Comparison of Corn Production Costs in China,the U.S. and Brazil and Its Implications

This paper analyzes the corn production cost in China, the U.S. and Brazil from 1997 to 2014. According to the results,（1） corn production cost in China is the highest among these three countries;（2） the rapid growth of labor cost and land cost is the major factor that promotes the increase of total corn production cost in China;（3） the level of agricultural mechanization in China has been gradually improving, and the gap between agricultural mechanization levels in China and other two countries is constantly narrowing;（4） differing from the U.S. and Brazil,China exhibits a ＂high input, low output＂ agricultural production mode. Based on the above analyses, corresponding suggestions have been presented to reduce corn production cost in China.

Photodynamic therapy vs radiofrequency ablation for Barrett's dysplasia: Efficacy,safety and cost-comparison

AIM:To compare effectiveness,safety,and cost of photodynamic therapy(PDT)and radiofrequency ablation(RFA)in treatment of Barrett’s dysplasia(BD).METHODS:Consecutive case series of patients undergoing either PDT or RFA treatment at single center by a single investigator were compared.Thirty-three patients with high-grade dysplasia(HGD)had treatment with porfimer sodium photosensitzer and 630 nm laser(130 J/cm),with maximum of 3 treatment sessions.Fifty-three patients with BD(47 with low-grade dysplasia-LGD,6 with HGD)had step-wise circumferential and focal ablation using the HALO system with maximum of 4 treatment sessions.Both groups received proton pump inhibitors twice daily.Endoscopic biopsies were acquired at 2 and 12 mo after enrollment,with 4-quadrant biopsies every 1 cm of the original BE extent.A complete histological resolution response of BD(CR-D)was defined as all biopsies at the last endoscopy session negative for BD.Fisher’s exact test was used to assess differences between the two study groups for primary outcomes.For all outcomes,a two-sided P value of less than 0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.RESULTS:Thirty(91%)PDT patients and 39(74%)RFA were men(P=0.05).The mean age was 70.7±12.2 and 65.4±12.7(P=0.10)year and mean length of BE was 5.4±3.2 cm and 5.7±3.2 cm(P=0.53)for PDT and RFA patients,respectively.The CR-D was(18/33)54.5%with PDT vs(47/53)88.7%with RFA(P=0.001).One patient with PDT had an esophageal perforation and was managed with non-surgical measures and no perforation was seen with RFA.PDT was five times more costly than RFA at our institution.The two groups were not randomized and had different BD grading are the limitations of the study.CONCLUSION:In our experience,RFA had higher rate of CR-D without any serious adverse events and was less costly than PDT for endoscopic treatment of BD.

The impacts of U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on the carbon emission space and mitigation cost of China, EU, and Japan under the constraints of the global carbon emission space

Based on the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and scenario analysis, the impacts of the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on the carbon emission space and mitigation cost in China, European Union (EU), and Japan are assessed under Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and 2
C scenarios due to the changed emission pathway of the U.S. The results show that, under the condition of constant global cumulative carbon emissions and a fixed burden-sharing scheme among countries, the failure of the U.S. to honor its NDC commitment to different degrees will increase the U.S. carbon emission space and decrease its mitigation cost. However, the carbon emission space of other parties, including China, EU, and Japan, will be reduced and their mitigation costs will be increased. In 2030, under the 2
C target, the carbon price will increase by 4.4e14.6 US$ t1 in China, by 9.7e35.4 US$ t1 in the EU, and by 16.0e53.5 US$ t1 in Japan. In addition, China, EU, and Japan will incur additional Gross Domestic Production (GDP) loss. Under the 2
C target, the GDP loss of China would increase by US$22.0e71.1 billion (equivalent to 16.4e53.1 US$ per capita), the EU's GDP loss would increase by US$9.4e32.1 billion (equivalent to 20.7e71.1 US$ per capita), and Japan's GDP loss will increase by US$4.1e13.5 billion (equivalent to 34.3e111.6 US$ per capita).

