Production Frontiers
Production Frontiers

Author: Rolf Fare

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780521420334

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This book presents a mathematical programming approach to the analysis of production frontiers and efficiency measurement. The authors construct a variety of production frontiers, and by measuring distances to them are able to develop a model of efficient producer behaviour and a taxonomy of possible types of departure from efficiency in various environments. Linear programming is used as an analytical and computational technique in order to accomplish this. The approach developed is then applied to modelling producer behaviour. By focusing on the empirical relevance of production frontiers and distances to them, and applying linear programming techniques to artificial data to illustrate the type of information they can generate, this book provides a unique study in applied production analysis. It will be of interest to scholars and students of economics and operations research, and analysts in business and government.

Efficiency Analysis by Production Frontiers
Efficiency Analysis by Production Frontiers

Author: Jati Sengupta

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 9400926456

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Measuring productive efficiency for nonprofit organizations has posed a great challenge to applied researchers today. The problem has many facets and diverse implications for a number of disciplines such as economics, applied statistics, management science and information theory. This monograph discusses four major areas, which emphasize the applied economic and econometric as. pects of the production frontier analysis: A. Stochastic frontier theory, B. Data envelopment analysis, C. Clustering and estimation theory, D. Economic and managerial applications Besides containing an up-to-date survey of the mos. t recent developments in the field, the monograph presents several new results and theorems from my own research. These include but are not limited to the following: (1) interface with parametric theory, (2) minimax and robust concepts of production frontier, (3) game-theoretic extension of the Farrell and Johansen models, (4) optimal clustering techniques for data envelopment analysis and (5) the dynamic and stochastic generalizations of the efficiency frontier at the micro and macro levels. In my research work in this field I have received great support and inspiration from Professor Abraham Charnes of the University of Texas at Austin, who has basically founded the technique of data envelopment analysis, developed it and is still expanding it. My interactions with him have been most fruitful and productive. I am deeply grateful to him. Finally, I must record my deep appreciation to my wife and two children for their loving and enduring support. But for their support this work would not have been completed.

Agile Manufacturing
Agile Manufacturing

Author: Paul T. Kidd

Publisher: Prentice Hall

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13:

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This work defines "Agile Manufacturing" and dispels the mistaken beliefs that surround it. It analyzes how our traditions, conventions, values and beliefs, based on outdated ideas and philosophies, block the path to achieving "Agile Manufacturing". The book then maps the way forward.

Rare Earth Frontiers
Rare Earth Frontiers

Author: Julie M. Klinger

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-01-15

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1501714619

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"Rare Earth Frontiers is a timely text. As Klinger notes, rare earths are neither rare nor technically earths, but they are still widely believed to be both. Although her approach focuses on the human, or cultural, geography of rare earths mining, she does not ignore the geological occurrence of these mineral types, both on Earth and on the moon.... This volume is excellently organized, insightfully written, and extensively sourced."―Choice Drawing on ethnographic, archival, and interview data gathered in local languages and offering possible solutions to the problems it documents, this book examines the production of the rare earth frontier as a place, a concept, and a zone of contestation, sacrifice, and transformation. Rare Earth Frontiers is a work of human geography that serves to demystify the powerful elements that make possible the miniaturization of electronics, green energy and medical technologies, and essential telecommunications and defense systems. Julie Michelle Klinger draws attention to the fact that the rare earths we rely on most are as common as copper or lead, and this means the implications of their extraction are global. Klinger excavates the rich historical origins and ongoing ramifications of the quest to mine rare earths in ever more impossible places. Klinger writes about the devastating damage to lives and the environment caused by the exploitation of rare earths. She demonstrates in human terms how scarcity myths have been conscripted into diverse geopolitical campaigns that use rare earth mining as a pretext to capture spaces that have historically fallen beyond the grasp of centralized power. These include legally and logistically forbidding locations in the Amazon, Greenland, and Afghanistan, and on the Moon.

