RECREATIONAL AND AESTHETIC VALUE OF WATER USING HEDONIC PRICE ANALYSIS

Historically, water allocation focused on quantities demanded by consumptive uses. As quantity demand grows, efficient allocation among consumptive and nonconsumptive uses becomes more critical. This hedonic approach provides information regarding recreational and aesthetic (RA) value for a central Texas lake. The model indicates several statistically significant RA characteristics of housing; proximity is the most important. Waterfront properties command a premium, but marginal RA price falls rapidly with increasing distance. Marginal RA values are estimated for selected water levels and are found to have a lower marginal price per acre-foot than many agricultural uses.Demand and Price Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Mode-Seeking on Hypergraphs for Robust Geometric Model Fitting

In this paper, we propose a novel geometric model fitting method, called Mode-Seeking on Hypergraphs (MSH),to deal with multi-structure data even in the presence of severe outliers. The proposed method formulates geometric model fitting as a mode seeking problem on a hypergraph in which vertices represent model hypotheses and hyperedges denote data points. MSH intuitively detects model instances by a simple and effective mode seeking algorithm. In addition to the mode seeking algorithm, MSH includes a similarity measure between vertices on the hypergraph and a weight-aware sampling technique. The proposed method not only alleviates sensitivity to the data distribution, but also is scalable to large scale problems. Experimental results further demonstrate that the proposed method has significant superiority over the state-of-the-art fitting methods on both synthetic data and real images.Comment: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, pp. 2902-2910, 201

Epidemiology, impact and control of bovine cysticercosis in Europe : a systematic review

Background: Bovine cysticercosis in Europe has been known for centuries but the data showing the occurrence of this zoonosis are scarce. The aim of this paper is to review and present the current knowledge on bovine cysticercosis in Europe. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of studies published between 1990 and November 2014. Qualitative and quantitative data on prevalence, risk factors, burden and interventions were extracted and analysed. Results: Reports on prevalence were available for 23 European countries, mostly from western and central Europe; for a few of these only data before 1990 were available. Prevalence based on meat inspection was generally low (below 6.2 % in 95 % of the records) and varied between and within countries. Serology and detailed meat inspection provided a higher prevalence range (0.41–14 %). Only few studies analysing risk factors were identified. Reported factors related to access to pastures and risky waters, dairy production and uncontrolled human defecation in the proximity of the farm among others. Only one estimate of the economic impact of the disease could be identified. Recommended interventions were focused on increasing diagnostic tests sensitivity or the application of risk based surveillance strategies. Conclusions: There is a lack of complete and updated data on most countries, especially in eastern Europe. Further risk factor studies might be needed together with estimates on the burden of the disease in all European countries. Risk-based interventions are being encouraged but current data are limited to guide this approach

Distances and Small Business Credit Constraints: the French case.

Deregulation and progress in information and communication technologies have increased the geographical expansion of banking structures and instruments. This makes banks operationally close to the borrowers. At the same time, banking industry consolidation have induced a geographical concentration of banking decision centers and strategic functions, leading to an increase of the functional distance that separates the decision center of a bank from its operational branches. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of these two trends on SME lending. Our findings on French data show that increased functional distance and operational proximity are positively associated with the investment-cash flow sensitivity, considered as a measure of financing constraints. These adverse effects are particularly acute for small firms.Operational proximity; Investment-cash flow sensitivity; Financing constraints; SME lending; Functional distance;

Designing the venue logistics management operations for a World Exposition

World Expositions, due to their size and peculiar features, pose a number of logistics challenges. This paper aims at developing a design framework for the venue logistics management (VLM) operations to replenish food products to the event site, through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches. First, an in-depth interview methodology, combined with the outcomes of a literature review, is adopted for defining the key variables for the tactical and operational set-up of the VLM system. Second, a quantitative approach is developed to define the necessary logistics resources. The framework is then applied to the case of Milan 2015 World Exposition. It is the first time that such a design framework for a World Exposition is presented: the originality of this research lies in the proposal of a systematic approach that adds to the experiential practices constituting the current body of knowledge on event logistics

Maritime Commerce in Greater Philadelphia: Assessing Industry Trends and Growth Opportunities for Delaware River Ports

