The economic viability of farming in Saskatchewan is eroding and the future of the industry is becoming uncertain given the current economic state. The combination of low commodity prices, increasing input and transportation costs, ongoing drought conditions, inadequate safety net programs, and environmental concerns resulting from agricultural greenhouse gas emissions has led to this uncertainty. One possible solution for producers to help overcome or at least minimize the negative trends occurring in agriculture, which is proposed, is afforestation of agricultural land. Afforestation not only provides net private benefits of timber income but external benefits, including carbon sequestration, and preservation of native forests, which provides areas for hunting, wildlife viewing, and conservation of land. The economic efficiency of afforestation was examined using a transitional benefit cost framework for both crop and pasture systems. This allowed for both private and social perspectives, along with the opportunity costs, to be included and the economic efficiency of afforestation from each perspective was determined. The potential conversion of agricultural land to afforestation was based solely on economic efficiency and assumed producers demonstrated an economically rational decision making process. The results from the benefit cost analysis indicated that the net private benefits from afforestation were never significant enough to warrant the conversion of either crop or pasture systems to afforestation. The results did however show that the net social benefits from afforestation would warrant the conversion of crop systems to afforestation for a limited number of situations. Crop systems on physically marginal land with a carbon payment of either $22.58 or $33.55 tonne of C would warrant conversion to afforestation, using either a single or infinite rotation. The infinite rotation resulted in a larger allocation of land to afforestation. The role afforestation can play in helping producers diversify and increase income levels is limited. The low price paid for timber and the high costs of establishment for afforestation are the main constraints. In order for afforestation to become economically efficient on a large scale the constraints facing producers needs to be addressed.

With the development of the economy in today’s business world, competitiveness became more important than ever before in every sector. How to keep advantages during global trade and survive the strong competitive environment has become an issue which multinational enterprises also have to face. Outsourcing occurred under these circumstances. This study has integrated outsourcing theories and the empirical study aims to analyses the method and strategy to combining sustainable quality with cost reduction through outsourcing. This study was done in the context of outsourcing  from Sweden to China. Ergorapido of Electrolux is the example-case study used to investigate methods in both cost reduction and quality control. The data was collected by questionnaires, interviews and tele-conference interviews. The paper found that outsourcing has three stages. The first stage is the assessment of the motivations and risks associated with the process of outsourcing. The second stage is the decision making process involved in outsourcing and the arrangement of the outsourcing. The third stage is the management of the relationship with suppliers. Furthermore, both of the participants can benefit from outsourcing no matter whether it is the OEM supplier or the outsourced supply company. Electrolux is a famous company which is successful as a result of outsourcing. All Swedish share enterprises, whether small, medium or large, share the same domestic and international trade climate. If Electrolux can successfully outsource on a global basis,  so can they.

Worldwide, rural road networks serve a vital link in the chain leading goods to markets and people to places. The efficiency of rural road network services is influenced by road-related investment and policy decisions. Reaching good decisions, however, is complicated by: interrelationships among policy, investment, road use, road performance, and rural economies; and combinatorial challenges involving the distribution of discrete policy and investment arrangements across networks.</p><p>The main objective of this study is to address this complex problem as it pertains to rural road networks in Saskatchewan. Rural roads in Saskatchewan are suffering under increasing volumes of heavy truck traffic motivated principally by recent changes in the grain handling and transportation system. To address this problem, Saskatchewan Department of Highways and Transportation is considering a range of haul policy and road structure investment options. The question is, what (spatial) arrangement of available policy and investment options best meets this challenge. </p><p>To answer this question, a cost-based standard is incorporated within a network design modeling approach and solved using custom algorithmic strategies. Applied to a case study network, the model determines a demonstrably good arrangement of costly road structure modifications under each considered policy option. Resulting policy-investment combinations are subsequently ranked according to total cost and equivalent net benefit standards. </p><p>A number of important findings emerge from this analysis. Policy and investment decisions are linked; spatial arrangement of road structure modifications is contingent on the haul policy regime in place. Road performance and use characteristics are indeed sensitive to policy and investment decisions. Optimal budget levels computed by the model contradict perceptions that rural road networks in Saskatchewan are grossly under-funded. Despite best intentions, ill-considered policy can actually reduce the net benefits of road provision and use. </p><p> Model application and design limitations suggest promising avenues for future research. These include: model larger networks in Saskatchewan and beyond; determine optimal road budgets under benefit-cost standards reflecting competing economic needs; employ model within regional economic planning investigations to forecast road-related implications; and model policy endogenously to aid design of heavy haul sub-networks and to address questions concerning network expansion or contraction.

