Fish-Products Consumption Economics in North-West of Iran
In natural resource economics, we sometimes observe a situation in which producers and consumers have direct access to the factors of production or can use some consumable products with little or no transformation. These goods are commonly referred to as “gifts of nature”. A factor of production is considered a gift of nature when little effort is required to make it usable; thus one would expect the appearance of under-pricing, over-utilization and/or over-consumption. Fish products, the results of fish culture, to some extent have such characteristics in Iran, where it is the output of a joint production process. In this country, fish is being produced using our excess capacity in water resources, with some more organic residuals where these are used in the other joint enterprises of farming or horticulture. Moreover, fish products have many recognized biological and physiological advantages; thus scientists view them as good sources of protein for human consumption. Iran is in relative deficit of this type of nutritious, high-protein product. But unfortunately, some available estimates suggest that the Iranian consumer’s inclination toward the consumption of fish products is not very promising. To develop a workable policy design to help policy makers to persuade Iranian consumers to purchase fish, a field research project was planned and executed in Northwest Iran. Almost 500 fish consumers were interviewed; the data gathered on the economic aspects of fish-consumption model in this region are analyzed in this paper. It is revealed that the rate of consumption here is lower than both the average national level and the average global level. This norm of consumption is correlated to some sociocultural-behavioral-economic factors. Policy-makers could make use of this model to persuade consumers to make better use of this “gift of nature” within the target group.
Fish-Culture Production Economics in North-West of Iran
Whatever the quantity and the rate of water utilization is, economic principles indicate that there will always be other water utilization methods which might increase the efficiency of the use of this resource. Due to the geo-climatic position of Iran, this country finds itself in a water deficit situation as compared to per capita use rates observed in the rest of the world. The scarcity of water has always been a serious, at times disastrous, problem in Iran, and this problem will likely get worse in the future. Thus, the most rational possible water resource utilization will be a permanent preoccupation of the nation, and therefore the government. One still less examined method of rationalizing water utilization in Iran is the multidimensional utilization of water, where fish culture takes place jointly with other previously adopted agricultural enterprises. The main question considered in this article is that of water productivity, ie. how economically do we use water in fish culture activities? The results of statistical analyses of our field research, based on questionnaire completion of a significant sample of fish-farming enterprises, reveal the fact that Iran could still improve water utilization productivity rates in these enterprises. However, wide variation in water productivity is observed. On the base of some better-operated enterprises extension proposals and policy recommendations could be made.
Inferring Learning Strategies from Students ’ Errors
Student models in an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) aim at representing both correct and incorrect knowledge of the student in a particular domain of learning. This data serves as the basis upon which the Tutor can dispense remedial feedback. This paper presents a framework in which learners’ errors are diagnosed, classified and linked to cognitive processes associated with learning. The cognitive processes we identify are those of generalization, misattribution and ignorance. Our system applies to the domain of Second Language Acquisition and our approach uses Chomsky’s linguistic theory of Principles and Parameters. We particularly concentrate on the acquisition of the Phrase Structure component.