Smallholder farmers' efficiency has been measured by different scholars using different approaches. Both parametric and non-parametric approaches have been applied; each presenting unique results in some ways. The parametric approach uses econometric approaches to make assumptions about the error terms in the data generation process and also impose functional forms on the production functions. The nonparametric approaches neither impose any functional form nor make assumptions about the error terms. The bottom line of both approaches is to determine efficiency in production. In this study a parametric stochastic frontier approach is used to assess technical, allocative and economic efficiency from a sample of smallholder maize producers of Chongwe District, Zambia. This approach was chosen based on the fact that production among this group of farmers varies a great deal, and so the stochastic frontier attributes part of the variations to the random errors (which reflects measurement errors and statistical noise) and farm specific efficiency. Using a Cobb-Douglas frontier production function which exhibits self dual characteristics, technical efficiency scores for the sample of the smallholder maize producers are derived. With the parameter estimates(âi) obtained from the Cobb-Douglas stochastic production frontier, input prices (âi) and taking advantage of the self dual characteristics of the Cobb-Douglas, a cost function is derived. This forms the basis for calculating the farmers' allocative and economic efficiency. Results obtained from the study showed considerable technical, allocative and economic inefficiencies among smallholder maize producers. Technical Efficiency (TE) estimates range from 40.6 percent to 96.53 percent with a mean efficiency of 78.19 percent, while Allocative Efficiency (AE) estimates range from 33.57 to 92.14 percent with a mean of 61.81. The mean Economic Efficiency (EE) is 47.88 percent, with a minimum being 30 percent and a maximum of 79.26 percent. The results therefore indicate that inefficiency in maize production in Chongwe District is dominated by allocative and economic inefficiency. Additionally, in the two stage regression households characteristics: age; sex; education level; occupation; years in farming; land ownership; household size; access to extension and access to credit services; are regressed against technical efficiency scores using a logit function. Results obtained shows that land ownership, access to credit services, access to extension services, land ownership and education level of up to post primary (secondary and tertiary) have a positive influence on the households' technical efficiency. On the other hand, age of the household head; female headed household and lack of education (though not statistically significant at any confidence level) have a negative influence on this group of maize producers. In a similar two stage regression, access to extension services, membership to producer organisation, access to credit and disaster experienced on the farm such as floods, drought and hail, are regressed against AE. The result shows that access to extension services, access to credit services, membership to cooperatives and natural calamities affect AE. Results therefore show that there is a great deal of both allocative and economic inefficiency among smallholder maize farmers than there is technical inefficiency. To address these inefficiencies observed there is need to design policies that will ensure that environmental (e.g. poor land practices which lead to nutrient depletion from the soils), economic (e.g. high transport cost due to poor road infrastructure) and institutional issues (access to credit) are addressed. In other words, Government should help create credit facilities to provide affordable loans to this group of farmers. Additionally, there is need to improve extension systems to help educate farmers about better farming practices and other innovative technologies to further improve their efficiency in production. Issues of land ownership among this group of farmers needs to be addressed as this will not only raise confidence but will also ensure that their cost of production is reduced since there will be no need for payment of rental charges, and that farmers will adhere to good farming practices knowing they own title to land. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

