The Impact of Coordination of Production and Marketing Strategies on Price Behavior: Evidence from the Idaho Potato Industry

High potato price volatility, decreasing demand for fresh potatoes and prices below the cost of production led to a decision of a number of Idaho potato growers to organize the United Fresh Potato Growers of Idaho, a marketing cooperative. The programs and strategies of the cooperative target both the production and marketing of fresh potatoes in Idaho. To evaluate the effectiveness of the programs implemented by the cooperative, we examine the level and volatility of fresh potato prices during two periods: before the cooperative was organized and when the cooperative is in the market. We find empirical evidence suggesting that fresh potato prices were higher and less volatile during the period when the cooperative was in the market.agricultural markets, cooperative, price volatility, potato industry, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing, Q10, Q11, Q13,

Estuarine oceanography of the Vembanad lake Part II : the region between Cochin and Azhikode

Some aspects of the estuarine oceanography of the Vembanad lake between Cochin and Azhikode are discussed. Since this part of the lake is in confluence with the Arabian sea at its southern and northern ends, at Cochin and Azhikode, its circulation pattern and other characteristics are different from what they are between Cochin and Vaikom. Because of the position of these two mouths, which are exposed to the same tidal cycles, the high tides and low tides each producing two opposite flows respectively converge and diverge leaving a null zone, almost free of the tidal effect, around Kadakara, situated midway between Cochin and Azhikode. Another significant feature of this pairt of the estuary is an extreme low-salinity i«gion between Karthedam and Cherai during monsoon and early postmonsoon, brought about by the deflected waiters of the Periyar, opening at the northern end of the estuary

Virtual Quantification of Protein Stability Using Applied Kinetic and Thermodynamic Parameters

Protein stability, the most important aspect of molecular dynamics and simulations, requires sophisticated instrumentations of molecular biology to analyze its kinetic and thermodynamic background. Sequence- and structure-based programs on protein stability exist which relies only on single point mutations and sequence optimality. The energy distribution conferred by each hydrophobic amino acid in the protein essentially paves way for understanding its stability. To the best of our knowledge, Protein Stability is a first program of its kind, developed to explore the energy requirement of each amino acid in the protein sequence derived from various applied kinetic and thermodynamic quantities. The algorithm is strongly dependent both on kinetic quantities such as atomic solvation energies and solvent accessible surface area and thermodynamic quantities viz. enthalpy, entropy, heat capacity, etc. The hydrophobicity pattern of protein was considered as the important component of protein stabilization

Force and Proficient Data Replica Discovery in WSN

We propose the distributed clone detection method and star topology is used to discover the replica data in the wireless sensor networks. In this paper vitality practiced space careful clone guarantee prosperous clone assault location and carry on satisfactory system period of time. Solidly, we tend to abuse the realm information of sensors and subjectively separate witnesses located in an exceedingly ring region to envision the genuineness of sensors and to report known clone assaults. Besides the clone detection likelihood, we tend to additionally contemplate energy consumption and memory storage within the style of clone detection protocol, i.e., associate degree energy- and memory economical distributed clone detection protocol with random witness choice theme in WSNs

Hydrography of the inshore waters of Madras for the Period September 1967 to July 1970

Observations were made cm salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, phosphate, nitrate, nitrite and silicate of the inshore surface waters of the Madras coast, from September 1967 to July 1970. The changes observed in salinity follow a pattern without much variations from year to year. The surface layers are rich in dissolved oxygen and the pH remains around 8.4 throughout. The fluctuations of phosphate, nitrate and nitrite show almost similar trends and those of silicate exhibit an inverse relationship to changes in salinity

The Relationship Between Intra-Organizational And Inter-Organizational Coordination And Its Influence On Product Quality Improvement

A sample of 225 firms is analyzed, using structural equation modeling, to test five hypotheses.  This study seeks to gain a better understanding of the practice of coordination among functional areas within the buying firm as well as between buyer firms and their key suppliers.  The implications of this research suggest that it is important for firms to focus on their long-term success as they work with key suppliers.  The research shows when the stakeholders of the firm support its efforts to coordination and cooperation with its key suppliers, the firm benefits.  Evidence shows cross-functional coordination enhances the firm’s capability to cooperate with its key suppliers.  The findings are significant to supply chain manager and to the various functional managers in charge of quality, production, R&D, and customer service and their respective counter parts in supplier firms.  Finally, this study expands prior research and fills a gap in the literature by showing the importance of inter-organizational coordination between the buyer’s supply management/purchasing function and the supplier’s operations function. This study reveals that conformance to specifications, product reliability and overall product quality performance can be significantly improved when these inter-organizational functional areas coordinate their requirements.  The study also shows that product quality can be significantly improved when intra-organizational and inter-organizational coordination occurs simultaneously