Maritime Commerce in Greater Philadelphia: Assessing Industry Trends and Growth Opportunities for Delaware River Ports is an evaluation of existing port conditions along the Delaware River and market-driven opportunities for expansion. The report includes an economic impact analysis, Delaware River port descriptions, global trends, and recommended strategies for ports growth. Key findings include:Region-wide port activity generates $69 million in tax revenues for state governments across Greater Philadelphia and more than$11 million in Philadelphia Wage Tax revenues.Each on-site port job supports two jobs from port activity and employee spending. Total regional port-related employment is 12,000+ jobs.Delaware River ports import nearly 1/2 of the nation's cocoa beans, almost 1/3 of the bananas, and a 1/4 of all fruit and nuts.Growing maritime commerce in Greater Philadelphia will require collaboration among Delaware River ports to leverage existing strengths and strategically invest in regional infrastructure improvements

From John Lindsay to Rudy Giuliani: the decline of the local safety net?

This paper was presented at the conference "Unequal incomes, unequal outcomes? Economic inequality and measures of well-being" as part of session 4, "Economic inequality and local public services." The conference was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 7, 1999. The authors contend that the future scope of city-based redistributive policies is limited. An important way in which policymakers work to reduce inequality is by redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor, channeling income tax revenue into spending on welfare and other services. The authors suggest, however, that New York City and other cities have had to scale back their redistributive policies. New York City's evolution from a manufacturing city to a service city accounts for more than one-third of the reduction in redistribution, because businesses in the service sector are more mobile and are therefore harder to tax than those in manufacturing. In addition, the authors document a more general decline in the relationship between land area and redistribution. In 1970, cities with greater land area tended to redistribute more income, but by 1990, this connection was no longer evident. The authors attribute this change to an erosion in the market power of large cities and observe that increased mobility and the existence of edge cities have contributed to a decline in the monopoly power once enjoyed by large cities.Public policy ; Public welfare ; Income distribution ; Income

A business case study for the Environmental information system for planners (EISP) : prepared under Memorandum of Understanding for the Department for Communities and Local Government

This report forms the deliverable for work led by the British Geological Survey (BGS) under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) between 1st April 2007 and 31st October 2007. This work (Phase III) followed on from six years research effort (jointly funded by the Natural Environment Research Council URGENT Programme investment of £357,000 and the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, ODPM, investment of £347,000) (Phases I and II) in the development of an Environmental Information System for Planners (EISP). 2. Learning from the technically similar ODPM funded PARSOL-developed expert system, the costs of building production systems within a local planning authority are estimated. The availability and reasonable cost of nationally collated environmental datasets required to populate production EISPs, alongside the local authority provided data, are confirmed. The ‘off the shelf’ annual average cost to an individual Local Planning Authority considering to purchase and licence the data for such a production system is estimated at between £13,300 and £36,000 which compares well with other such types of IT systems purchased by LPAs in recent years. 3. Benefits to local authorities in using appropriate planning tools in EISP to implement DCLG environmental planning policies are estimated in terms of time and cost savings and actual extra environmental hazard costs avoided. Actual planning officer staff time saved using an EISP is estimated and costed and compared with the acquisition cost of such a commercially available production system. The saving is extremely conservatively estimated at £200,000 per year. This gives a conservative Benefit over Cost ratio of between 5.6-15 using staff time saving criteria alone. 4. A PARSOL-involved sample of local authorities, which were introduced to the likely costs and benefits of installing an EISP, concluded that it was definitely a worthwhile enhancement to eplanning. 5. Telford and Wrekin Council have offered to install a production EISP in 2008/9 with its technology consortium, if this can be funded by DCLG, as with the PARSOL expert systems. That system will be promoted throughout all the LPAs as the ‘Beacon’ system of best practice for Environmental Information Systems in Planning. 6. DCLG is recommended to fund the installation of one or two production EISP systems. One would be with the Telford and Wrekin Council system. The second would be with a local authority currently using CAP Solutions Uni-form planning system (basic e-planning infrastructure already installed in over 50% of English LPAs). These are costed at approximately £300,000 for the first system and £150,000 for the second