A PULL FACTOR ANALYSIS OF TRENDS IN FOOD AND BEVERAGE RETAIL SALES IN MISSISSIPPI COUNTIES

Agribusiness,

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF THE RURAL EMPOWERMENT ZONE AND ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PROGRAM ON TEXAS' RIO GRANDE VALLEY

A Human Development Index (HDI) was developed to analyze the impact of the rural empowerment zone program on counties in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. Results of the analysis indicate that minimal development has taken place in these counties. This outcome is attributable to several institutional factors.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

SOURCES OF CHANGE IN STATE-LEVEL AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION IN MEXICO: IMPLICATIONS FROM THE PESO CRISIS OF 1994-1995

Production Economics,

An Assessment of the Efficiency of Agribusiness Trucking Companies: A Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

The purpose of this study is to investigate the issue of efficiency in the U.S. motor carrier industry using DEA and SFA. While both methods used the same variables, the resulting efficiency scores were significantly different. This leads to the question of which method is a better measure of efficiency.Public Economics,

Estimating the Economic Impact of Disease on a Local Economy: The Case of Diabetes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas

The purpose of this study is to investigate the economic impact of wage reductions that people experience from contracting diabetes. Incorporating wage reduction information into an input-output model reveals that as diabetics' wages decrease by $1.00, production and income in the local economy decline by$0.36 and $0.38, respectively.Health Economics and Policy,

Surface Vacuum Energy in Cutoff Models: Pressure Anomaly and Distributional Gravitational Limit

Vacuum-energy calculations with ideal reflecting boundaries are plagued by boundary divergences, which presumably correspond to real (but finite) physical effects occurring near the boundary. Our working hypothesis is that the stress tensor for idealized boundary conditions with some finite cutoff should be a reasonable ad hoc model for the true situation. The theory will have a sensible renormalized limit when the cutoff is taken away; this requires making sense of the Einstein equation with a distributional source. Calculations with the standard ultraviolet cutoff reveal an inconsistency between energy and pressure similar to the one that arises in noncovariant regularizations of cosmological vacuum energy. The problem disappears, however, if the cutoff is a spatial point separation in a "neutral" direction parallel to the boundary. Here we demonstrate these claims in detail, first for a single flat reflecting wall intersected by a test boundary, then more rigorously for a region of finite cross section surrounded by four reflecting walls. We also show how the moment-expansion theorem can be applied to the distributional limits of the source and the solution of the Einstein equation, resulting in a mathematically consistent differential equation where cutoff-dependent coefficients have been identified as renormalizations of properties of the boundary. A number of issues surrounding the interpretation of these results are aired.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures, 1 table; PACS 03.70.+k, 04.20.Cv, 11.10.G

Assessing Community Resources and Economic Development Programming Efforts Using a Modified Human Development Index

Current outcomes measures of Extension Service base program effectiveness tend to be initiative specific. These diverse indicators do not provide an encompassing view of a base program\u27s efficacy. This article proposes the use of an overall index that would incorporate existing outcomes measures to evaluate base program progress. Specific emphasis is placed on the development of an index for the community resources and economic development base program

AN ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC AND PERFORMANCE CHANGES OF TRUCK CARRIERS IN THE AGRICULTURAL COMMODITY AND FOOD MARKETS

Agribusiness,