The Demand for Loans for Major Rice in the Upper North of Thailand

Though Thailand is the largest rice exporting country, its yield is relatively low. This might be a result of the under use of purchased input factors. Amongst other factors, high input prices and capital constraints could be some reasons. The latter could be removed by loans providing favorable market conditions exist. This paper seeks to investigate factors affecting the decision to borrow, and the demand for loans, for rice. The Tobit type-II models are estimated using the survey data collected from 656 rice farmers in the Upper North of Thailand in 2004. It is found that significant factors affecting the decision of borrowing include; the land planted to rice, dummy variable for off-farm income sources, and annual interest rates. In the second step, the farmers who borrowed from the rural financial sources, including 202 and 250 farmers from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai respectively, are considered. According to the OLS estimation, only the land planted to rice has a positive significant effect on the amount of loans for major rice. Further, the interest rate affects the probability of loans but has no impact on the amount of loans, for rice.Upper North of Thailand, Tobit type-II model, Probability of loans for rice, Amount of loans, Rural financial sources, Agricultural Finance, Crop Production/Industries,

Effects of international gold market on stock exchange volatility: evidence from asean emerging stock markets

This paper examines behaviors of returns and volatility of ASEAN emerging stock markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam), incorporating with the effects from the international gold market. The estimates of GARCH(1,1) and GJR(1,1) for these stock markets indicate that the GJR(1,1) model is preferred to GARCH(1,1), except Vietnam. However, under the exogenous effects from international gold market such as the 1 day lagged returns and the 1 day lagged volatility of gold, the GARCH(1,1)-X model captures better stock market volatility behavior than GJR(1,1)-X, except Indonesia. Interestingly, gold could be a substitute commodity for stocks in Vietnam and the Philippines, while it could be a complement for stocks in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.Volatility, GARCH-X, Gold effects, ASEAN emerging stock markets

Overview of contract farming in Thailand: Lessons learned

Contract farming is a means to assist small growers in gaining market access and reducing price risk, and as such it has attracted attention from development agencies and governments in developing countries. This paper reviews literature related to contract farming in Thailand and adds updated information based on field visits in 2007. Special attention is given to roles played by government in the initial stage of contract farming development. Conclusively, it is important for the public sector to create a favorable environment and infrastructure to encourage investment in agribusiness and to coordinate the concerned parties to raise agricultural productivity. The paper also evaluates the effectiveness of contract farming as a means to stabilize farmers' income and strategize agricultural development. The findings show that while the poorest farmers were not excluded from contract farming, special measures may be needed to encourage their full participation. In the long run, small farmers were able to accumulate production and management skills, thus improving their bargaining position. Together with improved infrastructure and a more competitive market due to farmers' innovation, the farmers' best choice may include non-contract production

A Needs Assessment for the Development of a Performance Appraisal System for Government Employees at the Provincial Statistical Office

This study aimed at two main objectives. The first objective is to perform a needs assessment for the development of a performance appraisal system for government employees. The second objective was to examine the guidelines on the development of the performance appraisal system for government employees. The findings of the study included the followings.The performance appraisal system for government employees indicated a significant difference (Z* = 15.55, P-value = 0.00) between the current conditions and expected conditions. The performance appraisal system for government employees was at a critical level of the need for development (PNImodified = 0.40).The guidelines for the development of the performance appraisal system are the following. First, the inputs should clearly define the workload as well as the metrics and mutual evaluation criteria between the evaluator and the evaluates. Second, the process of the performance appraisal system should be conducted in the using an evaluation committee. A periodic performance monitoring system can be used to review the scoring rubrics of all evaluators. Third, the output of the performance appraisal report must show a clear scoring scale. Suggestions should be presented to tell the evaluator what has been observed. Fourth, feedback can divide government employees into 3 groups: 1) very good and excellent, admire the past performance, 2) good and fair , focus on acceptable and must-be-improved behaviors, and 3) must-be-improved , focus on what needs to be improved to make better performance as soon as possible