Study objectives and significance Generally, patients go to hospitals or clinical offices for seeking health care service. However, some studies reveal that old patient or those who have disability would get hurt and expose in some dangerous situation, such as falls and infection. As the reasons, the rehabilitation delivery model, which sends the service to patients¡¦ community, is needed. The community delivering-rehabilitation model that this study focuses on integrates hospital center and retirement home. This study is to compare the community delivering-rehabilitation model and general delivery model that patients go to hospital for rehabilitation service. Data and methods In one-year study duration from Nov. 1, 2002 to Oct. 31, 2003, the Barthel Index score from two delivery models were collected every 3 months. On the other hand, patients¡¦ rehabilitation costs were collected once 3 months, too. The study unit is individual unit. Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) was used here to be a standard comparing tool. CEA was computed by dividing the cost that patient spent in 3 months into the Barthel Index score which patient improved his functional status. Independent variables include environmental factors and structural factors The Environment factors include rehabilitation delivery model and the patient-therapist ratio. Structural factors include chain-affiliation status, instrumental volume and status. The General Estimating Equation was used here for comparing longitudinal dependent data. Results The study reveals that environmental factors and structural factors affect the performance of rehabilitation units. Environmental factors positively affect the rehabilitation effect. Structural factors negatively affect the rehabilitation effect. On the other hand, Environmental factors positively affect the rehabilitation efficiency. Structural factors negatively affect the rehabilitation efficiency. Conclusion and the project¡¦s relevance to public health The community delivering-rehabilitation model has better rehabilitation effect, but on the aspect of efficiency, is not as good as general delivery model. However, the community delivering-rehabilitation model has good accessibility to patient. It also concerns patient safety. If the model can improve its efficiency, the promotion of health can be further implied in community delivering-rehabilitation model.

ABSTRACT Owing to the negative effect from ¡§Internet Bubbling¡¨, electronic commerce doesn¡¦t seem to be prosperous like before. But relevant researches indicate that ¡§Internet ticket agency¡¨ will be the most profitable business in e-commerce in the future. As a result, this thesis wants to study the operation of the Internet ticket agencies in Taiwan. Collecting related documents and interviewing ticket agencies in order to understand the real operation situation of ticket agencies in Taiwan. Then discuss the impact of Internet on the ticket industry. Utilizing Williamson¡¦s transaction cost economics, this thesis analyzes the transaction cost between traditional and Internet ticket agencies. And concluding six topics below from these observations and analyses: 1. There is a serious impact of the Internet on the ticket price structure, and reduces the profits of ticket providers. 2. Internet ticket agencies must provide more value-added service in order to attract more customers. 3. Self-conducting Internet personal ticket distributor will withdraw from the market. 4. Air companies will expand the existent alliances relationship on Internet ticket market, and have dominant competitive advantage on personal ticket selling. 5. Internet ticket agencies will cooperate with other companies from different industry. 6. The Internet technology will not be the key factor of competitive advantage.

As WWW service grow up rapidly and becomes the most popular information system on the internet, web site owner invest heavily to improve the performance of web server. And, because of the 'Server Farm' architecture comes real, web server performance breaks the limit of single server, which directly cause server performance improvement. All these factors raise the cost of website performance measurement program to catch up server performance. Besides, because of dynamic webpage and database linkage are applied widely in production environment. HTTP requests (for example, sessions) with state and identifications increase rapidly. Traditional Web Benchmarking methods are out of date and not supporting these new transaction models. Also, traditional benchmarking methodologies only provide the max/average values for overview, which can not properly describe the performance of the websites with massive dynamic webpages. All these problems shows the traditional benchmarking methodologies are not sufficient for today's technologies. In this paper, we have designed and implemented a configurable and cost-effective website performance measurement program against these problems. We introduced the concept of 'workload', and pre-design detailed HTTP request table, where time, contains, and HTTP commands to use can be assigned. Also we use configurable and replaceable design of open modules and divide the major modules into workload generator, load generator and report generator. These modules can be even separated into three independent programs, which makes this benchmark program become more flexible and adaptive to fit new technologies without adjusting the kernel. We also introduced the concept of 'Virtual User' to describe a real user behavior. We could keep the HTTP state and identification by automatic reply via cookie and assigning user identification in the same process. To increase the efficiency, each load generator can do self-diagnostics and quantify the measurements, and properly reassign the workloads by the value returned by the system. These makes every load generator do everything it could, and not been halted by the low-speed machine. And we can also prevent the mis-measurement by overloading. From the result of the experience, our design can describe the web server performance and load changes by time. We can also compare it to request category and URL, to show the root of causes and time basis to administrator. Overall, our web benchmarking methodology shows the strength to traditional web benchmarking methods.

