International Trade Between Consumer and Conservationist Countries

We consider trade between a consumer' country with an open access renewable resource and a conservationist' country that regulates resource harvesting to maximize domestic steady-state utility. In what we call the mild overuse' case, the consumer country exports the resource good and suffers steady-state losses from trade, as suggested by the conventional wisdom' that weak resource management standards confer a competitive advantage on domestic firms in the resource sector but cause welfare losses. Strikingly, however, when the resource stock is most in jeopardy, the conservationist country exports the resource good in steady state and both countries experience gains from trade.

International Trade and Open Access Renewable Resources: The Small Open Economy Case

This paper develops a two-sector general equilibrium model of an economy with an open access renewable resource. We characterize the autarkic steady state, showing that autarky prices (and 'comparative advantage') are determined by the ratio of intrinsic resource growth to labor. Under free trade, steady state trade and production patterns for a small open economy are determined by whether the resource good's world price exceeds its autarky price. Strikingly, if the small country exports the resource good while remaining diversified, then steady-state utility is lower than in autarky, and increases in the world price of exports are welfare-reducing.

The Community Meat Ring

Fresh meat regularly and at reasonable prices” is what a rural community in Douglas county has adopted as its slogan. To have fresh meat whenever desired from farm butchered livestock is too often considered practically impossible on account of the rather limited amount of fresh meat that a family could use before the meat spoils. To get it regularly from a butcher shop involves added time aside from the fact that very high prices are charged. The salting, curing, smoking, and other methods of meat preservation are practiced to a certain extent by farmers throughout the country, but supplies of meat kept in this way generally become exhausted in late summer, and furthermore, meat so preserved cannot take the place of fresh meat. To remedy this meat problem, the rural community west of Armour, South Dakota, with the assistance of the Farm Bureau formed a “Community Meat Ring.” (See more in text.

The environmental benefits of investment in agricultural science and technology: an application of global spatial benefit transfer

Food security is a major current and future policy concern. The world population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and continuing growth in economic output and incomes is expected to result in changing food consumption patterns. In particular the wider adoption of ‘Western’ diets will result in both higher calorie intake and greater meat consumption. Continuing climate change is expected to add further pressures to agricultural production. This paper presents the results of a global analysis funded by the TEEB study on the environmental benefits of investment in agricultural knowledge, science and technology, specifically in terms of closing the gaps between developing and developed country agricultural productivity. The results show that by easing pressures on land use change on terrestrial biomes (forests and grasslands), and the ecosystem services they provide, investment in agricultural science and technology provides environmental benefits of US$161.3bn per annum in 2050. Between 2000 and 2050 these benefits amount to US$2,964bn in addition to US$6,343bn in carbon benefits and compare to costs of US$5,68bnResearch and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Update on treatment of follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma: focus on potential of bortezomib

Follicular lymphoma is predominantly managed as a chronic disease, with intermittent chemo/immunotherapy reserved for symptomatic progression. It is considered incurable with conventional treatments, and current therapeutic options are associated with significant toxicities that are especially limiting in older patients. Bortezomib (PS-341; Velcade®), a first-in-class drug targeting the proteolytic core subunit of the 26S proteasome, has emerged as a therapeutic alternative in follicular lymphoma, with promising preclinical data and efficacy in patients with other hematological malignancies. Several clinical trials were conducted with bortezomib for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As a single agent, overall responses in follicular lymphoma varied greatly (16%–41%), with weekly bortezomib showing less neurotoxicity than twice-weekly regimens, but with concern about decreased responses. Combination with rituximab was projected to improve the efficacy of bortezomib, but this resulted in increased toxicities and questionable added benefit. Although the largest Phase III study in follicular lymphoma of bortezomib plus rituximab versus rituximab alone demonstrated a significant progression-free survival difference, the absolute difference was small (12.8 months versus 11 months). Combining bortezomib with established regimens, such as rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (R-CHOP), rituximab, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisone (R-CVP), or rituximab-bendamustine also did not show definite benefit, and many of these studies did not meet their primary endpoint when bortezomib failed to improve responses or survival to the degree anticipated. In a disease where the goal of treatment is palliative and affected patients often have other medical and treatment-related comorbidities, decisions regarding therapies which carry risks of additional toxicities must be considered carefully. Conclusive evidence of the ability of bortezomib to improve patient outcomes meaningfully and to justify the added toxicity is lacking, but limitations in cross-trial comparisons are recognized. Large randomized trials and investigations of combinations with promising novel targeted agents will aid in determining the role of bortezomib, if any, in the future treatment of follicular lymphoma

Generalized DPW method and an application to isometric immersions of space forms

Let $G$ be a complex Lie group and $\Lambda G$ denote the group of maps from the unit circle ${\mathbb S}^1$ into $G$, of a suitable class. A differentiable map $F$ from a manifold $M$ into $\Lambda G$, is said to be of \emph{connection order $(_a^b)$} if the Fourier expansion in the loop parameter $\lambda$ of the ${\mathbb S}^1$-family of Maurer-Cartan forms for $F$, namely F_\lambda^{-1} \dd F_\lambda, is of the form $\sum_{i=a}^b \alpha_i \lambda^i$. Most integrable systems in geometry are associated to such a map. Roughly speaking, the DPW method used a Birkhoff type splitting to reduce a harmonic map into a symmetric space, which can be represented by a certain order $(_{-1}^1)$ map, into a pair of simpler maps of order $(_{-1}^{-1})$ and $(_1^1)$ respectively. Conversely, one could construct such a harmonic map from any pair of $(_{-1}^{-1})$ and $(_1^1)$ maps. This allowed a Weierstrass type description of harmonic maps into symmetric spaces. We extend this method to show that, for a large class of loop groups, a connection order $(_a^b)$ map, for $a<0<b$, splits uniquely into a pair of $(_a^{-1})$ and $(_1^b)$ maps. As an application, we show that constant non-zero curvature submanifolds with flat normal bundle of a sphere or hyperbolic space split into pairs of flat submanifolds, reducing the problem (at least locally) to the flat case. To extend the DPW method sufficiently to handle this problem requires a more general Iwasawa type splitting of the loop group, which we prove always holds at least locally.Comment: Some typographical correction

YouTube Videos and the Rip Current Hazard: Swimming in a Sea of (Mis)information

Rip currents are strong, narrow, offshore flows found on many global beaches and contribute to hundreds of drownings and tens of thousands of rescues each year. Yet despite long-standing educational efforts, public understanding of rip currents is poor. YouTube represents a new visual-based social media platform with the potential to educate a large and global audience about the rip current hazard. This study analyzed the content of 256 rip current–related YouTube videos with over 5 million total views as of March 2, 2015 finding that the accuracy of information disseminated about rip currents on YouTube is mixed and of varying quality. Existing videos are good at emphasizing correct rip current terminology, visual imagery, and a range of escape strategies, but greater emphasis in future videos must be placed on rip current avoidance, particularly through promoting the need to swim near lifeguards and how to spot rip currents