Adrenocortical and Adipose Responses to High-Altitude-Induced, Long-Term Hypoxia in the Ovine Fetus

By late gestation, the maturing hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis aids the fetus in responding to stress. Hypoxia represents a significant threat to the fetus accompanying situations such as preeclampsia, smoking, high altitude, and preterm labor. We developed a model of high-altitude (3,820 m), long-term hypoxia (LTH) in pregnant sheep. We describe the impact of LTH on the fetal HPA axis at the level of the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN), anterior pituitary corticotrope, and adrenal cortex. At the PVN and anterior pituitary, the responses to LTH are consistent with hypoxia being a potent activator of the HPA axis and potentially maladaptive, while the adrenocortical response to LTH appears to be primarily adaptive. We discuss mechanisms involved in the delicate balance between these seemingly opposing responses that preserve the normal ontogenic rise in fetal plasma cortisol essential for organ maturation and in this species, birth. Further, we examine the response to, and ramifications of, an acute secondary stressor in the LTH fetus. We provide an integrative model on the potential role of adipose in modulating these responses to LTH. Integration of these adaptive responses to LTH plays a key role in promoting normal fetal growth and development under conditions of a chronic stress

Pricing Strategies Under Emissions Trading: An Experimental Analysis

An important feature in the design of an emissions trading program is how emissions allowances are initially distributed into the market. In a competitive market the choice between an auction and free allocation should, according to economic theory, not have any influence on firms’ production choices nor on consumer prices. However, many observers expect the method of allocation to affect product prices. This paper reports on the use of experimental methods to investigate behavior with respect to how prices will be determined under a cap-and-trade program. Participants initially display a variety of pricing strategies. However, given a simple economic setting in which earnings depend on this behavior, we find that subjects learn to consider the value of allowances and overall behavior moves toward that predicted by economic theory.carbon dioxide; climate change; emissions trading; distributional effects; electricity; allocation; auctions

Collusion in Auctions for Emission Permits: An Experimental Analysis

Environmental markets have several institutional features that provide a new context for the use of auctions and which have not been studied previously. This paper reports on laboratory experiments testing three auction forms -– uniform and discriminatory price sealed bid auctions and an ascending clock auction. We test the ability of subjects to tacitly or explicitly collude in order to maximize profits. Our main result is that the discriminatory and uniform price auctions produce greater revenues than the clock auction, both without and with explicit communication. The clock appears to be more subject to successful collusion because of its sequential structure and because it allows bidders to focus on one dimension of cooperation (quantity) rather than two (price and quantity).auctions, collusion, experiments, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases

Price Discovery in Emissions Permit Auctions

Auctions are increasingly being used to allocate emissions allowances (“permitsâ€) for cap and trade and common-pool resource management programs. These auctions create thick markets that can provide important information about changes in current market conditions. This paper reports a laboratory experiment in which half of the bidders experienced unannounced increases in their willingness to pay for permits. The focus is on the extent to which the predicted price increase due to the demand shift is reflected in sales prices under alternative auction formats. Price tracking is comparably good for uniform-price sealed-bid auctions and for multi-round clock auctions, with or without end-of-round information about excess demand. More price inertia is observed for “pay as bid†(discriminatory) auctions, especially for a continuous discriminatory format in which bids could be changed at will during a pre-specified time window, in part because “sniping†in the final moments blocked the full effect of the demand shock.auction, greenhouse gases, price discovery, cap and trade, emission allowances, laboratory experiment

The Effect of Affect: Krathwohl and Bloom’s Affective Domains Underutilized in Counselor Education

Bloom\u27s (1956) Taxonomy cognitive domains have proven useful for decades. Counselor educators are experts in affect, and yet most are unfamiliar with Bloom\u27s affective domains that correspond to the cognitive domains. The affective domains focus on attitudes and values that can help counselor educators assist students to more successfully navigate Bloom\u27s cognitive process by harnessing the effect of affect through combining Bloom\u27s affective and cognitive domains. Since Bloom\u27s cognitive domains are already widely and effectively utilized, perhaps it is time for counselor educators, the experts in affect, to use the affective domains in conjunction with the cognitive domains as initially intended. By studying the correlation between the Cognitive and Affective domains, and further researching the impact of both on the development of CITs, counselor educators can embrace a best practice approach to their work within the already established and widely utilized structure of Bloom\u27s Taxonomy. Keywords: Counselor-in-Training Affect; Bloom’s Affect; Supervision; Counselor Preparatio

Colubrid snake

20 p. : ill., map ; 26 cm.Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-20)."Rhadinophanes, new genus, is erected for a small colubrid snake from high montane forest (~2750 m.) on Cerro Teótepec, in the Sierra Madre del Sur of central Guerrero, Mexico. The characteristics of Rhadinophanes monticola, new species, include a mottled linear pattern, enlarged, ungrooved rear maxillary teeth, and smooth dorsal scales with paired apical pits, in 19-19-17 rows. The hemipenis has a centripetal sulcus spermaticus and is distinctly bilobed, with each lobe being spinose basally and individually calyculate and capitate distally. Rhadinophanes monticola resembles snakes of the genera Rhadinaea and Coniophanes, but it is comparatively primitive in hemipenial structure and in several other relevant characters. Although Rhadinophanes might represent the plesiomorphic sister group of Rhadinaea and Coniophanes, the monophyly of these phenotypically similar snakes could not be demonstrated. In contrast, a sister-group relationship is corroborated for Rhadinophanes and the very dissimilar Tantalophis, on the basis of unusual hemipenial features judged to be synapomorphies. The phyletic position of Rhadinophanes and Tantalophis to other genera is uncertain, although similarity can be found to such diverse groups as Rhadinaea-Coniophanes and Leptodeira-Cryophis of Middle America, and with various alsophiine colubrids, which occur widely in the American mainland, West Indies, and Galapagos. The hemipenes of Rhadinophanes and Tantalophis are reminiscent of the alsophiine type, although there seems to be fundamental disparity in several characters, including the synapomorphic features that affirm the monophyly of these two otherwise divergent genera"--P. [1]