MEASURING RESEARCH BENEFITS WITH IMPORT BAN RESTRICTIONS, QUALITY CHANGES, NON-MARKET INFLUENCES ON ADOPTION AND FOOD SECURITY INCENTIVES

Hundreds of studies have been conducted since Griliches (1958) suggested a method for measuring the benefits to agricultural research. Alston et al. (2000) reviewed 292 studies that reported 1,886 observations of returns to agricultural R&D. While some studies consider complicated cases, most studies have focused solely on R&D policy. However, it is common that agricultural R&D policy is combined with other policies, such as a price support, subsidy policy, non-market inducement, and import restrictions. Naturally, when the benefits of agricultural research are measured without taking the related policies into account, biased estimates are likely. The South Korean rice industry provides a good example where several factors affected the adoption of new technology, causing the complications in the measurement of the research benefits. The agricultural R&D policy in Korea for rice was combined with factors such as an import ban, a price support and government purchase program, yield-quality tradeoffs, and arguments that there are external benefits, like a public good, associated with self-sufficiency. It is therefore important to evaluate the benefits of agricultural research appropriately and carefully given these conditions. The revolution in rice production in Asia was triggered in 1966 with the development of IR8 by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). As soon as the potential of IR8 was recognized, IR8 was released to Asian rice-producing countries (IRRI). Korea also received small sets of breeding materials from the IRRI (Chandler, 1992). In 1972, Korea introduced the first high-yielding variety developed through agricultural research in Korea. However, the high yielding âTong-ilâ rice was inferior in taste to conventional rice. The argument that prevailed in the 1970s (and continues to the present day) is that self-sufficiency in rice is a public good in Korea. This attitude affected the adoption of Tong-il. The Korean government strongly encouraged farmers to adopt the new varieties through a government purchase policy as well as non-market government inducements. The government purchase policy that had been in place since 1950s was expanded in the 1970s. Most of the Tong-il rice produced was purchased and used by the government or released back on the market at discounted prices. Local officials and extension workers were provides incentives to achieve high local adoption rates. In some extreme cases, officials and extension workers physically removed other rice from fields that had already been planted. An import ban was also imposed to maintain high domestic prices. The economic evaluation of high yielding rice involves innovations to deal with several elements: ⢠The basic economics of agricultural research and development (productivity-enhancing technology): measuring agricultural research benefits without considering the complicating factors. A new method to measure a supply shift caused by agricultural R&D will be presented, considering spillovers. ⢠The trade policy that affected returns to higher yields: world price is considered as an opportunity cost. The research benefit in open economy will be smaller than the benefit in closed economy. ⢠The price support and government purchase program for a fixed amount of rice from each farm: considering that the remaining amounts were sold in the market, this policy acts like a decoupled income transfer that does not affect the payoff of agricultural research. ⢠The yield-quality tradeoffs of the technology: this tradeoff should be evaluated as a loss because the gross benefits of research would increase if there had not been a quality change. ⢠Non-market incentives for the adoption of Tong-il rice: the effect of non-market adoption is similar to that of regulation in that it generally prevents profit-maximizers from making adjustments. ⢠The public good argument related to âfood securityâ and self-sufficiency. This paper measures the net research benefits derived from the development of Tong-il performed in Korea given this complex setting. Despite the importance of this case, no studies have measure the payoff to investments to development and adoption of high yielding varieties under the multitude of policies and other complications outlined above. Conceptual studies and a few examples from other countries have dealt with some of these issues, but no study has evaluated the issues fully in a real and important setting. For example, Lokollo (2002) explored the effects of modern technology on its adoption and productivity in Indonesia. The Philippines have also implemented a government purchase policy like Korea during the green revolution period (Martinez, Shively and Masters, 1998). Both of the cases are very similar to the Korean case, in that the green revolution was attained through several government policies. However, neither of them sought to analyze the agricultural R&D effects in the complicating setting, like the Korean case. One difficulty of the R&D-related studies lies in measuring a supply shift caused by agricultural research. To measure research-induced supply shifts, many R&D-related studies introduced complicating methods, such as production functions, supply-response functions, and productivity functions. One innovation of this paper is to present a new formula for measuring a research-induced supply shift. A horizontal supply shift (J) evaluated at the current price can be measured as follows, J=h/(1-δ+δh), where h indicate yield gains of new varieties over old varieties and adoption rate of high-yielding varieties, respectively. In the above formula, only two parameters are used and they are usually available in most cases. No specific forms of supply-and demand functions or elasticities are assumed. The net returns to research on Tong-il is quite large when all the complicating factors listed above were ignored, but substantially smaller once those factors are accounted for. A tentative conclusion is that the effect of the innovation is likely to be much smaller if the development and dissemination of new technology evaluated along with the applicable market-distorting policies. This research is important in order to properly account for this episode in the economic history of agricultural development of Korea. This paper also provides lessons for other developing countries, which take a similar path with the Korean case to their agricultural development. We expect the presentation to generate considerable interest. It deals with a major event that involves important current issues in the development of agriculture and food security in developing countries. The paper applies innovations in the economics of agricultural R&D, which has long been a major topic for agricultural economists.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Design and Experimental Validation of a Control System for Dynamic Positioning of a Shuttle Tanker

