The State-by-State Effects of Mad Cow Disease Using a New MRIO Model

Until recently, it is hard to find studies to estimate how much the total economic losses for U.S. or other states by the BSE incidents except one dominant study by Devadoss et al (2005), which used CGE (Computable Generalized Equations) model for U.S. However, they are not reporting the direct impacts by each state and indirect impacts resulting from state-by-state economic relations. The interindustry relations and spatial connections have required to developing the Multiregional Input-Output (MRIO) type model, and in the sense, the experience of beef export closures to foreign countries is the suitable case enabling to estimate the economic impacts via inter-regional inter-industrial connections. Therefore, this study estimated the U.S. economic losses by foreign export closures of each state due to the BSE incident in Washington State using a different, newly developed methodology, complementing the previous study. To assess the economic impacts of BSE on each state and U.S. national economy, we used two methodologies. First, we forecasted normal status of beef exports from January in 2004 to April in 2005 using time-series analyses, based on monthly pre-2004 foreign historical exports data obtained from WISERTrade data, in order to calculate the direct gaps between the estimated exports which would have been had if the BSE had not been discovered and the actually decreased exports. Second, a newly constructed MRIO-type model by Park et al (2006), the NIEMO (National Interstate Economic Model), addressed how much the impacts within each state including Washington, interstate effects, and U.S. national losses by the BSE are, based on the final demand losses from the ex-post incidents. While domestic U.S. market can find the equilibrium rapidly by tightening supply side, international barriers to hinder U.S. exports still become a critical agricultural policy for U.S. government. The closure of U.S. exports of bovine by mad cow disease occurred in Washington State yielded a huge shock into the U.S. economy due to simultaneous closures of other state exports. Currently, the only available MRIO model, the NIEMO, enables to estimate the economic losses by the simultaneous closures of each state export of beef and related products. In terms that the NIEMO can supply information comparing the different economic impacts of state-by-state to agricultural policy-makers, they can distribute the national subsides due to the incident, considering the spreading impacts.BSE, Time-series, Multiregional Input-Output, Economic Impacts, Agricultural Policy, Health Economics and Policy,

Examining Relationships of Social Media to Customer Equity of the National Basketball Association

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role Facebook plays in the sport management context, and to understand the relationship that exists between customer equity and social media, in a professional sport league in the U.S. While it is only one of many social media platforms, Facebook has over one billion users (Facebook, 2018) and it connects people with communities and similar interest groups such that it can enhance social relationships. Sport organizations should understand how social media can influence sport fans, and this can be examined by looking at the Facebook page of the National Basketball Association (NBA), which has more fans than the Facebook pages of any other professional sport leagues. A convenient sampling method was used in the current study. After data were collected, descriptive analysis, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis were utilized. M-Turk was employed to allow for additional data to be collected between March 6, 2018 and March 17, 2018. A total of 276 survey responses were included in the dataset and analyzed. With regard to customer equity, there was a significant difference between NBA Facebook page followers and non-followers, F (1, 274) = 31.740, p \u3c .001. The results revealed that those who follow the NBA scored significantly higher on customer equity (M = 3.67) than non-followers (M = 3.20). Further, those who follow the NBA Facebook page recognized higher relationship equity, brand equity, and value equity perspectives than non-followers. The results indicated that those who follow the NBA Facebook page scored significantly higher (M = 3.54) than non-followers (M = 3.16) on value equity. The result also revealed that there was a significant difference regarding brand equity between NBA Facebook page followers and non-followers (χ2 (1) = 42.692, p \u3c .001), with a mean rank brand equity score of 161.73 for followers and 120.89 for non-followers. In addition, there was a significant difference regarding relationship equity between NBA Facebook page followers and non-followers (χ2 (1) = 42.692, p \u3c .001), with a mean rank relationship equity score of 174.11 for followers and 111.51 for non-followers. Third, the findings revealed that customer equity drivers, such as brand equity, relationship equity, and value equity, affected the NBA’s customer equity. The analysis revealed that customer equity drivers significantly predicted the NBA’s customer equity. The results of the multiple regression analysis showed that the three customer equity drivers, including brand equity (p \u3c .001), value equity (p = .001), and relationship equity (p = .005), significantly affected customer equity. Brand equity, value equity, and relationship equity accounted for 58% of the total variances in customer equity. The standardized coefficients revealed that each customer equity driver was a significant predictor, and brand equity (β = .531) was a stronger significant predictor of customer equity than value equity (β = .216) or relationship equity (β = .211). The results of the current research can enhance relationships between consumers and sport organizations regarding the use of social media and the connections that exist between customer equity and social media in the sport management context. This study contributes to the sport management context because it offers a consumer-based customer equity concept that can reflect consumers’ perceptions toward the NBA. For example, marketers will be able to understand how to evaluate their social media content based on fans’ level of engagement in social media activities and to promote more effective marketing strategies by utilizing different approaches for Facebook page followers and non-followers of the sport organizations or teams. The findings will also benefit sport marketers’ ability to communicate more effectively with consumers through social media. The marketers will be able to see social media as a valuable relationship marketing tool that can lead to positive economic outcomes for organizations and improve consumers’ perceived value of a sport organization

