Economies of scale in the production of swine manure Economias de escala na produção de dejetos de suínos

Manure production on grower/finisher swine operations in the United States was examined using data from 184 grower/finisher swine operations that participated in the United States National Animal Health Monitoring System's 1995 National Swine Study. Two methods were used: one, assuming that pigs produced 8.4% of their body weight in manure each day; another using the difference between feed fed and weight gained as a proxy variable to study manure production. Using this latter approach, a production function was developed. The function exhibited diminishing returns to scale when food waste was not fed to pigs, but constant returns to scale when food waste was included in their diets. The difference between feed fed and weight gained was lower on operations that restricted entry to employees only.<br>A produção de dejetos em granjas de crescimento e terminação de suínos nos Estados Unidos foi avaliada utilizando dados de 184 granjas participantes de um estudo nacional de 1995 do "United States National Animal Health Monitoring System". Dois métodos foram usados: um considerando que suínos produzem 8,4% do seu peso corporal de dejetos por dia e o outro usando a diferença entre o alimento ingerido e o ganho de peso como um indicador para o estudo da produção de esterco. Através desse último procedimento, desenvolveu-se uma função de produção

Integrating Civil Society and Economic Growth in Appalachia

Building from a framework that incorporates ideas from the civil society perspective into market-based sociological models of economic growth, this article examines the effects of three measures of civic engagement on measure of economic growth in Appalachian counties during the 1990-1995 period. The analysis shows that net of other market competition-based measures, civic engagement does have a net positive impact on economic growth (increases in private non-farm employment, private establishment, per capita income, earnings, etc.). The three measures of civic engagement are (1) percent of population in civically engaged denominations (1990), (2) number of national associations per capita (1990), (3) and number of third places per capita (1990). All three measures have significant positive effects in one or more models. Percent in civically engaged denominations has the most consistent effects. Implications are discussed. Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing.

Stereotypes in social psychology: The “West-East“ differentiation as a reflection of western traditions of thought

Notwithstanding the fact that stereotypes and ethnocentrism constitute central topics of social psychology a cultural psychological question has almost been completely neglected in the discipline’s reflections on its own scientific endeavors: How has Western psychology’s construction of the “Indian“ and the “Eastern psyche“ been influenced by stereotypes that are embedded in culture-specific traditions of European scholarly and non-scholarly thinking? The problems tackled in this article are related to current social and cross-cultural psychological perspectives on the Indian context. In addition, they are related to social and cross-cultural psychological contributions to the well-established differentiation between the “West“ and the “East,“ which many psychologists have become used to and which are the foundation of current psychological theories about so-called “West-East differences.