Why does Environmental Policy in Representative Democracies Tend to be Inadequate? A Preliminary Public Choice Analysis

There is a widespread consensus among the most important players in developed countries (voters, politicians, producers, traditional and green interest groups and bureaucracies) that a shift towards an eco-social market economy is essential for sustainable growth. Nevertheless, market-based instruments have not been implemented satisfactorily in environmental policy yet. To identify the reasons for this insufficient implementation in the past decade the Public Choice theory is used. The players’ behavior is analyzed in order to show that their incentives for implementing market-based instruments in environmental policy instead of command-and-control measures are surprisingly weak. Knowing the obstacles to implementing market-based instruments provides valuable insights into how to overcome them.public choice and environmental policies, sustainability, voters, government, interest groups, tradeable permits, green taxes

Outage Capacity of Bursty Amplify-and-Forward with Incremental Relaying

We derive the outage capacity of a bursty version of the amplify-and-forward (BAF) protocol for small signal-to-noise ratios when incremental relaying is used. We show that the ratio between the outage capacities of BAF and the cut-set bound is independent of the relay position and that BAF is outage optimal for certain conditions on the target rate R. This is in contrast to decode-and-forward with incremental relaying, where the relay location strongly determines the performance of the cooperative protocol. We further derive the outage capacity for a network consisting of an arbitrary number of relay nodes. In this case the relays transmit in subsequent partitions of the overall transmission block and the destination accumulates signal-to-noise ratio until it is able to decode.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Austin, TX, June 13-18, 201

Outage Capacity of Incremental Relaying at Low Signal-to-Noise Ratios

We present the \epsilon-outage capacity of incremental relaying at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) in a wireless cooperative network with slow Rayleigh fading channels. The relay performs decode-and-forward and repetition coding is employed in the network, which is optimal in the low SNR regime. We derive an expression on the optimal relay location that maximizes the \epsilon-outage capacity. It is shown that this location is independent of the outage probability and SNR but only depends on the channel conditions represented by a path-loss factor. We compare our results to the \epsilon-outage capacity of the cut-set bound and demonstrate that the ratio between the \epsilon-outage capacity of incremental relaying and the cut-set bound lies within 1/\sqrt{2} and 1. Furthermore, we derive lower bounds on the \epsilon-outage capacity for the case of K relays.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be presented at VTC Fall 2009 in Anchorage, Alask

Cross-Regulation of the Cellular Redox System, Oxygen, and Sphingolipid Signalling.

Redox-active mediators are now appreciated as powerful molecules to regulate cellular dynamics such as viability, proliferation, migration, cell contraction, and relaxation, as well as gene expression under physiological and pathophysiological conditions. These molecules include the various reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the gasotransmitters nitric oxide (NO∙), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). For each of these molecules, direct targets have been identified which transmit the signal from the cellular redox state to a cellular response. Besides these redox mediators, various sphingolipid species have turned out as highly bioactive with strong signalling potential. Recent data suggest that there is a cross-regulation existing between the redox mediators and sphingolipid molecules that have a fundamental impact on a cell's fate and organ function. This review will summarize the effects of the different redox-active mediators on sphingolipid signalling and metabolism, and the impact of this cross-talk on pathophysiological processes. The relevance of therapeutic approaches will be highlighted

Empathy: A clue for prosocialty and driver of indirect reciprocity.

Indirect reciprocity has been proposed to explain prosocial behavior among strangers, whereby the prosocial act is returned by a third party. However, what happens if the prosocial act cannot be observed by the third party? Here, we examine whether empathy serves as a clue for prosociality and whether people are more generous toward more empathetic people. In a laboratory study, we measured prosocial behavior as the amount sent in the dictator game and empathy based on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). By using an incentivized task, we find that people believe that more empathetic participants send more money in the dictator game. Thus, people see empathy as a clue for prosocial behavior. Furthermore, in a second dictator game, participants indirectly reciprocate by sending more money to more empathetic recipients. Therefore, we suggest that empathy can replace a reputation derived from observable prosocial behavior in triggering indirect reciprocity

6-dimensional nearly Kaehler manifolds of cohomogeneity one

We consider 6-dimensional strict nearly Kaehler manifolds acted on by a compact, cohomogeneity one automorphism group G. We classify the compact manifolds of this class up to G-diffeomorphisms. We also prove that the manifold has constant sectional curvature whenever the group G is simple.Comment: 14 page

Evaluation of Organic Pest Management Treatments for Bean Leaf Beetle--Neely-Kinyon Trial, 2003

Bean leaf beetles have continued to be a problem for organic tofu soybean producers throughout the Midwest because of the resulting seed staining, which can downgrade the quality of the soybeans at market. Beginning in 2000, we have evaluated organically approved treatments for bean leaf beetle and fungal control

Evaluation of Wheat Varieties for Certified Organic Production--Neely-Kinyon Trial, 2003

The increasing demand for organic products from consumers has resulted in continuous growth in the organic industry. Organic wheat is an indispensable ingredient in many processed organic products. This variety trial evaluated the production of soft red, hard red, and soft white wheat in southwest Iowa