Estimating Demand Elasticities of Meat Demand in Slovakia

This article focuses on assessing consumer beliefs, attitude and behaviour towards meat. The aim is to obtain estimates of price and income elasticity of meat demand in Slovakia. This report analyses pork, poultry and beef meat consumption in Slovakia according to the individual households’ social categories. The Household Budget Survey of the Slovak Statistical Office was used for period 1993-2007. The data consists of yearly observations of beef, pork and poultry consumption, average annual consumer prices of beef, pork and poultry meat and net income per capita. Knowing the values of demand elasticities for food is widely used to correct policy formation and analysing trade patterns all over the world, but especially in developing countries where food expenses represent relatively large shares of consumer budgets.meat consumption, price elasticity, income elasticity, individual households’ categories, fixed effect, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Responses of Taxable Income Induced by Tax Cuts – Empirical Evidence from the German Taxpayer Panel

The elasticity of taxable income has gained increasing attention as a fiscal policy parameter. This paper provides empirical evidence for Germany and adds to the relatively small body of literature for European countries. We use a large new panel data set to analyze the taxable income response to tax rate changes in 2004 which were part of an extensive reform programme in Germany at the beginning of this century. We find an average elasticity of approximately 0.6. Separately estimated income effects however are mostly small or insignificant. The results vary when dividing taxpayers by income type and group.elasticity of taxable income; tax reform; net-of-tax rate

The Technical Efficiency Analysis – Case of Agricultural Basic Industry in Slovakia

The agricultural companies are operating in the environment with high level of competition and therefore it is for them important to retain respectively to improve their market position to reach higher measure of production process efficiency. As the principal measurement of the production performance was applied technical efficiency which is the assumption to reach the total economical efficiency of company. According to the results we can state that the technical efficiency measure has during analysed period declining trend. Since the year 2001 when the technical efficiency measure reached the highest level was registered decline of the technical efficiency, except the year 2005. The average level of the technical efficiency measure during the years 2006 and 2007 is possible to explain with increasing differences between the analysed companies. Just few companies achieved very good results in the production process. Based on the results of the technical efficiency measure is possible to expect deepening of differences between the companies in future.the Data Envelopment Analysis - DEA, Technical Efficiency, Agricultural Enterprises, Basic Industry, Agricultural and Food Policy, GA, IN,

A semi-exact degree condition for Hamilton cycles in digraphs

The paper is concerned with directed versions of Posa's theorem and Chvatal's theorem on Hamilton cycles in graphs. We show that for each a>0, every digraph G of sufficiently large order n whose outdegree and indegree sequences d_1^+ \leq ... \leq d_n^+ and d_1^- \leq >... \leq d_n^- satisfy d_i^+, d_i^- \geq min{i + a n, n/2} is Hamiltonian. In fact, we can weaken these assumptions to (i) d_i^+ \geq min{i + a n, n/2} or d^-_{n - i - a n} \geq n-i; (ii) d_i^- \geq min{i + a n, n/2} or d^+_{n - i - a n} \geq n-i; and still deduce that G is Hamiltonian. This provides an approximate version of a conjecture of Nash-Williams from 1975 and improves a previous result of K\"uhn, Osthus and Treglown

Virtual fences for controlling cows

We describe a moving virtual fence algorithm for herding cows. Each animal in the herd is given a smart collar consisting of a GPS, PDA, wireless networking and a sound amplifier. Using the GPS, the animal's location can be verified relative to the fence boundary. When approaching the perimeter, the animal is presented with a sound stimulus whose effect is to move away. We have developed the virtual fence control algorithm for moving a herd. We present simulation results and data from experiments with 8 cows equipped with smart collars

Thiyl radicals are co-products of dinitrosyl iron complex (DNIC) formation.

Thiyl radicals are detected by EPR as co-products of dinitrosyl iron complex (DNIC) formation. In demonstrating that DNIC formation generates RS˙ in a NO rich environment, these results provide a novel route for S-nitroso thiol formation

Provision of Public Goods in the Transition Process: Empirical Evidence on Access to Health Care in Rural Regions of Russia

The objective of the paper is to identify the determinants of access to health care in rural Russia. We started out with the observation that the transition process has affected the provision of social services in the Russian Federation in general, and in rural areas in particular, owing to the overlap with agricultural reforms. Based on this observation we asked how the reduced role of the state and the concomitant decentralization of policy making has affected access of the rural populace to social services. A review of the available literature on this topic resulted in the formulation of the following three hypotheses. Firstly, that income is a determinant of access to health care. Secondly, that informal payments play an important role in determining access, and thirdly that there are large differences in access to health care services between districts. The hypotheses were tested using household data from a survey conducted in two regions of Russia in 2000. The results indicate that in the study regions, contrary to expectations, neither income nor informal payments are important determinants of access. However, there are large differences in out-of-pocket expenditures between districts, indicating that access to health care varies between districts.Russia, transition process, public goods, health care, rural development, Health Economics and Policy,

Designing Game Based Learning – a Participatory Approach

Game Based Learning seems to be an interesting new possibility of teaching and learning, but the effort spent on designing games and the possible positive outcomes have to be weighed carefully. The following paper describes the development process and the conceptual design of a simulation game on sustainability for teenagers. The design process is participatory in nature. Members of the future group of learners are involved in the design process at every stage. This involvement is especially important to overcome the contradiction between the goal of the game as such and the pedagogical goal of the designers

Dynamics of Dinitrosyl Iron Complex (DNIC) Formation with Low Molecular Weight Thiols.

Dinitrosyl iron complexes (DNICs) are ubiquitous in mammalian cells and tissues producing nitric oxide (NO) and have been argued to play key physiological and pathological roles. Nonetheless, the mechanism and dynamics of DNIC formation in aqueous media remain only partially understood. Here, we report a stopped-flow kinetics and density functional theory (DFT) investigation of the reaction of NO with ferrous ions and the low molecular weight thiols glutathione (GSH) and cysteine (CysSH) as well as the peptides WCGPC and WCGPY to produce DNICs in pH 7.4 aqueous media. With each thiol, a two-stage reaction pattern is observed. The first stage involves several rapidly established pre-equilibria leading to a ferrous intermediate concluded to have the composition FeII(NO)(RS)2(H2O)x (C). In the second stage, C undergoes rate-limiting, unimolecular autoreduction to give thiyl radical (RS•) plus the mononitrosyl Fe(I) complex FeI(NO)(RS)(H2O)x following the reactivity order of CysSH > WCGPC > WCGPY > GSH. Time course simulations using the experimentally determined kinetics parameters demonstrate that, at a NO flux characteristic of inflammation, DNICs will be rapidly formed from intracellular levels of ferrous iron and thiols. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism offers a novel pathway for S-nitroso thiol (RSNO) formation in a biological environment

Autonomous deployment and repair of a sensor network using an unmanned aerial vehicle

We describe a sensor network deployment method using autonomous flying robots. Such networks are suitable for tasks such as large-scale environmental monitoring or for command and control in emergency situations. We describe in detail the algorithms used for deployment and for measuring network connectivity and provide experimental data we collected from field trials. A particular focus is on determining gaps in connectivity of the deployed network and generating a plan for a second, repair, pass to complete the connectivity. This project is the result of a collaboration between three robotics labs (CSIRO, USC, and Dartmouth.)