We propose a new method to find spatially adaptive smoothing splines. This new method breaks down the interval [0, 1] into p disjoint sub-intervals. Then we define p functional components in [0, 1], which have two importantfeatures. First, the purpose of each of these p components is to estimate...

This research is aimed at investigating the consumer’s preference for food produced in Taiwan and the economic benefits for the country of origin labeling. The study uses both experimental auction and contingent valuation method (CVM) to investigate factors that affect the consumer’s...

A highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza (AI) has been confirmed in 420human cases and has caused 257 deaths in the world starting from 2003. Usingface-to-face interviews, our data were collected by utilizing a stratified samplingscheme following the distribution of gender and age in...

The theory of contracts assumes that human nature is essentially opportunistic, and economic agents protect themselves against adverse selection and moral hazard by elaborating contracts. In the case of irrigated areas in the Brazilian northeast, such contracts are not necessarily formal. That...

This paper presents empirical evidence to show how socioeconomic factors affect theadoption of and investment in agrochemicals in the cocoa sector of Côte d’Ivoire. Theanalysis uses primary farm-level data collected in 2002 from a nationally representativesample of more than one thousand...

The RPS has become the most important instrument in United Statesto encourage the generation of electricity through the use of renewable energy.In brief, the RPS is a policy mechanism that requires suppliers of electricity to providea specific percentage of their energy supply from some form of...

The main thrust of this research is to measure the relative technical efficiency of the six (6) colleges of San Pedro College from school year 2004-2014. The technical efficiency of the academic units can be derived based on its ability to produce the optimum number of output (number of research...

We apply semiparametric efficient estimation procedures for a seemingly unrelated regression model where the multivariate error density is elliptically symmetric to study the efficiency of the foreign exchange market. We consider both cointegrating regressions and standard stationary...

Functional data analysis (FDA) is an active field of statistics, in which the primary subjectsin the study are curves. My dissertation consists of two innovative applications offunctional data analysis in biology. The data that motivated the research broadened thescope of FDA and demanded new...

We consider a random design model based on independent and identically distributed pairs of observations (Xi, Yi), where the regression function m(x) is given by m(x) = E(Yi|Xi = x) with one independent variable. In a nonparametric setting the aim is to produce a reasonable approximation to the...