In this paper, a dynamic positioning performance evaluation procedure for a shuttle tanker is discussed through experimental and numerical analyses. A dynamically positioned shuttle tanker with six thrusters (three tunnel thrusters, two azimuth thrusters, and one main propeller with a rudder), operated in deep water condition was considered. A conventional proportional-derivative control algorithm was adopted for the main feedback control algorithm to reduce the position error, and an anti-windup integral control algorithm was introduced to suppress the steady-state error in the dynamic positioning operation. A minimum power consumption algorithm, based on the Lagrange multiplier method, was utilised in the thrust allocation for the thruster systems. An extended Kalman filter was used in the experiment to separate the low-frequency motion from the measured vessel motion. A set of experiments and numerical analyses were conducted in this study under the same environmental conditions and with the same control methodology. The dynamic positioning operation results obtained by the experiments and numerical simulations were compared to evaluate the station-keeping performance of the dynamically positioned shuttle tanker

Formation of ZnO Micro-Flowers Prepared via Solution Process and their Antibacterial Activity

This paper presents the fabrication and characterization of zinc oxide micro-flowers and their antibacterial activity. The micro-flowers of zinc oxide composed of hexagonal nanorods have been prepared via solution process using precursor zinc acetate di-hydrate and sodium hydroxide in 3 h of refluxing time at ~90°C. The antibacterial activities of grown micro-flowers were investigated against four pathogenic bacteria namely S. aureus, E. coli, S. typhimurium and K. pneumoniae by taking five different concentrations (5–45 μg/ml) of ZnO micro-flowers (ZnO-MFs). Our investigation reveals that at lowest concentration of ZnO-MFs solution inhibiting the growth of microbial strain which was found to be 5 μg/ml for all the tested pathogens. Additionally, on the basis of morphological and chemical observations, a chemical reaction mechanism of ZnO-MFs composed of hexagonal nanorods was also proposed

Molecular cloning and expression of a novel human cDNA related to the diazepam binding inhibitor

AbstractIn order to isolate the unidentified autoantigens in autoimmune diabetes, a human pancreatic islet cDNA library was constructed and screened with the sera from the diabetic patients. From the library screening, one clone (DRS-1) that strongly reacted with the sera was isolated. Subsequent sequence analysis revealed that the clone was a novel cDNA related to the diazepam binding inhibitor. DRS-1 was expressed in most tissues including liver, lung, tonsil, and thymus, in addition to pancreatic islets. DRS-1 was in vitro translated and the recombinant DRS-1 protein was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified. The size of the in vitro translated or bacterially expressed DRS-1 protein was in agreement with the conceptually translated polypeptide of DRS-1 cDNA. Further studies are required to test whether or not DRS-1 is a new autoantigen in autoimmune diabetes

Characteristics of P wave in Patients with Sinus Rhythm after Maze Operation

Maze operation could alter P wave morphology in electrocardiogram (ECG), which might prevent exact diagnosis of the cardiac rhythm of patients. However, characteristics of P wave in patients with sinus rhythm after the operation have not been elucidated systematically. Consecutive patients who underwent the modified Cox Maze operation from January to December 2007 were enrolled. The standard 12-lead ECG and echocardiography were evaluated in patients who had sinus rhythm at 6 months after the operation. The average axis of P wave was 65±30 degrees. The average amplitude of P wave was less than 0.1 mV in all 12-leads, with highest amplitude in V1. The most common morphology of P wave was monophasic with positive polarity (49%), except aVR lead, which was different from those in patients with enlarged left atrium, characterized by large P-terminal force in the lead V1. There were no significant differences in P-wave characteristics and echocardiographic parameters between patients with LA activity (30.6%) versus without LA activity (69.4%) at 6 months after the operation. In conclusion, the morphology of P wave in patients after Maze operation shows loss of typical ECG pattern of P mitrale: P wave morphology is small in amplitude, monophasic and with positive polarity

OCT for non-destructive examination of the internal biological structures of mosquito specimen

The Study of mosquitoes and their behavioral analysis are of crucial importance to control the alarmingly increasing mosquito-borne diseases. Conventional imaging techniques use either dissection, exogenous contrast agents. Non-destructive imaging techniques, like x-ray and microcomputed tomography uses ionizing radiations. Hence, a non-destructive and real-time imaging technique which can obtain high resolution images to study the anatomical features of mosquito specimen can greatly aid researchers for mosquito studies. In this study, the three-dimensional imaging capabilities of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for structural analysis of Anopheles sinensis mosquitoes has been demonstrated. The anatomical features of An. sinensis head, thorax, and abdomen regions along with internal morphological structures like foregut, midgut, and hindgut were studied using OCT imaging. Two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) OCT images along with histology images were helpful for the anatomical analysis of the mosquito specimens. From the concurred results and by exhibiting this as an initial study, the applicability of OCT in future entomological researches related to mosquitoes and changes in its anatomical structure is demonstrated

Large enhancement of nonlinear terahertz absorption in intrinsic GaAs by plasmonic nano antennas

We demonstrate remarkably strong nonlinear terahertz (THz) effects in an intrinsic GaAs wafer patterned with a nanometer-width slot antenna array. The antenna near-field reaches 20 MV/cm due to the huge field enhancement in the plasmonic nano-structure (field enhancement factor, α ≅ 50). The THz fields are strong enough to generate high density free carriers (Nₑ > 10¹⁷ cm⁻³) via interband excitations associated with impact ionizations and thus to induce large absorption of the THz radiation (>35%). The nonlinear THz interactions take place in the confined region of nanometer-scale layer adjacent to the antenna.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the American Institute of Physics Publishing and can be found at: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl