An Analysis of Female Beef Cattle Inventory Response in New South Wales Using the Adaptive Risk Model

An analysis of variations in the annual inventories of beef cows and heifers and female calves at the regional level in New South Wales is reported. The State was divided into six relatively homogeneous regions for the purposes of this study. Just's adaptive risk model provided the theoretical basis for the specification of equations for each region. This model explicitly considers farmers' subjective evaluations of risk. Geometric weighting of the variances of prices was incorporated in order to study variations in the numbers of female beef cattle in response to changes in price risk. The coefficients of the equations were estimated empirically using a maximum likelihood method. Data for the period 1950 to 1978 were used in estimation. Wherever significant coefficients were obtained in the equations for the cow and heifer portions of the herd, inventories were positively related to expected beef prices and the variances of prices of alternative commodities; and negatively related to expected prices of alternative enterprises and the variances of beef prices. Beef price risk was significantly related to annual inventories of cows and heifers in the northern and coastal regions where, it was suggested, alternative enterprises are less readily available to the farmers possessing the majority of the beef breeding cattle. The estimated elasticities of cow and heifer inventories were higher in the Tablelands and Slopes regions than in the Coast and Western Plains regions; and higher in the central and southern regions than in the northern regions. The results of the empirical estimation of the equations to explain changes in the numbers of female beef calves were less satisfactory. Although results similar to those of the cow and heifer equations were often obtained, unexpected positive signs were obtained on some estimated coefficients associated with the beef price risk variables. Lower estimated elasticities of the inventory of female beef calves were obtained for the Central and Southern Slopes and Coast regions than for other regions. Overall, the estimation of regional level equations provided more satisfactory results than estimates of State level models. It is suggested that further research should be undertaken in order to more adequately assess the usefulness of the adaptive risk model in studies of beef cattle inventory response

Arcade Comics Revue, No. 1

The Adler Archive of Underground Comix, Gift of Bill Adler.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/specialcollections_adlerarchive_undergroundcomix/1026/thumbnail.jp

Arcade Comics Revue, No. 1

The Adler Archive of Underground Comix, Gift of Bill Adler.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/specialcollections_adlerarchive_undergroundcomix/1026/thumbnail.jp

UNFOLD Deliverable D4. Awareness raising report

This report describes the awareness raising activities carried out by the UNFOLD projec

The Economic Impacts of New Technologies and Promotions on the Australian Beef Industry

Around $100 million has been spent annually on R&D and promotion in the Australian red meat industries in recent years. Producer groups have been questioning the pay-offs from these investments. These pay-offs are also a public policy issue since the coercive powers of government are used to underpin the levy system and government also directly contributes to research expenditures. In this thesis, an equilibrium displacement model (EDM) of the Australian beef industry is specified and simulated to study the returns from alternative research and promotion investments. The model is more disaggregated than existing studies of the beef industry. It provides an economic framework for cost-benefit analysis of various investments in the industry, as well as for examining the impacts of other exogenous changes such as government price and tax policies

Overcoming Individual Limitations Through Distributed Computation: Rational Information Accumulation in Multigenerational Populations

Many of the computational problems people face are difficult to solve under the limited time and cognitive resources available to them. Overcoming these limitations through social interaction is one of the most distinctive features of human intelligence. In this paper, we show that information accumulation in multigenerational social networks can be produced by a form of distributed Bayesian inference that allows individuals to benefit from the experience of previous generations while expending little cognitive effort. In doing so, we provide a criterion for assessing the rationality of a population that extends traditional analyses of the rationality of individuals. We tested the predictions of this analysis in two highly controlled behavioral experiments where the social transmission structure closely matched the assumptions of our model. Participants made decisions on simple categorization tasks that relied on and contributed to accumulated knowledge. Success required these microsocieties to accumulate information distributed across people and time. Our findings illustrate how in certain settings, distributed computation at the group level can pool information and resources, allowing limited individuals to perform effectively on complex tasks

UNFOLD Deliverable D6.1. Half yearly report 1

Half yearly management report, covering the work carried out during the months of January - June 200

UNFOLD Deliverable D3. Evaluation Plan

A detailed evaluation plan is defined from September to December 200

UNFOLD Deliverable D3. Evaluation Plan.

Three periods of evaluation are established covering the whole project and corresponding to the deliverables defined in the project work plan. A detailed evaluation plan is defined for the first period, covering September to December 2004

UNFOLD Deliverable D2 - Awareness raising resources: (Project Deliverable Report - Understanding New Frameworks of Learning Design UNFOLD)

This report describes the work carried out in the development of UNFOLD project awareness resources. These include handouts, posters, and other publications, but the principal action has been to create a Web server which both raises awareness of the project, and of the specifications which it seeks to promote. The planning and development of the resources is described and some conclusions provided