Efficiency and Returns to Scale Measurements with Shared Inputs in Multi-Activity Data Envelopment Analysis: An Application to Farmers' Organizations in Taiwan

This paper addresses the question how team production promotes efficiency of a firm when some inputs can be rewarded on the basis of outputs but some cannot because they are shared among outputs and non-separable. A multi-activity DEA model with variable returns to scale is proposed to provide information on the efficiency performance for organizations with inputs shared among several closely related activities. The model is applied to study the case of 279 farmers' associations in Taiwan. The result suggests that it is important to improve the efficiency of the non-profit oriented activities to improve their overall performances. Three out of four departments of TFAs can gain from economies of scale through expansion, while the remaining one gains through contraction. Thus, policies promoting structural adjustment and consolidations of TFAs would not be inconsistent with public interests.multi-activity DEA, shared inputs, efficiency measure, directional distance function, Productivity Analysis,

Purification and Characterization of Novel “2-Arylpropionyl-CoA Epimerases” from Rat Liver Cytosol and Mitochondria

Investigation on the biochemical isomerization of ibuprofen led us to the successful purification of “2-arylpropionyl-CoA epimerase” from rat liver cytosol and mitochondria. The purified enzymes from both subcellular fractions exhibit similar physical and catalytic properties and are distinctly different from rat liver methylmalonyl-CoA epimerase. Both are monomeric proteins with an apparent molecular mass of 42 kDa and show similar contents of most amino acids. Their UV spectra gave no indication of any bound cofactors, and their enzyme activities were not affected by exposure to EDTA or metal ions (except Cu2+). These results suggest that the cytosolic and mitochondrial epimerases may be structurally related. The purified enzymes catalyze the epimerization of various 2-arylpropionyl-CoAs with some degree of stereochemical differentiation. For 2- (4-isobutylphenyl) propionyl-CoA, the equilibrium constant was estimated to be 1.5 in favor of the R-isomer. Evidence indicated that the proton exchange may be mediated by a 2-base mechanism and that a carboxylic residue in the active site may serve as a general base for proton abstractio

SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM MODELING WITH IMPERFECTLY COMPETITIVE MARKETS: AN APPLICATION TO RICE TRADE

A general imperfect competition spatial equilibrium model is developed to estimate the trading country behaviors in the international rice market using a conjectural variation approach. Such a model allows the possibility of an imperfect competitive market to exit on both the export and import sides without any assumption of market structure. The empirical results show that the major exporting countries, Thailand, Vietnam, and the U.S. acted as high degree of imperfect competitors(or oligopolies) while Pakistan acted as a lower degree of imperfect competitor. The importing countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Europe, Brazil, and the former USSR behaved as high degree of imperfect competitors (or oligopsonies). The empirical results also show that there are welfare gains of $1,492 million when all trading countries comply with the free trade agreement.Marketing,

Productivity Change in Taiwan's Farmers' Credit Unions: A Nonparametric Risk-Adjusted Malmquist Approach

This article proposes an extended three-stage DEA methodology similar to Fried et al. (2002) to improve the measurement of productivity growth then the assumption of free disposability of undesirable outpu t does not apply. A directional distance function is used to construct adjusted Malmquist-Luenberger productivity indexes which simultaneously account for the impacts of undesirable outputs, environmental variables, and statistical noise. Panel data for 264 farmers' credit unions (FCUs) in Taiwan covering the 1998-2000 period are employed to illustrate the advantages of this method. On average, the productivity of Taiwan's FCUs is found to have deteriorated over the 1998-2000 period. Although an improvement in efficiency has been observed, the major reason for the deterioration is found to be due to the regression of techno logy.Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index, three-stage DEA, undesirable outputs, directional distance function, Agricultural Finance, Productivity Analysis,

An Economy-wide Analysis of Impacts of WTO Tiered Formula for Tariff Reduction on Taiwan

