TRADE POLICY AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY: THE CASE OF EXPORT SUBSIDIES

The United States and the European Union both employ export subsidies to stimulate wheat trade and to increase their competitiveness in world markets. The environmental consequences of these policies are being questioned. We simulate reducing or removing export subsidies for wheat from the United States and the EU using a multicountry partial equilibrium model, and we analyze the impact of export subsidy policy reform on nitrogen fertilizer and other chemical use. Our findings indicate that the U.S. EEP program cannot be blamed for environmental degradation in terms of nitrate leaching, while EU wheat subsides make only a small contribution to nitrate pollution.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Greenhouse Gas Policy and Canadian Agriculture

To meet its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol (KP), Canada must reduce its current annual GHG emissions (694 MT CO2 equivalent) by 240 MT CO2. Canada’s agricultural industries have the potential to generate a carbon sink of 10 MT CO2 (Government of Canada, 2003). The purpose of this article is to consider the manner in which Canadian agricultural policy has responded to Canada’s KP commitment and the likelihood that Canadian agriculture will participate significantly in carbon emission trading.Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

PRODUCTION DISTORTIONS IN THE SLOVAKIAN GRAIN SECTOR RESULTING FROM AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES

A Policy Analysis Method, based on social benefit-cost analysis, is applied to five production areas of the Slovak Republic to analyze production distortions resulting from direct systematic subsidies in Slovakia. Three grains are analyzed: wheat, barley, and corn. Results indicate that currently applied policies have significant distortion effects, but those effects are not homogeneous across commodities and production areas.Agricultural and Food Policy, Productivity Analysis,

Clark\u27s Nutcracker Seed Harvest Patterns in Glacier National Park and a Novel Method for Monitoring Whitebark Pine Cones

Clark\u27s Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) is the primary seed disperser of whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), which is in decline throughout its range. There is concern that a decline in whitebark pine will lead to a subsequent decline in local populations of Clark\u27s Nutcracker. Because natural regeneration depends on the presence of Clark\u27s Nutcracker, the process of harvesting whitebark pine seeds needs to be fully understood. In addition, resource managers need a cost-effective method for monitoring nutcracker occurrence in whitebark pine stands during the seed harvest season. I visited eleven study sites in Glacier National Park, Montana, where I searched for Clark\u27s Nutcracker and surveyed whitebark pine cones for seed harvesting scars, the presence of which indicated that nutcrackers harvested seeds. I documented cone use patterns of Clark\u27s Nutcracker and the major cone predator, red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), at five sites. To identify factors that influence cone use, I ran a correlation analysis with nutcracker and red squirrel seed harvesting variables with physical, compositional, and whitebark pine-related factors. I found that nutcrackers harvested seed at every site that had cones available. Nutcrackers harvested seed from a greater proportion of whitebark pine cones in stands where they started intensively harvesting seeds earlier. Nutcrackers began intensively harvesting seeds earlier in stands with higher relative dominance of whitebark pine. Red squirrels depleted the cone source more rapidly in stands with greater whitebark pine mortality, and at one site depleted the cone source completely before nutcrackers began intensively harvesting seeds from that site. The results of this study suggest that Clark\u27s Nutcracker will continue to harvest seeds even as whitebark pine declines, but the decline in whitebark pine may lead to decreased seed dispersal due to greater pre-dispersal cone predation by red squirrels. Finally, I evaluated direct and indirect monitoring methods to identify a cost-effective method to accurately monitor Clark\u27s Nutcracker occurrence in whitebark pine stands during the seed harvest season. I found that surveying scars made by seed-harvesting nutcrackers on whitebark pine cones was the most accurate and economical method of monitoring Clark\u27s Nutcracker occurrence in an area with a low population of Clark\u27s Nutcracker

Combining chromosomal arm status and significantly aberrant genomic locations reveals new cancer subtypes

Many types of tumors exhibit chromosomal losses or gains, as well as local amplifications and deletions. Within any given tumor type, sample specific amplifications and deletionsare also observed. Typically, a region that is aberrant in more tumors,or whose copy number change is stronger, would be considered as a more promising candidate to be biologically relevant to cancer. We sought for an intuitive method to define such aberrations and prioritize them. We define V, the volume associated with an aberration, as the product of three factors: a. fraction of patients with the aberration, b. the aberrations length and c. its amplitude. Our algorithm compares the values of V derived from real data to a null distribution obtained by permutations, and yields the statistical significance, p value, of the measured value of V. We detected genetic locations that were significantly aberrant and combined them with chromosomal arm status to create a succint fingerprint of the tumor genome. This genomic fingerprint is used to visualize the tumors, highlighting events that are co ocurring or mutually exclusive. We allpy the method on three different public array CGH datasets of Medulloblastoma and Neuroblastoma, and demonstrate its ability to detect chromosomal regions that were known to be altered in the tested cancer types, as well as to suggest new genomic locations to be tested. We identified a potential new subtype of Medulloblastoma, which is analogous to Neuroblastoma type 1.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Cancer Informatic

The Effects of Methylmercury on Cell Proliferation and Apoptosis during Zebra Finch Neural Development

Methylmercury is a widespread, highly neurotoxic, pollutant that is well known to cause neurological deficits and is particularly harmful during neural development. Many studies have investigated the neurotoxic effects of MeHg to better comprehend the threat that MeHg exposure poses to organisms. However, few studies have focused on the molecular and cellular effects that MeHg has on developing avian species, let alone altricial songbirds. Even less is understood how maternal MeHg deposits affect and disrupt the developing nervous system of songbird species. To address this issue, the objective of this study was to investigate the effects of maternally deposited MeHg on neural proliferation and apoptosis of the developing zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) embryo. The study also investigated the toxicokinetics of MeHg during embryonic zebra finch development, to provide insight into which stages of development may be more susceptible to the harmful effects of MeHg due to increased exposure. We used in situ hybridization (ISH) for proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) along with cell counting techniques to respectively determine any changes in proliferation and apoptosis in the developing neural regions of stage 25 embryos in control and 2.4ppm developmentally exposed embryos. We found a statistically significant decrease in neural proliferation in the midbrain of 2.4ppm embryos, but no significant difference was found in the amounts of apoptosis between control and MeHg exposed embryos. The mercury content was measured in a developing egg’s pooled yolk and albumin, and embryo order to elucidate MeHg toxicokinetics at stage 25, stage 32, and stage 38 embryos. We found a trend of increased mercury accumulation in the embryo as development progressed

A Consistent Orbital Stability Analysis for the GJ 581 System

We apply a combination of N-body modeling techniques and automated data fitting with Monte Carlo Markov Chain uncertainty analysis of Keplerian orbital models to radial velocity data to determine long term stability of the planetary system GJ 581. We find that while there are stability concerns with the 4-planet model as published by Forveille et al. (2011), when uncertainties in the system are accounted for, particularly stellar jitter, the hypothesis that the 4-planet model is gravitationally unstable is not statistically significant. Additionally, the system including proposed planet g by Vogt et al. (2012) also shows some stability concerns when eccentricities are allowed to float in the orbital fit, yet when uncertainties are included in the analysis the system including planet g also can not be proven to be unstable. We present revised reduced chi-squared values for Keplerian astrocentric orbital fits assuming 4-planet and 5-planet models for GJ~581 under the condition that best fits must be stable, and find no distinguishable difference by including planet g in the model. Additionally we present revised orbital element estimates for each assuming uncertainties due to stellar jitter under the constraint of the system being gravitationally stable.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa