On the Use of Cheap Talk in New Product Valuation

This study reports on the potential use of “cheap talk†in hypothetical new product valuation research using a simple field experiment eliciting subjects' willingness to pay for a new product. While cheap talk has been used in the non-market valuation literature, its application in hypothetical new product valuation research is very limited.cheap talk

A DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF WATER QUALITY POLICIES ON IRRIGATION INVESTMENT AND CROP CHOICE DECISIONS

A dynamic model is developed to analyze farmers' irrigation investment and crop choice decisions under alternative water quality protection policies. The model is applied to an empirical example in the Oklahoma High Plains. The choices of crops and irrigation systems and the resulting levels of irrigation, income, and nitrogen runoff and percolation are simulated over a ten-year period. An effluent tax on nitrogen runoff and percolation is shown to be effective in reducing nitrate pollution. The efficacy of cost sharing in adopting modern irrigation technologies and restrictions on irrigation water use depends on soil type. A tax on nitrogen use is shown to be the least effective policy.Crop selection, Dynamic optimization, Irrigation investment, Water quality, Crop Production/Industries,

Micro-Demand Systems Analysis of Non-Alcoholic Beverages in the United States: An Application of Econometric Techniques Dealing With Censoring

A censored Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) and a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) were estimated in modeling non-alcoholic beverages. Five estimation techniques were used, including the conventional Iterated Seemingly Unrelated Regression (ITSUR), two-stage methods such as the Heien and Wessells (1990) and the Shonkwiler and Yen (1999) approaches, the generalized maximum entropy method and the Amemiya-Tobin framework of Dong, Gould and Kaiser (2004). Our results based on various specifications and estimation techniques are quantitatively similar and indicate that price elasticity estimates have a greater variability in more highly censored non-alcoholic beverage items such as tea, coffee and bottled water as opposed to less censored non-alcoholic beverage items such as carbonated softdrinks, milk and fruit juices.Censored demand systems, AIDS, QUAIDS, Two-Step Methods, Generalized Maximum Entropy, Amemiya-Tobin Framework, Non-Alcoholic Beverages, Agribusiness, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, C34, D12,

A thermal, thermoelastic, and wear analysis of high-energy disk brakes

A thermomechanical investigation of the sliding contact problem encountered in high-energy disk brakes is described. The analysis includes a modelling, using the finite element method of the thermoelastic instabilities that cause transient changes in contact area to occur on the friction surface. In order to include the effect of wear at the contact surface, a wear criterion is proposed that results in the prediction of wear rates for disk brakes that are quite close to experimentally determined wear rates. The thermal analysis shows that the transient temperature distribution in a disk brake assembly can be determined more accurately by use of this thermomechanical analysis than by a more conventional analysis that assumes constant contact conditions. It also shows that lower, more desirable, temperatures in disk brakes can be attained by increasing the volume, the thermal conductivity, and, especially, the heat capacity of the brake components

Residual stress redistribution during elastic shake down in welded plates

Residual stresses are a consequence of welding in various structures such as ships and offshore structures. Residual stresses can be relaxed or redistributed according to the load levels during operation. The elastic shakedown phenomenon can be considered as one of the reasons for this change. This paper studies the relaxation/redistribution of weld residual stress during different levels of shakedown in a butt-welded plate chosen according to ship design and welding procedures. Welding was performed on DH36, a ship structural steel. Neutron diffraction was used to measure residual stresses in these plates in the as-welded state and after different levels of shakedown. A mixed hardening model in line with the Chaboche model is determined for both weld and base material. A numerical model is developed to estimate the shakedown limit on butt-welded plate. Further, the redistribution of residual stress in a numerical weld model according to the different levels of shakedown limit is studied. Based on the shakedown limit of the butt-welded plate, a shakedown region is determined, where the structure will undergo elastic shakedown in the presence of an existing residual stress field if the maximum stress on the load section after a few initial cycles is in the shakedown region

The Effect of Food-Away-from-Home and Food-at-Home Expenditures on Obesity Rates: A State-Level Analysis

Using state-level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we investigate the effects of household food-away-from-home and food-at-home expenditures on overweight rates, obesity rates, and combined rates. Our random effects model estimates suggest that food-away-from-home expenditures are positively related to obesity and combined rates, while food-at-home expenditures are negatively related to obesity and combined rates. However, the magnitudes of these effects, while statistically significant, are relatively small. Both food-at-home and food-away-from-home expenditures do not significantly influence overweight rates.food-at-home expenditures, food-away-from-home expenditures, obesity, overweight, random effects model, state-level analysis, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, I18,

Reply to Itin, Obukhov and Hehl paper "An Electric Charge has no Screw Sense - A Comment on the Twist-Free Formulation of Electrodynamics by da Rocha & Rodrigues"

In this note we briefly comment a paper by Itin, Obukhov and Hehl criticising our previous paper. We show that all remarks by our critics are ill conceived or irrelevant to our approach and moreover we provide some pertinent new comments to their critical paper, with the aim to clarify even more our view on the subject.Comment: This paper is a reply to arXiv:0911.5175 [physics.class-ph] which made some criticisms on our paper "Pair and Impar, Even and Odd Form Fields and Electromagnetism" arXiv:0811.1713 [math-ph] to appear in Annalen der Physik. A short version of our reply will also appear in Annalen de Physi

Account Based Mobile Payment by Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange Protocol

With the development on techniques of mobile communication, the daily activities benefit from these techniques more than ever. In order to make living more convenient, the mobile payment has been brought up in recent years. The consideration for carrying out the mobile payment is very difference from that in the wired electronics payment scheme because of the characteristics of mobile device. In this article we develop a mobile payment scheme that is based on reducing the operation of the device, and furthermore achieves the demands of security. It can create the session key for each transaction by means of using the “Diffie-Hellman key exchange” protocol. The use of the Message Authentication Code (MAC) can achieve the integrity of electronic commerce. Both of them do not need a large number of operations and complex algorithm so it can achieve the purposes of this investigation: a secure, convenient and light-computation scheme for mobile payment