Cost-effectiveness of Crohn's disease post-operative care

AIM: To define the cost-effectiveness of strategies, including endoscopy and immunosuppression, to prevent endoscopic recurrence of Crohn’s disease following intestinal resection.METHODS: In the “POCER” study patients undergoing intestinal resection were treated with post-operative drug therapy. Two thirds were randomized to active care (6 mo colonoscopy and drug intensification for endoscopic recurrence) and one third to drug therapy without early endoscopy. Colonoscopy at 18 mo and faecal calprotectin (FC) measurement were used to assess disease recurrence. Administrative data, chart review and patient questionnaires were collected prospectively over 18 mo.RESULTS: Sixty patients (active care n = 43, standard care n = 17) were included from one health service. Median total health care cost was $6440 per patient. Active care cost $4824 more than standard care over 18 mo. Medication accounted for 78% of total cost, of which 90% was for adalimumab. Median health care cost was higher for those with endoscopic recurrence compared to those in remission [$26347 (IQR 25045-27485) vs $2729 (IQR 1182-5215), P < 0.001]. FC to select patients for colonoscopy could reduce cost by $1010 per patient over 18 mo. Active care was associated with 18% decreased endoscopic recurrence, costing $861 for each recurrence prevented.CONCLUSION: Post-operative management strategies are associated with high cost, primarily medication related. Calprotectin use reduces costs. The long term cost-benefit of these strategies remains to be evaluated.

Strategies for Prioritizing Ecological Construction with Consideration of Agricultural Industry Development in Northern China’s Agro- pastoral Ecotone : A Perspective of Opportunity Cost

In northern China’s agro-pastoral ecotone,there are conflicts between agricultural industry and ecological construction resource competition,and also problems urgently to be solved for economic growth and sustainable ecological improvement.Taking the development concept of"lucid waters and lush mountains being mountains of gold and silver"as the guiding principle of prioritizing ecological and green development,this paper studied the strategies for prioritizing ecological construction with consideration of economic development of agricultural industry from the perspective of opportunity cost.Through the analysis of opportunity cost,externality,and Pareto optimal theory,and using the calculation method of the unit equivalent factor value of terrestrial ecological service function,this paper calculated the ecological service value of forest,grassland,and farmland.It found that the ecological value of forest and grassland per unit area was greater than the ecological value of agricultural industry.This indicates that the opportunity cost of farmland for ecological construction was less than that of agricultural industry.Based on the theoretical and quantitative analysis,it came up with recommendations for establishing a comprehensive system for prioritizing ecological construction with consideration of agricultural industry development and establishing and improving the incentive mechanism of ecological construction.

Study on human resources cost accounting based on standards and general rules

The issue of the new standards for employees＇ salary and general financial rules that include employees＇ salary and relevant expenditures, have a great impact on human resources cost accounting. This paper performs a specialized study on human resources cost and employees＇ salary, accounts setting and accounting treatment for human resources cost accounting, human resources cost report, etc. on the basis of relevant provisions in the new Chinese accounting standards, the general financial rules, international accounting standards, and relevant academic research findings.

Logistics Cost Management Models and Their Usability for Purchasing

In many compames, cost management models are abandoned due to their complexity and because of this, the academic literature has experienced a downturn in publications regarding cost management. This paper deepens the understanding regarding the practical usability of cost management models for purchasing decisions, and provides a framework for determining a desired complexity of cost management in different purchasing environments. The complexity is defined along three dimensions identified in literature and the different purchasing environments stem from an adaptation of Kraljic＇s （1983） matrix.

