Over the last thirty years, intermodal freight transportation has been a constantly expanding sector. The vast increase of freight volumes contributes to the increase of various issues in the freight corridors as well as the urban environment. The deterioration of congestion in the urban environment and the increase on freight movements on the highways have resulted in the increase of emissions. For this reason, new policies and regulations are put forth to address the environmental effects of freight transportation. This study deals with the intermodal freight network design problem from the shipping company's perspective, aiming to simultaneously minimize emission levels and cost of freight transportation. We propose a mathematical model for optimizing the design of an intermodal freight network and the location of intermodal hubs between the origins and the destinations, under delivery time constraints. The goal is to identify the mode choice patterns considering transport cost and emissions, and the effects of new emission regulations on network costs. We consider a network with marine terminals as the origins, inland intermodal terminals as the hubs, and fulfillment centers as the destinations. Numerical experiments highlight that the proposed model can provide useful insights to the shipper. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil Engineering, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Bibliography: leaves 194-197. / by Sergio Rodolfo Jara Diaz. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil Engineering, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING / Bibliography: leaves 180-184. / by Shaw-er Judy Wang Chiang. / Ph.D.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第19286号 / 工博第4083号 / 新制||工||1630(附属図書館) / 32288 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 小林 潔司, 教授 谷口 栄一, 准教授 松島 格也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第20004号 / 農博第2188号 / 新制||農||1044(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H28||N5013(農学部図書室) / 33100 / 京都大学大学院農学研究科生物資源経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 福井 清一, 教授 伊藤 順一, 教授 水野 広祐 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Household food budgets offer a window on consumers' demand for convenience. During the 1980s and 1990s, three shifts likely promoted an increase in the share of the food budget devoted to convenient meal options, namely meals out and prepared foods: the growing number of hours that women spent in paid work, the growing opportunity cost of women's time spent doing housework, and the drop in the price of food relative to all other goods. I test whether the impact of these economic trends (on food budget allocation) was mediated by a change in the impact of children on household meal allocation. I find support for this hypothesis in a model of food away expenditures, which likely reflects two unmeasured shifts. First, (own) child care and household production of meals apparently became substitutes rather than complements. Second, a range of both prepared foods and family-friendly restaurants became available. The growing demand for time-saving meal options, including frozen food and meals out, has important implications for a core determinant of living standards: the ability to harness scale economies from home production of meals. I test whether greater reliance on convenient meals reduced household-level economies of scale. Other factors could mediate against, or even offset such a loss, including technological advances in the production and distribution of food. Using Engel curve analyses, I find that scale economies fell from 1980 to 2000, thereby reducing living standards; my lower- and upper-bound estimates of the drop are 44 percent and 110 percent respectively. Economies of scale are not simply a function of household size and composition, as standard equivalence scaling techniques suggest; they are affected by the ways that households trade non-market work and market substitutes. This dissertation contributes to the small literature that challenges the validity of fixed-parameter equivalence scales, such as the per capita scale, which ignore household production. I first attach plausible values to scale parameters and then compare equivalent-income trajectories of parents and non-parents across (standard) fixed parameter and (non-standard) time-varying equivalence scales. I present plausible lower- and upper-bound estimates of the rise in income inequality between parents and non-parents.

