The effect of bias in relative performance appraisal

This study examines how managers’ biases affect the performance of their employees under relative performance appraisal. First, in case that performance cannot be measured quantitatively (as for administrative work), given a small reward, the findings suggest that the manager’s bias increases the employees’ level of effort and given a large reward, the bias decreases efforts. Examining cases over two periods, usually, bias toward an employee who performed better in the first period increases the total profit. Moreover, a bias leads to lower efforts in cases where performance can be measured quantitatively (as for sales). Furthermore, by establishing harsh conditions such as dismissing employees with lower evaluations, overall efforts may be increased by a bias against an underperforming employee.  The overall findings suggest that the organizational performance improves through implementing a bias toward better performing employees

Practical Preparation of Epilactose Produced with Cellobiose 2-Epimerase from Ruminococcus albus NE1

A practical purification method for a non-digestible disaccharide, epilactose (4-O-beta-galactosyl-D-mannose), was established. Epilactose was synthesized from lactose with cellobiose 2-epimerase and purified by the following procedure: (i) removal of lactose by crystallization, (ii) hydrolysis of lactose by beta-galactosidase, (iii) digestion of monosaccharides by yeast, and (iv) column chromatography with Na-form cation exchange resin. Epilactose of 91.1% purity was recovered at 42.5% yield

Measuring the Potential Economic Impact of a Japan–US Free Trade Agreement: Can It Enable the US to Eliminate Its Trade Deficit in Goods with Japan?

Japan and the US are two major global trading partners that have at times been at odds regarding each other’s international trade policies. In particular, the ongoing US trade deficit in goods with Japan has been one of the primary disputes between Japan and the US. However, the recent withdrawal of the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) sent a clear signal that the US would take a new approach to international trade issues and has potentially paved the way for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with the remaining TPP countries, including Japan. This paper contributes to the debate on the potential economic impact of a Japan–US FTA (JUFTA) by evaluating whether it could enable the US to eliminate its trade deficit in goods with Japan. To do this, we measure the potential impact of a JUFTA using a dynamic Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model. We find that a JUFTA is unlikely to enable the US to eliminate its trade deficit in goods with Japan, although the deficit will certainly decrease as a result

Economic Impact of the Japan–China–USA Free Trade Agreement on Japan using both Static and Dynamic GTAP Models

The Japanese government has been actively involved in so-called mega Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The purpose of this paper is to measure the potential impact of the Japan–China–USA Free Trade Agreement (JCUFTA) on Japan; in particular, on the Japanese agricultural sector using static and dynamic GTAP models. When tariffs are eliminated between Japan, the USA and China, the GDPs of the three countries will all increase, but the impact on the GDPs of the three countries is less than 1% in both static and dynamic models. The results also show that the total value of agricultural production in Japan is expected to decline by more than 10%