Parmi les 500 plus grandes entreprises mondiales, une sur cinq est chinoise. En 2014, 94 entreprises chinoises figuraient parmi les leaders mondiaux en R&D. La Chine est, depuis 2016, le premier acquéreur d’entreprises étrangères et vise désormais des entreprises de haute-technologie.Ces éléments nous questionnent sur le positionnement technologique des entreprises chinoises. Penser ce thème nous oblige à revenir sur leurs conditions d’émergence. A la lecture du modèle dominant du rattrapage technologique (Kim, 1997), la Chine est passée par trois grandes phases: une période d’acquisition des technologies étrangères suite à l’ouverture du pays en 1978, une période d’assimilation des technologies et d’assemblage et manufacture de produits de plus en plus complexes, et une période d’intégration qui leur permet de faire de nouvelles propositions de produits grâce à la reconfiguration et amélioration des technologies existantes.L’hypothèse qui guide notre recherche est que les entreprises sont désormais dans la dernière phase du rattrapage et sont entrées dans une période de transition vers le leadership technologique. Cela nous amène à poser deux questions. A quoi fait-on référence lorsqu’on parle d’innovation en Chine aujourd’hui ? Ce thème renvoie de manière plus globale à celui de l’innovation par les pays émergents. Quel chemin reste-t-il à parcourir pour atteindre la frontière technologique ?Nous observons cette transition dans la manière dont les grandes entreprises chinoises s’engagent dans la recherche. L’intégration des technologies émergentes au sein de leurs stratégies de recherche reflète des dynamiques d’apprentissage qui, si elles ne sont pas encore visibles sur le marché, indiquent une dynamique de transition. Nos résultats montrent que la tendance est significative, la moitié des grandes entreprises (48%) s’engage en nanotechnologie. Cela reflète l’arrivée à la frontière technologique des entreprises chinoises, ce qui, nous le soulignons, n’implique pas nécessairement le passage à la frontière sur d’autres dimensions, notamment organisationnelles. Nous montrons également que les trajectoires d’engagement dans la recherche sont variées. Si une partie des entreprises s’engagent dans la recherche sur la base d’un modèle similaire à celui des entreprises américaines ou européennes, d’autres dynamiques sont également à l’œuvre, qui traduisent notamment un héritage historique et une inscription dans le territoire.Pour obtenir ces résultats, nous avons construit une base de données exclusive de 325 larges entreprises industrielles, et observé leur prise de brevets en nanotechnologie, directement ou via leurs filiales, sur la base de sources en anglais et en chinois. / Among the world’s 500 largest firms, one out of five is Chinese. In 2014, 94 Chinese firms were among the world leaders in R&D. Since 2016, China is the first acquirer of foreign firms and is now targeting high-technology firms.These recent developments raise questions about the technological positioning of Chinese firms. Studying this topic requires looking at their conditions of emergence. We can look at China’s development from the perspective of the technological catch-up model (Kim, 1997). China has gone through three phases: a phase of acquisition of foreign technology following the country’s opening in 1978, a period of technological assimilation and production of increasingly complex products, and a period of technological integration characterized by technological improvement and the reconfiguration of existing technologies.The hypothesis we make is that firms are now in the last phase of catch-up, and have entered a period of transition to technology leadership. This leads to two questions. What is Chinese innovation today? This topic broadly refers to innovation in emerging countries. How far are Chinese firms from reaching the technological frontier?We observe the transition through the way major Chinese firms engage in research. The integration of emerging technologies into their research strategies reflect dynamics of technological learning which, if they are not yet visible in the market, indicate a transition. Our results show that the trend is significant, with half of large firms (48%) engaging in nanotechnology research. This proportion indicates that Chinese firms have reached the technological frontier. This, however, does not mean that Chinese firms have reached the frontier in other dimensions, such as the organizational dimension. We also show that there are several modalities of commitment to research. While some large Chine firms engage in research by adopting a model similar to that of American or European firms, other dynamics are at work, which reflect, in particular, their historical legacy, and the impact of their localization.To obtain these results, we have built a unique database of 325 large industrial enterprises, and have looked at their patenting activities in nanotechnology, directly or through their subsidiaries, based on the exploitation of sources in English and Chinese.

Objetiva-se, nesse estudo, analisar os novos processos de modernização que se impõem nos cerrados piauienses produzidos pela presença da agricultura moderna. Tal movimento teve inicio nos anos 1970 com os primeiros projetos agropecuários e de reflorestamentos instalados através de incentivos fiscais e financeiros públicos, mais se consolida somente em meados dos anos 1990 com a ampliação do deslocamento de migrantes sulistas e de empresas do agronegócio para aquela área. Resultou dessa ocupação a apropriação privada de amplas parcelas de terras devolutas dos platôs planos onde havia uso comunitário pela população local, as quais são transformadas em mercadorias valorizadas no mercado imobiliário. As manifestações de mudanças aparecem tanto sobre o espaço agrícola que se altera diante da incorporação dos aparatos da técnica e da ciência tornando-se homogêneos, e sobre o espaço da cidade que ganha novas formas e funcionalidades. Tanto o rural quanto o urbano do sul do Estado do Piauí revelam os processos contraditórios da recente modernização, pois se transformam, simultaneamente, em espaços de produção de riqueza e de manifestação de crises. Ao mesmo tempo em que se anunciam formas inovadoras que aceleram o ritmo de produção e de circulação das mercadorias sob a liderança de empresas globais, evidencia-se a expropriação de levas de camponeses cujas únicas possibilidades disponíveis passam a ser a de venderem sua força de trabalho nas lavouras modernas de grãos em condições de extrema precarização, ou a de se instalarem nas periferias miseráveis das cidades do agronegócio. Acrescenta-se, ainda, como elemento da crise o agravamento das condições de degradação dos ambientes naturais por conta do avanço acelerado das lavouras modernas nos domínios dos gerais, afetando os ecossistemas locais. Busca-se, nesse sentido, apontar que a atual modernização dos cerrados piauienses se faz produzindo descompassos sócio-espaciais. Ela se configura, portanto, como um processo essencialmente excludente. / This study analyzes the new modernization processes raised at the cerrados in Piauí due to modern agriculture. This movement started in the early 1970´s together with the first cattle breeding and reforesting projects developed through state financial and fiscal incentives. These projects only started to consolidate around 1990´s as the displacement of people and agricultural business firms from the south of Brazil (?sulistas?) to Piauí increased. The result of this land occupation was the appropriation of vast plain plateaus escheated lands of communitarian use that turned to be commodities. These lands were valorized by housing market. Signs of these changes appeared both on the agricultural space, transformed by means of applying scientific and technological objects, which turned the space homogeneous, and the city space, that gained new shape and functionalities. Piaui´s southern urban and rural areas reveal contradictory process of this recent modernization, transformed simultaneously into spaces where richness and crisis manifestations are both produced. While innovation accelerating the production rhythm and the circulation of goods under global companies´ leadership is announced, the expropriation of peasants groups stands out. Now their possibilities only depend on selling their task force in the new corporate farming business in extremely hard working conditions or installing themselves at the poor outskirts of this agricultural business related cities. Furthermore, natural environment?s worsening conditions are a result of modern agricultural technology at those gerais. These conditions affect local ecosystems and add up another element to the crisis. In this way we intend to point out that the modernization of the cerrados piauienses is generating a socio-spatial imbalance, which configures itself as an essentially excluding process.