本研究採用Translog多產品成本函數與要素份額方程式，組成一個二要素投入(勞動與其他支出)與二產出(經紀業務與其他收益業務)之聯立估計模型，利用1999年至2003年共五年度108家資料齊全之專營期貨商混合橫斷面與時間序列資料，運用實證方法採用近似無關迴歸估模型，以反覆近似無關迴歸估計方式，估計台灣專營期貨商成本函數之參數估計值，並進一步計算出射線與產品別規模經濟指標與多樣化經濟指標，來探討台灣專營期貨商整體產業及個別業務之規模與多樣化經濟。 實證結果發現，在規模經濟方面，射線與產品別規模經濟指標之估計值均具有1%的統計顯著性，且皆小於1，表示台灣專營期貨商無論是整體產出或個別產出均具有規模經濟的特性，此隱含台灣專營期貨商享有規模經濟，亦即平均成本將隨產出之增加而有逐漸下降的趨勢。再進一步對台灣專營期貨商經營規模大小來作分析，其結果發現：無論是射線規模經濟值或各產品別規模經濟值均與台灣專營期貨商之規模大小無明顯的關聯。而在多樣化經濟方面，經紀業務與其他收益業務兩項業務具有弱成本互補性，因此，經紀業務與其他收益業務兩項業務間具有多樣化經濟之特性。 根據上述實證結果，針對主管機關、台灣期貨交易所及期貨業者，本研究分別提出相關建議如下： 一、主管機關：主管機關應在許可的範圍下，考量市場風險管理，逐步 放寬國內外法人進行期貨交易之相關限制（如僅能從事避險交易 等），並參考國外期貨市場交易與發展經驗，使台灣專營期貨商 之業務種類及範圍能夠進一步擴大，促使產出更為多元，進一步擴 大整體市場規模。 二、台灣期貨交易所：隨著金融國際化的腳步，如何使台灣期貨交易所 所推出之商品成為全球交易的標的，並藉以協助台灣專營期貨商開 拓全球化市場，擴大其經紀業務及其他收益之產出水準（如受託買 賣、交易顧問、財務操作收益等）及整體市場規模，乃為台灣期貨 交易所的一項重要課題。 三、期貨業者：由於台灣專營期貨商在經紀業務和其他收益業務間具有 多樣化經濟之特性，所以，期貨業者在經紀業務手續費不斷下降的 狀況下，應可藉由發展期貨顧問業務，提供高附加價值的期貨交易 服務，吸引期貨交易人至該期貨商從事期貨交易，並提升受託結算 客戶比重，藉以擴大產出水準，獲取最大的利潤。

Aciphylla species (wild spaniard/speargrass) are an iconic component of the Australasian high country flora, but their reproductive system is enigmatic. They are insect-pollinated dioecious mast seeders (synchronous highly variable seed production), which seems maladaptive. The resource supply to pollinators is highly variable, yet dioecious plants are dependent on pollinators, and dioecious masting requires male and female plants to flower synchronously. Floral display in Aciphylla is relatively large, with tall inflorescences bearing thousands of flowers, suggesting that plants would not have the resources to produce such large stalks every year. But why do they have such huge inflorescences in the first place? I tested whether pollinator attraction is providing an economy of scale which favours intermittent production of very large inflorescences, by manipulating floral display size during a high-flowering year and measuring insect visitation rates and seed set (female reproductive success). Using space-for-time substitution and selective removal of male inflorescences, I also tested whether female seed set was affected by distance to flowering male plants (i.e. changes in local pollen availability) to see if flowering asynchrony would reduce pollination success. Bags were used to exclude pollination by insects and test for wind pollination, and hand pollination was done to test for pollen limitation. Insect surveys suggest that Aciphylla has a generalist pollination system (to avoid satiating a specialist pollinator during 'mast' years'). Male inflorescences received significantly more visits than females, and some seeds were set inside bags (although only 20-30%), suggesting wind pollination may occur at low levels. Seed set rate was higher for taller inflorescences with greater flowering length in A. aurea but tall inflorescences with excess flowers led to a decrease in seed set rates in A. scott-thomsonii. Hand pollination significantly increased seed set rates although these effects were not as large as expected (e.g. 10% increases from natural to hand-pollinated inflorescences were typical). There was no evidence for resource limitation in any species. Female plants in dense flowering populations had higher seed set rates, and individual floral display size in females was particularly important when females were 'isolated' from males. Insect visitation rates were generally higher on inflorescences with a larger floral display, suggesting that display size is important for pollinator attraction. Overall, these results suggest that the pollinator-attraction benefits of such a large floral display (at both the plant and population level) are possibly providing an economy of scale, although the relative effects are small.