Geostatistical upscaling of rain gauge data to support uncertainty analysis of lumped urban hydrological models

In this study we develop a method to estimate the spatially averaged rainfall intensity together with associated level of uncertainty using geostatistical upscaling. Rainfall data collected from a cluster of eight paired rain gauges in a 400 × 200m urban catchment are used in combination with spatial stochastic simulation to obtain optimal predictions of the spatially averaged rainfall intensity at any point in time within the urban catchment. The uncertainty in the prediction of catchment average rainfall intensity is obtained for multiple combinations of intensity ranges and temporal averaging intervals. The two main challenges addressed in this study are scarcity of rainfall measurement locations and non-normality of rainfall data, both of which need to be considered when adopting a geostatistical approach. Scarcity of measurement points is dealt with by pooling sample variograms of repeated rainfall measurements with similar characteristics. Normality of rainfall data is achieved through the use of normal score transformation. Geostatistical models in the form of variograms are derived for transformed rainfall intensity. Next spatial stochastic simulation which is robust to nonlinear data transformation is applied to produce realisations of rainfall fields. These realisations in transformed space are first back-transformed and next spatially aggregated to derive a random sample of the spatially averaged rainfall intensity. Results show that the prediction uncertainty comes mainly from two sources: spatial variability of rainfall and measurement error. At smaller temporal averaging intervals both these effects are high, resulting in a relatively high uncertainty in prediction. With longer temporal averaging intervals the uncertainty becomes lower due to stronger spatial correlation of rainfall data and relatively smaller measurement error. Results also show that the measurement error increases with decreasing rainfall intensity resulting in a higher uncertainty at lower intensities. Results from this study can be used for uncertainty analyses of hydrologic and hydrodynamic modelling of similar-sized urban catchments as it provides information on uncertainty associated with rainfall estimation, which is arguably the most important input in these models. This will help to better interpret model results and avoid false calibration and force-fitting of model parameters

Hotspot analysis: a first prototype Python plugin enabling exploratory spatial data analysis into QGIS

The growing popularity of Free and Open Source (FOSS) GIS software is without doubts due to the possibility to build and customize geospatial applications to meet specific requirements for any users. From this point of view, QGIS is one of the most flexible as well as fashionable GIS software environment which enables users to develop powerful geospatial applications using Python. Exploiting this feature, we present here a first prototype plugin for QGIS dedicated to Hotspot analysis, one of the techniques included in the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA). These statistics aim to perform analysis of geospatial data when spatial autocorrelation is not neglectable and they are available inside different Python libraries, but still not integrated within the QGIS core functionalities. The main plugin features, including installation requirements and computational procedures, are described together with an example of the possible applications of the Hotspot analysis

ALOE-EMODIN GLYCOSIDES AMELIORATE GLUCOSE UTILIZATION VIA INSULIN DOWNSTREAM REGULATORS: AN IN VIVO INVESTIGATION

ABSTRACTObjective: Aloe-emodin glycosides (AEG) isolated from Cassia fistula stimulates glucose transport and glycogen storage through a phosphatidylinositol3 kinase (PI3K)-dependent mechanism in L6 myotubes and inhibits adipocytes differentiation in 3T3L1 adipocytes was previously reported. Thisstudy intended to investigate the insulin mimetic effect of AEG by in vivo method.Methods: Male Wistar albino rats were randomly allocated into two groups and fed for a period of 3-week. The high-fat diet group animals wereinjected with a low dose (35 mg/kg) of streptozotocin to induce Type-2 diabetes. The diabetic rats were then treated with low dose: 10 mg/kg andhigh dose: 30 mg/kg for a period of 21-day. A dose-dependent decrease in fasting blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides levels on treatmentwith AEG. The carbohydrate metabolism in diabetic rats appeared to improve due to regulation in hepatic enzymes such as hexokinase, glucose-6phosphatase,and fructose1,6-bisphosphatase with a concomitant increasein glycogencontent.Results: AEG decreased lipid peroxidation and improved the antioxidant (enzymatic and nonenzymatic) levels in the liver of diabetic rats. Treatmentwith AEG (30 mg/kg) augmented the phosphorylation of insulin downstream regulators such as insulin receptor beta, insulin receptor substrate 1,PI3K, glucose transporter 4, glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta, and peroxisome proliferator activator receptor gamma in the skeletal muscle tissue ofthe Type-2 diabetic rats compared to vehicle-treated diabetic rats.Conclusion: The present results suggested that AEG could serve as an interesting candidate in the drug development for the management of diabetes.Keywords: Aloe-emodin glycoside, Type-2 diabetes, High-fat diet/streptozotocin, Carbohydrate Metabolism, Glycogen, Antioxidant enzyme