Merchant Transmission Investment

We examine the performance attributes of a merchant transmission investment framework that relies on market driven' transmission investment to provide the infrastructure to support competitive wholesale markets for electricity. Under a stringent set of assumptions, the merchant investment model has a remarkable set of attributes that appear to solve the natural monopoly problem traditionally associated with electricity transmission networks. We extend the merchant investment model to incorporate imperfections in wholesale electricity markets, lumpiness in transmission investment opportunities, stochastic attributes of transmission networks and associated property rights definition issues, the effects of behavior of transmission owners and system operators on transmission capacity, maintenance and reliability, coordination and bargaining considerations, forward contract, commitment and asset specificity issues. Incorporating these more realistic attributes of transmission networks and the behavior of transmission owners and system operators undermines the attractive properties of the merchant model and leads to inefficient transmission investment decisions.

Engaging persons with mental illness and/or substance use disorder in care coordination services: an improvement project at a federally qualified community health center

Background: Mental health and substance use disorders seldom occur in isolation. They frequently accompany each other, as well as a substantial number of chronic general medical illnesses. Consequently, mental health conditions, substance-use disorders, and general health conditions are frequently co-occurring, and coordination of all of these types of health care is essential to improved health outcomes (Institute of Medicine, 2006). The U.S. system of healthcare is failing to identify, engage, and effectively treat people who are suffering from behavioral health conditions (Blanco, Coye, Knickman, Krishnan, Krystal, Pincus, Rauch, Simon, Vitiello, 2016). Because of poor coordination and lack of engagement, people often experience disrupted care and an over-reliance on emergency department and hospital care. At Lowell Community Health Center where this project takes place persons with a primary behavioral health diagnosis contribute to the highest utilization of emergency and inpatient hospital services. In July of 2018, Lowell CHC collaborated with Lowell House, Inc. to form a care coordination program to outreach and engage individuals identified as high utilizers of inpatient and emergency hospital services. Aim: The aim of this project is to describe the attributes of the population of patients who successfully engaged into care for the first six months of this new program, with recommendations for improvement to inform future program design. Method: The population of patients who successfully engaged in care in the first 6 months of the program described by independent variables consisting of age, gender, race, and preferred language. Dependent variable consisting of type of outreach. Data was evaluated to determine attributes of patients who successfully engaged in care and if correlations exist between variables and successful engagement. Results: The first six months of the program implementation demonstrated successful engagement and activation of 17.5% of patients. The average patient is described as low-income, 50-64 years of age, non-English speaking female with dual-diagnosis residing in the greater Lowell area. Themes regarding successful outreach type included telephonic and face-to-face being the most successful method of engagement. Although successful engagement was noted, longer-term efforts and analysis should focus on successful outreach and engagement strategies, emergency room utilization, treatment adherence and service adherence. Conclusions: The findings of this project indicate that having a team-based, multidisciplinary and multi-cultural approach to care coordination has led to successful engagement of 186 individuals within the first 6 months of this new program

Interorganizational Relationships Climate And Interorganizational Information Systems Success; A Supply Chain Perspective

During the last two decades, an increasing amount of attention has been paid by practitioners as well as academics to Interorganizational Information Systems (IOSs) design, deployment and use within supply chains. However, our understanding of the main factors that affect IOSs use and success is hardly complete. Through brief review of coordination mechanisms theory and its related theory such as transaction cost theory (TCT) and Resource Based View (RBV), the paper generates theoretical propositions and attempt to conceptualize a theoretical model which map the role of Interorganizational relationships (IORs) climate attributes in linking IOSs technology and supply success. The theoretical model encompasses two major causal relations: (1) a direct relation linking IOS use with Supply chain performance (IOS success) and (2) a moderating relation linking IOS success with IORs attributes. Else more, the paper attributes to IORs success climate a set of constructs drawn from the literature review, namely; interorganizational cooperation/ interorganizational coordination, interorganizational trust, interorganizational commitment, and interorganizational dependence

Contracts to Govern the Transition towards Sustainable Production: Evidence from a Discrete Choice Analysis in the Durum Wheat Sector in Italy

