Distributional Impacts of Food Price Changes on Consumer Welfare in Hungary and Romania following EU Accession

This paper focuses on the estimation of changes in economic welfare (real income) on different groups (income deciles) of Hungarian and Romanian consumers following food price changes as a result of accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007. It identifies in both countries those consumer groups most vulnerable to food price changes using the most recent, official, post accession data. Slutsky Compensating Variation, based on Laspeyres indexes is employed for a food basket of 16 products. The results show that real food prices have changed with some going up and others falling. However, overall both Hungary and Romania have experienced a rise in real food prices by 9 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. The rise in food prices has resulted in a welfare loss for all income deciles, particularly for those in the lower income groups. Although, in absolute terms, Romanian food consumers seem to be more affected (the decrease in their real income varies between 4 per cent for decile 10 and 12 per cent for decile 1) than Hungarian consumers (0.4 per cent for decile 10 and 2.2 per cent for decile 1), the distribution of the impact is higher in Hungary, a five-fold difference between decile 1 and decile 10 as opposed to a three-fold difference in Romania. This paper focuses on the estimation of changes in economic welfare (real income) on different groups (income deciles) of Hungarian and Romanian consumers following food price changes as a result of accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007. It identifies in both countries those consumer groups most vulnerable to food price changes using the most recent, official, post accession data. Slutsky Compensating Variation, based on Laspeyres indexes is employed for a food basket of 16 products. The results show that real food prices have changed with some going up and others falling. However, overall both Hungary and Romania have experienced a rise in real food prices by 9 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. The rise in food prices has resulted in a welfare loss for all income deciles, particularly for those in the lower income groups. Although, in absolute terms, Romanian food consumers seem to be more affected (the decrease in their real income varies between 4 per cent for decile 10 and 12 per cent for decile 1) than Hungarian consumers (0.4 per cent for decile 10 and 2.2 per cent for decile 1), the distribution of the impact is higher in Hungary, a five-fold difference between decile 1 and decile 10 as opposed to a three-fold difference in Romania.prices, consumers, welfare, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Labor and Human Capital,

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF READ 180® ON FOURTH GRADE READING ACHIEVEMENT AND HOW SELECTED TEACHERS IMPLEMENT THE PROGRAM

This study examined the effects of the READ 180®® program on the reading achievement levels of fourth grade students who participated in the READ 180®® program (Scholastic Incorporated, 2005) compared to fourth grade students who were reading below grade level but who were not participating in the READ 180®® program. The study compared the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) scores of each group administered in September 2009 and May or June 2010. The mean reading achievement gain for each group was compared to determine if there was a significant difference between the reading scores. Results of the One-Way ANCOVA yielded no significant statistical differences, at the probability level (p level) of .05, in the posttest SRI reading score means for students in READ 180®® and non-READ 180®® reading programs, after controlling for initial differences on the pretest SRI scores. However, if the probability was set for p=SRI scores. Although there was evidence READ 180®® was statistically significant and beneficial to students, the results are not conclusive. The results of the Two-Way ANCOVA showed no significance of interaction between reading program status and TerraNova Third EditionTM qualification criteria on posttest reading scores. The study also investigated whether teachers supplemented the standard READ 180®® program with other reading interventions, activities, and modifications based upon the needs of the students. Teachers who taught READ 180®® and special education teachers who assisted with READ 180®® implementation were surveyed using a web-based survey program. Survey results indicated teachers supplemented the standard READ 180®® program including Whole Group, Small Group, and Independent Reading Group rotations with reading interventions, activities, and modifications based upon the needs of the students. Supplementary activities included the use of Internet resources, reading materials, Smartboard activities, and alternate methods for evaluating student progress. The use of other commercially available materials and activities for written language instruction were included to expand the READ 180®® curriculum. Modifications and interventions were rarely made to READ 180®® Software instructional sessions, with the exception of keyboarding devices and headsets

Organophosphate toxicosis in chickens: A case report

Two cases of organophosphate toxicity were diagnosed at the University of Arkansas Poultry Science Department poultry research farm in the Spring of 2002. In both cases the birds were being treated with the organophosphate RaVap® for Northern Fowl Mites (Ornithonyssus sylvarium) infestations. A total of 61 birds died and 13 were treated successfully with atropine sulphate

The Forced van der Pol Equation II: Canards in the reduced system

This is the second in a series of papers about the dynamics of the forced van der Pol oscillator [J. Guckenheimer, K. Hoffman, and W. Weckesser, SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst., 2 (2003), pp. 1–35]. The first paper described the reduced system, a two dimensional flow with jumps that reflect fast trajectory segments in this vector field with two time scales. This paper extends the reduced system to account for canards, trajectory segments that follow the unstable portion of the slow manifold in the forced van der Pol oscillator. This extension of the reduced system serves as a template for approximating the full nonwandering set of the forced van der Pol oscillator for large sets of parameter values, including parameters for which the system is chaotic. We analyze some bifurcations in the extension of the reduced system, building upon our previous work in [J. Guckenheimer, K. Hoffman, and W. Weckesser, SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst., 2 (2003), pp. 1–35]. We conclude with computations of return maps and periodic orbits in the full three dimensional flow that are compared with the computations and analysis of the reduced system. These comparisons demonstrate numerically the validity of results we derive from the study of canards in the reduced system

