6,963 research outputs found
Nonmarket valuation of water quality: Addressing spatially heterogeneous preferences using GIS and a random parameter logit model
The spatial distribution of agri-environmental policy benefits has important implications for the efficient allocation of management effort. The practical convenience of relying on sample mean values of individual benefits for aggregation can come at the cost of biased aggregate estimates. The main objective of this paper is to test spatial hypotheses regarding respondents' local water quality and quantity, and their willingness-to-pay for improvements in water quality attributes. This paper combines choice experiment and spatially related water quality data via a Geographical Information System (GIS) to develop a method that evaluates the influence of respondents' local water quality on willingness-to-pay for river and stream conservation programmes in Canterbury, New Zealand. Results showed that those respondents who live in the vicinity of low quality waterways are willing to pay more for improvements relative to those who live near to high quality waterways. The study also found that disregarding the influence of respondents' local water quality data has a significant impact on the magnitude of welfare estimates and causes substantial underestimation of aggregated benefits
Nonlinear electrophoresis in the presence of dielectric decrement
The nonlinear phenomena that occur in the electric double layer (EDL) that forms at charged surfaces strongly influence electrokinetic effects, including electro-osmosis and electrophoresis. In particular, saturation effects due to either dielectric decrement or ion crowding effects are of paramount importance. Dielectric decrement significantly influences the ionic concentration in the EDL at high ζ potential, leading to the formation of a condensed layer near the particle's surface. In this article, we present a model incorporating both steric effects due to the finite size of ions and dielectric decrement to describe the physics in the electric double layer. The model remains valid in both weakly and strongly nonlinear regimes, as long as the electric double layer remains in quasiequilibrium. We apply this model to the study of two archetypal problems in electrokinetics, namely the electrophoresis of particles with fixed surface charges and the electrophoresis of ideally polarizable particles
Percolative Effects on Noise in Pentacene Transistors
The 1/f noise in pentacene thin film transistors has been measured as a
function of device thickness from well above the effective conduction channel
thickness to only two conducting layers. Over the entire thickness range, the
spectral noise form is 1/f, and the noise parameter varies as (gate voltage)-1,
confirming that the noise is due to mobility fluctuations, even in the thinnest
films. Hooge's parameter varies as an inverse power-law with conductivity for
all film thicknesses. The magnitude and transport characteristics of the
spectral noise are well explained in terms of percolative effects arising from
the grain boundary structure.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, Publishe
Modelling the resilience of forage crop production to future climate change in the dairy regions of southeastern Australia using APSIM
A warmer and potentially drier future climate is likely to influence the production of forage crops on dairy farms in The southeast dairy regions of Australia. Biophysical modelling was undertaken to explore the resilience of forage production of individual forage crops to scalar increases in temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and changes in daily rainfall. The model APSIM was adapted to reflect species specific responses to growth under elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations. It was then used to simulate 40 years of production of forage wheat, oats, annual ryegrass, maize grown for silage, forage sorghum, forage rape and alfalfa grown at three locations in southeast Australia with increased temperature scenarios (1, 2, 3 and 4 °C of warming) and atmospheric CO2 concentration (435, 535, 640 and 750 ppm) and decreasing rainfall scenarios (10, 20 or 30% less rainfall). At all locations positive increases in DM yield compared with the baseline climate scenario were predicted for lucerne (2·6–93·2% increase), wheat (8·9-37·4% increase), oats (6·1–35·9% increase) and annual ryegrass (9·7–66·7% increase) under all future climate scenarios. The response of forage rape and forage sorghum varied between location and climate change scenario. At all locations, maize was predicted to have a minimal change in yield under all future climates (between a 2·6% increase and a 6·8% decrease). The future climate scenarios altered the seasonal pattern of forage supply for wheat, oats and lucerne with an increase in forage produced during winter. The resilience of forage crops to climate change indicates that they will continue to be an important component of dairy forage production in southeastern Australia
Below-cost legislation: lessons from the Republic of Ireland
This paper traces the emergence, evolution, and demise of below cost legislation in the grocery industry in the republic of Ireland. The paper adds to our understanding of the legislation by adopting the view that, by using the net invoice price as its definition of cost, the legislation increased two streams of quasi-rents, first on suppliers’ brandeds and second on retailers’ own brands which acted to depress competitive forces and direct supplier-buyer negotiations to off-invoice discounts. Supplier generated quasi-rents financed discounts, and when coupled with retailers’ higher margins on their own brands, provided little incentive for a return to a price competitive environment. Two factors undermined this situation: the substitution of discounters’ products for suppliers’ brands as the discounters share of the market grew and the increase in cross border shopping. These had the combined effect of reducing the available quasi-rents earned in the Irish market resulting in the breakdown of the status quo and a return to price competition. Through its impact on negotiations, the legislation also introduced inefficiencies to both retailers’ and suppliers businesses representing additional waste that could have been more productively used to reduce consumer prices. The paper endorses the Government’s decision to rescind the order and remove an important constraint on both vertical and horizontal competition. Lessons from the Republic of Ireland suggest that the competitive response to the removal of below cost legislation, and reductions in prices, may take time and will depend on economic circumstances and a change in the prevailing norms of organizational behaviour and quasi-rent seeking opportunitie
Use of the short-term inflammatory response in the mouse peritoneal cavity to assess the biological activity of leached vitreous fibers.
