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Abstract
This study will endeavour to quantify the innovative and
imitative aspects of copper-zinc adoption for chosen regions of the State
of South Australia. This will be followed by attempts to ‘explain’ any
observed inter-regional differences in the estimated adoption parameters.
Chapter 2
will provide a brief overview of the scientific
investigations which uncovered the relatively dramatic impact of copperzinc
fertilizers on broad-acre crop and pasture production. This will
be followed in Chapter 3
by a detailed consideration of the techniques
used by previous studies to quantify observed adoption patterns. Particular
emphasis will be given to the (symmetry) assumptions of the commonly
employed logistic function as it relates to studies of the diffusion of new
technologies.
The techniques used to aggregate the 24,000 observations, which
constitute the raw data base of this study, will be detailed in Chapter 4.
The subsequent Chapter will attempt to assess empirically the validity of
the symmetry assumption with respect to the observed patterns of adoption.
On the basis of these findings, Chapter 6 will outline the procedures
used to quantify the innovative and imitative aspects of trace element
adoption. The parameters so derived will be tabulated.
Chapter 7
will notionaily consist of three parts. Part A
will
detail, at both the conceptual and empirical levels, those factors which
on a pr2ori reasoning may account for inter-regional differences in the
parameters of adoption. Part B
will present and discuss the multiple
regression results which were obtained when attempting to ‘explain’
innovative aspects of copper-zinc adoption using the factors mentioned
above. Multiple regression techniques will also be used to determine
the ‘explanatory’ significance of these same factors in relation to the
imitative aspects of copper-zinc adoption. This will account for Part C
of Chapter 7.
The conclusions of this study will then be detailed in Chapter 8.