Causality, Input Price Variability, and Structural Changes in the U.S. Livestock- Meat Industry

Industrial Organization, Livestock Production/Industries,

Ambient literature as an act of faith in the York medieval mystery cycle

This paper seeks to correct a conceptual amnesia by using the vocabulary of ambient literature to discuss the medieval production of the Corpus Christi mystery cycle at York – with particular emphasis on the Crucifixion pageant. In its technological and narrative elements, the 14th-16th century dramaturgy will serve as a critical framework to judge the survivability of literary ambience beyond the temporal social and material realities of an ‘everyday shared world.’ Case-studies of modern reproductions of the medieval mystery play will show how a situated literary ambience resists anachronistic manipulation

Another Thorn in the Semantic Briar Patch of the Hanging Paragraph: Is Negative Equity a Purchase Money Security Interest?

Non

Bootstrapping multivariate UU-quantiles and related statistics

AbstractThe asymptotic consistency of the bootstrap approximation of the vector of the marginal generalized quantiles of U-statistic structure (multivariate U-quantiles for short) is established. The asymptotic accuracy of the bootstrap approximation is also obtained. Extensions to smooth functions of marginal generalized quantiles are given and some specific examples, such as the vector of marginal sample quantiles and the vector of marginal Hodges-Lehmann location estimators, are discussed

Attention and Saliency on the Internet: Evidence from an online recommendation system

Using high-frequency transaction-level data from an online retail store, we examine whether consumer choices on the internet are consistent with models of limited attention. We test whether consumers are more likely to buy products that receive a saliency shock when they are recommended by new products. To identify the saliency effect, we rely on i) the timing of new product arrivals, ii) the fact that new products are per se highly salient upon arrival, drawing more attention and iii) regional variation in the composition of recommendation sets. We find a sharp and robust 6% increase in the aggregate sales of existing products after they are recommended by a new product. To structurally disentangle the effect of saliency on a consumer's consideration and choice decision, we use data on individual transactions to estimate a probabilistic choice set model. We find that the saliency effect is driven largely by an expansion of consumers' consideration sets

HyperImage – Image-Oriented e-Science Networks

Images are an important source of scientific knowledge in many disciplines. E.g. you want to analyse satellite photographs or x-ray images of human livers or symbols of death in Dutch baroque paintings. You study the relevant images closely and compare details of one image with details of another. When you want to share your knowledge you will necessarily also communicate about image details. Using paper images, you can just mark up details of interest with a pencil. But with digital images you either have to make marks by employing an image manipulation software, which is not as widespread and easy to use as current text processing software is. Or you have to describe your findings verbally, such as "... above left is an interesting dark spot in picture No. 1 ... now compare it to picture No. 2 where a similar dark spot can be found nearly in the centre of the picture ..." and so on. Neither the employment of a complex image manipulation software package nor the time consuming and not very precise verbal description is satisfactory and appropriate for everyday use in science. Additionally, any technical solution to the lack of easy-to-use technology has to be Web-based in order to support collaborative research on images. The HyperImage project is concerned with the currently unsolved technical problem of establishing links between image details. Our goal is to develop a Web-based workspace that will enable scientists in any image-oriented discipline to create simple and precise links between images and image details, in a fashion similar to that which until now has been the privilege of text. The HyperImage editor permits scientists to mark details of pictures and create links between images and image details of any scale. It is programmed as a platform independent Java application and is open source (GNU Lesser General Public Licence). Any work in progress can be stored within the Hyper- Image system by an author or group of authors, or it can be exported as XML for further usage outside the HyperImage system. Currently we are testing our software prototype with our HyperImage partners from the faculties of Art History and Biology

An Edgeworth expansion for finite population L-statistics

In this paper, we consider the one-term Edgeworth expansion for finite population L-statistics. We provide an explicit formula for the Edgeworth correction term and give sufficient conditions for the validity of the expansion which are expressed in terms of the weight function that defines the statistics and moment conditions.Comment: 14 pages. Minor revisions. Some explanatory comments and a numerical example were added. Lith. Math. J. (to appear

