Abstract The agriculture of the Texas High Plains (THP) region is primarily dependent on groundwater irrigation. Changing weather patterns along with competing demands for water resources and other anthropogenic effects have dramatically increased withdrawals from Ogallala aquifer. In addition to on-farm changes, policy tools based off-farm mechanisms are equally indispensable in addressing sus...

In this paper we have examined the scale and cost inefficiency of a sample of Swiss electricity distribution utilities. To do so, we have considered estimation of a stochastic frontier average cost model using the approach suggested by Schmidt and Sickles (1984) for panel data. A translog cost function was estimated using panel data for a sample of 30 municipal utilities over the period 1992-19...

This study addresses an important dimension concerning the softwood lumber trade dispute between United States and Canada-substitutability among imported and domestically produced species. We employ the restricted translog subcost function approach to study this issue based on the monthly data of US softwood products consumption and prices between Jan. 1989 and July 2001. The results show that ...

China’s hog production is undergoing a great transformation due to the soaring demand and changing raising system. Regarding the essential role of pork in Chinese diet, a systematic analysis on the productivity and efficiency of hog production can provide significant implications for policy makers. This paper investigates the productivity and efficiency of hog production and determinants of tec...

Joux’s multicollision attack is one of the most striking results on hash functions and also one of the simplest: it computes a k-collision on iterated hashes in time ⌈log2 k⌉ · 2 , whereas k! · 2 was thought to be optimal. Kelsey and Schneier improved this to 3 · 2 if storage 2 is available and if the compression functions admits easily found fixed-points. This paper presents a simple technique...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of the East German economy at the firm level using an unbalanced panel over the transition period 1994 to 1998. We adopt a translog stochastic frontier model to estimate technical efficiency in eastern and western Germany. The results indicate that firms in eastern Germany are significantly less efficient than firms in western Germany. The...

cost optimization of the reinforced concrete cantilever soil retaining wall of a given height satisfying some structural and geotechnical design constraints is performed utilizing harmony search and improved harmony search algorithms. the objective function considered is the cost of the structure, and design is based on aci 318-05. this function is minimized subjected to design constraints. a n...

We estimate changes in market structure in the US electric power industry during the last three decades using two independent approaches. First, we estimate an industry-wide conjectural-variations parameter. We find that industry concentration was generally rising during the 1970s, but has been gradually and consistently falling since the early 1980s. To check the robustness of these results, w...

The goal of this essay is to examine estimates of individual bank X-efficiency across time. First, we estimate a translog flexible function specification of bank efficiency during the period 1988-1997. Then, we estimate a time-series/cross-sectional model with independent variables that reflect business cycle and monetary policy conditions that may affect bank performance. Like Calomiris and Ma...

this paper proposes an optimal power flow (opf) algorithm by direct load control (dlc) programs to optimize the operational cost of smart grids considering various scenarios based on different constraints. the cost function includes active power production cost of available power sources and a novel flexible load curtailment cost associated with dlc programs. the load curtailment cost is based ...