Agency Theory Issues in the Food Processing Industry

The objective is to identify significant determinants of performance for food processing firms over the 1992 to 2003 time period, focusing particularly on the issue of family control. Variables measuring firm effects such as asset size, governance, income distribution, and risk are used to explain return on equity. This study builds upon previous research by including a measure of income distribution in the food processing industry. Governance variables are found to be significant determinants of return on equity. The results found no evidence of agency problems in family-controlled firms during this time period.agribusiness, institutional economics, organizational economics, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Production Economics, D23, G34, Q13, Q14,

Flows and Non-thermal Velocities in Solar Active Regions Observed with the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer on Hinode: A Tracer of Active Region Sources of Heliospheric Magnetic Fields?

From Doppler velocity maps of active regions constructed from spectra obtained by the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on the Hinode spacecraft we observe large areas of outflow (20-50 km/s) that can persist for at least a day. These outflows occur in areas of active regions that are faint in coronal spectral lines formed at typical quiet Sun and active region temperatures. The outflows are positively correlated with non-thermal velocities in coronal plasmas. The bulk mass motions and non-thermal velocities are derived from spectral line centroids and line widths, mostly from a strong line of Fe XII at 195.12 Angstroms. The electron temperature of the outflow regions estimated from an Fe XIII to Fe XII line intensity ratio is about 1.2-1.4 MK. The electron density of the outflow regions derived from a density sensitive intensity ratio of Fe XII lines is rather low for an active region. Most regions average around 7E10+8 cm(-3), but there are variations on pixel spatial scales of about a factor of 4. We discuss results in detail for two active regions observed by EIS. Images of active regions in line intensity, line width, and line centroid are obtained by rastering the regions. We also discuss data from the active regions obtained from other orbiting spacecraft that support the conclusions obtained from analysis of the EIS spectra. The locations of the flows in the active regions with respect to the longitudinal photospheric magnetic fields suggest that these regions might be tracers of long loops and/or open magnetic fields that extend into the heliosphere, and thus the flows could possibly contribute significantly to the solar wind.Comment: one tex file, 11 postscript figure file

The Formaldehyde Masers in Sgr B2: Very Long Baseline Array and Very Large Array Observations

Observations of two of the formaldehyde (H2CO) masers (A and D) in Sgr B2 using the VLBA+Y27 (resolution ~0.01") and the VLA (resolution ~9") are presented. The VLBA observations show compact sources (<10 milliarcseconds, <80 AU) with brightness temperatures >10^8 K. The maser sources are partially resolved in the VLBA observations. The flux densities in the VLBA observations are about 1/2 those of the VLA; and, the linewidths are about 2/3 of the VLA values. The applicability of a core-halo model for the emission distribution is demonstrated. Comparison with earlier H2CO absorption observations and with ammonia (NH3) observations suggests that H2CO masers form in shocked gas. Comparison of the integrated flux densities in current VLA observations with those in previous observations indicates that (1) most of the masers have varied in the past 20 years, and (2) intensity variations are typically less than a factor of two compared to the 20-year mean. No significant linear or circular polarization is detected with either instrument.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, 5 tables, accepted to Ap

Exploring music with a probabilistic projection interface

We present the design and evaluation of an in- teractive tool for music exploration, with musi- cal mood and genre inferred directly from tracks. It uses probabilistic representations of multivari- able predictions of subjective characteristics of the music to give users subtle, nuanced visuali- sations of the 2D map. These explicitly repre- sent the uncertainty and overlap among features and support music exploration and casual playlist generation. A longitudinal trial in users’ homes showed that probabilistic highlighting of subjec- tive features led to more focused exploration in mouse activity logs, and 6 of 8 users preferred the probabilistic highlighting

Observation of twin beam correlations and quadrature entanglement by frequency doubling in a two-port resonator

We demonstrate production of quantum correlated and entangled beams by second harmonic generation in a nonlinear resonator with two output ports. The output beams at wavelength 428.5 nm exhibit 0.9 dB of nonclassical intensity correlations and 0.3 dB of entanglement.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

A measurement of the differential cross section for the two-body photodisintegration of 3He at theta_LAB = 90deg using tagged photons in the energy range 14 -- 31 MeV

