This study examines self-fashioning and the practice of collecting in Second Empire Paris as manifest in James Tissot's Jeunes femmes regardant des objets japonais (1869, Cincinnati Museum of Art). The painting, exhibited in the Salon of 1869, conspicuously portrays Tissot's own collection of exotic Asian collectibles and the artist's private luxe interior. When scholars investigate and interpret Jeunes femmes, it is regularly defined within the prescriptive realm of Tissot's later London paintings, or of his well known series, La Femme à Paris. I argue for a less circumspect engagement with the painting, by focusing on the portrayal of the collectible objects and the decadent interior as evidence of bourgeois self-fashioning and the decorous display and consumption concomitant with Second Empire Paris. This thesis considers the history of collecting in Second Empire Paris; in particular, the early impact of japonisme on Tissot's artwork. Recent scholarship largely regards Tissor's initial engagement with japonisme, as demonstrated by Japonaise au bain (1864, Muse des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) and Jeune femme tenant des objets japonais (1865, Private Collection), as trite. I argue that such categorizing biased sound consideration of Jeunes femmes. I investigate Tissot's interaction with Japanese aristocracy and contend that his appointment as drawing instructor to Prince Akitake marked a turning point in his artistic career and in his reputation as a collector. This thesis also explores the role of fetish as an operative analytical tool. By employing the theories of Freudian and Marxist fetish, I am able to scrutinize the collectible objects' inclusion and meticulous representation, account for the obsessive nature of the collector and investigate specific strategies of posturing and self-promotion. Moreover, I can discuss the painting, and the collection it portrays, as a producing agent for Tissot's own artistic and social legacy. Ultimately, I conclude that Jeunes femmes, a richly detailed painting of Tissot's collectibles and interior space, is implicitly concerned with bourgeois self-fashioning and Tissot's own need for financial and social legitimization.

國內黃豆、玉米與小麥等原料均自國外進口，而進口業者主要面臨採購風險包括價格風險與匯率風險兩類，現存的避險工具除了遠期契約外，期貨工具也早已成為國際間有效的避險工具，故本研究以國內大宗物資業為研究對象，探討其在開放自由進口後，所採取的避險方式與期貨工具使用狀況與目的。 　　本研究之主要發現如下： 　　1. 大宗物資業者並未採取規避價格風險的動作 　　目前國內大宗物資業者基於經營者的心態、國內外市場價格的相關性低、國內下游業者的交易習慣及交易成本的等因素考量，並未考慮採用與現貨部位相反方向的期貨操作來規避價格波動的風險。此外，由於業者是利用期貨工具決定穀物本身的成本，因此在期貨上是採只買不賣的交易方式，若是在買進期貨同時，另外再買進一個賣權(Put Option)，將可避免期貨價格下跌的風險。但國內業者基於經營者心態與交易成本提高等因素，並未考慮使用期貨與選擇權搭配避險的作法。 　　2. 經營者的心態將影響廠商使用期貨、選擇權等交易工具的目的 　　使用期貨與選擇權工具的目的包括避險與投機兩部份。目前國內業者並未考慮使用此工具來從事避險的動作，但有部份業者基於本身經營者的心態與本身的人才與經驗，使用此工具從事投機的動作，其目的主要是培養採購人員對市場的敏感度與臨場感，若是業者對本身人才與經驗極具信心，經營者與組織文化的認同，將會考慮操作期貨或選擇權工具來賺取利潤。 　　3. 大宗物資業者對於期貨投機操作，採取控制交易量的風險控管方式 　　期貨交易本身只須支付少量的保證金即可進場操作，本身為具有相當高槓桿效果的交易，價格波動將立刻反應到保證金要求，若是保證金低於維持保證金，期貨經紀商將有權進行砍倉的動作。國內從事期貨投機操作的廠商，對於公司內部的風險控管，採取控制交易量或控制金額的方式將本身風險鎖定，以避免發生失控的狀況。 　　4. 人才與經驗將是影響廠商是否採取規避匯率風險的動作之主因 　　雖然大宗物資業者在採購時將同時面對價格與匯率波動風險，但目前業者的付款方式是請銀行開信用狀給美國穀物供應商，從開匯、押狀到還款共有180天的還款期限，因此廠商可參考銀行的意見，決定還款的時機與金額。此外，由於缺乏相關人才與經驗，使得廠商並未使用遠期美金或期貨操作來規避匯率波動的風險。

<p>In this work we consider the methods of pricing and hedging an option on the forward commodity market described by the multi-factor diffusion model. In the previous research there were presented explicit valuation formulas for standard European type options and simulation schemes for other types of options. However, hedging strategies were not developed in the available literature. Extending known results this work gives analytical formulas for the price of American, Asian and general European options. Moreover, for all these options hedging strategies are presented. Using these results the dynamics of the portfolio composed of options on futures with different maturities is studied on a commodity market.</p>

<p>Oil is an important energy source and a necessary industrial raw material. Every country’s economic growth and the daily life of its people are dependent on this energy form.</p><p>Historically, the oil prices have varied significantly on the world market. This led to at least two oil crises when prices increased in a very fast pace. In order to reduce such rapid fluctuations, oil was introduced at so called commodity exchanges. At such trading places oil could be traded openly for future delivery and hence the market was aware of price changes in advance. A commodity exchange sells special contracts in the form of so called “futures”. In fact there are many different contracts, each exchange has its own set of them covering for a number of different oil types. This thesis deals with these contracts and how they are traded.</p>

<p>The overall purpose of this study is to examine what consequences might be connected to Swedish meat consumption. To illustrate this, the production chain of beef meat, produced in Brazil and consumed in Sweden, has been mapped and investigated. The analytical focus of this study has been on power distribution within the chain, aiming to outline its socio-economic consequences in the Brazilian context. The empirical data was collected partly from secondary sources, but also from primary sources through interviews with key informants in the buyer-end of the production chain. The Global Value Chain approach served as a methodology for mapping the production chain and as a theoretical device for analysing the embedded power structures.</p><p>The main result, besides an overview of the beef production chain, was an identification of the chain as buyer-driven. Power is particularly concentrated around supermarket chains, which have very specific requirements on production and processing, implemented by the importing firms, thus also having a huge influence. Power concentration was also discovered in the levels of farming and processing, where the number of acting units declines frequently. The Swedish beef consumption thus seems to contribute, however small-scaled, to the process of power concentration along the chain of production, making market entrance a scarce asset. Potential socio-economic consequences of this process, besides unequal access to influence, might be longer travels or changed city of residence for workers, or even employment losses due to inadequate education. Low-income consumers might become vulnerable since cheap low-quality meat becomes inaccessible. Moreover, this thesis has also raised additional questions, suitable for further research, regarding the impacts of Swedish meat consumption.</p>

In the oil industry, there is a special class of pipelines used for the transportation of refined products. The problem of sequencing the inputs to be pumped through this type of pipeline seeks to generate the optimal sequence of batches of products and their destination as well as the amount of product to be pumped such that the total operational cost of the system, or another operational objective, is optimized while satisfying the product demands according to the requirements set by the customers. This dissertation introduces a new modeling approach and proposes a solution methodology for this problem capable of dealing with the topology of all the scenarios reported in the literature so far. The system representation is based on a 1-0 multi commodity network flow formulation that models the dynamics of the system, including aspects such as conservation of product flow constraints at the depots, travel time of products from the refinery to their depot destination and what happens upstream and downstream the line whenever a product is being received at a given depot while another one is being injected into the line at the refinery. It is assumed that the products are already available at the refinery and their demand at each depot is deterministic and known beforehand. The model provides the sequence, the amounts, the destination and the trazability of the shipped batches of different products from their sources to their destinations during the entire horizon planning period while seeking the optimization of pumping and inventory holding costs satisfying the time window constraints. A survey for the available literature is presented. Given the problem structure, a decomposition based solution procedure is explored with the intention of exploiting the network structure using the network simplex method. A branch and bound algorithm that exploits the dynamics of the system assigning priorities for branching to a selected set of variables is proposed and its computational results for the solution, obtained via GAMS/CPLEX, of the formulation for random instances of the problem of different sizes are presented. Future research directions on this field are proposed.

In this work we consider the methods of pricing and hedging an option on the forward commodity market described by the multi-factor diffusion model. In the previous research there were presented explicit valuation formulas for standard European type options and simulation schemes for other types of options. However, hedging strategies were not developed in the available literature. Extending known results this work gives analytical formulas for the price of American, Asian and general European options. Moreover, for all these options hedging strategies are presented. Using these results the dynamics of the portfolio composed of options on futures with different maturities is studied on a commodity market.

The overall purpose of this study is to examine what consequences might be connected to Swedish meat consumption. To illustrate this, the production chain of beef meat, produced in Brazil and consumed in Sweden, has been mapped and investigated. The analytical focus of this study has been on power distribution within the chain, aiming to outline its socio-economic consequences in the Brazilian context. The empirical data was collected partly from secondary sources, but also from primary sources through interviews with key informants in the buyer-end of the production chain. The Global Value Chain approach served as a methodology for mapping the production chain and as a theoretical device for analysing the embedded power structures. The main result, besides an overview of the beef production chain, was an identification of the chain as buyer-driven. Power is particularly concentrated around supermarket chains, which have very specific requirements on production and processing, implemented by the importing firms, thus also having a huge influence. Power concentration was also discovered in the levels of farming and processing, where the number of acting units declines frequently. The Swedish beef consumption thus seems to contribute, however small-scaled, to the process of power concentration along the chain of production, making market entrance a scarce asset. Potential socio-economic consequences of this process, besides unequal access to influence, might be longer travels or changed city of residence for workers, or even employment losses due to inadequate education. Low-income consumers might become vulnerable since cheap low-quality meat becomes inaccessible. Moreover, this thesis has also raised additional questions, suitable for further research, regarding the impacts of Swedish meat consumption.

This study develops a multi-period log-return quantile forecasting procedure to evaluate the performance of eleven nearby commodity futures contracts (NCFC) using a sample of 897 daily price observations and at-the-money (ATM) put and call implied volatilities of the corresponding prices for the period from 1/16/2008 to 7/29/2011. The statistical approach employs dynamic log-returns quantile regression models to forecast price densities using implied volatilities (IVs) and factors estimated through principal component analysis (PCA) from the IVs, pooled IVs and lagged returns. Extensive in-sample and out-of-sample analyses are conducted, including assessment of excess trading returns, and evaluations of several combinations of quantiles, model specifications, and NCFC's. The results suggest that the IV-PCA-factors, particularly pooled return-IV-PCA-factors, improve quantile forecasting power relative to models using only individual IV information. The ratio of the put-IV to the call-IV is also found to improve quantile forecasting performance of log returns. Improvements in quantile forecasting performance are found to be better in the tails of the distribution than in the center. Trading performance based on quantile forecasts from the models above generated significant excess returns. Finally, the fact that the single IV forecasts were outperformed by their quantile regression (QR) counterparts suggests that the conditional distribution of the log-returns is not normal.

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