George Warde Norman, Taxation and the Promotion of Human Happiness : An Essay by George Warde Norman, ed. D. P. O’Brien, with assistance from John Creedy

Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2009), pp. xilll, 209, £59.95. ISBN 978184844485

Morphology and tructure of the pollen cone and pollen grain of the Araucaria species from Argentina

The pollen cone and the pollen grain of the two Argentinean species of Araucaria are described with LM, SEM and TEM. Primordia of pollen cones are formed in April and May and reach maturity by mid-October in A. angustifolia (Bert.) O. Kuntze and by mid-November in A. araucana. (Mol.) K. Koch. Characters of the mature pollen cones and microsporophylls between both taxa are clearly differentiated. Pollen grains are spheroidal-subspheroidal, inaperturate, and asaccate with granulate exine and a subequatorial annular area that corresponds to the sexine thickness. Sculpturing consists of irregularly dispersed granules that are sometimes fused to each other (A. angustifolia) or forming microrugulae (A. araucana). Microgranules and microspinules are also present. The pollen wall ultrastructure is formed by a granular ectexine and lamellated endexine. Granular elements in A. angustifolia are more loosely disposed, form more interstices, and are gradually smaller towards the endexine than in A. araucana. To asses the probable relationships within the family, we compared the pollen grains of the two Araucaria species with those of other extant genera (Agathis, Wollemia) and also with fossil pollen (Araucariacites, Balmeiopsis, Cyclusphaera, Dilwynites) attributed to Araucariaceae.Fil: del Fueyo, Georgina Marisa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”; ArgentinaFil: Caccavari, Marta Alicia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”; Argentina. Provincia de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción; ArgentinaFil: Dome, Elizabeth. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”; Argentin

Evolutionary algorithms for financial trading

Genetic programming (GP) is increasingly popular as a research tool for applications in finance and economics. One thread in this area is the use of GP to discover effective technical trading rules. In a seminal article, Allen & Karjalainen (1999) used GP to find rules that were profitable, but were nevertheless outperformed by the simple “buy and hold” trading strategy. Many succeeding attempts have reported similar findings. This represents a clear example of a significant open issue in the field of GP, namely, generalization in GP [78]. The issue of generalisation is that GP solutions may not be general enough, resulting in poor performance on unseen data. There are a small handful of cases in which such work has managed to find rules that outperform buyand- hold, but these have tended to be difficult to replicate. Among previous studies, work by Becker & Seshadri (2003) was the most promising one, which showed outperformance of buy-and-hold. In turn, Becker & Seshadri’s work had made several modifications to Allen & Karjalainen’s work, including the adoption of monthly rather than daily trading. This thesis provides a replicable account of Becker & Seshadri’s study, and also shows how further modifications enabled fairly reliable outperformance of buy-and-hold, including the use of a train/test/validate methodology [41] to evolve trading rules with good properties of generalization, and the use of a dynamic form of GP [109] to improve the performance of the algorithm in dynamic environments like financial markets. In addition, we investigate and compare each of daily, weekly and monthly trading; we find that outperformance of buy-and-hold can be achieved even for daily trading, but as we move from monthly to daily trading the performance of evolved rules becomes increasingly dependent on prevailing market conditions. This has clarified that robust outperformance of B&H depends on, mainly, the adoption of a relatively infrequent trading strategy (e.g. monthly), as well as a range of factors that amount to sound engineering of the GP grammar and the validation strategy. Moreover, v we also add a comprehensive study of multiobjective approaches to this investigation with assumption from that, and find that multiobjective strategies provide even more robustness in outperforming B&H, even in the context of more frequent (e.g. weekly) trading decisions. Last, inspired by a number of beneficial aspects of grammatical evolution (GE) and reports on the successful performance of various kinds of its applications, we introduce new approach for (GE) with a new suite of operators resulting in an improvement on GE search compared with standard GE. An empirical test of this new GE approach on various kind of test problems, including financial trading, is provided in this thesis as well

Effect of precipitation on choice of frequency for SEASAT scatterometer

Precipitation backscatter limits the effectiveness of a remote sensing radar in a satellite. Scatterometer operation on SEASAT is considered in one of the following frequency ranges: 12.5 GHz; 13.4-14.0 GHz; and 14.4-15.35 GHz. The effect of backscatter from precipitation in these frequency ranges is compared

AGRICULTURAL LAND USE CONFLICT BETWEEN LANDLORDS AND MIGRANT FARMERS IN GHANA: AN EXAMINATION OF ISSUES AFFECTING DAGARA MIGRANTS IN THE BRONG AHAFO REGION

