Produce growers’ cost of complying with the Food Safety Modernization Act

Small and medium size growers using both conventional and sustainable farming practices have expressed concern that compliance with the Produce Rule implementing the Food Safety Modernization Act will be prohibitively costly. We use data from an original national survey of fruit and vegetable growers to examine that contention. In particular, we analyze how expenditures on food safety practices required by the Produce Rule vary with farm size using a double hurdle model to control for selectivity in both using food safety practices and reporting expenditures. We find that expenditures per acre decrease with farm size. We also find some evidence that growers using sustainable farming practices spend more than conventional growers on many food safety practices. We use our estimates to quantify how the cost burden of compliance varies with farm size. We then explore the policy implications of exemptions to the Rule by simulating how more stringent exemption thresholds for farm revenue and share of direct sales might affect the cost burden of each food safety practice on farms at the threshold.     

Has Europe missed the endgame of telecommunications policy?

The European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) is a major milestone in the EU's telecommunications policy. But is it such a step forward and are the technical and market developments such that the EECC is the endgame? An endgame would mean that sustainable competition is reached in all telecommunications markets. The current paper argues that the EECC's new policy goal of investment in very high capacity connectivity could actually lead to policies that end in sustainable infrastructure competition. The EECC's policies, however, are not courageous enough to reach this goal. This lack of courage also characterizes the EU's gatekeeper policies on call terminations and net neutrality. In both these areas an endgame with sustainable competition is possible.     

基于RFID的零售食品安全信用体系研究

通过对食品安全信用体系基本架构的分析,以及对食品供应商、食品零售企业和消费者三方面在该体系中作用的对比,不仅构建基于RFID的食品安全信用体系整合整个食品供应链所有节点以确保食品安全的过程,而且阐述了RFID在食品安全管理方面发挥的作用。在分析影响消费者满意度因素的基础上,详细说明了食品安全信用体系对上述因素的影响及其结果,且进一步证实了基于RFID技术的食品安全信用体系能够帮助食品零售企业保障食品安全,从而提高服务水平,提升消费者满意度。     

Investigating the intertwining impact of wholesale access pricing and the commitment to net neutrality principle on European next-generation access networks private investment plans: An options-game application for capturing market players' competitive interactions

Whilst the deployment of next generation access networks (NGANs) is undoubtedly beneficial to the economy, new legal developments in the United States (US) regarding the issue of net neutrality (NN) pose a new challenge not only to policy makers but to telecommunication providers as well, that could justify a fresh approach when assessing NGANs investments. In particular, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subverted extant NN rules in the US and if the European Union (EU) decides to follow a similar deregulatory path in the future it could change the way telecommunications providers on both sides of the Atlantic lay down their optical-fibre network infrastructure investment plans. For instance, if traffic prioritization is allowed then diversification of revenue sources can be achieved by charging customers for privileged data delivery to their premises. Currently, NGANs roll-out throughout EU is an ongoing process in a setting whereby access regulation in the form of network element unbundling is already imposed. As a result, these legal developments form a new context within which it makes sense to assess the role of NGANs wholesale access pricing in tandem with the degree of commitment to NN rules so as to i) determine their combinatorial impact on private telecommunications operators' financial figures and ii) capture their competitive interactions. Towards this end, an important aspect of particular value to market players (i.e. incumbents and competitive providers – CPs), and policy makers (i.e. National Regulatory Authorities – NRAs) that this article aims to examine is how to employ the option-game (OG) analysis, that reflects the intersection of game theory (GT) and real options (ROs), to model the competitive interactions between participants in a particular competition game set-up by means of deriving possible Nash-equilibrium (NE) outcomes within a regulatory setting part of which is the commitment or non-commitment to the NN principle. This, hybrid, evaluation tool is applied on top of a conventional discounted cash flow (DCF) techno-economic analysis assessment of an NGAN investment opportunity.     

全球经济失衡与新兴市场经济体主权财富基金的崛起

全球储备失衡和全球债务失衡导致新兴市场经济体持有庞大的对外净债权,新兴市场经济体对外净债权的扩张导致主权财富基金的崛起,这就是当代全球新兴市场经济体主权财富基金崛起的基本逻辑。我们有理由预期,随着全球经济失衡状况的进一步加剧,新兴市场经济体的主权财富基金规模还会持续增长。     

CORS系统和传统测量方式在城市部件普查工作中的比较

CORS系统应用于市政部件普查,是现代城市管理的新方法与趋势。本文给出了CORS的原理,详细介绍了CORS和传统测量方式在市政部件数据采集中的应用,并对二者进行了比较。     

巧用网络课程建设 提升《食品安全性》课程课堂效益

当前,网络课程无论是作为学校课堂教学的补充,还是满足个体的个性化学习,都发挥着非常重要的作用。但是,众多的网络课程在设计、维护和学习者的使用中也暴露出了许多不足。在我校强有力的支持下,对《食品安全性》网络课程进行建设,以此讨论了网络课程的特点、教学形式和课堂效益,并提出如何应用网络课程提升该课程的课堂效益。     

Adventure and ecotourism safety in Queensland: Operator experiences and practice

This study identifies the client injury experience and safety management practices of Queensland adventure and ecotourism operators, and to compare these findings with those from recent New Zealand surveys. The effectiveness of an on-line survey for collecting safety information from operators is evaluated in relation to the future development of an industry safety monitoring system. Some 60 adventure and ecotourism operators were surveyed, while in-depth interviews were conducted with four further Queensland operators. Survey findings indicated a relatively low level of reported incidents, with slips, trips and falls the most common incident type. Risk factors identified by operators related most frequently to adverse and changeable weather conditions and client skills and behavior, and a notable proportion of operators reported that they did not apply important safety management practices. A model of injury control is presented to assist operators in their risk management practice.     

铁路车站调车作业安全监控技术研究

为了全面提升铁路车站调车作业安全,阐述铁路车站调车作业安全管理现状,针对本务机车和自轮运转设备调车作业的安全卡控手段缺乏的问题,分析本务机和自轮运转设备调车作业中采用STP技术在车列定位、股道存留车位置获取、无线信息交互运用等方面的制约因素,探讨铁路车站调车作业安全监控关键技术,提出采用北斗卫星定位技术优化车列定位方式、采用雷达和视频技术实现存留车位置探测、采用LTE无线通信技术解决信息传输瓶颈的解决方案。该方案的运用将充分发掘既有STP系统的平台价值,为建立覆盖各类机车的调车安全防护体系提供理论依据。     

我国煤炭安全成本研究存在的问题与对策

本文首先分析了我国煤炭安全成本研究现状,并从理论研究范式、安全成本构成要素、安全成本的计量和管理、安全成本的效益评价等方面对目前安全成本的研究困境进行了分析,最后提出了相关解决思路与政策建议.