Analysis of Relative Frequency of Commuting Modes During COVID-19 Pandemic

At the end of December 2019, a new coronavirus spread in Wuhan, China, and worldwide and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared this outbreak of the COVID-19 virus a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Different states and cities implemented various strategies including school closure, working from home, and restaurant and shop closures to control the virus spread, resulting in reduced travel demand. COVID-19 provided an opportunity to understand the differential impacts of a pandemic on travel demand. This study investigates the changes in the U.S. transportation mode use and factors influencing changes in mode use frequency for commuting during the coronavirus pandemic compared to pre-coronavirus period. Researchers conducted three waves of surveys in four metropolitan areas: New York, Washington D.C, Miami, and Houston in the United States and received 2800 responses from each wave. For this thesis, respondents had to commute at least one day/week to be included in the analysis. Ordered logistic models for relative frequency of use of commuting modes such as owned/leased vehicles, rideshare, bus and walk were created. Larger household size was positively associated with the more frequent use of owned/leased vehicles. Coronavirus risk perception was negatively associated with more frequent use of buses. Vehicle ownership was negatively associated with more frequent use of rideshare mode

Implications of the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) regulations on the EU – U.S. Corn Trade Sector and the Case of the ‘Agenda 2000’ Reforms

Corn trade between the European Union (EU) and the United States has undergone substantial changes over the past decade. EU Reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), beginning with the Mac Sharry Reforms of 1992 and continuing with the Agenda 2000 Reforms, were directed at bringing EU agricultural policy into compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) provisions. These reforms have brought about considerable changes in the market structure in corn trade. However, while trade has been facilitated by decoupling payments and removing levies and tariffs on imported corn, EU’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures have negated some of the progress in trade between EU countries and the United States. Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), in the form of SPS measures, have progressively replaced traditional tariff and non-tariff trade barriers while allowing the EU to remain in compliance with WTO regulations. The absence of recognizing equivalency in production procedures has created a further decline in corn trade accounting for over $300 million loss annually to U.S. corn exports since 1997 (Weyerbrock and Xia 2000). Using data obtained from the USDA and EUROSTAT, we develop a three stage simultaneous equation model to estimate the economic impact of TBTs on EU-U.S. bilateral corn trade for specific EU countries. Further, welfare effects for producers and consumers in EU countries are also estimated.Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures, Technical Barriers to Trade, Common Agricultural Policy, Agenda 2000 Reforms, Genetically Modified corn, welfare effects, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Modeling the EU-US cereal trade - the post \u27Agenda 2000\u27 analysis

Significant changes in attitudes toward farm policy and trade have occurred within the European Union and the United States in the past decade. Trade negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) specifically the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and later under the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have bought about considerable changes in the market structure in the cereals trade. Bilateral trade has further been impacted by the cessation of concession treaties like the Blair House Accord that expired at the end of the 2004 marketing year (WTO). Domestic budget pressures in the United States have lead to decreased support to farmers, making them more oriented to world market needs based on prevailing world prices (Daryll E. Ray). The European Union has introduced reforms in the Common Agricultural Policy as a consequence of high budgetary expenditure and the accession of the ten new central European nations into the European Union in the form of the Mac Sharry Reforms and the Agenda 2000 Reforms. These reforms are now aimed at decreasing the distortions caused due to the high amount of protection for farm income thus moving towards more targeted farm programs. These economy wise changes internal to each of these major players in agricultural trade in the world, coupled with transformed bilateral trade relations under the auspices of the WTO have had vital effects on bilateral transactions and world markets. These reforms may have had compelling economy wise effects on consumption, production, trade and world prices and could subsequently provoke trade liberalization in other sectors based on the quantification and prediction of welfare effects of such measures by the two trading partners. This study is aimed at reviewing policy changes in the European Union\u27s Common Agricultural Policy and their effects on the cereal trade with the United States. The study contributes to estimating whether changes in the cereal policies of the EU have had a significant impact on the trade between the EU and the US. Further a forecast for the domestic prices for wheat in a free trade scenario is documented with an estimated trend for the exogenous variables. Results obtained from the suggest that the re-instrumentation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) by the Mac Sharry Reforms of 1992 and the Agenda 2000 Reforms have had significant effects on trade between the U.S. and the fifteen member countries. The forecast for domestic prices in wheat for the EU suggest a period of decreased prices followed by an increased amount of imports of wheat

