农业发展阶段性变化对农垦经济的影响

我国农业发展进入新的阶段.突出表现为农产品由卖方市场转为买方市场;农业发展由受自然、资源的约束变为受市场、自然和资源的多重约束.农业发展出现的阶段性变化使垦区在思想观念、经济运行方式、经济结构、企业营销策略等诸多方面出现不适应.必须加强管理,深化改革,增强科技含量,走可持续发展之路.     

The role of productivity growth and farmers’ income protection policies in the decline of relative farm prices in the United States

The paper emphasizes three interrelated questions about the decline in relative farm to non-farm prices in the United States since 1973: (1) Is it unusual, (2) What caused it, and (3) Is it likely to continue? We find that based on historical and international evidence this phenomenon may be considered unusual. Separating farm price and income support in 1973 and growing relative productivity in agriculture have been the major contributors to changing the trend of the relative farm goods inflation. This trend is likely to continue based on predicted steady growth of relative agricultural productivity and continuation of direct payments and other forms of farm income support policies.     

Tasting off-flavors: food science,sensory knowledge and the consumer sensorium

Abstract

In food science and technology, understanding off-flavors has a significance with both technical and commercial implications. In the food industry in the United States, it is a widely held truism that consumers will not buy a product if they do not like the way it tastes or if it contains unpleasant flavors. But how can science determine when food is off putting, and how do scientists learn to address bad tastes in their experimental and technical practice? Based on ethnographic work with food scientists in the United States, this paper is a reflexive account of learning to taste off-flavors, a form of sensory learning that utilizes the scientist’s own body as a kind of instrument. The paper argues that a particular understanding of the consumer sensorium emerges through food scientists’ approach to off-flavors. This is an image of the consumer as a chemically receptive sensory system that is highly sensitive to compounds at trace levels. By utilizing the sensitivity of their own senses, food scientists exploit the relationship between distaste, memory and sensory perception as a form of training to produce future aesthetic memories of off-flavors that can be deployed in a technical context.     

'Given up hope of dying': A child protection approach to deliberate self-harm in adolescents admitted to a paediatric ward

This paper describes an approach developed by a local authority social worker based in a paediatric department, working in close collaboration with consultant child and adolescent psychiatrists and paediatricians. The literature is informative on the significant psychosocial difficulties of young people who harm themselves deliberately, but there is little published work on the complexities of the actual multidisciplinary care given to these patients, the majority of whom are not actively suicidal by the time they are interviewed. The task is as much to intervene in the lives of young people at risk of harm or neglect as to prevent suicide.     

Imperfect competition,border protection and consumer boycott: The future of the dairy industry in Israel

Recent increases in prices of dairy products in Israel led to consumer unrest and boycotts against dairy producers during the summer of 2011. The Israeli dairy industry is highly distorted with production quotas and administered prices for raw milk, tariff rate quotas and an oligopoly in dairy processing. Since the issue of self-sufficiency and food security is at the top of Israel's national priorities, the future of the dairy industry is generating heated debate. Thus, we use a general equilibrium model to estimate the effects associated with particular alternative policies actually discussed to liberalize the Israeli dairy industry.     

The microeconomics of distribution: A simulation of the farm economy

A simulation model that incorporates both production and consumption behavior of farm households in Taiwan is presented. The model is used to analyze the effects of policy instruments (price supports, minimum wages, taxes, subsidies, demographic policies, and land and capital redistribution) on the aggregate values of the endogenous variables of the system—the supplies of output and labor, the demands of factors and consumption, income and expenditure—and their distribution among households. The model differs from other simulation models in that it is based on microsimulation, in which the joint distribution of individual household characteristics such as farm-specific prices, initial endowments of land and capital, and numbers of workers and dependents, is explicitly taken into account. As a result, the model is capable of capturing the distributional as well as aggregate impacts of policy changes.     

