INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AND THE EMERGENCE OF E-COMMERCE IN AGRIBUSINESS

The emergence of E-commerce in the 1990s heralded the arrival of the New Economy. However, the failure of numerous dotcoms since early 2001 has led to a debate regarding the future direction of E-commerce and its potential relevance for agribusiness. This study examines the economic implications of E-commerce for agribusiness within the framework of New Institutional Economics. The New Institutional Economics implies that E-commerce has the potential to reduce direct transactions costs in agricultural markets, but that it also may add additional indirect transactions costs. Depending upon the tradeoff between these costs, an institutional innovation which reduces the transactions costs may provide the impetus for an alternative marketing channel for agricultural output. Two models of institutional change are explored. The North model of changes in the rules of the game is found to be more consistent with the advent of E-commerce than the model of technological change suggested by Schumpeter.E-commerce, marketing channels, New Institutional Economics, Schumpeter, Agribusiness, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Thermodynamics of Quantum Measurement and the Demon's Arrow of Time

We discuss the thermodynamic aspects of a single qubit based device, powered by weak quantum measurements, and feedback controlled by a quantum Maxwell's demon. We discuss both discrete and time-continuous operation of the measurement based device at finite temperature of the reservoir. In the discrete example where a demon acquires information via discrete weak measurements, we find that the thermodynamic variables including the heat exchanged, extractable work, and the entropy produced are completely determined by an information theoretic measure of the demon's perceived arrow of time. We also discuss a realistic time-continuous operation of the device where the feedback is applied after a sequence of weak measurements. In the time-continuous limit, we derive the exact finite-time statistics of work, heat and entropy changes along individual quantum trajectories of the quantum measurement process, and relate them to the demon's arrow of time.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

The New Orleans Transformation: Foster Care as a Rare, Time-Limited Intervention

This Article offers an initial evaluation of one reformed child protection system— New Orleans, Louisiana—and describes how a system that dramatically reduces the number of children in foster care might look. This system shows how a major metropolitan area can shrink its daily population of children in foster care to the low double digits, which would correspond to a reduction of the national daily foster care population by about 360,000. This reduction was mostly due to sending children home—usually to the homes from which they were removed—within days or weeks of removal, raising questions about the necessity of the original removal. This reduction occurred without harming children’s safety, suggesting that keeping children in state custody is not necessary to keep them safe. Moreover, New Orleans data reveal a particularly large reduction in the time Black children are separated from their families, an increase in the number of children living with kinship caregivers compared to strangers, and a near elimination of congregate care placements and termination of parental rights. All of these are positive outcomes, which demand widespread attention in the field. Several features of the reformed New Orleans system stand out. First, in the period before any adjudications (when most foster care exits occurred), the family court took on a dispute resolution role, focused on ensuring cases were prepared for trial or moving toward settlement. This contrasts with the family court’s historically more common and more interventionist problem-solving role. Second, the court insisted on compliance with pretrial procedures. Third, legal representation, especially of parents and the agency, was vigorous and adversarial. Some notes of caution are warranted. A significant minority of children leave foster care in New Orleans via a quick permanent change of custody to a relative, which ends the court’s involvement in the family’s life but sacrifices some potential benefits of a longer case, especially a parent’s opportunity to engage in rehabilitative services and more easily seek reunification

The New Orleans Transformation: Foster Care as a Rare, Time-Limited Intervention

This Article offers an initial evaluation of one reformed child protection system — New Orleans, Louisiana — and describes how a system that dramatically reduces the number of children in foster care might look. This system shows how a major metropolitan area can shrink its daily population of children in foster care to the low double digits, which would correspond to a reduction of the national daily foster care population by about 360,000. This reduction was mostly due to sending children home — usually to the homes from which they were removed — within days or weeks of removal, raising questions about the necessity of the original removal. This reduction occurred without harming children’s safety, suggesting that keeping children in state custody is not necessary to keep them safe. Moreover, New Orleans data reveal a particularly large reduction in the time Black children are separated from their families, an increase in the number of children living with kinship caregivers compared to strangers, and a near elimination of congregate care placements and termination of parental rights. All of these are positive outcomes, which demand widespread attention in the field. Several features of the reformed New Orleans system stand out. First, in the period before any adjudications (when most foster care exits occurred), the family court took on a dispute resolution role, focused on ensuring cases were prepared for trial or moving toward settlement. This contrasts with the family court’s historically more common and more interventionist problem-solving role. Second, the court insisted on compliance with pretrial procedures. Third, legal representation, especially of parents and the agency, was vigorous and adversarial. Some notes of caution are warranted. A significant minority of children leave foster care in New Orleans via a quick permanent change of custody to a relative, which ends the court’s involvement in the family’s life but sacrifices some potential benefits of a longer case, especially a parent’s opportunity to engage in rehabilitative services and more easily seek reunification

