Polluters’ Profits and Political Response: Direct Control versus Taxes: Comment

In a recent issue of this Review, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (B-T) presented a public choice analysis of the relative merits of direct controls and taxes in externality control. In Section IV of their paper, B-T consider the case of reciprocal external diseconomies of consumption. They ask whether ... persons in this sort of interaction, acting through the political processes of the community, will impose on themselves either a penalty tax or direct regulation (p. 143). Their analysis is carried out within the context of a two-person model in which each person consumes the same quantity of a good (or carries out the same quantity of an activity) in the precontrol equilibrium, but in which the two transactors exhibit different price elasticities of demand for the good. B-T show that under these circumstances the imposition of equal quotas would be preferred to the imposition of an efficient tax by one transactor but not the other. Their analysis that supports that conclusion is incorrect

Perfect fluids from high power sigma-models

Certain solutions of a sextic sigma-model Lagrangian reminiscent of Skyrme model correspond to perfect fluids with stiff matter equation of state. We analyse from a differential geometric perspective this correspondence extended to general barotropic fluids.Comment: 17 pages. Version published in IJGMMP 8 (2011). Added Example 3.4 and 1 referenc

Whistle characteristics and daytime dive behavior in pantropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata) in Hawai‘i measured using digital acoustic recording tags (DTAGs)

Funding to support P.L.T. was received from the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and their support is gratefully acknowledged. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.This study characterizes daytime acoustic and dive behavior of pantropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata) in Hawai‘i using 14.58 h of data collected from five deployments of digital acoustic recording tags (DTAG3) in 2013. For each tagged animal, the number of whistles, foraging buzzes, dive profiles, and dive statistics were calculated. Start, end, minimum, and maximum frequencies, number of inflection points and duration were measured from 746 whistles. Whistles ranged in frequency from 9.7 ± 2.8 to 19.8 ± 4.2 kHz, had a mean duration of 0.7 ± 0.5 s and a mean of 1.2 ± 1.2 inflection points. Thirteen foraging buzzes were recorded across all tags. Mean dive depth and duration were 16 ± 9 m and 1.9 ± 1.0 min, respectively. Tagged animals spent the majority of time in the upper 10 m (76.9% ± 16.1%) of the water column. Both whistle frequency characteristics and dive statistics measured here were similar to previously reported values for spotted dolphins in Hawai‘i. Shallow, short dive profiles combined with few foraging buzzes provide evidence that little spotted dolphin feeding behavior occurs during daytime hours. This work represents one of the first successful DTAG3 studies of small pelagic delphinids, providing rare insights into baseline bioacoustics and dive behavior.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Repeated call types in Hawaiian melon-headed whales (Peponocephala electra)

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 136 (2014): 1394, doi:10.1121/1.4892759.Melon-headed whales are pantropical odontocetes that are often found near oceanic islands. While considered sound-sensitive, their bioacoustic characteristics are relatively poorly studied. The goal of this study was to characterize the vocal repertoire of melon-headed whales to determine whether they produce repeated calls that could assist in recognition of conspecifics. The first tag-based acoustic recordings of three melon-headed whales were analyzed. Tag records were visually and aurally inspected and all calls were individually extracted. Non-overlapping calls with sufficient signal-to-noise were then parameterized and visually grouped into categories of repeated call types. Thirty-six call categories emerged. Categories differed significantly in duration, peak and centroid frequency, and −3 dB bandwidth. Calls of a given type were more likely to follow each other than expected. These data suggest that repeated calls may function in individual, subgroup, or group recognition. Repeated call production could also serve to enhance signal detection in large groups with many individuals producing simultaneous calls. Results suggest that caution should be used in developing automatic classification algorithms for this species based on small sample sizes, as they may be dominated by repeated calls from a few individuals, and thus not representative of species- or population-specific acoustic parameters.This project was funded by the Office of Naval Research (award number: N000141110612; Program Manager Michael J. Weise), WHOI Marine Mammal Center, and the Sawyer and Penzance Endowed Funds, with additional field time funded by grants through Cascadia Research Collective by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (through the Alaska SeaLife Center) and the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center

Genetically Distinct Behavioral Modules Underlie Natural Variation in Thermal Performance Curves

Thermal reaction norms pervade organismal traits as stereotyped responses to temperature, a fundamental environmental input into sensory and physiological systems. Locomotory behavior represents an especially plastic read-out of animal response, with its dynamic dependence on environmental stimuli presenting a challenge for analysis and for understanding the genomic architecture of heritable variation. Here we characterize behavioral reaction norms as thermal performance curves for the nematode Caenorhabditis briggsae, using a collection of 23 wild isolate genotypes and 153 recombinant inbred lines to quantify the extent of genetic and plastic variation in locomotory behavior to temperature changes. By reducing the dimensionality of the multivariate phenotypic response with a function-valued trait framework, we identified genetically distinct behavioral modules that contribute to the heritable variation in the emergent overall behavioral thermal performance curve. Quantitative trait locus mapping isolated regions on Chromosome II associated with locomotory activity at benign temperatures and Chromosome V loci related to distinct aspects of sensitivity to high temperatures, with each quantitative trait locus explaining up to 28% of trait variation. These findings highlight how behavioral responses to environmental inputs as thermal reaction norms can evolve through independent changes to genetically distinct modular components of such complex phenotypes

Semigroup Closures of Finite Rank Symmetric Inverse Semigroups

We introduce the notion of semigroup with a tight ideal series and investigate their closures in semitopological semigroups, particularly inverse semigroups with continuous inversion. As a corollary we show that the symmetric inverse semigroup of finite transformations $\mathscr{I}_\lambda^n$ of the rank $\leqslant n$ is algebraically closed in the class of (semi)topological inverse semigroups with continuous inversion. We also derive related results about the nonexistence of (partial) compactifications of classes of semigroups that we consider.Comment: With the participation of the new coauthor - Jimmie Lawson - the manuscript has been substantially revised and expanded. Accordingly, we have also changed the manuscript titl

Supporting public involvement in interview and other panels: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Members of the public are increasingly being invited to become members of a variety of different panels and boards. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to systematically search the literature to identify studies relating to support or training provided to members of the public who are asked to be members of an interview panel. SEARCH STRATEGY: A systematic search for published and unpublished studies was carried out from June to September 2015. The search methods included electronic database searching, reference list screening, citation searching and scrutinizing online sources. INCLUSION CRITERIA: We included studies of any design including published and unpublished documents which outlined preparation or guidance relating to public participants who were members of interview panels or representatives on other types of panels or committees. DATA SYNTHESIS: Results were synthesised via narrative methods. MAIN RESULTS: Thirty-six documents were included in the review. Scrutiny of this literature highlighted ten areas which require consideration when including members of the public on interview panels: financial resources; clarity of role; role in the interview process; role in evaluation; training; orientation/induction; information needs; terminology; support; and other public representative needs such as timing, accessibility and support with information technology. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The results of the review emphasize a range of elements that need to be fully considered when planning the involvement of public participants on interview panels. It highlights potential issues relating to the degree of involvement of public representatives in evaluating/grading decisions and the need for preparation and on-going support