Patent Litigation in Europe

We compare patent litigation cases across four European jurisdictions—Germany, the UK (England and Wales), France, The Netherlands—using case-level data gathered from cases filed in the four jurisdictions during the period 2000–2008. Overall, we find substantial differences across jurisdictions in terms of caseloads—notably, courts in Germany hear by far the largest number of cases, not only in absolute terms, but also when taking macro-economic indicators into account—and we further find important cross-country variances in terms of case outcomes. Moreover, we show empirically that a considerable number of patents are litigated across multiple European jurisdictions; and further, that in the majority of these cases divergent case outcomes are reached across the different jurisdictions, suggesting that the long-suspected problem of inconsistency of decision-making in European patent litigation is in fact real. Finally, we note that the coming into force of the Unified Patent Court in Europe may, in the long term, help to alleviate this inconsistency problem

Energy use in pig production: An examination of current Iowa Systems

This paper compares energy use for different pig production systems in Iowa, a leader in US swine production. Pig production systems include not only the growth and performance of the pigs, but also the supporting infrastructure of pig production. This supporting infrastructure includes swine housing, facility management, feedstuff provision, swine diets, and manure management. Six different facility type × diet formulation × cropping sequence scenarios were modeled and compared. The baseline system examined produces 15,600 pigs annually using confinement facilities and a corn-soybean cropping sequence. Diet formulations for the baseline system were corn-soybean meal diets that included the synthetic AA L-lysine and exogenous phytase. The baseline system represents the majority of current US pork production in the Upper Midwest, where most US swine are produced. This system was found to require 744.6 MJ per 136-kg market pig. An alternative system that uses bedded hoop barns for grow-finish pigs and gestating sows would require 3% less (720.8 MJ) energy per 136-kg market pig. When swine production systems were assessed, diet type and feed ingredient processing were the major influences on energy use, accounting for 61 and 79% of total energy in conventional and hoop barn-based systems, respectively. Improving feed efficiency and better matching the diet formulation with the thermal environment and genetic potential are thus key aspects of reducing energy use by pig production, particularly in a hoop barn-based system. The most energy-intensive aspect of provisioning pig feed is the production of synthetic N for crop production; thus, effectively recycling manure nutrients to cropland is another important avenue for future research. Almost 25% of energy use by a conventional farrow-to-finish pig production system is attributable to operation of the swine buildings. Developing strategies to minimize energy use for heating and ventilation of swine buildings while maintaining pig comfort and performance is a third critical area for future research. The hoop barn-based alternative uses 64% less energy to operate buildings but requires bedding and 2.4% more feed. Current Iowa pig production systems use energy differently but result in similar total energy use. Compared with 1975, current farrow-to-finish systems in Iowa require 80% less energy to produce live market pigs

Optimizing Energy Use in Pig Production: An Examination of Iowa Systems

Energy is used in all aspects of pig production, from the manufacture of materials used in building construction to the cultivation and processing of feedstuffs. Historically the availability of fossil fuels has minimized pressure to consider all uses of energy in pig production. Rising energy prices, uncertain access to petroleum supplies, and recognition of the environmental impacts of fossil fuels are increasing awareness and incentive to reduce consumption of limited resources. This project estimates non-solar energy use for pig production options in Iowa. The baseline system produces 15,600 pigs annually using confinement facilities and a corn-soybean cropping sequence. Diet formulations for the baseline system include supplemented synthetic amino acid L-lysine and exogenous phytase. The baseline system represents the majority of current pork production systems in Iowa and the Upper Midwest where most U.S. swine are produced. This system is designed to minimize land-surface area requirements and encourage maximal pork production per unit of feed net energy and standardized ileal digestible lysine fed to pigs. The baseline system for swine production in Iowa is estimated to require 5.5 MJ non-solar energy/kg of live weight pig produced. In general producing pigs in Iowa in 2009 requires about 85% less non-renewable energy compared to 1975. An alternative system using hoop barns for grow-finish pigs and gestating sows was also evaluated. Using bedded hoop barns for gestating sows and grow finish pigs requires less energy to heat and ventilate buildings, but more energy to grow and process feed than conventional systems. Using hoop barns for swine production requires more feed and thus more non-solar energy to grow and process feed ingredients. However the savings in non-solar energy associated with operating hoop barn-based swine systems relative to conventional confinement systems nearly offsets those inputs. The alternative hoop-based system would require 5.6 MJ non-solar energy/kg live weight. The total energy used for both housing systems is very similar. Energy use for pig production is influenced by crop sequence and diet strategy with nitrogen management being a critical leverage point