show that there is indeed a relationship, but the nature of this relationship depends on the effect of total skill endowment on the country's skill-intensive exports as well.

Honoring 150 years of accessible higher education

In 1862, in a nation torn by secession and Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a visionary law that laid the cornerstone of public higher education. The Morrill Land-Grant College Act gave federal public lands to states, allotting 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative. The total endowment was $7.55 million, then the value of 17.4 million acres. Today, more than 100 land-grant universities serve the nation and the world, including what many believe is the greatest public university in the world, the University of California.

Concave measures and the fuzzy core of exchange economies with heterogeneous divisible commodities

The main purpose of this paper is to prove the existence of the fuzzy core of an exchange economy with a heterogeneous divisible commodity in which preferences of individuals are given by nonadditive utility functions defined on a σ-algebra of admissible pieces of the total endowment of the commodity. The problem is formulated as the partitioning of a measurable space among finitely many individuals. Applying the Yosida–Hewitt decomposition theorem, we also demonstrate that partitions in the fuzzy core are supportable by prices in L1.

Using size distribution analysis to forecast natural gas resources in Asia Pacific

Increasing energy consumption in Asia Pacific will largely be met by fossil fuels. Natural gas production in the region presently ranks behind that of oil and coal. However, the abundance of gas could lead to a significant gas market share increase in the energy mix. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the total endowment of conventional gas in Asia Pacific. This is carried out with a Variable Shape Distribution (VSD) model that forecasts volumes in provinces that have not been previously evaluated. The endowment is then distributed across countries to show where volumes are most likely to be found. A breakdown between offshore versus onshore resources is also estimated. The results of the analysis show there is a significant gas endowment. The estimated distribution across countries and onshore/offshore areas provides insight into the relative economics of gas production, as well as a basis for potential investment decisions. With appropriate energy policies, it may be possible to tap the vast gas potential in Asia Pacific. Considering gas may be the most abundant, inexpensive, and clean fossil fuel, the outcome would be increased energy security and a low carbon economy.

The foundations of Chinese attitudes towards advocating luxury spending

In China, some scholars have argued that luxury spending is socially beneficial to equalise wealth, under the assumption that the total endowment of resources is a fixed amount. This argument is not only consistent with Confucianism but also might point to another lesser known side of Confucianism that the luxury spending of the rich can be regarded as a wealth-transferring mechanism. Furthermore, luxury spending was encouraged for purposes of enjoyment; it did not involve the consideration of power and protection. This is in sharp contrast to the extravagance of the European nobility; their intention was to maintain a hierarchical structure.

Using size distribution analysis to forecast natural gas resources in Asia Pacific

Increasing energy consumption in the Asia Pacific region will largely be met by fossil fuel resources. Natural gas production in the region presently ranks behind that of oil and coal; however, the abundance of natural gas could lead to a significant gas market share increase in the energy mix. The purpose of this extended abstract is to estimate the total endowment of conventional natural gas in Asia Pacific. This is carried out with a variable shape distribution (VSD) model, which forecasts volumes in provinces that have not been previously evaluated. The endowment is then distributed across countries to show where volumes are most likely to be found. A breakdown between offshore versus onshore resources is also estimated. The results of the analysis show that there is a significant natural gas endowment in the region. The estimated distribution across countries and onshore/offshore areas provides insight into the relative economics of natural gas production in the region, as well as a basis for potential investment decisions. With appropriate energy policies and improvements in technology, it may be possible to tap the vast natural gas potential in the Asia Pacific. Considering natural gas may be the most abundant, inexpensive, and clean fossil fuel, the outcome would be increased energy security and a low carbon economy.

Failure of the stem cell niche rather than loss of oocyte stem cells in the aging ovary

The possibility of postnatal oogenesis in humans and other species has become one of today's most debated topics in the fields of reproductive and developmental biology. Wilhelm Waldeyer concluded in 1870 that oocyte production ceases with birth, and for more than a century scientists have been in consensus that the number of oocytes is gradually reduced throughout adult life [1]. A contemporary understanding of tissue regeneration, together with novel experimental methods, led to a new school of thought that has challenged the model of prenatal total endowment, by suggesting replenishment of the postnatal oocytes pool by adult Germline Stem Cell (GSC). According to this theory, a small number of GSC remains viable to produce oocytes or oocyte-like cells within the ovary throughout the lifespan of the adult female [2,3]. These cells may originate from within or from outside the ovary. However, in a parabiotic model, or after bone marrow transplantation, the absence of mature donor derived eggs in the recipient suggested that mature eggs are not readily generated by cells from outside of the ovary [4]. Supporters of the GSC model insist that the absence of mature eggs from a donor do not contradict the idea of a progenitor cell that may give rise to a pool of additional oocytes. Last year, Zou et. [5] established a GSC cell line by sorting for ovarian cells that were positive for the mouse vasa homologue (MVH) protein. These cells went through many passages in culture, showed high telomerase activity, and when stably transfected with GFP and transplanted into females, gave rise to offspring that carried the signal. The controversy surrounding the relation between age and the reducing number of eggs produced females only increased.

