MACHINERY COSTS AND INFLATION

This article addresses (1) the differences in machinery cost estimating techniques, particularly for depreciation and opportunity cost, and (2) the necessary modifications in cost estimating techniques to account for the changing monetary base under inflation. The conditions under which capital budgeting and traditional budgeting differ are examined on a before tax and after tax basis, with and without inflation. The variations in cost estimates depending upon techniques, and with and without inflation, are compared.Agricultural Finance,

Summer Camp as a Force for 21st Century Learning: Exploring Divergent Thinking and Activity Selection in a Residential Camp Setting

This study investigated change in divergent thinking (DT), an indicator of creative potential, at two gender-specific residential summer camps. Additionally, this study examined whether the change in DT varied by gender and by the type of activities campers self-select. Quantitative methods, using a quasi-experimental design was used in order to understand differences in camper scores. A total of 189 youth, 100 girls, 89 boys, between the ages of 9 and 14 years participated in the current study. Participants were administered a modified version of Guilford\u27s (1967) alternate uses task, a measure of DT, in which respondents were asked questions such as name all of the uses for a brick or name all of the uses for a plate before the camp session started, and then again at the end of the two-week session. Results indicate overall mean significant increases in DT across all scoring methods of fluency, flexibility, and originality. Participants who self-selected one or more artistic activities (e.g., drama, arts and crafts, dance) had significant increases on the tasks as opposed to participants who did not select any artistic activities (e.g., basketball, baseball, archery). Finally, girls significantly increased across all scoring methods, whereas boys slightly increased in fluency and flexibility but not in originality. These results indicate residential summer camp may provide a creativity benefit for youth in attendance, especially those who participate in certain activities. Practitioners should use this study to understand their own programming in terms of creativity, activity offerings, and camp cultur

The Adoption of Conservation Practices and Program Participation among Socially Disadvantaged Agricultural Producers: A Meta-Analysis

As climate change has become undeniable in recent years, it has become increasingly important for the agriculture industry to address conservation. Within the agriculture industry, small farmers are usually the ones who take on this burden on a daily basis. However, some socially disadvantaged agricultural producers face unique challenges compared to the average farmer, which may impede their ability to adopt the necessary conservation practices or participate in conservation programs. This review sought to provide a definitive economic analysis on the possible effect of race on conservation adoption and program participation, as there is not much research on this topic. This analysis shows that race alone does not significantly impact on conservation adoption and program participation amongst socially disadvantaged agricultural producers. However, the sample size provided in this analysis is small and does not represent the current reality of socially disadvantaged agricultural producers living in the United States today. Whenever race was observed in the literature, the meta-analysis concluded that race did not significantly influence conservation adoption and program participation. Due to the small sample size and lack of abundant research, this result may not reflect socially disadvantaged agricultural producers living today, who have historically been underrepresented by the agriculture industry at large

The effectiveness of mindful eating in a student population

Eating while distracted (e.g., while watching television or in a conversation) or under cognitive stress (e.g., studying, reading, writing, etc.) has shown to increase food consumption, which can result in overeating. Frequent overeating is a major factor in the development of obesity, a serious health concern. The current study examined the potential benefits of mindful eating in a university setting where student eating habits are constantly influenced by environmental distractions and cognitive stress. Eighty undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either a mindful eating condition or control condition, followed by either a high or low cognitive stress condition. Cognitive stress was manipulated using frequent (i.e., low cognitive stress) and infrequent word (i.e, high cognitive stress) anagram tasks, during which participants were given two bowls of food to snack on; grapes and Smarties. Participants in the mindful eating condition ate significantly less food overall than participants in the control condition; however, the negative effects of cognitive stress on eating were not demonstrated

Can Authority be Sustained while Balancing Accessibility and Formality?

Economics has developed into a quantitative discipline that makes extensive use of mathematical and statistical concepts. When writing a dictionary for economics undergraduates it has to be recognised that many users will not have sufficient training in mathematics to benefi t from formal definitions of mathematical and statistical concepts. In fact, it is more than likely that the user will want the dictionary to provide an accessible version of a definition that avoids mathematical notation. Providing a verbal description of a mathematical concept has the risk that the outcome is both verbose (compared to a definition using appropriate mathematical symbols) and imprecise. For the author of a dictionary this raises the question of how to resolve this conflict between accessibility and formal correctness. We use a range of examples from the Oxford Dictionary of Economics to illustrate this conflict and to assess the extent to which a non-formal definition can be viewed as authoritative

The approach to a superconductor-to-Bose-insulator transition in disordered films

Through a detailed study of scaling near the magnetic field-tuned superconductor-to-insulator transition in strongly disordered films, we find that results for a variety of materials can be collapsed onto a single phase diagram. The data display two clear branches, one with weak disorder and an intervening metallic phase, the other with strong disorder. Along the strongly disordered branch, the resistance at the critical point approaches $R_Q = h/4e^2$ and the scaling of the resistance is consistent with quantum percolation, and therefore with the predictions of the dirty boson model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

INCORPORATING SAFETY-FIRST CONSTRAINTS IN LINEAR PROGRAMMING PRODUCTION MODELS

A recent survey indicated that many procedures view risk in a safety-first context. Traditional methods used to impose safety-first constraints in optimization models have often been difficult to implement. This is particularly true when endogenous decisions affect the distribution of the chance-constrained random variable. This paper presents a method whereby probabilistic constraints can be easily imposed upon finitely discrete random variables. The procedure uses a linear version of the lower partial moment stochastic inequality. The resulting solutions are somewhat conservative but are less so than the results using the previously published mean income-absolute deviation stochastic inequality.Production Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

PERFORMANCE OF RISK-INCOME MODELS OUTSIDE THE ORIGINAL DATA SET

Selected risk programming solutions (i.e., profit maximization, Target-MOTAD, and MOTAD) are tested in an economic environment outside the data set from which they were developed. Specifically, solutions are derived from either a longer 10-year (1965-74) or shorter 6-year estimation period (1969-74), and then, they are tested for consistent risk-income characteristics over a later 10-year period (1975-84). Risk solutions estimated from earlier periods perform well in the later test period in spite of different economic conditions between time periods. However, favorable performance may be related to the specific example used in this analysis. Further testing for other farm situations is needed before general conclusions can be reached.Risk and Uncertainty,