Supplier Evaluation Model Based on Fuzzy Measures and Choquet Integral

To identify interactions among evaluation criteria and describe their importance,a new identification method making use of a fuzzy measure is presented.The relative weight and interaction degree of every evaluation criteria pair are obtained by using the diamond pairwise comparison method.Based on comparison results,the maximum eigenvector method of analytic hierarchy process （AHP）,the hierarchical clustering method,and the phi（s） transformation are utilized to generate values of the fuzzy measure for each subset of the evaluation criterion set.Overall evaluation on each supplier is aggregated by Choquet integral with respect to the fuzzy measure.Finally,an illustrative example demonstrates the practical feasibility and validity of the proposed method.

Guaranteed cost control for T-S fuzzy systems with time-varying delays

This paper deals with the problem of guaranteed cost control for nonlinear systems with time-varying delays which is represented by Takagi-Sugeno （T-S） fuzzy models with time-varying delays.The derivatives of time-varying delay are not necessary to be bounded.Based on the free weighting matrix method,sufficient conditions for the existence of fuzzy guaranteed cost controller via state feedback are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities （LMIs）.A minimizing method is also proposed to search the suboptimal upper bound of the guaranteed cost function.The results are delay-dependent but contain delay-independent criteria as a special case.A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and less conservativeness of our work.

Optimization of Supplier Switching with Asymmetric Information

The buyer-supplier relationship plays a great role in most economic systems. The buying firm usually tries to find a new supplier who provides products with satisfying quality and lower price. A broad branch of literature deals with the development of buyer-supplier relationships, but limited research is on the circumstances under which a buyer should terminate such a relationship and switch to a new supplier. In this paper, the incentive compatibility constraint (IC) which induces the entrant supplier to report his true cost is considered, and the participation constraint (PC) which ensures the entrant supplier to get at least reservation profit is taken into account. Then the supplier switching model is set up to minimize the buying firm's total procurement cost which includes the transfer payment to the incumbent supplier, the payment to the entrant supplier and the switching cost, and the buying firm's switching cost is considered as a function of the switching quantity. With the theoretical analysis of IC, PC and the proposed model, the optimal supplier switching strategy can be obtained. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and the switching strategy.

Power cost minimization in data centers Via Lyapunov optimization

With the advent of big data,the demand for computing has been increasing in a very large scale for the past decade,so geographically distributed data centers are erected in the direction of cloud computing development. A Lyapunov optimization approach is considered for the problem of minimizing energy cost for distributed Internet data centers( IDCs). By capturing the power cost of servers and cooling systems,the Lyapunov optimization technique is formulated to design a decisive strategy that offers provable power cost minimization and Qo S guarantees. The algorithm performance and effectiveness are validated via simulations driven by real world traces.

TOCO total assessment tool for decision-making on IP supplier selection

According to the Total Cost of Ownership concept (TOCO), the selection criterion of international procurement suppliers can be classified into two levels, namely Macroeconomic decision-making level and Microeconomic decision-making level. In this paper, a new quantitative method is put forward to accomplish the task of total assessment on the Microeconomic level which analyses all of the quantitative and qualitative factors with regard to the supplier selection. A Microsoft Excel based new application kit named TOCO Total Assessment Tool is introduced. It can calculate the direct cost and the indirect cost conveniently and can help to evaluate the performance of candidate suppliers. To use the tool, the first module called Total Cost Analysis Module is introduced to calculate the total cost of supplier selection, and then the second module named Supplier Evaluation Module is used to evaluate the performance of each supplier. Finally, the results from these two modules are transferred to the Final Comparison Module to get the final decision-making results. In this paper, the supplier selection related factors are discussed; the method of using the tool is illustrated in detail. It is shown that scientific usage of the TOCO Total Assessment Tool can make the decision-making processes of supplier selection in international procurement transparent, easily calculated, and objective. At the end, a practical case is given to clarify the procedure of using the tool.

China's Seawater Desalination Plants Produce Megatons Freshwater For Low Cost

China, as many other parts of the world, has a serious shortage of water resources. In China, there is a total amount of 2.8×10^12 m3 of freshwater, but that is only 2000 m3 per capita, which is about one quarter of the world average. Thereforc, seawater desalination engineering is of great significance to the nation.