Land tenure has been a major issue in Ghana. Land is an important asset that improves the livelihoods of poorer groups in every society, the world over. Farmer livelihood decisions as regards cropping strategies and input are strongly influenced by land tenure arrangements. Efforts by investors particularly migrants who need land to invest are hampered by the tenurial arrangements prevailing in our societies as is the case of Wenchi traditional area. Rights to land by these migrants are limited as the indigenous Bono are not willing to lease land for longer periods for long term investment purposes. They argue that migrant farmers from north-west of Ghana do not usually put the land to efficient use for it to maintain some level of nutrients. Another argument is that migrant farmers always try to cheat them on their own land by hiding some of the produce from their landlords. The migrants also argue that once they are not allowed to take greater percentage of farm produce from the farm, it would not be economical for them to manage the land the way their landlords want them to do. They argue further that cost of input on the farms is borne by them for only the landlords to get almost the same benefits as them (under the Abunu). Therefore, the use of land breeds tension between the two parties. A case study approach using Dagara migrant farmers from north western Ghana who migrate to Bono area in search of farm lands was used.An extensive literature review was also used in the methodology. The issues that emanated from the findings indicated that different communities and different people have their own ways of tenurial arrangements that result in conflicts most often. The conclusions drawn from the analysis show that conflict is pervasive due to disagreements over share of produce. It is recommended that efforts should be made by both parties to ensure that appropriate measures are put in place for efficient and appropriate land use by integrating customary and statutory policies

Relationship between physiological maturity and commercial maturity of kiwifruit 'Hayward' growing at the South-East of Buenos Aires province (Argentina)

Los frutos climatéricos, como el kiwi, deben cosecharse una vez que alcanzan la madurez fisiológica, a fin de no comprometer su calidad gustativa. El propósito del presente trabajo fue determinar la instancia del desarrollo cuando los frutos del cv. 'Hayward' alcanzaron la madurez fisiológica, mediante la medición de índices de madurez objetivos. Para tal fin, un lote comercial de kiwi cv 'Hayward' situado en el sudeste de la provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina) s e c o s e c h ó s e m a n a l m e n t e d e s d e l a s 11 semanas después de plena floración (sdpf) hasta la cosecha comercial, a las 18 sdpf. La fruta fue analizada a la cosecha y después de un período de almacenamiento (53 días a 2°C) y maduración (7 días a 20°C). A cosecha, el contenido de materia seca de la fruta, la firmeza de la pulpa y la acidez titulable del jugo no sufrieron cambios significativos a partir de las 16 sdpf. Al final del período de almacenamiento y maduración, los sólidos solubles y la acidez titulable, así como la pérdida de peso de los frutos, no variaron significativamente en frutos cosechados a partir de las 16 sdpf. Estos resultados sugieren que la madurez fisiológica se alcanzó dos semanas antes de la cosecha comercial. Con mayores exigencias protocolares de contenido de materia seca, la madurez comercial se habría logrado recién a las 18 sdpf. A madurez fisiológica, los índices de madurez registraron los siguientes valores: 5,4% sólidos solubles, 1,18% acidez titulable, 14,2% materia seca y 49% semillas negras.Climacteric fruits, like kiwifruit, must be harvested at physiological maturity, in order to not affecting their organoleptic quality. The aim of the present work was to determinate the developmental time at which 'Hayward' fruits reached physiological maturity, by measuring objective ripening indexes. A commercial kiwifruit orchard, which was located at the South-East of Buenos Aires province in Argentina, was harvested weekly from 11 weeks after full bloom (wafb) to commercial harvest, at 18 wafb. Fruits were analyzed at harvest and after storage (53 days at 2°C) and ripening (7 days at 20°C) time. At harvest, fruit dry matter content, pulp firmness, and juice tirtratable acidity did not significantly change from 16 wafb. At the end of storage and ripening time, juice soluble solids content, tirtratable acidity, and fruit loss weight did not significantly change in fruits harvested from 16 wafb. These results suggests that physiological maturity was reached two weeks before commercial harvest. If higher standard requirements of dry matter content had to be fulfilled, commercial maturity would be just achieved at 18 wafb. At physiological maturity, the ripening indexes gave the following values: 5.4% soluble solids, 1.18% tirtratable acidity, 14.2% dry matter, and 49% black seeds.Fil: Godoy, Carlos. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias AgrariasFil: Dome, Claudia. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Agraria

Sustainability of natural resource management: where do informal and formal strategies converge?