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Appropriation, Formal and Informal Sectors, and Efficient Endowment Distribution

By adding an informal sector whose output is not subject to appropriative interactions and assuming complementarity in the inputs for market production, this paper investigates how possible asymmetries in conflict affect the allocation of resources. It is shown that when the existing gap in relative appropriative skills is being closed, more resources are allocated to appropriative activities in the economy. We are, in this case, more likely to see a reduction in market activities but an increase in home activities. A poorer party is a natural producer rather than a natural fighter, which is the usual characterization of a less endowed party in the conflict analysis. By conducting a welfare analysis, this paper shows that a market-output-maximizing initial distribution of resources endowment is such that when one party has a comparative advantage in market production over appropriation, its initial fraction of total resource endowment should be greater than its relative productivity in market production.

Decentralized Downside Risk Management

The process of risk management for institutional investors faces two challenges. First, since most institutions are decentralized as opposed to being direct investors in assets, it is difficult to separate the risks of the assets in the portfolio from the risks generated by the investment decisions by the fund management to construct the portfolio. To address this issue, we propose a risk measurement methodology which calculates the risk contributions of individual securities and investment decisions simultaneously. This decomposition is applicable to any decentralized investor as long as its relevant risk measurement statistic can be additively decomposed. Second, statistics used to measure risk may not coincide with institution-specific investment risks, in the sense that the utility employed in asset allocation may be unrelated to the risk measure utilized. For example, an institution may do mean-variance asset allocation, but inconsistently measure the risk of the portfolio using Value at Risk. We apply this methodology to a particular type of decentralized investor, specifically, endowment funds where the relevant risk statistic is the downside risk of returns relative to actual payout levels, plus inflation. We show how downside risk can be decomposed and apply our simultaneous downside risk decomposition empirically on a sample of U.S. endowment funds. We find that an endowment's asset allocation to U.S. Equity, consistent with having the largest weight in the average endowment portfolio, generates about 50% of total endowment returns but almost 100% of total portfolio downside risk. We further find that tactical allocations (or timing) have economically small contributions to both returns and risk. Finally, we find that the allocations to U.S. Fixed Income and to Hedge Funds as well as active investment decisions (except for tactical) contribute positively to returns, while reducing portfolio downside risk. The risk contributions are sensitive to changes in payout levels and an increase in the latter may offset the risk reducing power of active investing.

A Report on the Sabs Endowment: Reaching Our $200,000 Goal and More

In 1984, the then Southern Appalachian Botanical Club (SABC) realized that an endowment for the organization was needed so as to ensure the future of the club and publication of its journal, Castanea. An endowment committee was established and under the leadership of Joe Winstead it began to solicit funds from club members and club patrons. In 1985, the club contributed $5,000 from its treasury to form an investment base and set a goal of $200,000 for the fund. Pledges of $300 were solicited to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the organization in 1986 and it was envisioned that the lofty goal could be reached within a few years. By the end of that year the endowment stood at $7,367. By the end of 1990, after seven years of soliciting donations, the Society had accumulated only 9.6% of the goal, $19,142. A renewed spirit of giving was needed if the goal was to be met. That came in 1991. Under the new supervision, encouragement, and relentless work of Don Windler, the endowment started to grow at an increased rate. In 1998, the total endowment value passed $100,000 and in 2002 contributions for the year hit an all time high of $12,951, pushing the endowment total to $140,049. That annual high was quickly surpassed with a total of $20,709 being donated by members in 2004! Finally, on Friday April 15, 2005, SABS President Michael Held proudly announced at the Association of Southeastern Biologists banquet that, with several contributions from earlier in the day, the Society had reached the endowment goal of $200,000. At that point, total membership contributions had reached $149,910 with the rest of the funds coming from dividends and interest to the endowment accounts. As of December 2007, a total of 395 members or patrons have made contributions to the SABS endowment. Each of the 295 donors on the following list contributed at least $100 toward the endowment. This includes seven in the President’s Club (for contributing at least $5,000), two in the Chinquapin Circle ($3,000–3,999), eleven at the Platinum Level ($2,000–2,999), 29 at the Gold Level ($1,000–1,999), 46 at the Silver Level ($500–999) and 202 at the Bronze Level ($100–499). The endowment continues to grow, mostly as a result of returns on our investments. As of December 31, 2007, the endowment was reported at $249,069. We are now using earnings from the endowment to help fund the Core Student Awards and we envision using additional earnings to help reduce page charges for authors publishing in Castanea. Thanks to the many contributors over the last 24 years, we have an endowment that will support the numerous activities of a strong Southern Appalachian Botanical Society well into the future. Contributions to the SABS endowment fund are still welcome! Please submit them to Charles Horn, Treasurer SABS, Department of Biology, Newberry College, 2100 College Street, Newberry, South Carolina 29108.