Stochastic Frontier Analysis
Stochastic Frontier Analysis

Author: Subal C. Kumbhakar

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-03-10

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1107717302

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Modern textbook presentations of production economics typically treat producers as successful optimizers. Conventional econometric practice has generally followed this paradigm, and least squares based regression techniques have been used to estimate production, cost, profit and other functions. In such a framework deviations from maximum output, from minimum cost and cost minimizing input demands, and from maximum profit and profit maximizing output supplies and input demands, are attributed exclusively to random statistical noise. However casual empiricism and the business press both make persuasive cases for the argument that, although producers may indeed attempt to optimize, they do not always succeed. This book develops econometric techniques for the estimation of production, cost and profit frontiers, and for the estimation of the technical and economic efficiency with which producers approach these frontiers. Since these frontiers envelop rather than intersect the data, and since the authors continue to maintain the traditional econometric belief in the presence of external forces contributing to random statistical noise, the work is titled Stochastic Frontier Analysis.

Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research
Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research

Author: Jennifer Bair

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0804759243

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Featuring new contributions by leading globalization scholars, this timely volume analyzes the organization, geography, politics, and power dynamics of international trade and production networks understood as global commodity chains.

Speech Perception, Production and Acquisition
Speech Perception, Production and Acquisition

Author: Huei‐Mei Liu

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-09-14

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 9811576068

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This book addresses important issues of speech processing and language learning in Chinese. It highlights perception and production of speech in healthy and clinical populations and in children and adults. This book provides diverse perspectives and reviews of cutting-edge research in past decades on how Chinese speech is processed and learned. Along with each chapter, future research directions have been discussed. With these unique features and the broad coverage of topics, this book appeals to not only scholars and students who study speech perception in preverbal infants and in children and adults learning Chinese, but also to teachers with interests in pedagogical applications in teaching Chinese as Second Language.

Intertemporal Production Frontiers: With Dynamic DEA
Intertemporal Production Frontiers: With Dynamic DEA

Author: Rolf Färe

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 940091816X

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This book extends the efficiency literature to the case of intertemporal models. First, the authors introduce static network models which serve as building blocks for the intertemporal budgeting models and the dynamic models. Next, the authors devote two chapters to productivity measurements, which are considered as comparative static models. Intertemporal budgeting models and dynamic models are taken up subsequently. Each chapter, except the first, contains empirical applications.

Socio-Economic Impacts of Bioenergy Production
Socio-Economic Impacts of Bioenergy Production

Author: Dominik Rutz

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-02-23

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 331903829X

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Around the world, many countries are increasing efforts to promote biomass production for industrial uses including biofuels and bio-products such as chemicals and bio-plastic. Against a backdrop of lively public debate on sustainability, bioenergy wields both positive and negative impacts upon a variety of environmental and socio-economic issues. These include property rights, labor conditions, social welfare, economic wealth, poverty reduction and more. This book discusses the issues and impacts of bioenergy, taking into account the local and regional framework under which bioenergy is produced, touching upon educational level, cultural aspects, the history and economies of the producing countries and an array of policies including environmental and social targets. The book surveys and analyzes global bioenergy production from a number of perspectives. The authors illustrate the complexity of interrelated topics in the bioenergy value chain, ranging from agriculture to conversion processes, as well as from social implications to environmental effects. It goes on to offer insight on future challenges associated with the expected boom of a global bio-based economy, which contributes to the paradigm shift from a fossil-based to a biomass and renewable energy-based economy. The expert contributors include researchers, investors, policy makers, representatives from NGOs and other stakeholders, from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Their contributions build upon the results of the Global-Bio-Pact project on “Global Assessment of Biomass and Bio-product Impacts on Socio-economics and Sustainability,” which was supported by the European Commission in its 7th Framework Program for Research and Technological Development, conducted from February 2010 to January 2013. The book benefits policy makers, scientists and NGO staffers working in the fields of agriculture, forestry, biotechnology and energy.