Minimum norm interpolation by perceptra: Explicit regularization and implicit bias

We investigate how shallow ReLU networks interpolate between known regions. Our analysis shows that empirical risk minimizers converge to a minimum norm interpolant as the number of data points and parameters tends to infinity when a weight decay regularizer is penalized with a coefficient which vanishes at a precise rate as the network width and the number of data points grow. With and without explicit regularization, we numerically study the implicit bias of common optimization algorithms towards known minimum norm interpolants

Short-Run Economic Impacts of Hurricane Katrina (and Rita)

Sturm; Erdölförderung; Offshore-Industrie; Makroökonomischer Einfluss; USA

Cultural Variations in the Self and Underlying Neural Mechanisms: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation.

Over the last two decades, substantial progress has been made to examine cultural differences in a variety of psychological processes. This dissertation aims to extend the current literature by exploring how the culturally divergent model of the self as independent vs. interdependent influences three arrays of psychological tendencies, including cognition, emotion, and motivation, in broad socio-cultural contexts. It also seeks to identify the brain mechanisms upon which these psychological operations are based. Specifically, Chapter II seeks to examine cultural variation in cognitive process. I explored cultural difference in implicit cognition by comparing European American and Japanese participants’ implicit value endorsement of independence and interdependence using a modified implicit association test (IAT) paradigm (Study 1). Chapter III includes two studies examining cultural variation in emotional processes. Study 2 tested whether the linkage between anger expression and social status is moderated by culture, depending on the salience and significance of the function of anger either as vented frustration or as dominance display in each culture. Study 3 examined whether the beneficial effects of perceived social support on health is contingent on factors that highlight or conceal the emotional costs associated with receiving supporting, including culture, situational context, and personality. Chapter IV explores the neural bases of cultural variation in motivational processes in two studies. Study 4 identified a neurophysiological signal of the motivational force towards the pursuit of self-interest as an attempt to understand cultural variation in self-serving bias. Study 5 tested whether cultural groups differ in the neural signaling of social evaluative threat and how this threat response influences task vigilance. Finally, in Chapter V, the main findings of Chapters II, III, and IV are summarized. I also discuss implications of the findings and propose future research directions.PHDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94000/1/pjiyoung_1.pd

Plant hormone transporters: what we know and what we would like to know

Hormone transporters are crucial for plant hormone action, which is underlined by severe developmental and physiological impacts caused by their loss-of-function mutations. Here, we summarize recent knowledge on the individual roles of plant hormone transporters in local and long-distance transport. Our inventory reveals that many hormones are transported by members of distinct transporter classes, with an apparent dominance of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) family and of the Nitrate transport1/Peptide transporter family (NPF). The current need to explore further hormone transporter regulation, their functional interaction, transport directionalities, and substrate specificities is briefly reviewed