The increasing request for food sustainability is affecting the pasta sector in Italy. This phenomenon introduces different sources of uncertainties that, in turn, put pressure on all the stages of the supply chain, with a consequent emerging need for a higher level of coordination. Based on the Transaction Costs Theory approach, the paper is aimed at verifying whether contract design—revolving around the negotiation of contractual attributes with different functions in terms of safeguard, adaptability, and coordination—plays a crucial role in aligning sources of uncertainty surrounding transactions with the allocation of property and decision rights. To this aim, a sample of durum wheat producers is interviewed for expressing their preferences about some contractual features, such as price, production and quality rules, sustainable environmental techniques, and advisory services. Using a discrete choice analysis through a multinomial logit model, results reveal that, thanks to the presence of attributes able to ensure coordination and adaptability, contracts are able to steer towards elements of sustainability related to food quality and safety, whereas further efforts are needed to share environmental goals with farmers

THE EFFECT OF RISK AND AUTONOMY ON INDEPENDENT HOG PRODUCERS' CONTRACTING DECISIONS

The introduction of vertical coordination in the hog industry has provided producers with new business arrangements for raising hogs. While some researchers have elicited utility functions for hog producers on the basis of income risk, none have addressed autonomy, a factor which appears to be important in business arrangement selection for independent family hog operations. In this study, a method is developed for eliciting a multi-attribute function with attributes of income and autonomy. Utility functions are elicited for a group of Minnesota farrow-to-finish hog producers. For these producers, autonomy dominated risk as the most important attribute in business arrangement selection.Livestock Production/Industries,

Team Faultline Measures: Rescaling the Weights of Diversity Attributes

Faultline, or subgroup formation based on the alignment of diversity attributes, can cause conflicts and low coordination in diverse teams. While researchers understand the importance of faultlines in team process and negotiations, current computational faultline measures are highly vulnerable to subjective weight assignment of diversity attributes. Therefore, there is limited understanding of which diversity attributes have more impact on faultline formation. In this paper we report 1) a pilot study illustrating the susceptibility of the current faultline measures to subjective evaluations, and 2) an online study illustrating how people’s surface (e.g. age, gender, race) and deep (e.g. personality, cultural norms) level diversity attributes impact their preference and selection of team members, as a proxy of faultline formation. We find while various surface and deep-level attributes predict selection of members, most of these attributes are highly correlated with members’ age, suggesting the importance of this attribute. We discuss future directions for faultline measures with objective rescaling of diversity weights

Formal Attributes Traceability in Modular Language Development Frameworks

AbstractModularization and component reuse are concepts that can speed up the design and implementation of domain specific languages. Several modular development frameworks have been developed that rely on attributes to share information among components. Unfortunately, modularization also fosters development in isolation and attributes could be undefined or used inconsistently due to a lack of coordination. This work presents 1) a type system that permits to trace attributes and statically validate the composition against attributes lack or misuse and 2) a correct and complete type inference algorithm for this type system. The type system and inference are based on the Neverlang development framework but it is also discussed how it can be used with different frameworks

Team Faultline Measures: The Effect of Rescaling Weights

Faultline, or subgroup formation based on the alignment of diversity attributes, can cause conflicts and low coordination in diverse teams. While researchers understand the importance of faultlines in team process and negotiations, current computational faultline measures are highly vulnerable to subjective weight assignment of diversity attributes. Therefore, there is limited understanding of which diversity attributes have more impact on faultline formation. In this paper we report 1) a pilot study illustrating the susceptibility of the current faultline measures to subjective evaluations, and 2) an online study illustrating how people’s surface (e.g. age, gender, race) and deep (e.g. personality, cultural norms) level diversity attributes impact their preference and selection of team members, as a proxy of faultline formation. We find while various surface and deep-level attributes predict selection of members, most of these attributes are highly correlated with members’ age, suggesting the importance of this attribute. We discuss future directions for faultline measures with objective rescaling of diversity weights

An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Marketing Contract Structures for Corn and Soybeans

Contracts serve as coordination mechanisms which allocate value, risk, and decision rightsacross buyers and sellers. The use of marketing contracts in agriculture, specifically for crop production,has been increasing over the past decade. This study investigates the determinants ofagricultural marketing contract design employing data from the USDA’s Agricultural ResourceManagement Survey. Models are estimated to analyze the association between producer and contractorcharacteristics, the decision to produce under contract, and the types of contract structuresobserved in practice, while controlling for the potential for endogenous matching betweencontracting parties. Results indicate that while certain producer characteristics are significantlyassociated with the decision to produce corn or soybeans under contract, there is no significantassociation between those characteristics and specific contract attributes.