This M.A. thesis examines so-called border stelae in ancient Egypt, as well as the concept of the border. This is done by analysing historical, archaeological and epigraphic data. This thesis con- cludes that the category of the border stela in Egyptological research should be scrapped, as there is only one monument that lives up to this description, namely the year 8 stela of Senusret III dis- covered at the fortress of Semna-West.

This diploma thesis deals with optimization models of financial risks. The first part, which is devoted to the theoretical background, introduces the basic concepts of optimization, modern portfolio theory, fundamental and technical analysis and statistical background. The basic principles of operation of modern portfolio theory are presented. The methods for analysis and selection of assets called Growth at A Reasonable Price and portfolio optimization approach according to Harry Markowitz were used with selected methods. The practical part is focused on the data analysis, selection of assets and design of a portfolio optimization model according to selected conditions with an emphasis on minimizing investment risk. The used models examine the selected data and are solved using the MS Excel add-in Solver version.

MSc (Chemistry) / Department of Chemistry

Low agricultural productivity is a persistent challenge in developing economies. In the first chapter of the dissertation, I study the concurrent but independently implemented expansion of rural roads and extension in Ethiopia to examine how access to markets and technologies affect agricultural productivity. Using geospatial data combined with large surveys and exploiting the staggered roll-out of the two programs, I show that there are strong complementarities between roads and extension. While ineffective in isolation, access to both a road and extension increases productivity. I find that roads and extension improve productivity by facilitating the take up of agricultural advice and modern inputs. Furthermore, households adjust crop choices and shift across occupations in response to their changing comparative advantages in access to markets and technologies. In the second chapter of the dissertation, co-authored with Samuel Bazzi and Martin Fiszbein, we study the long-run implications of the American frontier experience for culture and politics. We track the frontier throughout the 1790–1890 period and construct a novel, county-level measure of total frontier experience (TFE). Historically, frontier locations had distinctive demographics and greater individualism. Long after the closing of the frontier, counties with greater TFE exhibit more pervasive individualism and opposition to redistribution. We provide suggestive evidence on the roots of frontier culture: selective migration, an adaptive advantage of self-reliance, and perceived opportunities for upward mobility through effort. Overall, our findings shed new light on the frontiers persistent legacy of rugged individualism. In the third chapter of the dissertation, I use plant level census data to examine the effects of two policies designed to support prioritized sub-sectors and regions on the productivity of the Ethiopian manufacturing sector. The first policy, implemented during 1996-2002, was an activist industrial policy favoring import substitution while the second policy, active during 2003-2012, emphasized export promotion. I find that there is severe misallocation in Ethiopian manufacturing sector, but it has subsided over the studied period. The results suggest that the priority sector support policies have exacerbated the misallocation, and the within-sector variations of the policies largely account for the dispersion in revenue productivity.

Innovation efficiency is a key factor influencing the position of high-tech industries in the global value chain. Through stochastic frontier analysis, innovation efficiency of China's high-tech industry from 2000 to 2016 was estimated and analyzed. Through five random frontier analysis models, innovation efficiency of new product sales revenue and number of patent applications are analyzed. Results show that the overall level of innovation efficiency in China's high-tech industry is not high. Government subsidies for innovation have a positive impact on the R&D results of new product income from China’s high-tech industry, but have a negative impact on the number of patent applications. Scale of enterprise, degree of openness of enterprise, quality of the labor force and export delivery have a positive impact on innovation efficiency of China's high-tech industry. R&D capital stock and R&D human capital stock have a positive effect on high-tech industry innovation. In high-tech industry's transition from patents to new products, there will be a low conversion rate. Results of economic analysis can help the government to make the basis for management decisions. Conclusion of innovation performance analysis provides practical normative guidance for these high-tech industries.

This dissertation is an attempt to give a picture of the Nevada frontier journalist Samuel L. Clemens and the surroundings in which he worked. It is also an assessment of the extent to which Clemens (and his alter ego Twain) can be considered a serious journalist and the extent to which he violated the very principles he championed.

"The purpose of this paper is to present the life and works of Laura Ingalls Wilder with special attention paid to those influences that have given her work an enduring quality and to give a critical evaluation of her work as found in reviews written by experts in the field of children's literature"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1955." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-57).