Trade Liberalization and Developing Countries under the Doha Round

We explore the impact of multilateral liberalization, with emphasis on distributional effects across countries. We first develop a realistic "base1ine" that takes into account events such as the entry of China into the WTO and the enlargement of the EU, allowing us to focus on those effects that are specifically attributable to further trade liberalization in the Doha Round. We then employ a global applied general equilibrium model, featuring capital accumulation and imperfect competition. Our Doha scenarios include agriculture, manufactures, and services liberalization, and trade facilitation. With agglomeration, OECD agricultural liberalization is not uniform1y positive for developing countries

Potential impacts of genetic use restriction technologies (GURTs) on agrobiodiversity and agricultural production systems

Development and application of GURT as an appropriation mechanism may potentially have considerable impact on agriculture, the environment and the food security of rural areas in developing countries. Positive impacts may include increased investments in breeding as a result of increased intellectual property protection. Increased investments may contribute to higher yields and more advanced varieties, and thus to increased food production, a more sustainable production, and better consumer products. Potential negative impacts have been identified as well. These may require further discussion and close attention by regulatory authorities

Orbifolded Konishi from the Mirror TBA

Starting with a discussion of the general applicability of the simplified mirror TBA equations to simple deformations of the AdS_5 x S^5 superstring, we proceed to study a specific type of orbifold to which the undeformed simplified TBA equations directly apply. We then use this set of equations, as well as Luscher's approach, to determine the NLO wrapping correction to the energy of what we call the orbifolded Konishi state, and show that they perfectly agree. In addition we discuss wrapping corrections to the ground state energy of the orbifolded model under consideration.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, v2: corrected typos, added a short discussion on the ground state of the model; as submitted to J. Phys.

Thomson scattering in a low-pressure neon mercury positive column

The electron density and the electron temperature in a low-pressure neon mercury positive column are determined using Thomson scattering. Special attention has been given to the stray light reduction in the Thomson scattering setup. The results are obtained in a discharge tube with a 26 mm diam, 10 mbar of neon, a mercury pressure inbetween 0.14 and 0.85 Pa, and an electric current ranging from 100 to 400 mA. The systematic error in the electron density is 15%–45%, the statistical error is 25%–35%. The total error in the electron temperature is 15%–35%. ©2001 American Institute of Physics

Vegetation development in coastal foredunes -179

Abstract. In coastal foredunes marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) is used to stabilize windblown sand. The development of traditionally planted Ammophila into a more natural foredune vegetation may take 5 -10 yr. For economic reasons, traditional planting may be replaced by alternative techniques such as planting seeds or disk-harrowing rhizome fragments. In this paper, we compare the initial vegetation development of traditionally planted stands with stands established from seeds and from rhizomes. The experiments were conducted on an artificial foredune originating from dredged sea sand. The total experimental area covered more than 100 ha and the vegetation development was studied for 6 yr. The data were analysed by a priori grouping of plant species according to their ecology, as well as by Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Redundancy Analysis (RA) of the percentage ground cover per plant species. Comparing ecological groups of plants showed that all planting methods delivered equal numbers of plant species that are indicative for coastal dunes. PCA and RA showed that methods based on the use of rhizome material resulted in a higher percentage cover of clonal perennials (Calammophila baltica, Festuca rubra ssp. arenaria, Carex arenaria and Cirsium arvense) than the traditionally planted stands and the stands obtained from seeds. The latter two were characterized by the dominance of annuals, bi-annuals and (mostly nonrhizomatous) perennials. Initially, the rates of succession were highest in the stands obtained from rhizomes. However, after 3 -6 yr there were no differences between the various stands. During the first four years, the percentage cover by rhizomatous foredune plants developed faster than that of annuals, bi-annuals and perennials. After 6 yr, the latter contributed almost as much to the percentage cover as the clonal species. Keywords: Clonal plant; Dune management; Dune reinforcement; Sand dune; Sand stabilization; Succession. Nomenclature