Access to Information, Transaction Costs and Marketing Choice of Rural Households between Middlemen and Direct Buyers in Bangladesh

This paper assesses the impact of information cost and other transaction costs on rural producers' discrete choice between selling to middlemen and direct buyers, and continuous choice of selling intensity to middlemen and direct buyers. Using transaction costs economics as an analytical framework to decompose the different origins of transaction costs, the paper empirically investigates the impact of transaction costs on farm households' marketing behaviour in the context of Bangladesh. Empirical findings of this paper suggest that access to information in the form of access to telephone and other form of transaction costs play a significant role in producers' marketing behaviour. For information cost, a unit change in distance to telephone increases the probability of choosing direct buyer over middlemen by more than 4 percent and sales to direct buyer by more than 8 percent.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND FACTOR MARKET PARTICIPATION: ADJUSTMENTS OF LAND AND LABOUR MARGINS OF AGRICULTURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN BANGLADESH

This paper assesses the impact of access to information on farm household's factor market participation. The paper tries to answer two questions. First, does use of telephone have any impact on farm household's factor market participation decision? Second, correcting for market participation, does use of telephone have any impact on the type of factor adjustment decision? For the first question, the paper uses a bivariate probit to correct for omitted variable bias and for the second question, the paper uses a two stage probit. Empirical findings of this paper suggest that access to information in the form of use of telephone has significant positive impact on factor market participation. The difference in market participation between telephone users and nonusers is around 14 percent. However, once a household participate in the market, the use of telephone does not have any impact on specific factor market participation.Consumer/Household Economics, Marketing,

Error correction during DNA replication

DNA polymerase (DNAP) is a dual-purpose enzyme that plays two opposite roles in two different situations during DNA replication. It plays its normal role as a {\it polymerase} catalyzing the elongation of a new DNA molecule by adding a monomer. However, it can switch to the role of an {\it exonuclease} and shorten the same DNA by cleavage of the last incorporated monomer from the nascent DNA. Just as misincorporated nucleotides can escape exonuclease causing replication error, correct nucleotide may get sacrificed unnecessarily by erroneous cleavage. The interplay of polymerase and exonuclease activities of a DNAP is explored here by developing a minimal stochastic kinetic model of DNA replication. Exact analytical expressions are derived for a few key statistical distributions; these characterize the temporal patterns in the mechanical stepping and the chemical (cleavage) reaction. The Michaelis-Menten-like analytical expression derived for the average rates of these two processes not only demonstrate the effects of their coupling, but are also utilized to measure the extent of {\it replication error} and {\it erroneous cleavage}.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review E (8 pages, including 6 figures

Template-directed biopolymerization: tape-copying Turing machines

DNA, RNA and proteins are among the most important macromolecules in a living cell. These molecules are polymerized by molecular machines. These natural nano-machines polymerize such macromolecules, adding one monomer at a time, using another linear polymer as the corresponding template. The machine utilizes input chemical energy to move along the template which also serves as a track for the movements of the machine. In the Alan Turing year 2012, it is worth pointing out that these machines are "tape-copying Turing machines". We review the operational mechanisms of the polymerizer machines and their collective behavior from the perspective of statistical physics, emphasizing their common features in spite of the crucial differences in their biological functions. We also draw attention of the physics community to another class of modular machines that carry out a different type of template-directed polymerization. We hope this review will inspire new kinetic models for these modular machines.Comment: Author-edited final version of a review article published in Biophysical Reviews and Letters [copyright World Scientific Publishing Company]; publisher-edited electronic version available at http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S179304801230008

Quality control by a mobile molecular workshop: quality versus quantity

Ribosome is a molecular machine that moves on a mRNA track while, simultaneously, polymerizing a protein using the mRNA also as the corresponding template. We define, and analytically calculate, two different measures of the efficiency of this machine. However, we arugue that its performance is evaluated better in terms of the translational fidelity and the speed with which it polymerizes a protein. We define both these quantities and calculate these analytically. Fidelity is a measure of the quality of the products while the total quantity of products synthesized in a given interval depends on the speed of polymerization. We show that for synthesizing a large quantity of proteins, it is not necessary to sacrifice the quality. We also explore the effects of the quality control mechanism on the strength of mechano-chemical coupling. We suggest experiments for testing some of the ideas presented here.Comment: Final version published in Physical Review

A Sequential Procedure for Testing Unit Roots in the Presence of Structural Break in Time Series Data: An Application to Quarterly Data of Nepal, 1970-2003

Testing for unit roots has special significance in terms of both economic theory and the interpretation of estimation results. as there are several methods available, researchers face method selection problem while conducting the unit root test on time series data in the presence of structural break. this paper proposes a sequential search procedure to determine the best test method for each time series. different test methods or models may be appropriate for different time series. therefore, instead of sticking to one particular test method for all the time series under consideration, selection of a set of mixed methods is recommended for obtaining better results.time series, stationarity, unit root test, structural break, sequential procedure

Financial Liberalization Index for Nepal

A financial liberalization index (FLI) for Nepal is constructed in order to show the degree or the level of financial liberalization at a particular time. FLI is calculated on the basis of principal components method following Demetriades and Luintel (1997), Bandiera, Caprio et al. (2000), Laeven (2003), and Laurenceson and Chai (2003). The index comprises eight policy components, viz, (1) interest rate deregulation (IRD), (2) removal of entry barriers (REB), (3) reduction in reserve requirement (RRR), (4) easing in credit control (ECC), (5) implementation of prudential rules (IPR), (6) stock market reform (SMR), (7) privatization of state-owned banks (PSB), and (8) external account liberalization (EAL). As some of these policy measures have been implemented in phases, the index is designed to take into account their partial and gradual implementation too.Financial Liberalization, Welfare, Employment, Income Distribution, South Asia, Nepal

Monitoring urban growth and land use land cover change in Al Ain, UAE using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Urbanization and industrialization cause a serious land degradation problem, including an increased pressure on natural resources such as deforestation, rise in temperature and management of water resources. The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects of urbanization are widely acknowledged. Increase of impervious surface is a surrogate measure of urbanization and their effects on local hydrology is well reported in literature. This study investigates the spatial-temporal dynamics of land use and land cover changes in Al Ain, UAE, from 2006 to 2016. The Landsat images of two different periods, i.e., Landsat ETM of 2006 and Landsat 8 for 2016 were acquired from earth explorer site. Semi-supervised known as the hybrid classification method was used for image classification. The change detection was carried out through post-classification techniques. The study area was categorized into five major classes. These are agriculture, gardens, urban, sandy areas and mixed urban/sandy areas. It was observed that agricultural and urban land increases from 42,560 ha to 45,950 ha (8%) and 8150 ha to 9105 ha (12%), respectively. Consequently, the natural sandy area was reduced. It was also found that the urban area was expanded dramatically in the west and southwest directions. The outcomes of this study would help concerning authorities for a sustainable land and water resources management in the Al Ain region