INCREASES IN COSTS AND RETURNS DUE TO INTENSIFYING RANGE FORAGE PRODUCTION SURVEYS: AN INFORMATION ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

The U.S. Congress and courts have directed federal natural resource agencies to use better information for management decisions than they have used in the past. It is also important for these agencies to improve the efficiency of resource use where possible. This information economics study estimates increased costs and revenues which can be directly imputed to improving the accuracy of range forage production surveys. It suggests that a high level of survey accuracy may often be justifiable.Crop Production/Industries, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Comment on 'Current Budget of the Atmospheric Electric Global Circuit'

In this paper, three major issues relevant to Kasemir's new model will be addressed. The first concerns Kasemir's assertion that there are significant differences between the potentials associated with the new model and the conventional model. A recalculation of these potentials reveals that both models provide equivalent results for the potential difference between the Earth and ionosphere. The second issue to be addressed is Kasemir's assertion that discrepancies in the electric potentials associated with both models can be attributed to modeling the Earth as a sphere, instead of as a planar surface. A simple analytical comparison will demonstrate that differences in the equations for the potentials of the atmosphere derived with a spherical and a planar Earth are negligible for applications to global current flow. Finally, the third issue to be discussed is Kasemir's claim that numerous aspects of the conventional model are incorrect, including the role of the ionosphere in global current flow as well as the significance of cloud-to-ground lightning in supplying charge to the global circuit. In order to refute these misconceptions, it will be shown that these aspects related to the flow of charge in the atmosphere are accurately described by the conventional model of the global circuit

Simulating demand for electrical vehicles using revealed preference data. ESRI working paper no. 437, May 2012

We have modelled the market for new cars in Ireland with the aim of quantifying the values placed on a range of observable car characteristics. Mid-sized petrol cars with a manual transmission sell best. Price and perhaps fuel cost are negatively associated with sales, and acceleration and perhaps range are positively associated. Hybrid cars are popular. The values of car characteristics are then used to simulate the likely market shares of three new electrical vehicles. Electrical vehicles tend to be more expensive even after tax breaks and subsidies are applied, but we assume their market shares would benefit from an “environmental” premium similar to those of hybrid cars. The “environmental” premium and the level of subsidies would need to be raised to incredible levels to reach the government target of 10% market penetration of all-electric vehicles

The effect of tempering parameters on the hardness and precipitation characteristics of quenched and tempered RQT701 steel plate.

Reheated quenched and tempered 701 steel (RQT701) is a high strength low alloy martensitic grade commonly used in the earth moving and construction industries. The aim of this project was to investigate the tempering response of RQT701 steel at 580, 600 and 620 °C for between 1 and 100 hours. Steel plate, of composition 0.17C, 0.29Cr and 0.53Mo (all wt. %) and 15 mm thickness, was supplied in the as-quenched condition. It was found that the as-quenched condition (water cooled from 925 °C at 60 °C-s, surface measurement) consisted of autotempered martensite with a hardness of 430 HV. Ice water quenching was tested and did not have any effect on the tempering response past 30 minutes. Hardness measurements on samples tempered between 1 and 4 hours showed an increase of approximately 10 HV between 2 and 3 hours. Particle analysis using SEM images revealed the average precipitate equivalent circle diameter to increase from 45 to 71 nm, the number density to decrease from 63 to 52 per μm2, and the volume fraction of precipitates to increase from 0.017 to 0.022 %. The results suggest that the formation of very fine M2C, in combination with cementite, cause the secondary hardening peak

Simulating Demand for Electrical Vehicles using Revealed Preference Data. ESRI WP437. May 2012

We have modelled the market for new cars in Ireland with the aim of quantifying the values placed on a range of observable car characteristics. Mid-sized petrol cars with a manual transmission sell best. Price and perhaps fuel cost are negatively associated with sales, and acceleration and perhaps range are positively associated. Hybrid cars are popular. The values of car characteristics are then used to simulate the likely market shares of three new electrical vehicles. Electrical vehicles tend to be more expensive even after tax breaks and subsidies are applied, but we assume their market shares would benefit from an “environmental” premium similar to those of hybrid cars. The “environmental” premium and the level of subsidies would need to be raised to incredible levels to reach the government target of 10% market penetration of all-electric vehicles