Impacts of off‐farm employment on welfare,food security and poverty: Evidence from rural Vietnam

How off‐farm employment can enhance welfare in terms of food consumption and poverty alleviation is a critical question facing many developing countries. This study addressed that question by pursuing two objectives: (i) to quantify the impact of off‐farm employment on rural households’ welfare, food security and poverty; and (ii) to examine the factors that affect their decision to work off‐farm. Using panel data, we estimated a difference‐in‐difference combined with a propensity score matching model. The findings show that off‐farm employment improves income, ensures food security and contributes to poverty alleviation. The results also show that age, marital status, education, labour, financial capital, land, location, market access and losses from natural disasters are significant contributing factors to the decision to participate in off‐farm employment. The findings suggest that to improve the welfare of rural households, the Vietnamese government should proceed with policies that enhance their opportunities for participation in off‐farm employment.     

Abstractions on steroids: A critical realist approach to computer simulations

Computer simulations are increasingly used within various fields of the social sciences, including analytical sociology and computational social science. However, the method has yet to fully find its place within critical realism, generally regarded as reductionist and methodological individualist and thus inadequate to the task of grasping the full and enigmatic complexity of social life. This article contributes to the discussion by suggesting an alternative approach to computer simulations in the social realm. Instead of representing reality, simulations are seen as a way of boosting abstraction by enabling us to isolate and study the effects of emergent mechanisms. The need for such tools is growing more urgent in an age characterized by rapid change and global networks of causal interrelation. Hence there is a need not only for new tools to deal with causal complexity within critical realism, but also for a critical realist perspective to fill the meta‐theoretical vacuum on which the simulation approach is largely based. The approach developed here provides a challenge to the predominant ways in which simulations are utilized today, with increasingly sophisticated models aiming towards realistic representation on the basis of empirical data.     

Domestic violence and child protection: towards a collaborative approach across the two service sectors

Domestic violence continues to be one of the most significant aspects of child abuse and neglect in Australia. However, the children are not well served by either child protection or domestic violence service sectors, which continue to operate as segregated, tertiary response systems. This paper reports on research that examined bridges and barriers to effective collaboration between child protection and domestic violence services in responding to children affected by domestic violence. The differing conceptions and responses of the workers from each service sector, in relation to children and families affected by domestic violence, is discussed in the light of gaps in service provision in both sectors. In doing so, areas of common ground for more effective collaboration between these service sectors are identified, including the prioritizing of emotional and psychological abuse, supporting and empowering abused mothers, strengthening the mother–child relationship, and supporting children and families across a continuum of service provision, particularly in the medium‐ to long‐term. Understanding each other and finding common ground across the two service sectors is paramount to improving how each responds to children and families affected by domestic violence.     

A differential approach to the repeated prisoner's dilemma

The repeated prisoner's dilemma game is converted into a differential game by assuming that the players, instead of making decisions individually for each repetition of the prisoner's dilemma game, make decisions on the ratio of cooperative and noncooperative games that they wish to play over the next few moves, and that the actual plays are then determined using this ratio and a randomizing procedure. Although it sounds like a significant departure, this assumption is probably not too different from reality.Since each player can always obtain by his own action at least the payoff which he would receive from the noncooperative-noncooperative pair of strategies, that part of the differential game which is dominated by such a dual noncooperative strategy for either player is an unlikely outcome. This dominated area can be readily computed for any game, including those with more than two players.Formal testing with empirical data was impossible because of uncertainty about the proper null hypothesis. Nevertheless, experimental results reported by Rapoport are consistent with the theory.The authors are, respectively, Graduate Research Asistant in Economics and Professor of Economics and Public Choice at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.     

A Diamond-Stiglitz approach to the demand for self-protection

The existing research concerning the relationship between risk aversion and prudence and the demand for self-protection assumes that the loss variable follows a Bernoulli distribution, and that changes in the level of self-protection are mean preserving. The analysis here replaces these two very strong conditions with ones which are more general. When doing this, the method of analysis is also significantly modified. This modification includes representing a change in the level of self-protection using the procedure developed by Diamond and Stiglitz (Journal of Economic Theory 8:337-360, 1974) for representing a change in risk. This alternate representation allows the existing findings to be generalized considerably, and also simplifies the analysis.     

