Increasing U.S. Hard Red Winter Wheat Competitiveness in Latin American Markets

The United States wheat sector leadership in world markets is facing serious challenges. Canada, Australia, Argentina, the European Union (EU), and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) are growing contenders for international wheat markets. Wheat buyers´ concerns about quality specifications and its consistency have intensified without precedents in the last years. The study focuses on identifying the attributes that wheat buyers most value at the moment of purchase. The study will be done in two stages. The first stage will focus in estimating preferences from actual wheat transactions from different grain-sheds in the HRW growing area. The second stage will focus on the demand from Latin American millers and will estimate their attribute preference and elicit willingness to pay. The second stage will start with Mexican millers, given their importance for the HRW exports. A hedonic price model will be used for the first stage. The second part of the study will attempt to elicit miller´s preferences by using a self explicated approach. Expected results are that the "easy-to-measure attributes": test weight, and protein levels; and all functionality characteristics such as bake absorption, farinograph peak time, farinograph stability, alveograph p/l ratio will be the most valued by the wheat customers. We hypothesize that millers will be willing to pay a premium if those attributes are present in desirable levels. The information should provide insight into the efforts being made by wheat marketing agencies and the U.S. Wheat Associates to promote quality-based marketing of wheat to domestic and foreign millers. Discussion may also include the impacts of quality-based marketing on U.S. share of the world wheat market.International Relations/Trade,

Effect of Publicly Released Quality Information for US Hard Red Winter Wheat on Mexican Millers' Welfare

Entities have been providing quality related information to overseas wheat buyers as a response to the increased requests for this information. This study measures the value of information to Mexican millers. The value to Mexican millers is measured by the difference of the flour mill surplus and compensating variation.Agribusiness, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Being undocumented in the United States: the impact on Mexican immigrants\u27 mental health

The purpose of this qualitative study was twofold: (a) to obtain a deep understanding of the phenomenon of being undocumented in the United States based on undocumented Mexican immigrants’ experiences and perceptions and (b) to identify how immigrants’ mental health was impacted by the phenomenon. A phenomenological research design was employed in this study and saturation was reached after a total of eight participants were interviewed. Several common themes emerged that described the participants’ experiences in varying aspects of their lives: low wages; guilt; fear of driving; financial difficulties; social isolation; limitations exclusive to undocumented immigrants such as limited access to healthcare, no higher education opportunities, limited employment opportunities; feeling invisible in the U.S. culture; legal problems related to immigration; a psychological impact including psychological distress, stress, lacking in self-confidence, feeling of disillusionment, cultural adjustment difficulties, tolerating injustices; and seeing more opportunities than in Mexico. Participants also provided recommendations for mental health professionals in working with undocumented Mexican immigrants. The findings of this study supported the speculation that if an immigrant has an undocumented legal status, he or she might be at risk of experiencing higher acculturative stress and poorer mental health than immigrants with documented legal status. Furthermore, additional information in the area of multicultural competencies for counseling psychologists might be gained through obtaining a more in-depth understanding of the lives and challenges of undocumented Mexican immigrants. Through such understanding and knowledge of the experiences of undocumented Mexican immigrants, a broader context into the lives of this population could be obtained and empathic insights, in turn, might develop toward them

Willingness-to-Pay for Attribute Level and Variability: The Case of Mexican Millers’ Demand for Hard Red Winter Wheat

In-person interviews were carried out with Mexican millers who were administered a conjoint-type survey designed to incorporate uncertainty in attribute levels. Two methods were used to model millers’ risk preferences: a modified mean-variance approach and an explicit expected utility approach. Controlling for variability, Mexican millers are willing to pay premiums for increases in quality factors such as test weight, protein content, falling number, and dough strength/extensibility. We find millers are not particularly sensitive to changes in the variability of quality characteristics. Out-of-sample forecasts suggest the mean-variance model provides an accurate depiction of actual Mexican imports.mean-variance, Mexican wheat market, moment generating function, preference elicitation, wheat quality, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade, Marketing, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, C35, C42, Q13,

Break with the prologal tradition in 1605 Don Quixote

Cervantes, consciente de la tradición prologal del Siglo de Oro, decide embestir contra la misma en el prólogo que escribe en clave ficticia para el Quijote de 1605. Meticulosamente pasa revista a todos los mecanismos usuales, lugares comunes que aparecían en la manera de prologar de los coterráneos. Mediante un discurso permeable que se hace poroso en tono burlesco a través de una actitud paródica de los poemas que siguen a la prefación a esto se le suma la ironía contenida en la declaración de no querer hacer lo que termina haciendo, todo a su vez enmascarada con una afectada modestia. En suma Cervantes mediante una serie de mecanismos –parodia. Ironía y humor- sienta postura al respecto de lo que considera no debería hacerse haciéndolo de manera jocosa, instaura así una novedosa posición al respecto de las formalidades paratextuales de la época y comienza así de este modo a instaurar una identidad de autor nueva para la época. Con esta propuesta Cervantes desdibuja los lindes entre la realidad y la ficción haciendo que el lector lea el prólogo como parte de la ficción. En esta propuesta pretendemos analizar de qué manera el autor mediante la metaficción propuesta en el prólogo comienza a connotar su posición como autor distanciado de sus coterráneos y de esta manera construye su identidad autoral que de alguna manera lo catapulta como un escritor fundante de la novela moderna.Cervantes, aware of the prologue tradition of the Golden Age, decides to charge against it in the prologue that he writes in a fictional code for 1605 Don Quixote. He meticulously reviews all the usual mechanisms, common places that appeared in the way his compatriots wrote the prologues. Cervantes, through a series of mechanisms –parody, irony and humor– adopts a position as regards what he considers that should not be done in a jocose way, establishing an original position on the paratextual formalities of the time and so, he begins to establish an author identity new for the time. With this proposal, Cervantes blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction, making the reader read the prologue as part of the fiction. In this research, we expect to analyze how the author, through the metafiction in the prologue, begins to connote his position as an author distanced from his compatriots and, thus, builds his authorial identity that, somehow, catapults him as a founding writer of the modern novel.Fil: Lemes, Karina B.. Universidad Nacional de Misiones.Fil: Disanti, Marisa S.. Universidad Nacional de Misiones