U.S. Highway 20 Corridor Development Study, Report B: Improvement Alternatives, Costs and Traffic, 1992

In February the U.S. 20 Corridor Development Study's Steering Committee met to review Report A. At that meeting the Committee selected seven alternatives to be evaluated from a cost and traffic perspective. This report, Report B, presents the cost and traffic evaluation of these seven alternatives. This Report B and its cost and traffic estimates will be reviewed at the next Steering Committee meeting. At that time it is possible that, based on the traffic and cost estimates, one or more of the alternatives will be eliminated from further consideration. After that meeting the Consultant will initiate the more in-depth analyses, including the economic feasibility

Effects of age and body mass on development of diving capabilities of gray seal pups: costs and benefits of the postweaning fast

Development of adequate diving capabilities is crucial for survival of seal pups and may depend on age and body size. We tracked the diving behavior of 20 gray seal pups during their first 3 mo at sea using satellite relay data loggers. We employed quantile analysis to track upper limits of dive duration and percentage time spent diving, and lower limits of surface intervals. When pups first left the breeding colony, extreme (ninety-fifth percentile) dive duration and percentage time spent diving were positively correlated with age, but not mass, at departure. Extreme dive durations and percentage time spent diving peaked at [Formula: see text] d of age at values comparable with those of adults, but were not sustained. Greater peaks in extreme percentage time spent diving occurred in pups that had higher initial values, were older at their peak, and were heavier at departure. Pups that were smaller and less capable divers when they left the colony improved extreme dive durations and percentage time spent diving more rapidly, once they were at sea. Minimum survival time correlated positively with departure mass. Pups that were heavier at weaning thus benefitted from being both larger and older at departure, but smaller pups faced a trade-off. While age at departure had a positive effect on early dive performance, departure mass impacted on peak percentage time spent diving and longer-term survival. We speculate that once small pups have attained a minimum degree of physiological development to support diving, they would benefit by leaving the colony when younger but larger to maximize limited fuel reserves, rather than undergoing further maturation on land away from potential food resources, because poor divers may be able to "catch up" once at sea.

Costs and Benefits of Open Access

In June 2009 a study was completed that had been commissioned by Knowledge Exchange and written by Professor John Houghton, Victoria University, Australia. This report on the study was titled: "Open Access – What are the economic benefits? A comparison of the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Denmark." This report was based on the findings of studies in which John Houghton had modelled the costs and benefits of Open Access in three countries. These studies had been undertaken in the UK by JISC, in the Netherlands by SURF and in Denmark by DEFF. In the three national studies the costs and benefits of scholarly communication were compared based on three different publication models. The modelling revealed that the greatest advantage would be offered by the Open Access model, which means that the research institution or the party financing the research pays for publication and the article is then freely accessible. Adopting this model could lead to annual savings of around EUR 70 million in Denmark, EUR 133 million in The Netherlands and EUR 480 in the UK. The report concludes that the advantages would not just be in the long term; in the transitional phase too, more open access to research results would have positive effects. In this case the benefits would also outweigh the costs.

Estimating production costs and profitability of strawberry genotypes in southeast Queensland using plant traits

In Queensland the subtropical strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa) breeding program aims to combine traits into new genotypes that increase production efficiency. The contribution of individual plant traits to cost and income under subtropical Queensland conditions has been investigated. The study adapted knowledge of traits and the production and marketing system to assess the economic impact (gross margin) of new cultivars on the system, with the overall goal of improving the profitability of the industry through the release of new strawberry cultivars. Genotypes varied widely in their effect on gross margin, from 48% above to 10% below the base value. The advantage of a new genotype was also affected by the proportion of total area allocated to the new genotype. The largest difference in gross margin between that at optimum allocation (8% increase in gross margin) and an all of industry allocation (20% decrease in gross margin) of area to the genotype was 28%. While in other cases the all of industry allocation was also the optimum allocation, with one genotype giving a 48% benefit in gross margin.

Impact of parenteral nutrition standardization on costs and quality in adult patients

Background: Parenteral nutrition (PN) is a costly therapy that can also be associated with serious complications. Therefore, efforts are focusing on reducing rate of complications, and costs related to PN. Objective: The aim was to analyze the effect of the implementation of PN standardization on costs and quality criteria. Secondary aim was to assess the use of individualized PN based on patient's clinical condition. Methods: We compare the use of PN before and after the implementation of PN standardization. Demographic, clinical and PN characteristics were collected. Costs analysis was performed to study the costs associated to the two different periods. Quality criteria included were: 1) PN administration; 2) nutrition assessment (energy intake between 20-35 kcal/kg/day; protein contribution according to nitrogen balance); 3) safety and complications (hyperglycemia, hypertriglyceridemia, hepatic complications, catheter-related infection); 4) global efficacy (as serum albumin increase). Chi-square test was used to compare percentages; logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the use of customized PN. Results: 296 patients were included with a total of 3,167 PN compounded. During the first period standardized PN use was 47.5% vs 85.7% within the second period (p < 0.05). No differences were found in the quality criteria tested. Use of individualized PN was related to critical care patients, hypertriglyceridemia, renal damage, and long-term PN. Mean costs of the PN decreased a 19.5%. Annual costs savings would be € 86,700. Conclusions: The use of customized or standard PN has shown to be efficient and flexible to specific demands; however customized PN was significantly more expensive.