The impact of changing oil prices on interfuel substitution: Ethanol's prospects in the United States to 1995

The decline of oil prices is having an impact on the prices of other energy products. It is also forcing the reconsideration of interfuel substitution. In this article, the long-term prospects of the U.S. fuel-ethanol industry are analyzed using a system of econometric models. The modeling system comprises the INFORUM interindustry macroeconomic model and an econometric submodel detailing the ethanol production decision as well as the corn, soybean, and wheat markets. The system is used in forecasting simulations to examine the impact that changes in world oil prices would have on ethanol profitability. The results of this study suggest that, without substantial increases in real oil prices or subsidy levels, ethanol will become unprofitable in the near future.     

Social psychology,consumer culture and neoliberalism: A response to Phelps and White (2018)

The following essay responds to three main issues raised by Phelps and White (2018) in their critical commentary on our article (McDonald, Gough, Wearing & Deville, 2017). The first concerns the lack of precision in the conceptualisation of neoliberalism and the recent threats to it as we enter a potentially new phase of capitalism. While we share Phelps and White's concern, we argue that there is value in continuing to use neoliberalism as a concept for understanding some aspects of social behaviour. As to recent threats to neoliberalism, evidence indicates that it will continue to persist in the immediate future. To deal with neoliberalism's conceptual problems in social psychology, Phelps and White advance the potential theory of a ‘market‐derived logics’. We commend the authors for pursuing this endeavor, however, we caution that care needs to be taken in its conceptualisation. Lastly, we discuss Phelps and White's disciplinary reflections on social psychology.     

现代农业:西部地区县域经济发展战略的切入点

在第一届全国县域经济基本竞争力评价中 ,西部县域经济的基本竞争力所占分量 ,在实力最强的A级中只有 5 % ,在最弱的J级中却有 86.8%。另据世界银行 1990年的统计显示 ,世界低收入国家的农业比重为 3 1% ,我国西部县域的农业比重水平均高于低收入国家 ,多在 70 %以上 ,其中 ,贵州、云南等西部省区高达 80 %。这说明 ,广大西部县域经济仍是农业主导型经济 ,农业基础薄弱 ,经济水平落后 ,产业构成水平低 ,“三农”问题也比较突出。时值西部大开发之际 ,西部县域应抓住这一历史机遇大力促进经济发展 ,加快提升产业结构 ;     

Cost and Stakeholder Views: A combined approach to evaluating services

Correspondence to Jackie Powell, Department of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO9 5NH Summary This paper focuses on the decision-making process at a strategiclevel in the context of implementing a ‘community care’policy for older people with mental health problems. It is basedon the findings of an evaluative study of the implementationof one district health authority's strategy for the decentralizationof its mental health services for older people. The study wasan attempt to develop an evaluative approach which acknowledgedthe importance of cost, but also the need to include the viewsof the several ‘interested parties’, not least thosewho used the service. The reconciliation of what might be seenas the conflicting interests of the wider public for a carefulutilization of resources with the individual's needs for anaccessible and responsive service represents a major challengefor planners, managers and practitioners within the public sector.This paper argues the need for dialogue as the basis for partnershipbetween those with a primarily financial focus to their workand those more intimately concerned with individual needs.     

Estimation of a Bernouilli parameter: A normative approach to replace the Bayesian one

The paper deals with the problem of the estimation of an unknown probability from a finite number of experiments. We propose a normative (axiomatic) solution that restricts the class of admissible estimators to a one-parameter family. Moreover this solution coincides with the one obtained from Bayes theory with a prior. Thus our results can be interpreted as a justification for the use of Bayesian inference with a prior.     

A competency approach to curriculum building: a social work mission

This article discusses The John A. Hartford Foundation CSWE SAGE-SW Project through an historical reflection of curriculum development within the profession. The project's relationship to several curriculum building models is also explored. A curriculum development tool for combining the Hartford Competencies with theCSWEEPAS requirements is provided.