MARKETING MECHANISMS IN GM GRAINS AND OILSEEDS

A number of challenges exist for genetically modified (GM) crop development at the production level. Contract strategies can resolve these challenges. Contracts can be designed to induce legal adoption of GM wheat by varying technology fees, violation detection, and penalties. The primary objective of this research is to analyze contracting strategies to determine terms to minimize technology agreement violation and to induce legal adoption of GM wheat. A simulation model of a crop budget for Hard Red Spring wheat was developed. Results illustrate that contracts can be designed to induce desired behavior. Technology fee, probability of detection, and the level of non-GM premium were the most notable factors influencing adoption decisions.Producer Decisions, Risk, Genetically Modified, Contract Terms, Wheat, Crop Production/Industries,

OPTIMAL TESTING STRATEGIES FOR GENETICALLY MODIFIED WHEAT

A stochastic optimization model was developed to determine optimal testing strategies, costs, and risks of a dual marketing system. The model chooses the testing strategy (application, intensity, and tolerance) that maximizes utility (minimizes disutility) of additional system costs due to testing and quality loss and allows simulation of the risk premium required to induce grain handlers to undertake a dual marketing system versus a Non-GM system. Cost elements including those related to testing, quality loss, and a risk premium were estimated for a model representing a grain export chain. Uncertainties were incorporated and include test accuracy, risk of adventitious commingling throughout, and variety declaration. Sensitivities were performed for effects of variety risks, penalty differentials, re-elevation discounts, import tolerances, variety declaration, risk aversion, GM adoption, and domestic end-user.Segregation, Testing, Tolerance, Genetically Modified, Wheat, Risk Premium, Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

INCENTIVE CONTRACTS TO MEET FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS IN WHEAT PURCHASING

Consistency of functional characteristics in hard red spring (HRS) wheat is a concern confronting sellers and buyers. This research analyzes contract incentives for importers with respect to cost and potential risk of acceptance. A principal-agent framework is utilized to examine contract incentives. In the principal-agent contract, the principal offers the contract, the agent rejects or accepts the contract, and then decides how much effort to apply. All this is subject to risk for the agent and moral hazard for the principal. An example is presented, for which equilibrium contract terms are a base price of 454 cents per bushel for low quality wheat and a premium of 36 cents per bushel if high quality is achieved. The premium for high quality is unchanged as the agent's outside option increases, but increases as the probability of conformance with high effort declines or as the agent's cost of high effort increases. Small changes in several of the parameter values (agent's outside option, agent's cost of high/low effort, principal value for high/low effort, and principal's outside options if the contract was not extended or if the agent rejects the contract) result in the principal not offering a contract.Incentive Contact, Functional Characteristic, Wheat, Principal-Agent, Crop Production/Industries,

Bulk Fuel Distribution Costs For Cooperatives in North Dakota

Economic-engineering cost data and a simulation model were used to analyze the impact of sales density, size of sales area, sales volume, and equipment configuration on costs of bulk fuel delivery by cooperatives. Fixed costs accounted for the majority of delivery costs regardless of sales density or size of sales area, at least for the relevant range of these variables for North Dakota. Increasing the radius of a sales area from 5 to 50 miles increased average costs only $.02 to$.09/gal. Doubling sales by either doubling the size of the sales area or the sales density reduced average total costs by nearly 50%. Thus, cooperatives with excess delivery capacity could achieve significant savings if they consolidate to operate closer to the capacity of delivery equipment. Small storage facilities (say 50,000 gal.) place little or no restriction on operations because deliveries from bulk fuel terminals are reliable and on a timely basis. Therefore, the economic rationale for building larger storage facilities would include speculation on price changes and as a response to future expectations rather than current operating requirements. The impact of the size of load-out pipes (2" or 3") and delivery trucks (2,000 or 4,000 gal.) is significant in some instances. The larger load-out pipes are most economical for high sales densities. Larger trucks have a comparative advantage in large sales areas with lower sales densities.cooperatives, fuel distribution, delivery costs, market area size, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Agribusiness,

Looking for evidence of noncompetitive behavior in Minnesota's banking industry

Banks and banking - Minnesota

ISSUES IN DEVELOPMENT AND ADOPTION OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) WHEATS

Development of genetically modified (GM) wheat varieties is proceeding; however, several critical issues remain the focus of contention. This project summarizes the current state of knowledge on some of these critical issues for commercialization of GM wheats. Background on the evolution of GM Wheats is presented. Then, agronomic adoption and competitiveness of GM crops; research on GM traits in wheat; consumer acceptance of GM crops (a separate section is included on issues related to consumer acceptance of GM crops); regulatory issues and status; international trade; testing, segregation, and identity preservation; and production and marketing risks are examined. Finally, there is a description of the likely marketing system to evolve and a discussion of outstanding issues.wheat, genetic modification, transgenic, marketing, Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Extreme points of the set of density matrices with positive partial transpose

We present a necessary and sufficient condition for a finite dimensional density matrix to be an extreme point of the convex set of density matrices with positive partial transpose with respect to a subsystem. We also give an algorithm for finding such extreme points and illustrate this by some examples.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Stabilization and control system power sensitivity study

Stabilization and control system sensitivity to power-off failure rate studied by simulated missions using block power switchin

Several types of types in programming languages

Types are an important part of any modern programming language, but we often forget that the concept of type we understand nowadays is not the same it was perceived in the sixties. Moreover, we conflate the concept of "type" in programming languages with the concept of the same name in mathematical logic, an identification that is only the result of the convergence of two different paths, which started apart with different aims. The paper will present several remarks (some historical, some of more conceptual character) on the subject, as a basis for a further investigation. The thesis we will argue is that there are three different characters at play in programming languages, all of them now called types: the technical concept used in language design to guide implementation; the general abstraction mechanism used as a modelling tool; the classifying tool inherited from mathematical logic. We will suggest three possible dates ad quem for their presence in the programming language literature, suggesting that the emergence of the concept of type in computer science is relatively independent from the logical tradition, until the Curry-Howard isomorphism will make an explicit bridge between them.Comment: History and Philosophy of Computing, HAPOC 2015. To appear in LNC