We used a special-purpose glass microfiber sample, Johns-Manville Code 100/475, to study the effects of various acid and alkali treatments on biological activity as assessed by inflammation in the mouse peritoneal cavity, the leaching of Si, and the phase contrast optical microscopy (PCOM) fiber number. We used mild and medium treatments with oxalic acid and Tris buffer and harsh treatment with concentrated HCl and NaOH. Mild oxalic acid and Tris treatment for 2 weeks had no effect on any of the end-points, but prolonging the mild oxalic acid treatment time to 2 months reduced the biological activity and the fiber number. Medium oxalic acid treatment reduced the biological activity and the fiber number and caused a loss of Si. Medium Tris alkali treatment reduced the PCOM-countable fibers and the biological activity but did not cause a substantial loss of Si. Harsh treatment with strong HCl did not affect the fiber number or cause leaching but the biological activity was reduced; strong NaOH reduced the fiber number and biological activity, and caused marked leaching of Si. The medium oxalic acid conditions (pH 1.4) were more acid than those found in lung cells but produced the same effects (reduction in fiber number and biological activity) as the more physiological mild treatment (pH 4.0), when prolonged. This study suggests that medium oxalic acid treatment can be used as a short-term assay to compare loss of Si, reduction in fiber number, and change in biological activity of vitreous fibers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS
Schottky mass measurements of heavy neutron-rich nuclides in the element range 70\leZ \le79 at the ESR
Storage-ring mass spectrometry was applied to neutron-rich Au
projectile fragments. Masses of Lu, Hf, Ta,
W, and Re nuclei were measured for the first time. The
uncertainty of previously known masses of W and Os nuclei
was improved. Observed irregularities on the smooth two-neutron separation
energies for Hf and W isotopes are linked to the collectivity phenomena in the
corresponding nuclei.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 2 table
Short-term inhalation and in vitro tests as predictors of fiber pathogenicity.
A wide range of fiber types was tested in two in vitro assays: toxicity to A549 epithelial cells, as detachment from substrate, and the production of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor (TNF) by rat alveolar macrophages. Three of the fibers were also studied in vivo, using short-term inhalation followed by a) bronchoalveolar lavage to assess the inflammatory response and b) measurement of cell proliferation in terminal bronchioles and alveolar ducts, using incorporation of bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). The amount of TNF produced by macrophages in vitro depended on the fiber type, with the man-made vitreous fibers, and refractory ceramic fibers being least stimulatory and silicon carbide (SiC) whiskers providing the greatest stimulation. In the epithelial detachment assay there were dose-dependent differences in the toxicity of the various fibers, with long amosite being the most toxic. However, there was no clear relationship to known chronic pathogenicity. Fibers studied by short-term inhalation produced some inflammation, but there was no clear discrimination between the responses to code 100/475 glass fibers and the more pathogenic amosite and SiC. However, measurements of BrdU uptake into lung cells showed that amosite and SiC produced a greater reaction than code 100/475, which itself caused no more proliferation than that seen in untreated lungs. These results mirror the pathogenicity ranking of the fibers in long-term experiments. In conclusion, the only test to show potential as a predictive measure of pathogenicity was that of cell proliferation in lungs after brief inhalation exposure (BrdU assay). We believe that this assay should be validated with a wider range of fibers, doses, and time points
Test of Special Relativity and Equivalence principle from K Physics
A violation of Local Lorentz Invariance (VLI) and hence the special theory of
relativity or a violation of equivalence principle (VEP) in the Kaon system
can, in principle, induce oscillations between and . We
construct a general formulation in which simultaneous pairwise diagonalization
of mass, momemtum, weak or gravitational eigenstates is not assumed. %and the
maximum attainable %velocities of the velocity eigenstates are different. We
discuss this problem in a general way and point out that, as expected, the VEP
and VLI contributions are indistinguishable. We then insist on the fact that
VEP or VLI can occur even when CPT is conserved. A possible CP violation of the
superweak type induced by VEP or VLI is introduced and discussed. We show that
the general VEP mechanism (or the VLI mechanism, but not both simultaneously),
with or without conserved CPT, could be clearly tested experimentally through
the energy dependence of the mass difference and of ,
, . Constraints imposed by present experiments are
calculated.Comment: Latex, 15 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Constraining Lyman-alpha spatial offsets at from VANDELS slit spectroscopy
We constrain the distribution of spatially offset Lyman-alpha emission
(Ly) relative to rest-frame ultraviolet emission in high
redshift () Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) exhibiting Ly emission
from VANDELS, a VLT/VIMOS slit-spectroscopic survey of the CANDELS Ultra Deep
Survey and Chandra Deep Field South fields (
total). Because slit spectroscopy compresses two-dimensional spatial
information into one spatial dimension, we use Bayesian inference to recover
the underlying Ly spatial offset distribution. We model the
distribution using a 2D circular Gaussian, defined by a single parameter
, the standard deviation expressed in polar
coordinates. Over the entire redshift range of our sample (), we find
kpc ( conf.),
corresponding to arcsec at . We also find that
decreases significantly with redshift. Because
Ly spatial offsets can cause slit-losses, the decrease in
with redshift can partially explain the increase
in the fraction of Ly emitters observed in the literature over this
same interval, although uncertainties are still too large to reach a strong
conclusion. If continues to decrease into the
reionization epoch, then the decrease in Ly transmission from galaxies
observed during this epoch might require an even higher neutral hydrogen
fraction than what is currently inferred. Conversely, if spatial offsets
increase with the increasing opacity of the IGM, slit losses may explain some
of the drop in Ly transmission observed at . Spatially resolved
observations of Ly and UV continuum at are needed to settle the
issue.Comment: Submitted to MNRA
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