Animation is a powerful teaching tool. Ideas can be expressed through animation using only a fraction of the time needed with conventional teaching methods [John Halas 1987]. In short, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, educational budgets rarely allow for the expensive time-consuming task that animation entails. This thesis tackles the challenge of creating substantial quality educational animation using limited time, labor and money resources. A National Science Foundation sponsored planetarium show on lightning will be used as a demonstration project to document the techniques employed and results achieved. Anyone interested in reducing costs can reference this thesis for insight on what or what not to implement in their own production process.

Clamshell dredges are used around the United States for both navigational and environmental dredging projects. Clamshell dredges are extremely mobile and can excavate sediment over a wide range of depths. The object of this thesis is to develop a methodology for production and cost estimation for clamshell dredge projects. There are current methods of predicting clamshell dredge production which rely on production curves and constant cycle times. This thesis calculates production estimation by predicting cycle time which is the time required to complete one dredge cycle. By varying the cycle time according to site characteristics production can be predicted. A second important component to predicting clamshell dredge production is bucket fill factor. This is the percent of the bucket that will fill with sediment depending on the type of soil being excavated. Using cycle time as the basis for production calculation a spreadsheet has been created to simplify the calculation of production and project cost. The production calculation also factors in soil type and region of the United States. The spreadsheet is capable of operating with basic site characteristics, or with details about the dredge, bucket size, and region. Once the production is calculated the project cost can be determined. First the project length is found by dividing the total amount of sediment that is to be excavated by the production rate. Once the project length is calculated the remainder of the project cost can be found. The methods discussed in this thesis were used to calculate project cost for 5 different projects. The results were then compared to estimates by the government and the actual cost of the project. The government estimates were an average of 39% higher than the actual project cost. The method discussed in this thesis was only 6% higher than the actual cost.

This dissertation investigates the sluggish adjustment process of dividend payment in the stock market. First, I focus on the individual stocks. A casual investigation of observed dividends for individual stocks shows dividend adjustments are sluggish and discrete; this is not consistent with the Lintner??s stylized fact (1956) in which dividend adjustments are assumed to change continuously. Thus, I examine three possible explanations to account for dividend stickiness and discreteness: menu-costs (i.e. a constant adjustment cost), decision-making delays, and dividend adjustment asymmetry. I reject Dixit??s menu-cost model as an appropriate specification for the sluggish adjustment process of dividends. The empirical results imply that decisionmaking delays and dividend adjustment asymmetry might be possible explanations for sticky and discrete dividends on selected individual stocks. Second, I focus on the aggregate stock market. I use a quadratic adjustment cost model to examine whether adjustment costs can explain the slow adjustment of aggregate dividends. The empirical results suggest that adjustment costs might be a significant factor explaining the slow dividend adjustment for S&P 500. The value of relative weigh cost is related to the specification of target dividend. If target dividendsare related to earnings, then the empirical results suggest that the adjustment costs are about forty-fold more important than the deviation cost between the actual dividend and the target level in determining the dynamic dividend adjustment process. If target dividends are specified as proportion to the stock prices, the adjustment costs are about fourteen-fold more important than the deviation cost between actual dividend and target level when managers determine the dividends.

Overfishing of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico has significantly increased lately. A major regulation to reduce the overfishing is Total Allowable Catches (TAC) in combination with a season closure. The restrictions on entry lead to an inefficient outcome, however, because the resource is not used by the fishermen who value it the most. As an alternative to restricting entry, transferable rights (TR) programs are being increasingly considered. Under a TR program, a market is created to trade a right to use a resource and the total benefits of the participants are maximized through such a trade. The principal objective of this dissertation is to comprehensively assess economic and biological consequences of the red snapper fishery for the TR program. To date the literature lacks sufficient discussion of how recreational TR programs would function. I, therefore, propose an economically desirable institutional framework for the TR program in the recreational fishery. I draw some lessons from hunting programs and applications of other TR programs to find better schemes for the TR program in the recreational fishery.This dissertation uses theoretical and empirical models as well as institutional settings to develop the TR program. A theoretical model is provided to investigate which unit of measurement for the TRs is preferable. For empirical models I first estimate an empirically based recreation demand that incorporates TR permit demand and then develop a simulation submodel using the estimated demand. I find price instruments, such as fees or TR programs, are very efficient to reduce fishing trips but they also lead to distributional impacts on trips by low income (or low cost) anglers. Partial simulation results indicate that an efficiency benefit of the TR program would be significant because recreational trip demand in the current closed season is not trivial. I conclude that the TR program in the recreational fishery will economically and biologically provide a great deal of merit to reduce the overfishing situation and a substantial efficiency gain to Gulf anglers. Some institutional barriers, especially from the large transaction cost can also be overcome if electronic systems or the Internet are used.