Bus fleet data have consistently shown that vehicle operating and maintenance costs increase as vehicles age. A fleet manager has to deal with the tradeoff between the lower operating and maintenance costs of newer fleets and their higher initial capital costs as well as the tradeoff between conventional and fuel efficient bus technologies. This study formulates and implements a fleet replaceme...

Adjacent food webs may be linked by cross-boundary subsidies: more-productive donor systems can subsidize consumers in less-productive neighboring recipient systems. Introduced species are known to have direct effects on organisms within invaded communities. However, few studies have addressed the indirect effects of nonnative species in donor systems on organisms in recipient systems. We studi...

This study examines whether policies to encourage cattle ranching intensification in Brazil can abate global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by sparing land from deforestation. We use an economic model of global land use to investigate, from 2010 to 2030, the global agricultural outcomes, land use changes, and GHG abatement resulting from two potential Brazilian policies: a tax on cattle from co...

This paper presents results from a multidisciplinary study of a negotiation process between farmers and wildlife authorities which led to an agricultural subsidy scheme to alleviate conflicts between agriculture and geese in Norway. The Svalbard-breeding population of pink-footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus has increased considerably over the last decades and conflicts with farmers have escalate...

The crude oil sector in Nigeria contributes substantially to the economy; however, these benefits are being compromised by significant subsidies on refined oil imports. The refined oil subsidy is paid primarily on imported fuel because domestic refineries cannot satisfy the national demand at current prices. Low fuel prices are considered an important benefit to the Nigerian people, where more ...

the natural gas consumption in iran has been continuously increasing due to several reasons including low prices of natural gas, development of gas supply networks, people’s salary increase, incorrect consumption culture and the increase of national economy growth.  although, the global natural gas consumption has increased by 38% since 2001, the national consumption in iran has increased by 11...

this paper explores the distributive impacts of subsidy removal in agricultural sectors and related industry in iran, using a social accounting matrix (sam)-based price model. the structural path analysis approach is used to decompose the overall influences into direct, global, and total effects. the simulation results reveal that a shock therapy strategy, which involves the removal of all subs...

The optimal outcome of a firm in bankruptcy is to liquidate if its asset value is greater than its value as a going concern or, alternatively, to reorganize if it is worth more as a going concern. In this study, we identify firm asset and liability characteristics which may determine the likelihood of a firm successfully emerging from bankruptcy. We find two key factors influencing the success ...

Providing such assistance has been the dominant strategy for combating poverty in the United States for many years. Yet it has been remarkably unsuccessful. There is no state where a welfare check will raise a four-person family above the g o v e rn m e n t ’s official poverty line ($18,104 in 2001). Add in the fact that the official poverty lineis a pretty stingy standard that has not kept pac...

In the era of rapid growth and high competition, a company must possess an information/knowledge advantage in order to hold the upper hand in the industry. Therefore, the company has to continuously monitor its competitors in order to get enough information and convert the information into competitive knowledge. Although information technology has been used in many areas and has many successful...