Consistency of Willingness to Pay and Preferences in Auction Experiments

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Confounded by the Field: Bidding in Food Auctions When Field Prices Are Increasing

Auction experiments are commonly used to determine consumers’ willingness to pay for various food items. While their non-hypothetical nature is a positive, market substitutes create a probable confounding of bids by field prices. This study examines the influence of field prices on bids for four foods in two versions by conducting auctions before and after large price increases in 2007. Results show that bids were capped at given field prices and were significantly higher in sessions conducted after store prices increased. Percentage premiums, however, were not significantly different across sessions, suggesting that effects of field prices could be reduced. Overall, researchers must be conscious of how field prices affect bids.auction experiments, field prices, organic, bidding, Consumer/Household Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Marketing,

Differences in WTP and Consumer Demand for Organic and Non-GM Fresh and Processed Foods

Auction experiments were used to examine demand and premium differences between organic, non-GM (genetically modified), and conventional versions for two pairs of fresh and processed foods. Results showed processed foods had greater substitutability among the versions than fresh products. Conventional versions were the least price sensitive, while non-GM versions were the most sensitive. Significant premium differences were found between fresh and processed foods for sweet corn and tortilla chips, but not for potatoes and potato chips. Results from random effects models mirrored these findings. In general, the extent of premium differences between fresh and processed versions appears dependent on the food product.auction experiments, willingness to pay, organic, non-GM, fresh, processed food, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

The relationship of electron Fermi energy with strong magnetic fields

In order to depict the quantization of Landau levels, we introduce Dirac $\delta$ function, and gain a concise expression for the electron Fermi energy, $E_{F}(e) \propto B^{1/4}$. The high soft X-ray luminosities of magnetars may be naturally explained by our theory.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, submitted to OMEG11 Proceeding (Tokyo, Japan. Nov.14-18, 2011

Hester Prynne: In and Beyond Discipline and Punish

The essay is to explore how Hester Prynne accomplishes subjectivity-construction in the ordinate and harsh puritan community, full of discipline and punish. In the process of the subjectivity-construction, Hester Prynne not only confronts and surpasses the sin and the shadow of her own self, but also transcends and breaks the invisible web of the inhuman and tough regulations filtering in every corner of the puritan community. She accomplishes a near-perfect transformation from a sinning object despised and chastised by all the community members to a new feminine figure who regains their applause, respect and love in the end. Through the heroine’s glorious and admiring transformation, Nathaniel Hawthorne poses a suspicion upon the naive belief on the human nature: genuine and full of smiling aspects, upheld by the transcendentalists and prevailing at his time. He also chastises the inhuman regulations, disciplines and punish of the harsh puritan community which twist and crush the souls of the community members. But more important and inspiring point of the novel lies in that through the heroine’s glorious and admiring transformation and subjectivity-construction, Hawthorne reasserts the shining and glorious human nature of Hester Prynne, which reflects his humane concern towards the ones tortured, disciplined and punished by the prison-like society

BaNa: a noise resilient fundamental frequency detection algorithm for speech and music

Fundamental frequency (F0) is one of the essential features in many acoustic related applications. Although numerous F0 detection algorithms have been developed, the detection accuracy in noisy environments still needs improvement. We present a hybrid noise resilient F0 detection algorithm named BaNa that combines the approaches of harmonic ratios and Cepstrum analysis. A Viterbi algorithm with a cost function is used to identify the F0 value among several F0 candidates. Speech and music databases with eight different types of additive noise are used to evaluate the performance of the BaNa algorithm and several classic and state-of-the-art F0 detection algorithms. Results show that for almost all types of noise and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values investigated, BaNa achieves the lowest Gross Pitch Error (GPE) rate among all the algorithms. Moreover, for the 0 dB SNR scenarios, the BaNa algorithm is shown to achieve 20% to 35% GPE rate for speech and 12% to 39% GPE rate for music. We also describe implementation issues that must be addressed to run the BaNa algorithm as a real-time application on a smartphone platform.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft