Analytical Appendix 2: The Challenges of Managing Small Scale Fisheries in West Africa

This is the Final Technical Report to the DFID regarding The Management of Conflict in Tropical Fisheries project R7334. Ghana's small-scale marine fisheries face considerably less problems and challenges than its neighbours. There is no foreign industrial fleet competing with canoes for resources and the economy, although weakened, is comparatively stronger than other West African fishing nations. However, like many other coastal fishing nations, Ghana is still trying to find a successful means of marrying two different systems. The traditional management system, which, for generations has sustained small-scale fishing communities along the coast, is under threat from the modern management system that sees fish as a commodity for trading by entrepreneurs, rather than the basis for an entire way of life. Economic difficulties that stem from Ghana's commitment to neo-liberal economic reforms have further complicated the situation. State priorities and policies with regard to poverty alleviation in coastal communities are dictated largely by outside interests rather than internal needs. As the economy and economic policy has focused on the individual and the market, so the role of community, and indeed traditional systems has come under threat. This battle between the two systems is being played out in the arena of small-scale fisheries management. Increased competition, decreased enforcement and a failure to support traditional systems is putting increasing pressure of small-scale fishing communities. Although recent initiatives by the World Bank to reverse this trend are having some impact, the future for traditional fisheries management of small-scale fisheries in Ghana looks bleak

Review of river fisheries valuation in Central and South America

Unlike Africa and Asia, where a large part of the population are heavily dependent upon fishing for their livelihoods, fishing for a living in the interior of Central and South America (CSA) remains a marginal occupation for all but the most isolated of families. As such, the economics and management of fisheries on the continent have received little attention from within the continent and the rest of the world. This study shows that while a number of studies have been carried out on fishing in the region, they tend to be limited in their geographical focus and time scale. Although fishing of freshwater species may appear to be comparatively insignificant in the region, the rivers of CSA are very important. This report attempts to analyze the literature available on CSA river fisheries and attempts to draw out an economic value of these fisheries. It is divided into a number of sections. First, the authors describe the major river basins on the continent, characterize their fisheries, and place freshwater fisheries in CSA into a global context. Second, the authors provide a review of valuation techniques for fisheries and use this analytical framework to review the principal literature on freshwater fisheries in the region. Then they turn their attention to the economic impact of dams and water abstraction schemes, reviewing the available literature to ascertain how/if economic values are computed for the impact on fisheries. Finally, they offer some conclusions and recommendations on the direction for future studies of freshwater fisheries in CSA

Four pi-recoil proportional counter used as neutron spectrometer

Study considers problems encountered in using 4 pi-recoil counters for neutron spectra measurement. Emphasis is placed on calibration, shape discrimination, variation of W, the average energy loss per ion pair, and the effects of differentiation on the intrinsic counter resolution

Demand commitment bargaining: The case of apex games

Game Theory

On the origin of noisy states whose teleportation fidelity can be enhanced through dissipation

Recently Badziag \emph{et al.} \cite{badziag} obtained a class of noisy states whose teleportation fidelity can be enhanced by subjecting one of the qubits to dissipative interaction with the environment via amplitude damping channel (ADC). We show that such noisy states result while sharing the states (| \Phi ^{\pm}> =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(| 00> \pm | 11>)) across ADC. We also show that under similar dissipative interactions different Bell states give rise to noisy entangled states that are qualitatively very different from each other in the sense, only the noisy entangled states constructed from the Bell states (| \Phi ^{\pm}>) can \emph{}be made better sometimes by subjecting the unaffected qubit to a dissipative interaction with the environment. Importantly if the noisy state is non teleporting then it can always be made teleporting with this prescription. We derive the most general restrictions on improvement of such noisy states assuming that the damping parameters being different for both the qubits. However this curious prescription does not work for the noisy entangled states generated from (| \Psi ^{\pm}> =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(| 01> \pm | 10>)). This shows that an apriori knowledge of the noisy channel might be helpful to decide which Bell state needs to be shared between Alice and Bob. \emph{}Comment: Latex, 18 pages: Revised version with a new result. Submitted to PR

Contracting out public service provision to not-for-profit firms

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Oxford Economic Papers following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version in Oxford Economic Papers volume 62, issue 4 is available online at the link below.In an incomplete-contract setting, we analyse the contracting out of public service provision, comparing the performance of for-profit (FP) and not-for-profit (NP) firms. Two institutional arrangements are considered, control rights lying either with the firm (PPP) or the government (traditional procurement). We show that provision by an NP may be associated with overinvestment in quality improvement, but that under conditions that restrain this overinvestment, the NP may yield greater welfare than obtains with FP-provision. Although none of the four possible arrangements is preferable under all conditions, the introduction of PPP has enhanced the scope for advantageous provision by an NP.Economic and Social Research Counci

The walking robot project

A walking robot was designed, analyzed, and tested as an intelligent, mobile, and a terrain adaptive system. The robot's design was an application of existing technologies. The design of the six legs modified and combines well understood mechanisms and was optimized for performance, flexibility, and simplicity. The body design incorporated two tripods for walking stability and ease of turning. The electrical hardware design used modularity and distributed processing to drive the motors. The software design used feedback to coordinate the system and simple keystrokes to give commands. The walking machine can be easily adapted to hostile environments such as high radiation zones and alien terrain. The primary goal of the leg design was to create a leg capable of supporting a robot's body and electrical hardware while walking or performing desired tasks, namely those required for planetary exploration. The leg designers intent was to study the maximum amount of flexibility and maneuverability achievable by the simplest and lightest leg design. The main constraints for the leg design were leg kinematics, ease of assembly, degrees of freedom, number of motors, overall size, and weight

Marriage Patterns in the United States

This paper analyzes cohort marriage patterns in the United States in order to determine whether declining rates of first marriage are due to changes in the timing of marriage, the incidence of marriage, or both. Parametric models, which are well-suited to the analysis of censored or truncated data, are fit separately to information on age at first marriage derived from three data sets which were collected independently and at different points in time. Extended versions of the models are also estimated in which the parameters of the model distributions are allowed to depend on social and, economic variables.The results provide evidence that the incidence of first marriage is declining and that there is only a slight tendency for women to delay marriage. In addition, education is the most important correlate of decisions about the timing of first marriage whereas race is the most important correlate of decisions about its incidence.

Scaling Laws for Non-Intercommuting Cosmic String Networks

We study the evolution of non-interacting and entangled cosmic string networks in the context of the velocity-dependent one-scale model. Such networks may be formed in several contexts, including brane inflation. We show that the frozen network solution $L\propto a$, although generic, is only a transient one, and that the asymptotic solution is still $L\propto t$ as in the case of ordinary (intercommuting) strings, although in the present context the universe will usually be string-dominated. Thus the behaviour of two strings when they cross does not seem to affect their scaling laws, but only their densities relative to the background.Comment: Phys. Rev. D (in press); v2: final published version (references added, typos corrected