Incentive Design and Trust: Comparing the Effects of Tournament and Team-Based Incentives on Trust

We explore the extent to which the structure of incentives affects trust. We hypothesize that the degree to which different incentive mechanisms emphasize competition (via the perceived intentions of others) and entitlements (via the perceived property rights) will affect individuals’ subsequent behavior. In our experiment, bargaining pairs earned endowments through either tournaments or team-based incentives. Participants engaged in a subsequent trust game in which the sender had access to the total endowment generated by the pair. We find that the structure of the incentive mechanisms has asymmetric effects on observed trust in which participants’ relative performance framed trusting behavior.

Betting on the Trend: An Experimental Study on Network Externalities With Continuous Demand

We study consumer decision making in a market with network externalities, in which the utility of a purchase increases with the number of purchasers. While research in this area typically models the consumer as making a binary choice, we propose a new model with continuous individual demand, thus allowing for sensitive gauging of agents' belief towards the product's success. We derive a payoff function that can be implemented experimentally as a voluntary contribution game with non-standard characteristics including: (1) Free-riding is impossible; (2) Contribution is profitable iff total contribution exceeds a critical mass; (3) There are two pure-strategy Nash equilibria, one incurring zero contribution, while the other has full-endowment contribution from all players to achieve Pareto optimality. We collect experimental data for the repeated game, which show that the Pareto-optimal equilibrium is not reached under some conditions. We propose a behavioral theory to interpret the data and conclude that: (1) Behavior is influenced by social and game-theoretic factors; (2) Convergence to the Pareto-optimal equilibrium is more likely than not when the critical mass is less than approximately half of the population's total endowment; (3) The difference between first-round total contribution and the critical mass predicts convergence type and efficiency.

The C. Ronald Stephen Resident Essay Award

The Anesthesia History Association (AHA) strongly encourages academic study in the history of anesthesiology, pain medicine and critical care by presenting a yearly award to residents and fellows in training through an essay competition. This award, in recognition of the life time achievements of C. Ronald Stephen through leadership roles in the AHA, Wood Library-Museum, the Bulletin of Anesthesia History has exhibiting constant, kind and gentle mentoring, will be named in his honor. The support of each successive generation of medical historians is among the most important of the missions of the Anesthesia History Association. Family and friends are creating an endowment for this award to become perpetual. The total endowment goal is $15,000 which will directly provide the prize money for the competitors. Other administrative overhead costs are absorbed by the AHA. To date, we have received $4,875. Gifts will be tax exempt upon completion of the renewal process for AHA nonprofit tax status which is anticipated in the next 90 days. Any gifts will be held until that status is completed so donors can receive appropriate tax credits. Please send your designated gift towards this endowment to the Anesthesia History Association, 200 Delafield Road, Suite 2070, Pittsburgh, PA 15215. The relatively small investment in our trainees now will pay huge rewards in the future! C. Ronald Stephen Festive 90th Birthday Gala

Characterization and incentive compatibility of Walrasian expectations equilibrium in infinite dimensional commodity spaces

We consider a differential information economy with infinitely many commodities and analyze the veto power of the grand coalition with respect the ability of blocking non-Walrasian expectations equilibrium allocations. We provide two different Walrasian expectations equilibrium equivalence results. First by perturbing the initial endowments in a precise direction we show that an allocation is a Walrasian expectations equilibrium if and only if it is not “privately dominated” by the grand coalition. The second characterization deals with the fuzzy veto in the sense of Aubin but within a differential information setting. This second equivalence result provides a different characterization for the Walrasian expectations equilibrium and shows that the grand coalition privately blocks in the sense of Aubin any non Walrasian expectations equilibrium allocation with endowment participation rate arbitrarily close to the total initial endowment participation for every individual. Finally, we show that any no free disposal Walrasian expectations equilibria is coalitional Bayesian incentive compatible. Since the deterministic Arrow-Debreu-McKenzie model is a special case of the differential information economy model, one derives new characterizations of the Walrasian equilibria in economies with infinitely many commodities.

