EFFECTIVENESS OF ALTERNATIVE EXPORT PROMOTION STRATEGIES FOR BRANDED FOOD PRODUCTS

This study examines the impact on export sales of various promotional strategies for branded food products in foreign markets. It is an empirical analysis using data obtained from organizations that administer the High Value Export Incentive Program (HVEIP) for branded food products, part of USDA's Targeted Export Assistance (TEA) program and its successor, the Marketing Assistance Program (MAP). To respect the proprietary nature of the data, the identity of individual firms and brand names has been deleted and products have been combined into two groups: (1) consumer ready and (2) intermediate. Economic analysis reveals positive and statistically significant impacts of expenditures on television advertising and advertising in consumer-orientated print media on export sales of consumer ready products, the effect of the latter being somewhat larger. No other promotional strategy reveals a consistent and statistically significant relationship to exports. Channel-orientated strategies seldom showed positive results on export levels for consumer ready products, and consumer-orientated strategies bear no detectable relationship to export levels of intermediate products.International Relations/Trade,

On Quantum Algorithms

Quantum computers use the quantum interference of different computational paths to enhance correct outcomes and suppress erroneous outcomes of computations. In effect, they follow the same logical paradigm as (multi-particle) interferometers. We show how most known quantum algorithms, including quantum algorithms for factorising and counting, may be cast in this manner. Quantum searching is described as inducing a desired relative phase between two eigenvectors to yield constructive interference on the sought elements and destructive interference on the remaining terms.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Gas chromatograph injection system

An injection system for a gas chromatograph is described which uses a small injector chamber (available in various configurations). The sample is placed in the chamber while the chamber is not under pressure and is not heated, and there is no chance of leakage caused by either pressure or heat. It is injected into the apparatus by changing the position of a valve and heating the chamber, and is volatilized and swept by a carrier gas into the analysis apparatus

Constraints on the Origin of Gold in the Meguma Zone, Ecum Secum area, Nova Scotia

Gold occurs mainly in laminated bedding-parallel quartz veins in the Goldenvllle Formation metawacke-slate sequence. The bedding-parallel veins formed by hydraulic fracturing before the beds were folded. Subsequently, during development of the folds, en echelon quartz veins formed on the fold limbs, and perhaps in the latest stage of folding, saddle reef veins formed along fold hinges. All these vein types are locally auriferous, but gold was first deposited during formation of the bedding-parallel veins. Absence of any through-going system of "feeder" veins as well as the formation of hydraulic fractures indicate that the rocks were not permeable during vein formation, and the quartz and gold were derived locally from the host strata. RÉSUMÉ L'or présent dans la suite métawacke-schiste de la Formation Goldenvllle est localisé principalement dans des veines de quartz laminles et parallèls à la stratification. Ces veines parallèls ià stratification furent formées par fracture hydraulique avant le plissement des lits. Par la suite, pendant l'amplification des lits, des veines de quartz en échelon furent formées sur les flancs de plis et peut-être, pendant la phase finale de plisseaent, des veines en "gite de selle" se formèrent à la charnière de plis. Tous ces types de veines sont surifères par endroit mais l'apport initial de l'or date de la formation des veines parallèes à la stratification. L'absence de système de veines nourricières sinsi que la formation de fractures hydrauliques indiquent que les roches n'étalent pas perméables à l'époque de formation de veine et que le quartz et l'or sont de provenance locale. [Traduit par le journal

CosmoDM and its application to Pan-STARRS data

The Cosmology Data Management system (CosmoDM) is an automated and flexible data management system for the processing and calibration of data from optical photometric surveys. It is designed to run on supercomputers and to minimize disk I/O to enable scaling to very high throughput during periods of reprocessing. It serves as an early prototype for one element of the ground-based processing required by the Euclid mission and will also be employed in the preparation of ground based data needed in the eROSITA X-ray all sky survey mission. CosmoDM consists of two main pipelines. The first is the single-epoch or detrending pipeline, which is used to carry out the photometric and astrometric calibration of raw exposures. The second is the co- addition pipeline, which combines the data from individual exposures into deeper coadd images and science ready catalogs. A novel feature of CosmoDM is that it uses a modified stack of As- tromatic software which can read and write tile compressed images. Since 2011, CosmoDM has been used to process data from the DECam, the CFHT MegaCam and the Pan-STARRS cameras. In this paper we shall describe how processed Pan-STARRS data from CosmoDM has been used to optically confirm and measure photometric redshifts of Planck-based Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect selected cluster candidates.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Proceedings of Precision Astronomy with Fully Depleted CCDs Workshop (2014). Accepted for publication in JINS

A CROSS-SECTION ANALYSIS OF INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN THE U.S. PROCESSED FOOD AND BEVERAGE SECTORS

This paper analyzes the determinants of variation across industries in levels of intra-industry trade (IIT) for a sample of 36 U.S. processed food and beverage industries in 1987, previous studies of intra-industry trade having focused on industry characteristics in the manufacturing sectors. The determinants predicted by IIT theory are measures of product differentiation, economies of scale, and imperfect competition; the results of this analysis indicate that IIT variation across the food and beverage industries is positively related to product differentiation, U.S. total trade, similarity of tariff barriers among trade partners, and economies of scope, but negatively related to industry concentration.International Relations/Trade,

Derivation of a Non-Local Interfacial Hamiltonian for Short-Ranged Wetting II: General Diagrammatic Structure

In our first paper, we showed how a non-local effective Hamiltionian for short-ranged wetting may be derived from an underlying Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson model. Here, we combine the Green's function method with standard perturbation theory to determine the general diagrammatic form of the binding potential functional beyond the double-parabola approximation for the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson bulk potential. The main influence of cubic and quartic interactions is simply to alter the coefficients of the double parabola-like zig-zag diagrams and also to introduce curvature and tube-interaction corrections (also represented diagrammatically), which are of minor importance. Non-locality generates effective long-ranged many-body interfacial interactions due to the reflection of tube-like fluctuations from the wall. Alternative wall boundary conditions (with a surface field and enhancement) and the diagrammatic description of tricritical wetting are also discussed.Comment: (14 pages, 2 figures) Submitted J. Phys. Condens. Matte

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE IN PROCESSED FOODS: PATTERNS AND CURIOSITIES

International Relations/Trade,