Agricultural Market Structure, Generic Advertising, and Welfare

This analysis begins with a definition and discussion of productive advertising. Then, following Dixit and Norman, persuasive advertising is used to study the welfare effects of generic advertising by marketing orders. The study first examines horizontal competition when the competing advertiser is a monopoly, and results show that the socially optimal level of advertising for a competitive marketing order is positive only if advertising raises monopoly output. Next, advertising choices of a marketing order which sells its output to a monopolistic distributor are considered. If the distributor is a monopolist, then marketing order advertising raises welfare. This finding is in marked contrast to the results for the horizontal case studied by Dixit and Norman.advertising, market structure, welfare, Marketing,

Further on Down the Digital Road: narrative design and reading pleasure in five New Media Writing Prize narratives.

A review, supported by reader responses, of five highly regarded interactive digital narratives.The five selected pieces have all been winners or shortlisted for the interactional new Media Writing Prize. This paper discusses whether developments in narrative design, around interface, use of media, and narrative structures, have enhanced reader satisfaction. Issues identified in earlier reader-response studies are found to be still present, but several aspects present less obstruction for readers. Some indications are noted: writers may be using more familiar interface design conventions, narrative structures are becoming less fractured and hyper-link dependent; multi-media are better integrated into the narrative design

A multiple scales approach to sound generation by vibrating bodies

The problem of determining the acoustic field in an inviscid, isentropic fluid generated by a solid body whose surface executes prescribed vibrations is formulated and solved as a multiple scales perturbation problem, using the Mach number M based on the maximum surface velocity as the perturbation parameter. Following the idea of multiple scales, new 'slow' spacial scales are introduced, which are defined as the usual physical spacial scale multiplied by powers of M. The governing nonlinear differential equations lead to a sequence of linear problems for the perturbation coefficient functions. However, it is shown that the higher order perturbation functions obtained in this manner will dominate the lower order solutions unless their dependence on the slow spacial scales is chosen in a certain manner. In particular, it is shown that the perturbation functions must satisfy an equation similar to Burgers' equation, with a slow spacial scale playing the role of the time-like variable. The method is illustrated by a simple one-dimenstional example, as well as by three different cases of a vibrating sphere. The results are compared with solutions obtained by purely numerical methods and some insights provided by the perturbation approach are discussed

Plant supply logistics: balancing delivery and stockout costs

A manufacturer leases rail cars to transport raw material from the supplier to the factory. The manufacturer must balance the costs of leasing rail cars versus stockouts (leading to plant closings) and inventory carrying costs. Using a model of circular queues and a simulation, the cost implications of leasing different numbers of rail cars are analyzed. It is concluded that stockout costs exceed the cost of excess inventory and capacity in the logistics system

FREE LABOR TODAY

During the first half of the 20th Century, the period when all of the United States’ major workers’ rights statutes were enacted, the American labor movement claimed the rights to organize and strike under the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S Constitution. Beginning in 1909, it was the official policy of the American Federation of Labor that a worker confronted with an unconstitutional injunction had an “imperative duty” to “refuse obedience and to take whatever consequences may ensue.” At a time when union institutions were as weak as they are today, every attack on workers’ rights was met with an impassioned defense of the constitutional rights to organize and strike. At the same time, the movement took a long-term approach to legislative reform, demanding the full freedom to associate in organizing unions and staging strikes. In recent decades, by contrast, the movement has often shied away from defending the right to strike at moments of conflict (the 2005 New York subway strike being a prominent example), and has shaped its legislative proposals to fit what it sees as the short-run possibilities (for example, the Employee Free Choice Act, which makes no attempt to protect the right to strike). This article suggests that elements of the old labor movement’s constitutional strategy might be useful in the struggle for workers’ rights today

National Rugby League athletes and tendon tap reflex assessment: A matched cohort clinical study

BACKGROUND: Limited research suggests elite athletes may differ from non-athletes in clinical tendon tap reflex responses. METHODS: In this matched cohort study, 25 elite rugby league athletes were compared with 29 non-athletes to examine differences in tendon reflex responses. Relationships between reflex responses and lengths of players’ careers were also examined. Biceps, triceps, patellar and Achilles tendon reflexes were clinically assessed. RESULTS: Right and left reflexes were well correlated for each tendon (r(S) = 0.7–0.9). The elite rugby league athletes exhibited significantly weaker reflex responses than non-athletes in all four tendons (p < 0.005). Biceps reflexes demonstrated the largest difference and Achilles reflexes the smallest difference. Moderate negative correlations (r(S) = −0.3–0.6) were observed between reflex responses and lengths of players’ careers. CONCLUSIONS: Future research is required to further elucidate mechanisms resulting in the observed differences in tendon reflexes and to ensure clinical tendon tap examinations and findings can be interpreted appropriately in this athletic population

How American Workers Lost the Right to Strike, and Other Tales

To paraphrase a veteran labor scholar, if you want to know where the corpses are buried in labor law, look for the of course statements in court opinions. By of course statements, he meant propositions that are announced as if they were self-evident, requiring no justification. Each year, thousands of law students read such statements in labor law casebooks. And each year, they duly ask themselves - prodded sometimes by the casebook\u27s notes - how these conclusions could be justified in legal terms. But often there seems to be no answer, and the mystery continues. This Essay recounts the origins of five such of course statements, each of which has had a devastating impact on the American labor movement

Eye shape and retinal shape, and their relation to peripheral refraction

Purpose: We provide an account of the relationships between eye shape, retinal shape and peripheral refraction. Recent findings: We discuss how eye and retinal shapes may be described as conicoids, and we describe an axis and section reference system for determining shapes. Explanations are given of how patterns of retinal expansion during the development of myopia may contribute to changing patterns of peripheral refraction, and how pre-existing retinal shape might contribute to the development of myopia. Direct and indirect techniques for determining eye and retinal shape are described, and results are discussed. There is reasonable consistency in the literature of eye length increasing at a greater rate than height and width as the degree of myopia increases, so that eyes may be described as changing from oblate/spherical shapes to prolate shapes. However, one study indicates that the retina itself, while showing the same trend, remains oblate in shape for most eyes (discounting high myopia). Eye shape and retinal shape are not the same and merely describing an eye shape as being prolate or oblate is insufficient without some understanding of the parameters contributing to this; in myopia a prolate eye shape is likely to involve both a steepening retina near the posterior pole combined with a flattening (or a reduction in steepening compared with an emmetrope) away from the pole