k-EVCLUS: Clustering Large Dissimilarity Data in the Belief Function Framework

International audienceIn evidential clustering, the membership of objects to clusters is considered to be uncertain and is represented by mass functions, forming a credal partition. The EVCLUS algorithm constructs a credal partition in such a way that larger dissimilarities between objects correspond to higher degrees of conflict between the associated mass functions. In this paper, we propose to replace the gradient-based optimization procedure in the original EVCLUS algorithm by a much faster iterative row-wise quadratic programming method. We also show that EVCLUS can be provided with only a random sample of the dissimilarities, reducing the time and space complexity from quadratic to linear. These improvements make EVCLUS suitable to cluster large dissimilarity datasets

Restaurant wastewater treatment by electrochemical oxidation in continuous process

The specific electrode is necessary for destruction of organic pollutant in restaurant wastewater by electrochemical oxidation. In this research, the specific electrode was prepared by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) in a hot- all CVD reactor with the presence of O2 under reduced pressure. The Ir protective layer was deposited by using (Methylcyclopentadienyl) (1,5-cyclooctadiene) iridium (I), (MeCp)Ir(COD), as precursor. Tetraethyltin (TET) was used as precursor for the deposition of SnO2 active layer. The optimum condition for Ir film deposition was 300 ºC, 125 of O2/ MeCp)Ir(COD) molar ratio and 12 torr of total pressure. While that of SnO2 active layer was 380 ºC, 1200 of O2/TET molar ratio and 15 torr of total pressure. The simulation of Ir deposition using FLUENT® shows the good agreement with the experimental data. However, the case of 300 ºC and titanium substrate, the simulation results have deviated from the experimental data that maybe attributed by the different on surface chemistry of each substrate or the higher surface roughness of titanium substrate. The prepared SnO2/ r/Ti electrodes were tested for anodic oxidation of organic pollutant in a simple three- lectrode electrochemical reactor using oxalic acid as model solution. The electrochemical experiments indicate that more than 80% of organic pollutant was removed in 2 hr. In first 2 hr, the kinetic investigation gives a zero-order respect to TOC of model solution and the destruction of pollutant was limited by the reaction kinetic. Then, it was first-order respect to TOC of model solution that limited by the mass transfer of pollutant to the electrode. Furthermore, the SnO2/Ir/Ti electrodes were used in this restaurant wastewater treatment within Chulalongkorn University. The increase of current density leads to the decrease of TOC and COD removal efficiency as a results of the increases of cell voltage and side reaction. Increasing residence time from 2 to 3 hr had not greatly influenced on TOC and COD removal efficiency due to slower reaction after 2 hr. The SnO2 film thickness had no effect on TOC and COD removal efficiency because the production of adsorbed hydroxyl radicals for pollutant destruction occurred only at the surface of electrod

Peptide nucleic acid-encoded libraries for microarray-based high-throughput screening

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) were used as encoding tags to enable the analysis of peptide libraries by PNA/DNA hybridisation onto DNA microarrays. This allowed entire peptide libraries to be organised and sorted in a two dimensional format whereby all library members could be interrogated and analysed on a one-byone basis. In this thesis, PNA-encoded peptide libraries, generated by split-and-mix library synthesis, were screened for a variety of functions. Peptide sequences identified from the screening of a PNA-encoded library were analysed in detail as the first specific substrates for chymopapain. A new PNAencoded library consisting of D-amino acids was synthesised and screened with a number of proteases in attempts to identify novel/unusual substrates. PNA-encoded libraries were also used in the screening of peptide libraries for other activities. Thus substrates for catalyst-free Hüisgen cycloaddition were identified following the reaction between an alkyne modified peptide library and azidofluorescein, while cell-penetrating peptides were identified by hybridization of an internalized encoded library onto a DNA microarray