Crow Algorithm for Irrigation Management: A Case Study

Water Resources Management - This study employed a new evolutionary algorithm namely, the crow algorithm (CA), to optimize reservoir operation and minimize irrigation water deficit. Comprehensive...     

The impact of the acreage allotment program on rice farming

This paper designs an acreage response model under the acreage allotment farm program incorporation a policy-inducing variable. The single-equation regression model for each rice-producing state is estimated by the ordinary least squares mulitiple regression procedure. The estimated parameter shows a significant direct relationship between the rice acreage planted and plicy-inducing price in all the rice-growing states. The estimated short-run elasticities for Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas were 0.72, 0.59, 0.67, 0.66, and 0.81 respectively. The heterogeneity in the magnitude of the elasticities during the acreate allotment period suggests considering a rice program formulation in response to each state's variability in physical restraints, availability of irrigation water, average yields, and return over cost, thereby providing risk management incentives to rice growers to respond positively to the farm program.     

Coordinating electronic commerce activities in MANIFOLD

Modern electronic commerce environments are heavily web-based and involve issues such as distributed execution, multiuser interactive access or interface with and use of middleware platforms. Thus, their components exhibit the properties of communication, cooperation and coordination as in CSCW, groupware or workflow management systems. In this paper we examine the potential of using coordination technology to model electronic commerce activities and we show the benefits of such an approach. Furthermore, we argue that control-oriented, event-driven coordination models (which enjoy some inherent properties such as security) are more suitable for electronic commerce than data-driven ones which are based on accessing an open shared communication medium in almost unrestricted ways. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The impact of monetary and tax policy on income inequality in Japan

This paper assesses the effects of the most recent monetary policy behaviour of the Bank of Japan (in particular, zero interest rate policy and negative interest rate policy) and Japanese tax policy on income inequality in this country during the period of 2002Q1 to 2017Q3. The vector error correction model (VECM) that develops in this research shows that increase in money stock (m1) through Quantitative Easing (QE) and Quantitative and Qualitative Easing (QQE) policies of the BOJ significantly increases the income inequality. On the contrary, Japanese tax policy was effective in reducing the income inequality. Variance decomposition results show that increasing of income inequality by monetary policy is larger when comparing to decreasing effects of tax policy on income inequality. Cointegration and VECM results show that monetary policy has both short-run and long-run impacts but for tax policy paper could not find any significant short-run impact on income inequality. In addition, paper found that technological progress only in long-run can reduce the income inequality by increasing the marginal productivity of labour with positive impacts on employment and wages.     

Is Stolper–Samuelson dangerous and FPE a failure?

The Heckscher–Ohlin model has spawned the twin theorems of Stolper–Samuelson and factor-price equalization (FPE), both of which concern the effects of international trade on wages and income distribution. A recent literature, critical of both theorems, claims that they no longer serve as a useful guide for understanding the complex web of trade and wages. This literature also claims that the twin theorems are empirically misleading and irrelevant. The present essay argues that the critics have exaggerated the empirical failure of the twin theorems and, more importantly, they have missed the central message of the theorems; especially, that of Stolper–Samuelson on the optimality of free trade.     

Riprap Effect on Hydraulic Fracturing Process of Cohesive and Non-cohesive Protective Levees

A comprehensive experimental study was conducted to evaluate the effects of soil properties and the rip-rap as well as cohesive and non-cohesive soil material and the riprap particle size on the breaching process and the failure mechanism of the levee. The results showed the crucial role of the riprap coverage and the soil properties in the breaching of the protective levees. In this regard, breaching was developed in both vertical and transverse directions. In the levee without riprap coverage, breach development was observed in the transverse direction while the levee was eroded in the streamwise direction. In contrast, in the levee with riprap coverage, breach development mainly occurred in the vertical direction. Furthermore, the flow rate across the breach was higher in the tests with no riprap compared to those with the riprap coverage. Comparisons suggested that the shorter the failure time, the longer the equilibrium time. The present research has some major implications for coastal and hydraulic engineering designs since the construction of levees is of great importance. Furthermore, the findings can be used to predict flooding and erosion induced by the embankment failure.

     

Measuring Factor Abundance Across Many Factors and Countries

Empirical studies of factor proportion theory face the challenge of measuring factor abundance in a world with many factors of production and countries. This paper introduces a mean weighted measure of factor abundance, and using data for nine factors and 33 countries, presents the resulting factor abundance rankings. These rankings, unlike others in the literature, are quite sensible. Further, there is a positive empirical link between factor abundance and factor content for each factor except agricultural labor.