On the Enforcement of Territorial Use Rights Regulations: A Game Theoretic Approach

Territorial Use Rights (commonly known as TURFs in the literature) consists in the allocation of fishing rights to individuals and/or groups to fish in certain geographical locations. A requisite for these communities to be granted fishing rights is the formulation of a management and exploitation plan (MEP). While thus far the literature on TURFs has been centred on the biological and technical aspects of it, to our knowledge there is no work squarely dealing with the issue of enforcement of the MEP that the community, once granted the fishing use rights, have to comply with. We formally explore this issue from an economic perspective by formulating a static game of norm compliance in a regime of common property resource exploitation. The key characteristic of this game is a monitoring and sanctioning mechanism, where fishermen monitor and sanction one another. We found that in the absence of any endogenous regulation from the part of the fishing community, TURFs can not avoid the economic overexploitation of the fishery. We discuss the importance of economic incentives (and disincentives) in the formulation of endogenous regulations aimed at ensuring compliance of the MEP. Our results on the relevance of economic incentives in the context of a TURF regulation can also be used to highlight the importance of less conventional enforcement tools.Territorial Use Rights, Enforcement, Game Theory, Chile

Constitutive and regulated expression vectors to construct polyphosphate deficient bacteria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP), a polymer of tens or hundreds of phosphate residues linked by ATP-like bonds, is found in all organisms and performs a wide variety of functions. PolyP is synthesized in bacterial cells by the actions of polyphosphate kinases (PPK1 and PPK2) and degraded by an exopolyphosphatase (PPX). Bacterial cells with polyP deficiencies are impaired in many structural and important cellular functions such as motility, quorum sensing, biofilm formation and virulence. Knockout mutants of the <it>ppk1 </it>gene have been the most frequent strategy employed to generate polyP deficient cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>As an alternative method to construct polyP-deficient bacteria we developed constitutive and regulated broad-host-range vectors for depleting the cellular polyP content. This was achieved by the overexpression of yeast exopolyphosphatase (PPX1). Using this approach in a polyphosphate accumulating bacteria (<it>Pseudomonas sp</it>. B4), we were able to eliminate most of the cellular polyP (>95%). Furthermore, the effect of overexpression of PPX1 resembled the functional defects found in motility and biofilm formation in a <it>ppk1 </it>mutant from <it>Pseudomonas aeruginosa </it>PAO1. The plasmids constructed were also successfully replicated in other bacteria such as <it>Escherichia coli, Burkholderia </it>and <it>Salmonella</it>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>To deplete polyP contents in bacteria broad-host-range expression vectors can be used as an alternative and more efficient method compared with the deletion of <it>ppk </it>genes. It is of great importance to understand why polyP deficiency affects vital cellular processes in bacteria. The construction reported in this work will be of great relevance to study the role of polyP in microorganisms with non-sequenced genomes or those in which orthologs to <it>ppk </it>genes have not been identified.</p

Dynamics of Coherent States in Regular and Chaotic Regimes of the Non-integrable Dicke Model

The quantum dynamics of initial coherent states is studied in the Dicke model and correlated with the dynamics, regular or chaotic, of their classical limit. Analytical expressions for the survival probability, i.e. the probability of finding the system in its initial state at time $t$, are provided in the regular regions of the model. The results for regular regimes are compared with those of the chaotic ones. It is found that initial coherent states in regular regions have a much longer equilibration time than those located in chaotic regions. The properties of the distributions for the initial coherent states in the Hamiltonian eigenbasis are also studied. It is found that for regular states the components with no negligible contribution are organized in sequences of energy levels distributed according to Gaussian functions. In the case of chaotic coherent states, the energy components do not have a simple structure and the number of participating energy levels is larger than in the regular cases.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of the Escuela Latinoamericana de F\'isica (ELAF) Marcos Moshinsky 2017. (9 pages, 4 figures

Co-enforcement of Common Pool Resources: Experimental Evidence from TURFs in Chile

This work presents the results of framed field experiments designed to study the co-enforcement of access to common pool resources. The experiments were conducted in the field with participants in the territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) management scheme that regulates access to nearshore fisheries along the coast of Chile. In the experiments, TURF members not only decided on harvest but also invested in monitoring to deter poaching by outsiders. Treatments varied whether the monitoring investment was an individual decision or determined by a group vote. Per-unit sanctions for poaching were exogenous as if provided by a government authority, and we varied the sanction level. Our results suggest that co-enforcement, in which monitoring for poaching is provided by resource users and sanctions are levied by the government, can reduce poaching levels. Monitoring investments were not high enough to lift the expected marginal penalty for poaching above the marginal gain from poaching when the sanction for poaching was low, but expected marginal penalties were higher than the marginal gain from poaching when the sanction was high. Despite this, poaching levels were not sensitive to changes in monitoring levels and sanctions. While co-enforcement did not eliminate poaching, it did eliminate the gains from poaching in all but one treatment

Attitude, knowledge and perception of the altruistic donation of blood in a city in Northeastern Mexico

Objectives: To identify the causes due to which potential blood donors do not make voluntary donations: lack of knowledge, attitude, and the perception of blood donations as unwholesome. Materials and methods: We conducted a transversal, observational, descriptive, prospective, and a survey-based study of 435 subjects in Monterrey, Mexico in November of 2011. Results: 135 (31%) subjects were already donors, of which only 16 (3.6%) did it altruistically. Of the total amount of subjects, 161 (37%) were associated with some benefits from donating blood, 154 (35%) identified some kind of damage, the most mentioned was transmission of diseases with 77 (50%) mentions. The most common cause of refusal toward donation was ‘‘saving blood for a relative in need’’ with 137 (33%) mentions. Of the subjects surveyed, 55% (n = 240) refer having very few thoughts for donating blood voluntarily. Also, 360 (86%) subjects will donate without expecting something in return. Finally, 348 (80%) subjects do not remember seeing or hearing any kind of promotional information about altruistic blood donation. Conclusions: A great deal of people will donate blood altruistically without receiving any reward for doing so. 80% of the subjects do not remember seeing or hearing any kind of advertisement for blood donation which is proof of lack of adequate publicity. The analysis of perception of damages or benefits from blood donation will help in the development of more focused blood donation campaigns

Fish and Fisheries of the Eastern Coast of Mexico, with Emphasis on Coral Reef Species

The state on knowledge of fish communities associated with coral reefs of the southern Gulf of Mexico (Veracruz, Campeche bank), and eastern Yucatan on the Caribbean is reviewed, in addition to a description of the main fisheries of the area. The review includes coral reef fish of Veracruz, the Campeche Bank, and reefs running along the Caribbean coast up to the border with Belize. Data recorded suggest that the heterogeneity of different levels (region, reef and reef zone) may be responsible for a larger number of niches available, promoting higher specific diversity that is more evident in the Caribbean reefs. The environmental conditions create patterns of differential abundance among the three zones. The main regional fisheries include more than 60 species and the current yield suggests a 30% reduction compared to catch volumes recorded a few years ago. The changes in coral coverage and the fishing pressure over coral reefs have exerted effects on species of fishing importance

Actualización backend del sistema de monitoreo WSN

Este resumen contiene la descripción de las actividades, herramientas y planeación realizadas por el equipo de backend en el proyecto “Sistema de monitoreo ambiental”. El objetivo de este proyecto es modernizar el backend existente a una tecnología más nueva, como lo es Node JS, para facilitar en un futuro el mantenimiento y actualización de este servicio web y empatarlo con las tecnologías educativas del ITESO.ITESO, A.C