Ex-ante Impact Assessment of GM-Papaya Adoption in Thailand.

Despite the evidences of benefits from GM papayas adoption in other countries, concerns over the loss of export markets and health and environmental risks have led to great uncertainty and indecision about policies to support biotechnology in Thailand. Since 2001, field trials have been banned and the use of transgenic plants for production, consumption, or commercialization has been prohibited, but this ban is currently being reconsidered. This study estimates what the economic impact of the adoption of GM papaya would be if Thailand were to authorize the use of transgenic technology. We find that papaya farmers will benefit significantly from improved yields and even with no cost reduction.GM papaya, ex-ante assessment, Thailand

PEOPLE LEFT BEHIND: TRANSITIONS OF THE RURAL POOR

Compared to their urban counterparts, the rural poor are more likely to be employed, more apt to be members of married-couple families, less likely to be children, less likely to be minority, and more likely to have assets but a negative income. This paper examines poverty rates and factors that affect mobility in and out of poverty among major categories of the rural poor. Particular attention is paid to farm workers and the rural farm population in the South. It endeavors to identify both structural conditions that perpetuate rural poverty and government interventions that ameliorate human suffering and break the cycle of poverty reproduction.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Tracking and data system support for the Viking 1975 mission to Mars. Volume 1: Prelaunch planning, implementation, and testing

The tracking and data acquisition support for the 1975 Viking Missions to Mars is described. The history of the effort from its inception in late 1968 through the launches of Vikings 1 and 2 from Cape Kennedy in August and September 1975 is given. The Viking mission requirements for tracking and data acquisition support in both the near earth and deep space phases involved multiple radar tracking and telemetry stations, and communications networks together with the global network of tracking stations, communications, and control center. The planning, implementation, testing and management of the program are presented

Agronomic research and productivity growth in post green revolution agriculture

This dissertation presents a methodology for measuring the impact of crop management research on agricultural productivity. The relationship between specific research projects and increases in producer surplus are identified. The methodology is used to derive an estimate of the return to public investment in crop management research in the Yaqui Valley of Sonora, Mexico;The impact of the crop management research effort is examined by looking at changes in producers\u27 practices 1981-1989 using farm survey data. An examination of changes in producers\u27 practices and modifications in crop management recommendations showed that only two practices were modified because of new research results. The quasi-rent impact of these research-induced changes in farmer practice are estimated using yield function estimation and the construction of enterprise budgets;The market setting for the case study is one of a small producing region facing perfectly elastic demand for output as well as perfectly elastic supply of production inputs. Changes in consumer surplus, therefore, do not occur and the impact on producer surplus is measured as changes in quasi-rent;Estimates of the internal rate of return (IRR) to the crop management research investment are derived under a range of assumptions about the benefit and cost streams. Under the most reasonable sets of assumptions, the IRR is estimated to fall between 16 and 26 percent;The study implies that the development of improved crop management practices can make a significant contribution to increasing agricultural productivity. One implication for the allocation of resources within agronomic research programs is that careful monitoring of farmer acceptance of research results can improve the efficiency of research investments

Zooming in on zooming out: Partial selectivity and dynamic tuning of bilingual language control during reading

Available online 29 November 2019.Prominent models of bilingual visual word recognition posit a bottom-up nonselective view of lexical processing with parallel access to lexical candidates of both languages. However, these accounts do not accommodate recent findings of top-down effects on the relative global activation level of each language during bilingual reading. We conducted two eye-tracking experiments to systematically assess the degree of accessibility of each language in different global language contexts. When critical words were presented overtly in Experiment 1, code switches disrupted reading early during lexical processing, but not as much as pseudowords did. Participants zoomed out of the target language with increasing exposure to language switches. In Experiment 2, a monolingual language context was created by presenting critical words covertly as parafoveal previews. Here, code-switched words were treated like pseudowords, and participants remained zoomed in to the target language throughout the experiment. Switch direction analyses confirmed and extended these interpretations to provide further support for the role of global language control on lexical access, above and beyond effects due to proficiency differences across languages. Together, these data provide strong evidence for dynamic top-down adjustment of the degree of language selectivity during bilingual reading.This project was funded by awards from the National Institutes of Health (#1R0101HD073948; 11601946) and the UC Davis Graduate Studies Division of Social Sciences

Tracking and data system support for the Viking 1975 mission to Mars. Volume 2: Launch through landing of Viking 1

Problems inherent in the deployment and management of a worldwide tracking and data acquisition network to support the two Viking Orbiters and two Viking Landers simultaneously over 320 million kilometers (200 million miles) of deep space are discussed. Activities described include tracking coverage of the launch phase, the deep space operations during the long cruise phase that occupied approximately 11 months, and the implementation of the a vast worldwide network of tracking sttions and global communications systems. The performance of the personnel, hardware, and software involved in this vast undertaking are evaluated