Test Cost Optimization Using Tabu Search

In order to deliver a complete reliable software product, testing is performed. As testing phase carries on, cost of testing process increases and it directly affects the overall project cost. Many a times it happens that the actual cost becomes more than the estimated cost. Cost is considered as the most important parameter with respect to software testing, in software industry. In recent year’s researchers have done a variety of work in the area of Cost optimization by using various concepts like Genetic Algorithm, simulated annealing and Automation in generation of test data etc. This paper proposes an efficient cost effective approach for optimizing the cost of testing using Tabu Search (TS), which will provide maximum code coverage along with the concepts of Dijkstra’s Algorithm which will be implemented in Aspiration criteria of Tabu Search in order to optimize the cost and generate a minimum cost path with maximum coverage.

Is a Single Product Cost Function Appropriate for Institutions of Higher Education？ Empirical Evidence From China＇s Research Universities＊

Many studies exist in the literature of scale and scope economies in institutions of higher education employing multi-product cost functions of quadratic, constant elasticity substitution （CES）, or hybrid translog form. A single product cost function is normally considered inadequate and yield distorted results. Both quadratic and single product cost functions have been applied to university data from China＇s Ministry of Education （MOE）. This study compares those two methods and their statistical results and finds that ray economies of scale from these two cost functions are quite similar though the single product cost function which can not be used to calculate product-specific economies of scale or economies of scope.

Location Optimization of a Coal Power Plant to Balance Costs against Plant’s Emission Exposure

The goal of the research is to develop a methodology to minimize the public’s exposure to harmful emissions from coal power plants while maintaining minimal operational costs related to electric distribution losses and coal logistics. The objective is achieved by combining EPA Screen3, ISC3 and Japanese METI-LIS model equations with minimum spanning tree (MST) algorithm. Prim’s MST algorithm is used to simulate an electric distribution system and coal transportation pathways. The model can detect emission interaction with another source and estimate the ground level concentrations of emissions up to distances of 25 kilometers. During a grid search, the algorithm helps determine a candidate location, for a new coal power plant, that would minimize the operational cost while ensuring emission exposure is below the EPA/NIOSH thresholds. The proposed methodology has been coded in form of a location analysis simulation. An exhaustive search strategy delivers a final candidate location for a new coal power plant to ensure minimum operational costs as compared to the random or greedy search strategy. The simulation provides a tool to industrial zone planners, environmental engineers, and stakeholders in coal-based power generation. Using operational and emissions perspectives, the tool helps ascertain a list of compromise locations for a new coal power plant facility.

“COST OF GROWTH”:REGIONAL PUBLIC GOODS AND CHINA'S NEIGHBORHOOD DIPLOMACY

China is a growing power.It is an important integral part for realizing the Two Centenary Goals and the Chinese Dream to be upgraded from a regional power to a world power. To this end,the neighborhood is of primary importance and the neighborhood diplomacy consists of an impor-

An Analysis of the Influence of Equipment Reliability on M&S Cost in Multi-theater Deployments

This paper theoretically analyzes the influence of weapon reltability on maintenance and support cost （ M＆S cost） in multi-theater deployments. Based on the M＆S data of typical on-board equipment, it analyzes in depth the M＆S cost in a three-theater deployment scenario with PRICE software and the influence of reliability on M＆S cost. The result shows that under the same hardware parameter index, the M＆S cost in multi-theater deployments is much higher than that in one-theater deployments and that the cost of equipment Mean Time Between Failures （ MTBF） is also more sensitive than that in one-theater deployments, particularly when the MTBF is relatively low. As a result, the requirement for equipment reliability is higher in multi-theater deployments.

Organic Cotton Sales Up-But What’s the Cost?

The latest headline figures on organic cotton retail sales supplied by Organic Exchange (OE)show a healthy 35% growth to a value of US$4.