The two-body photodisintegration of 3He has been investigated using tagged photons with energies from 14 -- 31 MeV at MAX-lab in Lund, Sweden. The two-body breakup channel was unambiguously identified by the (nonsimultaneous) detection of both protons and deuterons. This approach was made feasible by the over-determined kinematic situation afforded by the tagged-photon technique. Proton- and deuteron-energy spectra were measured using four silicon surface-barrier detector telescopes located at a laboratory angle of 90deg with respect to the incident photon-beam direction. Average statistical and systematic uncertainties of 5.7% and 6.6% in the differential cross section were obtained for 11 photon-energy bins with an average width of 1.2 MeV. The results are compared to previous experimental data measured at comparable photon energies as well as to the results of two recent Faddeev calculations which employ realistic potential models and take into account three-nucleon forces and final-state interactions. Both the accuracy and precision of the present data are improved over the previous measurements. The data are in good agreement with most of the previous results, and favor the inclusion of three-nucleon forces in the calculations.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures; further Referee comments addresse

Excitations in the Halo Nucleus He-6 Following The Li-7(gamma,p)He-6 Reaction

A broad excited state was observed in 6-He with energy E_x = 5 +/- 1 MeV and width Gamma = 3 +/- 1 MeV, following the reaction Li-7(gamma,p)He-6. The state is consistent with a number of broad resonances predicted by recent cluster model calculations. The well-established reaction mechanism, combined with a simple and transparent analysis procedure confers considerable validity to this observation.Comment: 3 pages of LaTeX, 3 figures in PostScript, approved for publication in Phys. Rev. C, August, 200

Rendering an Account: An Open-State Archive in Postgraduate Supervision

The paper begins with a brief account of the transformation of research degree studies under the pressures of global capitalism and neo-liberal governmentality. A parallel transformation is occurring in the conduct of research through the use of information and communication technologies. Yet the potential of ICTs to shape practices of surveillance or to produce new student-supervisor relations and enhance the processes of developing the dissertation has received almost no critical attention. As doctoral supervisor and student, we then describe the features and uses of a web-based open state archive of the student's work-in-progress, developed by the student and accessible to his supervisor. Our intention was to encourage more open conversations between data and theorising, student and supervisor, and ultimately between the student and professional community. However, we recognise that relations of accountability, as these have developed within a contemporary "audit revolution" (Power, 1994, 1997) in universities, create particular "lines of visibility" (Munro, 1996). Thus while the open-state archive may help to redefine in less managerial terms notions of quality, transparency, flexibility and accountability, it might also make possible greater supervisory surveillance. How should we think about the panoptical potential of this archive? We argue that the diverse kinds of interactional patterns and pedagogical intervention it encourages help to create shifting subjectivities. Moreover, the archive itself is multiple, in bringing together an array of diverse materials that can be read in various ways, by following multiple paths. It therefore constitutes a collage, which we identify as a mode of cognition and of accounting distinct from but related to argument and narrative. As a more "open" text (Iser, 1978) it has an indeterminacy which may render it less open to abuse for the technologies of managerial accountability

A Search for H2CO 6cm Emission toward Young Stellar Objects III: VLA Observations

We report the results of our third survey for formaldehyde (H2CO) 6cm maser emission in the Galaxy. Using the Very Large Array, we detected two new H2CO maser sources (G23.01-0.41 and G25.83-0.18), thus increasing the sample of known H2CO maser regions in the Galaxy to seven. We review the characteristics of the G23.01-0.41 and G25.83-0.18 star forming regions. The H2CO masers in G23.01-0.41 and G25.83-0.18 share several properties with the other known H2CO masers, in particular, emission from rich maser environments and close proximity to very young massive stellar objects.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie

Persistence, extinction and spatio-temporal synchronization of SIRS cellular automata models

Spatially explicit models have been widely used in today's mathematical ecology and epidemiology to study persistence and extinction of populations as well as their spatial patterns. Here we extend the earlier work--static dispersal between neighbouring individuals to mobility of individuals as well as multi-patches environment. As is commonly found, the basic reproductive ratio is maximized for the evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) on diseases' persistence in mean-field theory. This has important implications, as it implies that for a wide range of parameters that infection rate will tend maximum. This is opposite with present results obtained in spatial explicit models that infection rate is limited by upper bound. We observe the emergence of trade-offs of extinction and persistence on the parameters of the infection period and infection rate and show the extinction time having a linear relationship with respect to system size. We further find that the higher mobility can pronouncedly promote the persistence of spread of epidemics, i.e., the phase transition occurs from extinction domain to persistence domain, and the spirals' wavelength increases as the mobility increasing and ultimately, it will saturate at a certain value. Furthermore, for multi-patches case, we find that the lower coupling strength leads to anti-phase oscillation of infected fraction, while higher coupling strength corresponds to in-phase oscillation.Comment: 12page