Spectral Indices of Stars at Super-solar Regime

We derived Lick narrow-band indices for 139 candidate super metal-rich stars of different luminosity class previously studied in Malagnini et al. (2000). Indices include Iron Fe50, Fe52, Fe53, and Magnesium Mgb and Mg2 features. By comparing observations with Kurucz' synthetic model atmospheres, no evidence is found for non-standard Mg vs. Fe relative abundance (i.e. [Mg/Fe]~ 0, on the average, for our sample). A comparison with the Worthey et al.(1994) and Buzzoni et al.(1992, 1994) fitting function predictions for [Fe/H] > 0 is performed and briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; proceedings of "New Quests in Stellar Astrophysics: The link between Stars and Cosmology", 26-30 March, 2001, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, eds. M. Chavez, A. Bressan, A. Buzzoni & D. Mayya, to be published by the Kluwer Academic Publisher

The Optimal Pricing of Pollution When Enforcement is Costly

We consider the pricing of a uniformly mixed pollutant when enforcement is costly with a model of optimal, possibly firm-specific, emissions taxes and their enforcement. We argue that optimality requires an enforcement strategy that induces full compliance by every firm. This holds whether or not regulators have complete information about firms’ abatement costs, the costs of monitoring them for compliance, or the costs of collecting penalties from noncompliant firms. Moreover, ignoring several unrealistic special cases, optimality requires discriminatory emissions taxes except when regulators are unable to observe firms’ abatement costs, the costs of monitoring individual firms, or any firm-specific characteristic that is known to be jointly distributed with either the firms’ abatement costs or their monitoring costs. In many pollution control settings, especially those that have been subject to various forms of environmental regulation in the past, regulators are not likely to be so ill-informed about individual firms. In these settings, policies that set or generate a uniform pollution price like conventional designs involving uniform taxes and competitive emission trading with freely-allocated or auctioned permits will not be efficient.Compliance, Enforcement, Emissions Taxes, Monitoring, Asymmetric Information, Uncertainty

Performance Seismic Design of the Retrofit of a University Library using Non-Conventional Methods

This research proposes a structural retrofit of a reinforced concrete building older than 50 years. The structural system is dual using frames and walls, having an area of 1980 m2 and 4 levels with a total height of 15.50 m. There are three unconventional methods to retrofit this infrastructure. The first is to install steel jackets with bolt anchors. The second methodology is through the use of jackets and anchors of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP). The third alternative is through reinforcement of walls with 2 diagonal struts made with CFRP sheets as struts, also installing CFRP anchors at each end of both struts to ensure that these sheets work up to their high levels of tension. These anchors together with the diagonal plates contribute to give ductility to the wall and in turn resist the effects of sliding at the base, a fault that is very common in rigid structures such as walls. Each unconventional reinforcement methodology used in this research is validated using laboratory tests results of reinforced columns and walls retrofitted with every of the three innovative methods. Nonlinear static analysis - Pushover of each alternative was performed and compared with the demand for the 1974 earthquake in Lima, scaling 3 seismic records to a PGA of 0.45g, which is the acceleration of design in Lima. It is shown that these proposals are effective in providing levels of shear base and displacement capacity in the inelastic design. For the 0.40mx0.80m columns, the results show that both reinforcements increase ductility by more than 10%; on the other hand, the proposal of reinforcement in the walls of 40cm thick, produced even better results increasing ductility by 100% and shear base by 100%

Cryopreservation of Gametes and Larvae of the Eastern Oyster Crassostrea Virginica.

Storage of gametes and larvae offers benefits for research and commercial oyster production and should be applicable in the hatchery at a commercial scale. We optimized refrigerated storage of eastern oyster sperm. Significant differences were found in the motility of sperm suspended in artificial sea water (ASW) of different osmotic pressures (P \u3c 0.001). The highest motility was found in undiluted sperm and the lowest in 1:31 dilution. The greatest larval survival at 12 h (48%) was obtained with sperm diluted in calcium-free Hanks\u27 balanced salt solution (C-F HBSS). Thus, for storage of longer than 1 d, it is best to leave samples undiluted. However, when sperm samples are diluted, it is best to maintain high sperm concentrations and to use C-F HBSS as an extender. Samples were frozen at -2.5°C/min, held for 5 min at -30°C, and plunged in liquid nitrogen using 10% propylene glycol (PG) as the cryoprotectant for sperm and 10% or 15% PG for trochophore larvae. Motility and fertilizing ability of thawed sperm were affected by cryoprotectant concentration and thawing temperature (P = 0.0001). Larval survival was affected by the concentration of larvae per straw (P = 0.0011). Frozen samples were transported to an oyster hatchery at Grand Isle, Louisiana. After 4 months, 1,000 oysters from the control group, 230 oysters produced from thawed sperm, and 850 oysters from thawed larvae were found. Oysters produced from thawed larvae developed normally in the hatchery, demonstrating opportunities for use of cryopreservation in research and aquaculture. Flow cytometry with the fluorescent dyes Sybr-14 and propidium iodide (PI) was used to assess membrane damage of thawed sperm, and rhodamine 123 and PI were used to assess mitochondrial function. Preliminary studies of cryopreservation of oyster eggs were performed. Fluorescein diacetate (FDA) was used to identify viable eggs. Dimethyl sulfoxide (0.88 M and 1.75 M) and sucrose (0.12 M and 0.25 M) were the least toxic cryoprotectants evaluated. The cooling rate yielding least damage to eggs was -1.5°C per min. However, only an average of 14 eggs (out of 200) were stained with FDA in thawed samples and none were fertilizable

Lick Spectral Indices for Super Metal-rich Stars

The Lick Fe5015, Fe5270, Fe5335, Mgb and Mg2 indices are presented for 139 candidate SMR stars of different luminosity class studied in Malagnini et al. (2000). Evidence is found for a standard (i.e. [Mg/Fe]~0) Mg vs. Fe relative abundance. Both the Worthey et al. (1994) and Buzzoni et al. (1992, 1994) fitting functions are found to suitably match the data at super-solar metallicity regimes. See http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/~eps/home.html for further details.Comment: 16 pages with 11 figures (Aastex format). To appear in the Nov. '01 issue of the PAS