My library button
  • Book cover of Computer Organization and Design MIPS Edition

    Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Sixth Edition, the leading, award-winning textbook from Patterson and Hennessy used by more than 40,000 students per year, continues to present the most comprehensive and readable introduction to this core computer science topic. Improvements to this new release include new sections in each chapter on Domain Specific Architectures (DSA) and updates on all real-world examples that keep it fresh and relevant for a new generation of students. - Covers parallelism in-depth, with examples and content highlighting parallel hardware and software topics - Includes new sections in each chapter on Domain Specific Architectures (DSA) - Discusses and highlights the "Eight Great Ideas" of computer architecture, including Performance via Parallelism, Performance via Pipelining, Performance via Prediction, Design for Moore's Law, Hierarchy of Memories, Abstraction to Simplify Design, Make the Common Case Fast and Dependability via Redundancy

  • Book cover of Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition

    Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition: The Hardware Software Interface, Second Edition, the award-winning textbook from Patterson and Hennessy that is used by more than 40,000 students per year, continues to present the most comprehensive and readable introduction to this core computer science topic. This version of the book features the RISC-V open source instruction set architecture, the first open source architecture designed for use in modern computing environments such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and other embedded systems. Readers will enjoy an online companion website that provides advanced content for further study, appendices, glossary, references, links to software tools, and more. - Covers parallelism in-depth, with examples and content highlighting parallel hardware and software topics - Focuses on 64-bit address, ISA to 32-bit address, and ISA for RISC-V because 32-bit RISC-V ISA is simpler to explain, and 32-bit address computers are still best for applications like embedded computing and IoT - Includes new sections in each chapter on Domain Specific Architectures (DSA) - Provides updates on all the real-world examples in the book

  • Book cover of Contract and Exit Decisions in Finisher Hog Production

    Finisher hog production in North America has seen a shift toward larger production units and contract-organized production since around 1990. Given the efficiency gains and conversion costs associated with contract production, growers may have to choose between long-term commitment through investments and atrophy with intent to exit in the intermediate term. A model is developed to show that growers with any of three efficiency attributes (lower innate hazard of exit, variable costs, or fixed contract adoption costs) are not only more likely to contract but will also produce more and expend more on lowering business survival risks. Using the 2004 U.S. Agricultural Resource Management Survey for hogs, a recursive bivariate probit model is estimated in which exit is affected directly and also indirectly through the contract decision. It is confirmed that contracting producers are less likely to exit. Greater specialization and regional effects are important in increasing the probability of contracting. More education, having non-farm income, and older production facilities are significant factors in increasing the expected rate of exit. The findings suggest further exits by non-contract producers.

  • Book cover of Does a Rising Biofuels Tide Raise All Boats?

    Iowa's farmland consists of over 16% hay crops and pastureland, a significant portion of which is under cash rental contracts. This study investigates the comparative relationships between cash rental rates for cropped land and non-cropped land, where the latter includes hay and pastureland. We find that higher crop prices resulting from biofuel demand induces land use conversion from non-cropped land to crop production and thus bids up non-cropped land rents. Compared with changes in cropped land cash rents, non-cropped farmland rents could increase by a higher percentage. Non-cropped land cash rental rates are largely determined by crop and feeder cattle prices, population density, soil quality, and proportion of non-cropped land in a specific area. A primary effect of ethanol subsidies is the redistribution of income between corn growers and livestock producers, whereby higher livestock feed costs together with increasing hay and pastureland cash rents harm the dairy and feedlot beef sectors. Our study shows that, because of the positive effect on rents, the policies have an indeterminate effect on landowners operating in the cow-calf sector.

  • Book cover of A Paradox for Agro-environmental Land Policy

    A regulator with a fixed budget to spend on securing environmental benefits from farmed land has to choose between how many acres to enroll and the extent of benefits to require of each enrolled acre. Here we consider, given heterogeneous land, what properties of the environmental benefit-to-cost ratio imply for the choice of optimal program as the available budget varies. Conditions are found such that a program of high benefits on few acres is preferred for any budget level. It is also possible that a program delivering low benefits per acre at low cost is preferred on each land type, and yet a high benefit program is optimal policy, a variant of Simpson's paradox.

  • Book cover of Pass-through in United States Beef Cattle Prices

    Feeder cattle are fattened to become fed live cattle six months later. The U.S. feeder cattle industry is intensively competitive, so that market efficiency suggests feeder cattle prices should fully reflect feed prices and information on future fed cattle prices. Employing a long time series (1979-2004) of feeder cattle futures, live cattle futures, and local corn prices, we test whether complete pass-through occurs. The results indicate that an increase of a dollar per hundred pounds in the live cattle price leads to an increase of approximately $1.48 per hundred pounds in the feeder cattle price in one month, about 93% of complete pass-through. The corresponding negative effect of a corn price increase is about 87% of complete pass-through. By contrast with agricultural land markets, the results support the hypothesis of Ricardian rent extraction by the scarce asset owner in feeder cattle markets. The results also provide evidence in favor of informational efficiency in futures markets.

  • Book cover of Coordinating to Eradicate Animal Disease, and the Role of Insurance Markets

    Farmed animal production has traditionally been a dispersed sector. Biosecurity actions relevant to eradicating infectious diseases are generally non-contractible, and might involve inordinately high transactions costs if they were contractible. If an endemic disease is to be eradicated within a region, synchronized actions need to be taken to reduce incidence below a critical mass so that spread can be contained. Using a global game model of coordination under public and private information concerning the critical mass required, this paper characterizes the success probability in an eradication campaign. As is standard in global games, heterogeneity in private signals can support a unique equilibrium. Partly because of strategic interactions, concentrated production is found to facilitate eradication whenever unit participation costs are decreasing. Policies to manipulate the critical mass have both a direct effect and a strategic coordination effect. Policies to manipulate information can have subtle and non-intuitive consequences. A program to keep disease out can be modeled similarly. It is shown, too, that coordination problems may lead to multiple equilibria in animal disease insurance markets, so that these markets may complicate a disease eradication program by creating opportunities for multiple inefficient equilibria. The presence of private insurance markets may facilitate coordination and, for good or ill, can seal the fate of a program.

  • Book cover of Economies of Feedlot Scale, Biosecurity, Investment, and Endemic Livestock Disease
  • Book cover of The Budgetary and Producer Welfare Effects of Revenue Insurance
  • Book cover of The Budgetary and Resource Allocation Effects of Revenue Assurance