In this study we use Taiwan as a case study to provide an economy-wide analysis of impacts on Taiwan of WTO tariff reduction schemes with different combinations of thresholds and reduction rates. The model we utilized in this study is Taiwan General Equilibrium Model with a WTO module (TAIGEM-WTO, hereafter) that is a multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Taiwan's economy derived from Australian ORANI model (Dixon, Parmenter, Sutton and Vincent, 1982). Simulation results show that results are more sensitive to the scheme of tariff-reduction (i.e., Category 1, 2, and 3) than the tiered levels (i.e., A, B, C, and D) and as a strategy we should pay more attention to the arguments related to the amounts of tariff-reduction. Moreover, changes in nominal average tariff rates are more sensitive and shocks to the economy are more severe when we change the tariff reduction categories rather than the tiered levels. This conclusion also applies to the tiered reduction case when only sensitive products are considered. Finally, simulations with sector's bound rate calculated using arithmetic means have bigger effects than those using import values as weights. Therefore, sector's bound rate using import values as weights would be preferred.International Relations/Trade,

Celecoxib extends C. elegans lifespan via inhibition of insulin‐like signaling but not cyclooxygenase‐2 activity

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86911/1/ACEL_688_sm_FigS1-S2-TableS1-S2.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86911/2/j.1474-9726.2011.00688.x.pd

Exploring the Role of Dynamic Capabilities of Information System Development Project Teams

The increasingly dynamic external environment serves as one risk factor which undermines information system development (ISD) project performance. This highlights the importance of ISD teams having certain capabilities to respond to the external variations. In this study, we proposed that ISD teams can better react to external changes and achieve goals if they have sufficient dynamic capabilities: a combination of market/environment orientation, absorptive capacity, coordination capability and collective mind. We also proposed that a team has stronger dynamic capabilities when team members possess complementary expertise and know the expertise and tasks of others. In addition, after examining the moderating effect of knowing the expertise and tasks of others on the relationship between complementary expertise and team dynamic capabilities, we found that complementary expertise can substitute for knowing the location of expertise and complements knowing the tasks of others. Based on the results, implications for academia and practitioners are also provided

Invited - Temporal information processing for in-sensor computing based on amorphous IGZO phototransistor

On facing the massive and unstructured data processing, it is imperative to emulate artificial neural networks with new physical hardware architectures in addition to software-based approaches, to overcome the barrier of the von Neumann bottleneck. By mimicking the human visual sensing system, the optoelectronic devices, which can perform data compression and reduce the network size through the reconstruction of input signals, are promising to develop the neuromorphic in-sensor computing for minimizing the time latency as well as improving the energy efficiency. In this work, we demonstrate an amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) phototransistor with ZrOx high-k dielectric layer with distinct responses to various optical stimulation inputs. Due to the persistent photoconductivity (PPC) effect of a-IGZO after lighting, our device is able to exhibit synaptic functions via the application of 405 nm light spikes, such as paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) and short-term memory (STM). Furthermore, in order to perform the temporal optical signals processing, the a-IGZO phototransistor is stimulated by four-timeframe temporal pulse streams composed of 405 nm light spikes and it expresses the different temporal responses. The distinct output photocurrent response reveals that the a-IGZO phototransistor can be applied to distinguish the time-series input light signals. Accordingly, the a-IGZO phototransistor have a promising potential for processing optical temporal information and can possibly be implemented for visual in-sensor computing techniques. Please click Download on the upper right corner to see the full abstract

Will Your Project Get the Green Light? Predicting the Success of Crowdfunding Campaigns

Capital is always essential for a business project over times. After emerging in 2000, crowdfunding gradually becomes one of the most popular fundraising resources. However, the mechanism of crowdfunding significantly differs from traditional capital-collecting approaches. As long as the amount of pledged money reaches the goal in time, the project succeeds, its initiator receives the funds, the platform gains the revenue, and its backers acquire rewards. Reaching the goal by deadline becomes an important issue. The goal of our study is to develop an effective technique for predicting whether a crowdfunding campaign will succeed or fail. On the basis of a dataset collected from Kickstarter, our empirical evaluation results suggest that our proposed technique significantly outperforms the benchmark method. In addition, with the use of time-dependent factors, the prediction accuracy improves from 72.89% at day 0 to 87.13% at the first day and eventually to 89.62% at day 7