PRICE TRANSMISSION, MARKET POWER AND RETURNS TO SCALE: A NOTE

In this paper, we aim to model the vertical relation between retailers and suppliers in the food industry whereby retailers exercise seller power in their relation with consumers and buyer power in their relation with producers. We then evaluate the degree of price transmission, relative to the perfectly competitive benchmark, from the farm to the retail sector assuming a supply shock. With the view to evaluating the impact of market power's interaction with industry technology on the degree of price transmission, we assume industry technology to be characterized by variable input proportions and non-constant returns to scale. Our model predicts that, relative to that which obtains when markets are perfectly competitive and industry technology is characterized by constant returns to scale, the degree of price transmission when market power and industry technology interact cannot be unambiguously determined.price transmission, returns to scale, market power

Price Transmission, Market Power and Returns to Scale

In this paper, we aim to model the vertical relation between retailers and suppliers in the food industry whereby retailers exercise seller power in their relation with consumers and buyer power in their relation with producers. We then evaluate the degree of price transmission, relative to the perfectly competitive benchmark, from the farm to the retail sector assuming a supply shock. With the view to evaluating the impact of market power's interaction with industry technology on the degree of price transmission, we assume industry technology to be characterised by variable input proportions and non-constant returns to scale. Our model predicts that, relative to that which obtains when markets are perfectly competitive and industry technology is characterised by constant returns to scale, the degree of price transmission when market power and industry technology interact cannot be unambiguously determined.price transmission, returns to scale, market power, Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing, L11, Q13,

Food scares and asymmetric price transmission: the case of the pork market in China

This paper investigates the symmetry of impact from three main food scare events on both the upstream and downstream price transmissions in the Chinese pork market through monthly data from 2001 to 2014. Based on a theoretical model, we firstly estimate the VAR systems for pork retail price and price transmissions in different links, and then plot the impulse response function and dynamic multiplier function respectively for endogenous substitute good price and exogenous food scare events. Empirical results indicate the asymmetry of price transmission in the Chinese pork market, and demand and supply shocks from three food scare incidents are found to impact retail price and price transmissions differentially. In addition, shocks from the same incident on price and price transmissions are significantly different. This research provides implications for farmers, business managers and policy makers to make strategies in response to food scare events

Center Symmetric Local Multilevel Pattern Based Descriptor and Its Application in Image Matching

This paper presents an effective local image region description method, called CS-LMP (Center Symmetric Local Multilevel Pattern) descriptor, and its application in image matching. The CS-LMP operator has no exponential computations, so the CS-LMP descriptor can encode the differences of the local intensity values using multiply quantization levels without increasing the dimension of the descriptor. Compared with the binary/ternary pattern based descriptors, the CS-LMP descriptor has better descriptive ability and computational efficiency. Extensive image matching experimental results testified the effectiveness of the proposed CS-LMP descriptor compared with other existing state-of-the-art descriptors

Measuring Rural Poverty in China: a Case Study Approach

This paper measures rural poverty in Hubei Province and Inner Mongolia in China. The poverty lines we derived by Ravallion's method differ from the official Chinese poverty lines. The official pan-country poverty line underestimates rural poverty in Hubei Province and overestimates rural poverty in Inner Mongolia. Poverty determinants are estimated by Logit as well as Probit models. The study notes that factors such as living in a mountainous area, lack of better irrigation conditions, a large family size, few fixed assets, few land owned and sole dependence on agriculture as a livelihood source would make a rural household more vulnerable to poverty. On the other hand, a rural household whose members are either better educated or trained laborers would statistically be less poor. The growth-redistribution decomposition reveals that for all the three FGT indexes in Hubei province, income growth contributed much to the alleviation of poverty, while the redistribution or inequality effects counteracted the growth effects and worsened poverty. The poverty incidence decomposition results reveal that about one third of the growth effects had been counteracted by the redistribution effects. This implies that future anti-poverty programs should pay more attention to solving the inequality problem in China. Poverty dominance analysis also helps us better understand the poverty situation. It reveals that rural poverty in Inner Mongolia is more severe than that in Hubei, and that poverty incidence in Hubei has lessened from 1997 to 2003, which are the same findings as those drawn from deriving poverty lines.Rural Poverty Line, Poverty Determinants, Growth Redistribution Decomposition, Poverty Dominance, China

Application of an iterative Bayesian variable selection method in a genome-wide association study of rheumatoid arthritis

Genome-wide association studies usually involve several hundred thousand of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Conventional approaches face challenges when there are enormous number of SNPs but a relatively small number of samples and, in some cases, are not feasible. We introduce here an iterative Bayesian variable selection method that provides a unique tool for association studies with a large number of SNPs (p) but a relatively small sample size (n). We applied this method to the simulated case-control sample provided by the Genetic Analysis Workshop 15 and compared its performance with stepwise variable selection method. We demonstrated that the results of iterative Bayesian variable selection applied to when p » n are as comparable as those of stepwise variable selection implemented to when n » p. When n > p, the iterative Bayesian variable selection performs better than stepwise variable selection does

An Automatic Wheel Contour Extraction Method 1

Abstract: Wheel contour extraction from image is an important unit of any vision-based traffic accident analysis system, and automatically doing it is still a difficult task due to various distracting factors such as low contrast between the wheel and the ground, different wheel types and various weather conditions etc. In this work, a new automatic wheel extraction method is proposed, in which rather than directly extracting wheel contours from images, the wheel rim and the contacting image point of wheel to the ground are at first extracted, then the wheel contour is in turn located via the invariance of cross ratio. Extensive experiments under various weather conditions show that our proposed method is capable of detecting wheel contours fully automatically and robustly. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L

MiR-143-5p inhibits proliferation, invasion, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition of colorectal cancer cells by downregulation of HMGA2

Purpose: To investigate the regulatory effect and molecular mechanism of miR-143-5p in colorectal cancer (CRC) progression. Methods: Expression of miR-143-5p in CRC cell lines SW620 and HCT116 was determined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Stable miR-143-5p overexpression was mediated by lentivirus. The effects of miR-143-5p on proliferation, migration, invasion, and epithelial- mesenchymal transition (EMT) of SW620 and HCT116 cells were assessed by colony formation assay, CCK-8, Transwell assay, wound healing assay, and western blot. Target prediction was performed for miR-143-5p, and a dual luciferase assay was used to verify the targeting relationship. Results: Compared to CRC cells transfected with negative controls, cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and EMT were inhibited in miR-143-5p-overexpressing cells. Expression of HMGA2 (high- mobility Group AT-Hook 2), a target gene of miR-143-5p, was repressed by miR-143-5p. Rescue experiments confirmed that upregulation of HMGA2 due to mIR-143-5p overexpression reversed inhibition of CRC cell proliferation, invasion and EMT. Conclusion: MiR-143-5p inhibits the malignant progression of CRC by regulating HMGA2 expression and is expected to provide new therapeutic approaches for clinical treatment of CRC