Social/economic costs and health-related quality of life in patients with epidermolysis bullosa in Europe

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to determine the social/economic costs and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with epidermolysis bullosa (EB) in eight EU member states. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study of patients with EB from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Data on demographic characteristics, health resource utilisation, informal care, labour productivity losses, and HRQOL were collected from the questionnaires completed by patients or their caregivers. HRQOL was measured with the EuroQol 5-domain (EQ-5D) questionnaire. RESULTS: A total of 204 patients completed the questionnaire. Average annual costs varied from country to country, and ranged from euro9509 to euro49,233 (reference year 2012). Estimated direct healthcare costs ranged from euro419 to euro10,688; direct non-healthcare costs ranged from euro7449 to euro37,451 and labour productivity losses ranged from euro0 to euro7259. The average annual cost per patient across all countries was estimated at euro31,390, out of which euro5646 accounted for direct health costs (18.0 %), euro23,483 accounted for direct non-healthcare costs (74.8 %), and euro2261 accounted for indirect costs (7.2 %). Costs were shown to vary across patients with different disability but also between children and adults. The mean EQ-5D score for adult EB patients was estimated at between 0.49 and 0.71 and the mean EQ-5D visual analogue scale score was estimated at between 62 and 77. CONCLUSION: In addition to its negative impact on patient HRQOL, our study indicates the substantial social/economic burden of EB in Europe, attributable mostly to high direct non-healthcare costs.

Custos da irrigação e receita líquida do feijoeiro em um sistema pivô central sob variação do comprimento da tubulação de recalque e desnível topográfico

Neste trabalho, foi simulado o custo da irrigação de um sistema tipo pivô central com diferentes comprimentos da tubulação de recalque e desníveis topográficos na produção do feijoeiro comum, na região de Ilha Solteira -SP, bem como sua receita líquida. Considerou-se uma área irrigada pelo equipamento de 103,58 ha, sendo sua configuração a mais econômica possível para as variáveis consideradas. A participação da irrigação no custo de produção do feijoeiro variou de 14,8 a 21,5% entre as condições extremas, ou seja, do menor desnível topográfico (40 m) e comprimento da tubulação de recalque (2.000 m) ao maior desnível (80 m) e comprimento (3.000 m). em todas as configurações do sistema de irrigação e com os preços praticados em agosto de 2008 ou com o preço histórico médio, seria viável a cultura do feijoeiro, proporcionando rendas líquidas de até R$ 3.959,64 ha-1 e até R$ 1.203,14 ha-1, respectivamente.

Drivers of change in animal protein production systems: changes from 'traditional' to 'modern' beef cattle production systems in Brazil

Until 1990, beef cattle production in Brazil was recognized as an enterprise of low investment, low cost of production, as well as an extensive production system that used large land areas to be economically feasible. The situation changed for the Brazilian beef market when the economy stabilized in 1994 and all sectors involved in the beef supply chain were able to predict their associated costs and profits. During the same period, purchasing power of the Brazilian population grew, and as a consequence, consumers began to demand higher quality beef products. This new scenario in the late 1990s and early 2000s has led to more intensive beef production systems in Brazil as well as the need for a greater understanding of how technologies might be applied. As consequence of this evolution, in the last five years, a necessity to increase beef production has occurred. The quality of Brazilian beef has improved compared with beef produced 15 years ago, but continued improvements are needed to achieve excellence in terms of large-scale production of high quality beef, be sustainable over a long period of time, and increase our contribution to global food security.

The importance of environmental issues and costs in Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) for highway projects

Sustainability has been increasingly recognised as an integral part of highway infrastructure development. In practice however, the fact that financial return is still a project’s top priority for many, environmental aspects tend to be overlooked or considered as a burden, as they add to project costs. Sustainability and its implications have a far-reaching effect on each project over time. Therefore, with highway infrastructure’s long-term life span and huge capital demand, the consideration of environmental cost/ benefit issues is more crucial in life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). To date, there is little in existing literature studies on viable estimation methods for environmental costs. This situation presents the potential for focused studies on environmental costs and issues in the context of life-cycle cost analysis. This paper discusses a research project which aims to integrate the environmental cost elements and issues into a conceptual framework for life cycle costing analysis for highway projects. Cost elements and issues concerning the environment were first identified through literature. Through questionnaires, these environmental cost elements will be validated by practitioners before their consolidation into the extension of existing and worked models of life-cycle costing analysis (LCCA). A holistic decision support framework is being developed to assist highway infrastructure stakeholders to evaluate their investment decision. This will generate financial returns while maximising environmental benefits and sustainability outcome.

