the study investigates consumers’ preference for cowpea reflected in the nigerian markets through price discounts and premiums that consumers pay for different cowpea characteristics. the price data used for this study were obtained through a market survey. a common data collection protocol was employed. every month, between october 2009 to december 2010, five cowpea samples per seller were bou...

This paper questions some aspects of attribute acceptance sampling in light of the original concepts of hypothesis testing from Neyman and Pearson (NP). Attribute acceptance sampling in industry, as developed by Dodge and Romig (DR), generally follows the international standards of ISO 2859, and similarly the Brazilian standards NBR 5425 to NBR 5427 and the United States Standards ANSI/ASQC Z1....

Ecosystems can undergo sudden shifts to undesirable states, but recent studies with simple single-species ecosystems have demonstrated that advance warning can be provided by the slowing down of population dynamics near a tipping point. However, it is unclear how this 'critical slowing down' will manifest in ecosystems with strong interactions between their components. Here we probe the dynamic...

In our first two columns, we described innovative practices that Advanced Practices Council (APC) members shared with their colleagues at recent meetings. In this column, we describe the ideas that Jim Tosone, a long-standing APC member, shared at the October APC meeting. A contributor to the recently published “Complete Idiot’s Guide to the U.S. Constitution,” Tosone explained how understandin...

Introduction ................................................ 573 I. Wade's Seven Factors for Assessing Product Defects ... 578 A. W ade's Analysis ................................... 580 B. Reorganization of the Factors ...................... 580 C. Assessment of the First Six Factors ................ 581 D. The Producer as Insurer .......................... 584 II. Alternative Risk-Utility Me...

For approximately the last forty years industrial organization economists have undertaken empirical studies to determine if an increase in the number of producers results in more competitive market outcomes. In recent years a number of empirical studies, many under the inspiration and guidance of Leonard Weiss, have focused directly on the relationship between the price of output in a market an...