Sustainability of natural resources has been an important part of people’s culture since creation. Managing these natural resources, particularly land, has been a major concern for a majority of peoples and governments in Sub-Saharan Africa. Land control and use as well as other natural resources has been the way to sustaining a population in Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. There is direct and indirect links between natural resources, livelihoods and the environment. In areas of abundant natural resources such as fertile lands, good water sources, and forests in northern Ghana, livelihood is enhanced as the environment is sustained. In areas of chronic food shortages, natural resources are used to directly bridge the food gap. People derive different livelihoods from varied natural resources for their living. These resources need to be sustained through proper management strategies with the informal (traditional) knowledge systems complementing that of the formal knowledge systems because the people are over exploiting them. Communities therefore argue that, in order to have sustainable resources, there is the need to resort to informal and formal knowledge systems as they prevent resource depletion through traditional and modern laws. This is because, peoples’ livelihoods revolves around these resources. Promoting both strategies would enhance the sustainability of these resources in their communities. A combine ethnographic and survey techniques to gather both quantitative and qualitative data was employed during the research as a methodology. In addition, an extensive literature review was also used in the methodology. Issues emanating from the findings are that informal (traditional) knowledge systems complement that of formal knowledge systems in natural resource management. Natural resources in the study area are depleting as a result of population pressure. Conclusions drawn from the study show that, traditional knowledge systems constitute the major form of management strategies with the formal system the least in the study area. It is recommended that local knowledge system and that of modern knowledge systems need to collaborate effectively and continuously in their strategies in solving this problem of resource depletion in the area. KEY WORDS: sustainability, natural resource management, strategies, informal (traditional), formal, Lawra Distric

Off-nadir antenna bias correction using Amazon rain sigma(0) data

The radar response from the Amazon rain forest was studied to determine the suitability of this region for use as a standard target to calibrate a scatterometer like that proposed for the National Oceanic Satellite System (NOSS). Backscattering observations made by the SEASAT Scatterometer System (SASS) showed the Amazon rain forest to be a homogeneous, azimuthally-isotropic, radar target which was insensitive to polarization. The variation with angle of incidence was adequately modeled as scattering coefficient (dB) = a theta b with typical values for the incidence-angle coefficient from 0.07 to 0.15 dB/deg. A small diurnal effect occurs, with measurements at sunrise being 0.5 dB to 1 dB higher than the rest of the day. Maximum-likelihood estimation algorithms presented here permit determination of relative bias and true pointing angle for each beam. Specific implementation of these algorithms for the proposed NOSS scatterometer system is also discussed

Estimates of oceanic surface wind speed and direction using orthogonal beam scatterometer measurements and comparison of recent sea scattering theories

The wind direction properties of radar backscatter from the sea were empirically modelled using a cosine Fourier series through the 4th harmonic in wind direction (referenced to upwind). A comparison with 1975 JONSWAP (Joint North Sea Wave Project) scatterometer data, at incidence angles of 40 and 65, indicates that effects to third and fourth harmonics are negligible. Another important result is that the Fourier coefficients through the second harmonic are related to wind speed by a power law expression. A technique is also proposed to estimate the wind speed and direction over the ocean from two orthogonal scattering measurements. A comparison between two different types of sea scatter theories, one type presented by the work of Wright and the other by that of Chan and Fung, was made with recent scatterometer measurements. It demonstrates that a complete scattering model must include some provisions for the anisotropic characteristics of the sea scatter, and use a sea spectrum which depends upon wind speed

Coastline dynamics and its impacts in the northern part of the southern rivers: the case of the northern coastline of Guinea Bissau.

ABSTRACTThe objective of this contribution is to analyse the coastline dynamics and its impacts on the northern coastline of Guinea Bissau. The methodology adopted consists in extracting the coastline using multidate Landsat satellite images and analysing the kinematics of the coastline using the DSAS (Digital Shoreline Analysis System) tool under ARGIS. The results of the cartographic processing of the multi-date images show that the sandy beaches of Guinea Bissau are subject to intense erosion phenomena. The first segment analysed, extending from Nhiquim to Bolor, is marked by an alternation of eroding and prograding segments between 1973 and 2018. This part of the Bissau-Guinean coastline is eroding at variable speed. The speed of erosion follows a North-South gradient with 0.21 and 1.8 m/year. The speed of retreat of the coastline is more accentuated in the 1970s on either side of Valera, i.e., 12 m/year in the north and 32.3 m/year in the south. The second segment runs from Mata De Uco to Bote. The highest rate of recession is noted in this part of the coastline studied, particularly during the period 1973-1986. The whole sector is eroding with a speed varying between 53.2 m/year and 0.15 m/year. The average rate of retreat is 19.1 m/year and falls freely between 1986-2003 and 2003-2018. The prograding sectors are in the south with a rate of retreat varying between 2.59 m/year and 8.50 m/year