Maintaining a Healthy Equity Structure: A Policy Change at Producers Cooperative Association

board of directors, cooperative, retains, Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN GROCERY MANUFACTURER AND DISTRIBUTOR MARKETING PROGRAMS: A SURVEY OF U.S. WHOLESALERS AND RETAILERS

The retail food industry has taken initiatives to improve cost and to return the focus of management to the consumer. Among these initiatives are Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) and category management. A mail questionnaire elicited perceptions on these issues from 95 executives among U.S. food wholesalers and retailers. This study found that ECR category management are being used to streamline costs and to remove logistical inefficiencies. Although it is widely recognized that category management provides a consumer focus, distributors seemingly brush aside tactics that target individual customers in favor of efforts that target logistical efficiency.Agribusiness, Marketing,

Virtual Investment Concepts and the Ethanol Industry

The fast-growing US ethanol industry has historically been characterized by large downstream investments made by farmers. The authors assess the value which the stock market may hold for downstream investment by farmers as well as by ethanol manufacturers themselves. The model framework used herein expands on the original VEST framework developed by Siebert, Jones and Sporleder. A word of caution, the model herein is not intended to provide an on-going, risk-reducing business strategy. However, it can and does provide a quick method to calculate the reasonableness of a downstream investment request that a farmer (or any business person) might be challenged to consider. Although virtual stock market investments may certainly assist in value added performance, they (just like brick and mortar processing plants) can provide no guarantee of performance.cooperatives, corn, equities, ethanol, value added, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q10, Q32,

Magnetic states and optical properties of single-layer carbon-doped hexagonal boron nitride

We show that carbon-doped hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has extraordinary properties with many possible applications. We demonstrate that the substitution-induced impurity states, associated with carbon atoms, and their interactions dictate the electronic structure and properties of C-doped h-BN. Furthermore, we show that stacking of localized impurity states in small C clusters embedded in h-BN forms a set of discrete energy levels in the wide gap of h-BN. The electronic structures of these C clusters have a plethora of applications in optics, magneto-optics, and opto-electronics

Relative stability of extended interstitial defects in silicon: First-principles calculations

Interstitials stored in {311} or {111} habit planes form rows of interstitial chains elongated in ⟨011⟩ direction. Exploiting the large aspect ratio to treat chains as infinite, first-principles calculations of large computation supercells reveal a unique formation energy trend for each defect, which is closely correlated with its distinct shape. The most energetically favorable structure changes from {311} rodlike defects to Frank loops as the number of interstitials in the defect increases. These results are consistent with transmission electron microscopy studies

Glacial cycles drive variations in the production of oceanic crust

Glacial cycles redistribute water between oceans and continents causing pressure changes in the upper mantle, with consequences for melting of Earth's interior. Using Plio-Pleistocene sea-level variations as a forcing function, theoretical models of mid-ocean ridge dynamics that include melt transport predict temporal variations in crustal thickness of hundreds of meters. New bathymetry from the Australian-Antarctic ridge shows significant spectral energy near the Milankovitch periods of 23, 41, and 100 ky, consistent with model predictions. These results suggest that abyssal hills, one of the most common bathymetric features on Earth, record the magmatic response to changes in sea level. The models and data support a link between glacial cycles at the surface and mantle melting at depth, recorded in the bathymetric fabric of the sea floor.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures (including supplementary information). Resubmitted to Science on 12 December 201

How does leadership affect information systems success? The role of transformational leadership

We examined the positive impact of transformational leadership on IS success in organizations via two psychological mechanisms of system users’—perceived organizational support and systems self-efficacy. Our conceptual model was assessed using a sample of 251 employees from a multi-national bank in Korea. Overall, our results supported the hypothesized relationships: transformational leadership was positively related to system users’ IS success, and both perceived organizational support and systems self-efficacy of the system users mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and IS success. The results call for manager’s attention to the importance of transformational leadership development in organizations

Thermodynamic Integration for Dynamically Unstable Systems Using Interatomic Force Constants without Molecular Dynamics

We demonstrate an efficient and accurate, general-purpose first-principles blueprint for calculating anharmonic vibrational free energy and predicting structural phase transition temperatures of solids. Thermodynamic integration is performed without molecular dynamics using only interatomic force constants to model analogues of the true potential and generate their thermal ensembles. By replacing \textit{ab initio} molecular dynamics (AIMD) with statistical sampling of ensemble configurations and trading density-functional theory (DFT) energy calculations on each configuration for a set of matrix operations, our approach enables a faster thermodynamic integration by 4 orders of magnitude over the traditional route via AIMD. Experimental phase transition temperatures of a variety of strongly anharmonic materials with dynamical instabilities including shape-memory alloys are recovered to largely within 25% error. Such a combination of speed and accuracy enables the method to be deployed at a large-scale for predictive mapping of phase transition temperatures

Evidence for the Galactic X-ray Bulge II

A mosaic of 5 \ros~PSPC pointed observations in the Galactic plane ($l\sim25^{\circ}$) reveals X-ray shadows in the $0.5-2.0$ keV band cast by distant molecular clouds. The observed on-cloud and off-cloud X-ray fluxes indicate that $\sim15$% and $\sim37$% of the diffuse X-ray background in this direction in the \tq~keV and 1.5 keV bands, respectively, originates behind the molecular gas which is located at $\sim$3 kpc from the Sun. The implication of the derived background X-ray flux beyond the absorbing molecular cloud is consistent with, and lends further support to recent observations of a Galactic X-ray bulge.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, 2 table