The meaning of oil depletion and its consequences

When we call oil and gas fossil fuels, we admit that they were formed in the geological past and are therefore subject to depletion. Oil provides 40% of traded energy, 90% of transport fuel, and is critical for agriculture. The oil industry has great knowledge and experience. It has searched the world with sophisticated technology, always looking for the biggest and best prospects. Extrapolation of the discovery trend of the past, therefore, offers the best means of forecasting future discovery and production. Since oil has to be found before it can be produced, it follows that production has to mirror discovery after a time-lag. World discovery on this basis peaked in 1964, meaning that the corresponding peak of production is now imminent. The consensus of published reports of the total endowment of ‘conventional oil’ is just under 2000 × 10 9 barrels. To this has to be added bitumen, heavy oils, deepwater oil, polar oil and natural gas liquids, bringing the total to about 2700 × 10 9 bbl : Experience to-date shows that the peak in any country comes at, or before, the midpoint of depletion, which respects both the physics of the reservoir and the fact that most of the oil in any country occurs in a few large fields. Accordingly, we can expect global peak to come around 2010, followed not long afterwards by the peak or plateau of gas. The world must now prepare for the transition to declining oil and gas supply. Market economics that inevitably encourage rapid depletion have done immense damage by persuading governments to ignore resource constraints. In the past, geologists had a mission to identify the resources of the world for the benefit of mankind, and indeed they have still more to do in identifying what remains to be found in ever smaller and more difficult fields. But a far more important new mission is to explain just how finite the resources are, so that governments may adopt policies to cut demand, for which there is great scope, and bring on renewable energies as fast as possible. Failure to recognize the consequences of depletion leads to international tensions with countries vying with each other for access to the remaining oil supply, half of which lies in just five Middle East countries.

The global distribution of zinc mineralisation, an analysis based on a new zinc deposits database

This paper presents an analysis of the Global Mineral Occurrences Database (GMOD), a zinc deposits database built by Pasminco Australia Ltd to cover zinc mineral occurrences over the entire globe. The database contains over 14 000 records of which 1700 contain resources information. A resource is taken as the total in-ground resource, including past production and current resources. An economic resource classification has been applied to all deposits with resources which divides them into four categories, high grade zinc deposits, low grade zinc deposits, deposits where Cu–Au is economically more significant than Zn–Pb–Ag and minimum grade zinc deposits. Analysis of the data shows that the total world endowment of zinc metal, defined in resources, is over 881 Mt. North America has the greatest endowment of zinc metal and the most deposits. Africa has the least. Canada, the US, China and Australia are the best endowed countries with Australia having larger and higher grade deposits. The Palaeoproterozoic and the Upper Palaeozoic were together the two greatest zinc producing periods in earth history accounting for 41% of global zinc metal. VHMS deposits are the most numerous ore deposit type, totalling 38% of all deposits in the world with zinc. By comparison, shale-hosted deposits are not numerous but are large and high grade, hosting over 18% of the world's zinc. Zinc oxide deposits (both primary and secondary) host less than 4.5% of the world's zinc. Carbonatehosted deposits of the MVT class provide the highest grade and cleanest (low iron) zinc sulphide concentrates, but include some of the lowest grade zinc deposits and also those with the lowest silver values. Analysis of contained metal and the grade of zinc deposits show that four deposit classes are potentially 'superior' from an economic perspective. These are shale-hosted, Irish-type carbonate-hosted, intrusionrelated mantos and Broken Hill type deposits. Together these four classes account for 32% of the world's zinc metal in only 108 deposits or 12% of deposits with resources. Because zinc oxide deposits represent such a small proportion of the world's zinc, future exploration will still have to focus on zinc sulphide deposits and with a significant emphasis on the Palaeoproterozoic and Upper Palaeozoic terranes that have already provided a high proportion of the worlds best zinc deposits.

The Notion of Effectual Supply and the Theory of Normal Prices with Exhaustible Natural Resources

This paper proposes a revised theory of the classical notion of normal prices for an economy with exhaustible natural resources. The author introduces the notion of effectual supply and argues that Sraffa’s equations, without the Hotelling rule equation, can be reformulated to deal with the existence of an exhaustible natural resource. Such a revision of a well-established theory requires a reinterpretation and methodological clarification of Sraffa’s equations, but without a change in their mathematical form. The revised theory must focus on the effectual supply of the resource and it can ignore its total endowment.