Primeness in Early Season Arkansas Raccoon Pelts

Trapping seasons in the United States are generally set around the time of the year when pelts are in “prime” condition and are in their most valuable state. In order to assess whether the start of the Arkansas trapping season is at an appropriate date 122 raccoons were captured during the month of November in 2014 and 2015. Based on the evaluation of experienced fur dealers, the percentage of pelts in prime condition was then assessed on weekly and half-monthly basis. This study indicates that starting the trapping season in the last half of the month may maximize the percentage of pelts that are in prime condition early in the season, especially in the southern region of the state

Incidental Captures of Plains Spotted Skunks (Spilogale putorius interrupta) By Arkansas Trappers, 2012-2017

Arkansas trappers were surveyed following the 2012 and four subsequent trapping seasons regarding accidental captures of spotted skunks while attempting to trap other species. A total of 132 trappers reported capturing spotted skunks although further investigation confirmed the validity of only 42 reports from trappers that caught a total of 60 spotted skunks. Incidental captures were rare; only 0.35-1.29% of trappers each year caught spotted skunks and came primarily from the Ozark and Ouachita regions of the state

The UK is the Eurozone's Dumping Ground

The European Union is dumping its goods on world markets, especially in the UK, because the euro is a structurally undervalued currency. First, the euro is an ‘incomplete’ currency. Unlike every other currency, there is no single sovereign standing behind it. Each member state of the Eurozone is ‘sub- sovereign’, since it stands behind the euro only to a certain percentage and collectively the member states do not share joint-and-several liability. Second, the euro is an artificially ‘constructed’ currency, as a consequence of the fixed rates used when it was introduced in 1999 to convert the domestic currencies of EZ members into euros. This affected not only the internal exchange rates between the EZ members, but also the international value of the euro. The net result has been a downward bias in the international trading value of the euro, with the inefficient southern member states dragging down the value of the euro relative to what it would be if all member states were as efficient as Germany and the Netherlands. The euro is undervalued against sterling on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis by between 15.2% and 20%. As a consequence, the UK has almost always run a trade deficit with the EU over the period after the introduction of the euro. In 2018, the UK ratio of exports to imports with the EU was only 64%. While the UK maintains the close economic ties with the EU that the EU wants, the UK will remain a captive market for EZ member goods. Had the euro been correctly valued, then EZ exports to the UK in 2018 would have been lower by between £67.2bn and £88.4bn. The UK would therefore be entitled to impose an annual anti-dumping duty on the EZ in the range £67.2bn – £88.4bn. Ursula von der Leyen says the EU is ‘ready to design a new partnership with zero tariffs, zero quotas, zero dumping’ with the UK. It is quite shocking that the new German president of the European Commission calls for zero dumping, when her own country is one of the world’s biggest dumpers of goods onto world markets

Identifiability in Age/Period/Cohort Mortality Models

The addition of a set of cohort parameters to a mortality model can generate complex identifiability issues due to the collinearity between the dimensions of age, period and cohort. These issues can lead to robustness problems and difficulties making projections of future mortality rates. Since many modern mortality models incorporate cohort parameters, we believe that a comprehensive analysis of the identifiability issues in age/period/cohort mortality models is needed. In this paper, we discuss the origin of identifiability issues in general models before applying these insights to simple but commonly used mortality models. We then discuss how to project mortality models so that our forecasts of the future are independent of any arbitrary choices we make when fitting a model to data in order to identify the historical parameters

On the Projection of Mortality Rates to Extreme Old Age

This article shows how cohort mortality rate projections of mortality models that involve age effects can be improved and extended to extreme old ages. The proposed approach allows insurers to use such mortality models to obtain valuations of financial instruments such as annuities that depend on projections of extreme old age mortality rates

One-way nesting for a primitive equation ocean model

Prognostic numerical models for atmospheric and oceanic circulations require initial fields, boundary conditions, and forcing functions in addition to a consistent set of partial differential equations, including a state relation and equations expressing conservation of mass, momentum, and energy. Depending on the horizontal domain to be modeled, the horizontal boundary conditions are either physically obvious or extremely difficult to specify consistently. If the entire atmosphere is modeled, periodic horizontal boundary conditions are appropriate. On the other hand, the physical horizontal boundaries on the entire ocean are solid walls. Obviously, the normal velocity at a solid wall is zero while the specification of the tangential velocity depends on the mathematical treatment of the horizontal viscous terms. Limitations imposed by computer capacity and cost, as well as research interests, have led to the use of limited area models to study flows in the atmosphere and ocean. The limited area models do not have physical horizontal boundaries, merely numerical ones. Correctly determining these open boundary conditions for limited-area numerical models has both intrigued and frustrated numerical modelers for decades. One common approach is to use the closed or solid wall boundary conditions for a limited-area model. The argument given for this approach is that the boundary conditions affect flow near the walls but that none of these effects are propagated into the interior. Therefore, one chooses a big enough domain that the central region of interest is not corrupted by the boundary flow. Research in progress to model the North Atlantic circulation vividly illustrates the pitfalls of this approach. Two model runs are compared: (1) the southern boundary at 20S between latitudes 0 and 40W is artificially closed; and (2) the same boundary is specified as open with an inward transport of 15 Sv (determined from a global model with the same physics) uniformly spread across the boundary. A comparison of both runs is presented

Common-pool resources, livelihoods, and resilience: Critical challenges for governance in Cambodia

Common-pool resource management is a critical element in the interlocked challenges of food security, nutrition, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability. This paper examines strategic policy choices and governance challenges facing Cambodia's forests and fisheries, the most economically important subsectors of agriculture that rely on common-pool resources. It then outlines policy priorities for institutional development to achieve improvements in implementing these goals. The core argument is that (1) policy support for community-based management in forestry and fisheries requires explicit prioritization to protect against threats from other types of private- and public-sector investment; and (2) the success of these initiatives depends on more systemic governance reforms that address issues of stakeholder representation, mechanisms of accountability, and institutional capacity.Development policy, environmental security, Fisheries, food security, forestry, Governance, Natural resources, social-ecological resilience,