Much of industry is seeking scope economies, but this requires more complex and flexible product realisation. Modelling technologies have potential to support the life cycle engineering of both Economies of Scope and Scale (EoSS) manufacturing systems. However when companies operate in dynamic environments it is not sufficient to model manufacturing systems in isolation. Rather a holistic modelling methodology is needed which can create structural and behavioural models of dependencies between the manufacturing systems, and the business and engineering environments in which they operate; so that a suitable balance between economies of scope and scale can be achieved. This thesis describes the conception and development of a step wised Extended Modelling Methodology (EMM) which facilitates reasoning, and related decision making, about EoSS manufacturing systems. The EMM was conceived from exploratory research in two SMEs, following which it was applied and case tested in a large manufacturing company. Little academic attention to date has been paid to theorising about the link between ‘Economies of Scope and Scale (EoSS) phenomenon' and ‘manufacturing systems design'. Hence many questions about EoSS manufacturing remain unanswered, such as: (1) academic communities need to know what EoSS actually means and how state-of-the-art modelling can support qualitative and quantitative analysis of EoSS system phenomenon; and (2) industry needs to know how they can benefit from EoSS, what attended costs they might incur, and what best balance between scope and scale economies can be achieved. With these general requirements in mind the thesis reports on the conception and industrial application of the EMM. This has: (A) developed new ideas about EoSS, which can be used to characterise EoSS phenomenon; (B) introduced a new way of visualising architectural aspects of EoSS at multiple-levels of abstraction; and (C) with reference to case studies has illustrated the use of multi-level modelling to enable predictions to be made about EoSS benefits and costs.

Este trabalho procurou analisar o sistema produtivo da atividade leiteira em Minas Gerais, identificando a capacidade dos produtores em permanecer no negócio, a longo prazo, através da estimação da função custo translogarítmica. O estudo demonstrou que os produtores analisados ainda praticam altos custos por unidade produzida, sugerindo baixa eficiência dos estabelecimentos e falhas na administração do empreendimento. Os resultados econométricos revelam a possibilidade de ganhos de escala, no que se refere à alocação e melhor aproveitamento dos recursos, ou seja, as propriedades apresentam economias de escala. No entanto, retornos crescentes de escala não são compatíveis com a existência de mercados competitivos, sinalizando que os produtores enfrentam restrições geradas pelas imperfeições de mercado. O conhecimento dessas imperfeições é essencial à formulação de políticas econômicas e de organizações privadas que visem ao desenvolvimento econômico deste mercado, que atualmente é o sexto maior do mundo. Além disso, os resultados das elasticidades mostram que o produtor é mais sensível às variações de preços na mão-de-obra do que às variações nos demais fatores, reduzindo em maior proporção o uso do trabalho na produção, à medida que seu preço aumenta. Isto evidencia a principal característica regional da produção leiteira no país, que é o uso intensivo do fator trabalho. Também foi identificado que o os medicamentos, alimentos e energia, denominados no estudo de fator dispêndio, são os mais difíceis é o mais difícil de serem substituídos na produção, devido às particularidades no uso dos componentes deste insumo. Por fim, os valores positivos encontrados para as elasticidades parciais de substituição de Allen confirmam a substitutibilidade entre os fatores. / This study analyzes the production system of dairy farming in Minas Gerais, identifying the ability of producers to stay in business in the long run, by estimating the translog cost function. The study showed that the producers still have high costs per unit, suggesting low efficiency of facilities and mismanagement of the enterprise. The econometric results show the existence of economies of scale in relation to allocation and better utilization of resources. However, increasing returns to scale are not compatible with the existence of competitive markets, indicating that producers face constraints generated by market imperfections. Knowledge of these shortcomings is essential to the formulation of economic policies and private organizations that address the economic development of this market, which is currently the sixth largest in the world. In addition, the results show that elasticities of the producer is more sensitive to price changes in labor than to changes in other factors, reducing the use of a higher proportion of labor in production, as its price increases. This highlights the main feature of the regional dairy production in the country, which is the intensive use of labor. The study has also identified that the use of selected inputs, such as medication, food and energy, identified in the study as expense factor, are the most difficult to replace due to peculiarities in the use of components of this material. Finally, the positive values founds for the partial Allen elasticities of substitution confirm the substitutability between factors.