Adoption of Cover Crops and Its Effect on Nitrogen Use by Farmers

With increasing environmental concerns, increasing population, changing tastes and preferences of consumers towards healthier foods, and with more food safety requirements, agronomic practices have changed gradually to provide not only food and fiber but also public goods and other beneficial services from agriculture. Cover cropping is one type of technology increasingly being adopted by producers of multifunctional agriculture. Cover crops provide a range of benefits, both private and public. In this paper we identify factors affecting farmers’ choice to adopt cover crops. We examine the impact on nitrogen use from adopting cover crops and the resultant decrease in input costs. Using a two-stage approach that incorporates endogeneity of adoption in nitrogen management, we conclude that farmers adopting cover crop technologies, that increase production efficiency, tend to decrease nitrogen fertilizer use by 4.75%, as hypothesized by Smith (2002).cover crops, nitrogen usage, technology adoption, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty,

Predicting Financial Stress in Young and Beginning Farmers in the United States

Financial stress, Young and Beginning farmers, farm type, farming regions, operating leverage, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

Does “Convenience Agriculture” Affect Off‐farm Labor Allocation Decisions?

The objective of this study is to examine the effect of adoption intensity of GM crops on off‐farm labor supply by farm households. Using ARMS data in 2004, 2005 and 2006, we estimate a two stage simultaneous Tobit model and find that adoption intensity of GM crops has a negative impact on off‐farm labor supply by operators and a positive impact on off‐farm labor supply by spouse. This may be due to the comparative advantage of operators and spouses. Our results find that GM crops adoption has different but significant implications on off‐farm labor supply by operators and spouses and underscores the importance of understanding farm households’ decisions to explain behaviors of farm businesses in the United States.Technology Adoption, Two stage simultaneous Tobit model, GM Crops, Off‐farm labor, Agricultural and Food Policy, Labor and Human Capital, Q10, Q12,

Scalable TPTDS Data Anonymization over Cloud using MapReduce

With the rapid advancement of big data digital age, large amount data is collected, mined and published. Data publishing become day today routine activity. Cloud computing is best suitable model to support big data applications. Large number of cloud service need users to share microdata like electronic health records, data containing financial transactions so that they can analyze this data. But one of the major issues in moving toward cloud is privacy threats. Data anonymization techniques are widely used to combat with privacy concerns .Anonymizing data sets using generalization to achieve k-anonymity is one of the privacy preserving techniques. Currently, the scale of data in many cloud applications is increasing massively in accordance with the Big Data tendency, thereby making it a difficult for commonly used software tools to capture, handle, manage and process such large-scale datasets. As a result it is challenge for existing approaches for achieving anonymization for large scale data sets due to their inefficiency to support scalability. This paper presents two phase top down specialization approach to anonymize large scale datasets .This approach uses MapReduce framework on cloud, so that it will be highly scalable and efficient. Here we introduce the scheduling mechanism called Optimized Balanced Scheduling to apply the Anonymization. OBS means individual dataset have the separate sensitive field. Every data set consist of sensitive field and give priority for this sensitive field. Then apply Anonymization on this sensitive field only depending upon the scheduling. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.15077

Bone hydatid disease of distal femur and diaphysis of tibia: report of two cases with review of literature

Cystic echinococcus or hydatidosis is a parasitic infection of humans and animals. In this we are reporting 2 cases. one is hydatid disease at distal femur left side and other patient having hydatid disease at shaft tibia rt side. both cases investigated and definitive surgery was done as arthrodesis with long tibio-femoral nail for distal femoral hydatidosis and curettage for tibial hydatidosis. Both patient given albendazole and followed up. in recent follow-up both cases do not have signs of recurrence. hence case report of these two cases is discussed along with review of literature

Intensity of Precision Agriculture Technology Adoption by Cotton Producers

Many studies on the adoption of precision technologies have generally used logit models to explain the adoption behavior of individuals. This study investigates factors affecting the intensity of precision agriculture technologies adopted by cotton farmers. Particular attention is given to the role of spatial yield variability on the number of precision farming technologies adopted, using a count data estimation procedure and farm-level data. Results indicate that farmers with more within-field yield variability adopted a higher number of precision agriculture technologies. Younger and better educated producers and the number of precision agriculture technologies used were significantly correlated. Finally, farmers using computers for management decisions also adopted a higher number of precision agriculture technologies.precision technologies, Poisson, negative binomial count data method, GPS, education, cotton, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Precision Agriculture Technology Adoption for Cotton Production

Many studies on the adoption of precision technologies have generally used logit models to explain the adoption behavior of individuals. This study investigates factors affecting the number of specific types of precision agriculture technologies adopted by cotton farmers. Particular attention is given to the influence of spatial yield variability on the number of precision farming technologies adopted, using a Count data estimation procedure and farm-level data. Results indicate that farmers with more within-field yield variability adopted a larger number of precision agriculture technologies. Younger and better educated producers and the number of precision agriculture technologies were significantly correlated. Finally, farmers using computers for management decisions also adopted a larger number of precision agriculture technologies.precision technologies, Poisson, Negative Binomial, count-data method, GIS, education, cotton, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use, Productivity Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,