Essays on irrigation development, farm production and unaccounted costs : theory and empirical evidence

A review of the literature related to issues involved in irrigation induced agricultural development (IIAD) reveals that: (1) the magnitude, sensitivity and distribution of social welfare of IIAD is not fully analysed; (2) the impacts of excessive pesticide use on farmers’ health are not adequately explained; (3) no analysis estimates the relationship between farm level efficiency and overuse of agro-chemical inputs under imperfect markets; and (4) the method of incorporating groundwater extraction costs is misleading. This PhD thesis investigates these issues by using primary data, along with secondary data from Sri Lanka. The overall findings of the thesis can be summarised as follows. First, the thesis demonstrates that Sri Lanka has gained a positive welfare change as a result of introducing new irrigation technology. The change in the consumer surplus is Rs.48,236 million, while the change in the producer surplus is Rs. 14,274 millions between 1970 and 2006. The results also show that the long run benefits and costs of IIAD depend critically on the magnitude of the expansion of the irrigated area, as well as the competition faced by traditional farmers (agricultural crowding out effects). The traditional sector’s ability to compete with the modern sector depends on productivity improvements, reducing production costs and future structural changes (spillover effects). Second, the thesis findings on pesticides used for agriculture show that, on average, a farmer incurs a cost of approximately Rs. 590 to 800 per month during a typical cultivation period due to exposure to pesticides. It is shown that the value of average loss in earnings per farmer for the ‘hospitalised’ sample is Rs. 475 per month, while it is approximately Rs. 345 per month for the ‘general’ farmers group during a typical cultivation season. However, the average willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid exposure to pesticides is approximately Rs. 950 and Rs. 620 for ‘hospitalised’ and ‘general’ farmers’ samples respectively. The estimated percentage contribution for WTP due to health costs, lost earnings, mitigating expenditure, and disutility are 29, 50, 5 and 16 per cent respectively for hospitalised farmers, while they are 32, 55, 8 and 5 per cent respectively for ‘general’ farmers. It is also shown that given market imperfections for most agricultural inputs, farmers are overusing pesticides with the expectation of higher future returns. This has led to an increase in inefficiency in farming practices which is not understood by the farmers. Third, it is found that various groundwater depletion studies in the economics literature have provided misleading optimal water extraction quantity levels. This is due to a failure to incorporate all production costs in the relevant models. It is only by incorporating quality changes to quantity deterioration, that it is possible to derive socially optimal levels. Empirical results clearly show that the benefits per hectare per month considering both the avoidance costs of deepening agro-wells by five feet from the existing average, as well as the avoidance costs of maintaining the water salinity level at 1.8 (mmhos/Cm), is approximately Rs. 4,350 for farmers in the Anuradhapura district and Rs. 5,600 for farmers in the Matale district.

Corporate, risk, mining camps and knowledge/power

Australia is currently in the midst of a major resources boom. However the benefits from the boom are unevenly distributed, with state governments collecting billions in royalties, and mining companies billions in profits. The costs are borne mostly at a local level by regional communities on the frontier of the mining boom, surrounded by thousands of men housed in work camps. The escalating reliance on non–resident workers housed in camps carries significant risks for individual workers, host communities and the provision of human services and infrastructure. These include rising rates of fatigue–related death and injuries, rising levels of alcohol–fuelled violence, illegally erected and unregulated work camps, soaring housing costs and other costs of living, and stretched basic infrastructure undermining the sustainability of these towns. But these costs have generally escaped industry, government and academic scrutiny. This chapter directs a critical gaze at the hopelessly compromised industry–funded research vital to legitimating the resource sector’s self–serving knowledge claims that it is committed to social sustainability and corporate responsibility. The chapter divides into two parts. The first argues that post–industrial mining regimes mask and privatise these harms and risks, shifting them on to workers, families and communities. The second part links the privatisation of these risks with the political economy of privatised knowledge embedded in the approvals process for major resource sector projects.

When to pull the plug and when to take the plunge : timing strategic decisions about new ventures

It is not uncommon for firms to explore a new venture under the belief it will generate profits, only to find out later that although costs accumulated, profits did not materialize. To manage the high level of uncertainty involved in this process, new ventures are generally designed as vehicles of exploration (Wu, 2012) that allow for a staged investment of resources, starting with small initial investments that can be scaled up or discontinued as uncertainty is resolved over time (Folta, 1998; Li and Chi, 2013). As such, new ventures provide firms a vehicle by which they can probe an uncertain future (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997) without fully committing early on to an irreversible course of action (Folta, Johnson, and O’Brien, 2006). Our focus in the present paper is on the timing of strategic decisions that firms make regarding their exploration ventures. Prior research in the fields of entrepreneurship, real options reasoning, and decision speed has demonstrated a link between the timing of making decisions and performance (Baum and Wally, 2003; Eisenhardt, 1989; Judge and Miller, 1991). The antecedents to the timing of decisions, however, are less understood and pose an interesting dilemma.