Patterns behind rural success stories in the European Union: Major lessons of former enlargements

The findings presented in this edited book are derived from the activities of the SCARLED (Structural Change in Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods) project. It had been co-financed by the European Commission and lasted from January 2007 until September 2010. SCARLED pursued two major research objectives: (1) to analyse the agricultural sector restructuring process and the rural socio-economic transformation in the New Member States (NMS), with a particular focus on five case study countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia; and (2) to analyse the patterns behind rural success stories in selected case regions of the established member states of the European Union (EU15). The chosen EU15 regions were Borders, Midlands and Western Region (BMW) (Ireland), Navarra (Spain), Skåne (Sweden), Tyrol (Austria) and Altmark (Germany). The findings of the research are available on the SCARLED website (www.scarled.eu) and have been published extensively elsewhere. A compilation of the main findings and a focus on objective 1 has been published in another edited volume. In this book we will focus on the main findings with respect to objective 2 of the project, viz. what lessons can be drawn from previous EU enlargements with respect to rural development policies. This book is structured as follows: in the first chapter, we will provide an introduction and a summary of main lessons, which can be derived from previous EU enlargements. This is followed by a condensed version of the five individual case study reports on Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Austria and new German Bundesländer (Eastern Länder), respectively. Each case study followed the identical methodology to allow for cross-comparison. However, the authors were free to focus specifically on those issues which according to their understanding needed to be most intensively discussed. The comprehensive versions of all case study reports are available on the SCARLED website

Seismic Imaging of the Main Frontal Thrust in Nepal Reveals a Shallow Décollement and Blind Thrusting

Because great earthquakes in the Himalaya have an average recurrence interval exceeding 500 yr, most of what we know about past earthquakes comes from paleoseismology and tectonic geomorphology studies of the youngest fault system there, the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT). However, these data are sparse relative to fault segmentation and length, and interpretations are often hard to validate in the absence of information about fault geometry. Here, we image the upper two km of strata in the vicinity of the fault tip of the MFT in central Nepal (around the town of Bardibas) applying a pre-stack migration approach to two new seismic reflection profiles that we interpret using quantitative fault-bend folding theory. Our results provide direct evidence that a shallow décollement produces both emergent (Patu thrust) and blind (Bardibas thrust) fault strands. We show that the décollement lies about 2 km below the land surface near the fault tip, and steps down to a regional 5 km deep décollement level to the north. This implies that there is significant variation in the depth of the décollement. We demonstrate that some active faults do not reach the surface, and therefore paleoseismic trenching alone cannot characterize the earthquake history at these locations. Although blind, these faults have associated growth strata that allow us to infer their most recent displacement history. We present the first direct evidence of fault dip on two fault strands of the MFT at depth that can allow terrace uplift measurements to be more accurately converted to fault slip. We identify a beveled erosional surface buried beneath Quaternary sediments, indicating that strath surface formation is modulated by both climate-related base level changes and tectonics. Together, these results indicate that subsurface imaging, in conjunction with traditional paleoseismological tools, can best characterize the history of fault slip in the Himalaya and other similar thrust fault systems

Native College Success in the Seventies: Trends at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks

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Constraints on the Shallow Deformation Around the Main Frontal Thrust in Central Nepal from Refraction Velocities

The youngest fault system in the Himalayan orogeny is the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT), the frontal ramp of the Main Himalayan Thrust, which is expected to host the largest and most damaging earthquakes in Nepal. We characterize the upper few hundred meters below the surface across two MFT fault strands using ten high-resolution seismic profiles that we acquired in 2014 and 2015 with a 6-tonne Vibroseis source. We use first arrival picks from 625,416 seismic traces to derive P-wave seismic velocity models using a wavepath eikonal traveltime inversion method, and derive estimates of alluvium thickness and water table depth across these faults (the Patu and Bardibas thrusts), allowing us to constrain the subsurface geometry of the MFT. Our results show that 1) seismic velocities range from 255 to 3660 m/s, consistent with dry and saturated alluvium, and Siwalik bedrock; 2) low-velocity alluvium varies between ~20–50 and ~80–120 m thick in the hanging wall and footwall of the Bardibas thrust, respectively, corresponding to ~60–70 m of uplift of the hanging wall since deposition; 3) the two thrusts are soft-linked, and the western tip of the Bardibas thrust lies ~6 km west of its surface expression; 4) during the dry season, the water table is ~25–100 m higher in the hanging walls of the faults than in their footwalls, due to the larger thickness of permeable alluvium in the footwalls, and the water table shallows towards the east in the hanging wall of the Bardibas thrust; and 5) consistent with previous studies, the Patu thrust breaches the surface, while the Bardibas thrust is blind at Ratu Khola. These results also demonstrate that it should be possible to constrain the rate of uplift above the Bardibas thrust by drilling and dating sediments on both sides, which would complement existing measurements from terrace uplift