Development and Validation of the Mukbang Addiction Scale

Recent literature has speculated that some individuals spend lots of time watching mukbang (i.e., combination of the South Korean words ‘eating’ [‘meokneun’] and ‘broadcast’ [‘bangsong’] that refers to eating broadcasts where a person eats a large portion of food on camera whilst interacting with viewers) and compensate different needs using this activity. However, compensating unattained offline needs using a specific online activity could lead to the addictive use of that activity. The present study investigated problematic mukbang watching by developing and validating the Mukbang Addiction Scale (MAS). An online survey was administered to 236 university students (Mage = 20.50 years; 62% female) who had watched mukbang at least once. Construct validity, criterion validity, and reliability analyses indicated that the MAS had good psychometric properties. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the unidimensional structure of the scale. The Cronbach’s alpha (α = .95) and composite reliability (CR = .92) suggested that the MAS had excellent internal consistency. Latent class analyses (LCA) revealed two primary profiles, one with high endorsement and one with low endorsement of the items assessed. Item response theory (IRT) findings also indicated a good model fit. IRT findings provisionally supported a cut-off scale raw score of 22 (out of 30). Assessment and clinical-related implications of the findings are illustrated in accordance with other excessive behaviours

Effectiveness of mouth rinsing versus ingesting pickle juice for alleviating electrically induced cramp in physically active adults

(1) Background: Stimulating oropharyngeal transient receptor potential (TRP) channels in-hibits muscle cramping by triggering a supraspinal reflex to reduce α-motor neuron hyperexcitability. This study investigated whether the longer stimulation of the TRP channels via mouth rinsing with PJ is more effective than drinking PJ at inhibiting an electrically induced muscle cramp (EIMC). Both conditions were compared to the control (water). (2) Methods: The tibial nerves in 11 cramp-prone adults were percutaneously stimulated to elicit an EIMC of the flexor hallucis brevis in three trials that took place one week apart from each other. At cramp onset, the participants received mouth rinsing and expelling PJ (25 mL), ingesting PJ (1 mL·kg−1 body-mass (BM)), or ingesting water (1 mL·kg−1 BM). Cramp onset and offset were induced by electromyography, and the severity of discomfort was recorded using a visual analogue scale (VAS). (3) Results: The median time to cramp cessation as a percentage of water was 82.8 ± 14.63% and 68.6 ± 47.78% for PJ ingestion and PJ mouth rinsing, respectively. These results had large variability, and no statistically significant differences were observed. There were also no differences in perceived cramp discomfort between conditions, despite the hazard ratios for the time taken to reach VAS = 0, which was higher than water (control) for PJ ingestion (22%) and mouth rinsing (35%) (p = 0.66 and 0.51, respectively). (4) Conclusions: The data suggest no difference in cramp duration and perceived discomfort between PJ and water. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Andrew Lavender” is provided in this record*

Drag force on an impurity below the superfluid critical velocity in a quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate

The existence of frictionless flow below a critical velocity for obstacles moving in a superfluid is well established in the context of the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii theory. We calculate the next order correction due to quantum and thermal fluctuations and find a nonzero force acting on a delta-function impurity moving through a quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate at all subcritical velocities and at all temperatures. The force occurs due to an imbalance in the Doppler shifts of reflected quantum fluctuations from either side of the impurity. Our calculation is based on a consistent extension of Bogoliubov theory to second order in the interaction strength, and finds new analytical solutions to the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations for a gray soliton. Our results raise questions regarding the quantum dynamics in the formation of persistent currents in superfluids