Pulling the Plug on Monopoly Power: Reform for the Canadian Wheat Board

Change is in store for the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), which has the legal authority to purchase all Western Canadian wheat and barley produced for export and for domestic human consumption. The CWB defends the continuation of this legal authority on the premise that by selling together, Western Canadian farmers exert more market power in wheat markets and receive higher returns than they could if competing against each other. However, the declining global market share of Canadian wheat makes it increasingly unlikely that the CWB is able to exert market power: the CWB is a price taker in many markets. In the absence of strong evidence that the CWB is able to achieve its policy goal of higher returns to farmers because of the compulsory purchase of grains, its monopoly over Western Canadian wheat and most barley sales should be reconsidered with an eye to ending it.Governance & Public Institutions, Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), monopoly

Change in Working Length at Different Stages of Instrumentation as a Function of Canal Curvature

The aim of this study was to determine the change in working length (∆WL) before and after coronal flaring and after complete rotary instrumentation as a function of canal curvature. One mesiobuccal or mesiolingual canal from each of 43 extracted molars had coronal standardization and access performed. Once the access was completed, canal preparation was accomplished using Gates Glidden drills for coronal flaring and EndoSequence files for rotary instrumentation. WLs were obtained at 3 time points: pre-instrumentation (unflared), mid-instrumentation (flared) and post-instrumentation (concluded). Measurements were made via direct visualization (DV) and the CanalPro apex locator (EM) in triplicate by a single operator with blinding within the time points. Root curvature was measured using Schneider’s technique. The change in working length was assessed using repeated-measures ANCOVA. The direct visualization measurements were statistically larger than the electronic measurements (paired t-test difference = 0.20 mm, SE = 0.037, P \u3c .0001), although a difference this large may not be clinically important. Overall, a greater change in working length was observed in straight canals than in curved canals, and this trend was more pronounced when measured electronically than via direct visualization, especially in the unflared-concluded time points compared with unflared-flared time points. A greater change in working length was also observed in longer canals than in shorter canals.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1032/thumbnail.jp

After the refinancing boom: will consumers scale back their spending?

Concerns are rising that the recent surge in home equity withdrawal has left consumers in a weakened financial position that will, over time, prompt a retrenchment in spending. However, a look at household assets and liabilities suggests that consumers have used the withdrawn funds to restructure their balance sheets and reduce their debt service burden. As a result, households may be in a better position to spend in the years ahead.Home equity loans ; Consumer credit ; Consumer behavior

Time-Limited and k-Limited Polling Systems: A Matrix Analytic Solution

In this paper, we will develop a tool to analyze polling systems with the autonomous-server, the time-limited, and the k-limited service discipline. It is known that these disciplines do not satisfy the well-known branching property in polling system, therefore, hardly any exact result exists in the literature for them. Our strategy is to apply an iterative scheme that is based on relating in closed-form the joint queue-length at the beginning and the end of a server visit to a queue. These kernel relations are derived using the theory of absorbing Markov chains. Finally, we will show that our tool works also in the case of a tandem queueing network with a single server that can serve one queue at a time

A transient analysis of polling systems operating under exponential time-limited service disciplines

In the present article, we analyze a class of time-limited polling systems. In particular, we will derive a direct relation for the evolution of the joint queue-length during the course of a server visit. This will be done both for the pure and the exhaustive exponential time-limited discipline for general service time requirements and preemptive service. More specifically, service of individual customers is according to the preemptive-repeat-random strategy, i.e., if a service is interrupted, then at the next server visit a new service time will be drawn from the original service-time distribution. Moreover, we incorporate customer routing in our analysis, such that it may be applied to a large variety of queueing networks with a single server operating under one of the before-mentioned time-limited service disciplines. We study the time-limited disciplines by performing a transient analysis for the queue length at the served queue. The analysis of the pure time-limited discipline builds on several known results for the transient analysis of the M/G/1 queue. Besides, for the analysis of the exhaustive discipline, we will derive several new results for the transient analysis of an M/G/1 during a busy period. The final expressions (both for the exhaustive and pure case) that we obtain for the key relations generalize previous results by incorporating customer routing or by relaxing the exponentiality assumption on the service times. Finally, based on the interpretation of these key relations, we formulate a conjecture for the key relation for any branching-type service discipline operating under an exponential time-limit

Words That Never Stray

Hoping to make some clean lucre, we\u27re going to get a discussion in edgewise about a special category of words. Unless we give this topic long shift, we\u27ll be in rotten fettle and guilty of immoral turpitude. Please don\u27t hurl aspersions at these words. We\u27d prefer that your dander and hackles be down. Rather feeling luke cool, you\u27ll be waiting until bated curiosity