Characterizing regulation and negligence rule uncertainty in solid waste management

We propose a model of municipal waste management that combines waste quality monitoring with leachate control. These inputs modulate two types of uncertainty. First, waste quality is uncertain, as it arrives from several nonpoint sources and may contain hazardous waste. Second, while U.S. federal law requires landfill operators to employ these specific inputs, the rates at which they should be employed to avoid culpable negligence for environmental damages are uncertain. We extend the economic literature regarding the management of these types of uncertainty to this municipal waste context.

A Neoclassical Growth Model with an Environment Sector

Current discussions often link economic growth as a causative factor in the increase of pollution. Growth in the economy has a number of causes. These include technological innovation, resource discovery and population growth along with the most widely discussed, investment. Economic growth in its advanced stages can cause severe depletion of raw materials, environmental pollution from energy use, and overtaxing of the environment\u27s capacity to absorb and recycle waste products. A simple solution to growth related pollution would be to reduce the rate of growth and therefore reduce pollution. Herein lies a dilemma. Edwin L. Dole has written that reducing production would cause massive unemployment. Maintaining full employment then, requires the economy to grow at four percent a year. Reduction in population growth and improvement in pollution reducing technology are possible alternatives he offers to reducing pollution. Use of pollution abatement equipment is another alternative in the attempt to return society to an optimum welfare position. Abatement equipment is used to eliminate or reduce residuals in the environment. Residuals may be recycled, assimilated into the environment, or reduced by means of technologically better production techniques. Formation of a stock of pollution abatement equipment will require either increased saving (and therefore investment) and/or substitution of other (productive) capital to pollution abatement use. Since capital is now required for productive and non-productive purposes, the formation of abatement capital will have a definite influence on the process of capital accumulation. The most obvious result will be smaller increases in productive capital than would be possible with no requirement for investment in abatement equipment. Through this mechanism there will be an impact on the growth of income and consumption. Presently there are few economic growth models which formally take into account residual flows and investment in pollution abatement capital. One such model was developed by Ralph C. d\u27Arge. This is a Harrod-Damar type model which includes variables for waste flow, abatement capital and changes in pollution. The purpose of this paper is to develop a growth model that incorporates residual flows and pollution abatement capital using a neoclassical growth model which is less restrictive in nature than, that set forth by d\u27Arge. The following chapters will include a discussion of the d\u27Arge model, presentation of the neoclassical model, and finally a comparison of the results obtained in the two models

Shift of the surface-barrier part of the irreversibility line due to columnar defects in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8 thin films

We report the results of studying the influence of the uranium-ion irradiation of the Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8 thin films on the high-temperature part (close to critical temperature) of their irreversibility line. We studied irreversible properties of the films by measuring the hysteresis of nonresonant microwave absorption. The results have revealed the shift of irreversibility line towards low temperatures and magnetic fields. The effect is most significant for the films irradiated with large doses, more than 1T. This fact is in good agreement with the theoretical prediction by Koshelev and Vinokur of suppression of surface barrier by columnar defects.Comment: LaTeX2e, 9 pages with 3 figures, to be published in Physica

Mitochondrial Acetylation and Diseases of Aging

In recent years, protein lysine acetylation has emerged as a prominent and conserved regulatory posttranslational modification that is abundant on numerous enzymes involved in the processes of intermediary metabolism. Well-characterized mitochondrial processes of carbon utilization are enriched in acetyl-lysine modifications. Although seminal discoveries have been made in the basic biology of mitochondrial acetylation, an understanding of how acetylation states influence enzyme function and metabolic reprogramming during pathological states remains largely unknown. This paper will examine our current understanding of eukaryotic acetate metabolism and present recent findings in the field of mitochondrial acetylation biology. The implications of mitochondrial acetylation for the aging process will be discussed, as well as its potential implications for the unique and localized metabolic states that occur during the aging-associated conditions of heart failure and cancer growth

Symmetric Rotating Wave Approximation for the Generalized Single-Mode Spin-Boson System

The single-mode spin-boson model exhibits behavior not included in the rotating wave approximation (RWA) in the ultra and deep-strong coupling regimes, where counter-rotating contributions become important. We introduce a symmetric rotating wave approximation that treats rotating and counter-rotating terms equally, preserves the invariances of the Hamiltonian with respect to its parameters, and reproduces several qualitative features of the spin-boson spectrum not present in the original rotating wave approximation both off-resonance and at deep strong coupling. The symmetric rotating wave approximation allows for the treatment of certain ultra and deep-strong coupling regimes with similar accuracy and mathematical simplicity as does the RWA in the weak coupling regime. Additionally, we symmetrize the generalized form of the rotating wave approximation to obtain the same qualitative correspondence with the addition of improved quantitative agreement with the exact numerical results. The method is readily extended to higher accuracy if needed. Finally, we introduce the two-photon parity operator for the two-photon Rabi Hamiltonian and obtain its generalized symmetric rotating wave approximation. The existence of this operator reveals a parity symmetry similar to that in the Rabi Hamiltonian as well as another symmetry that is unique to the two-photon case, providing insight into the mathematical structure of the two-photon spectrum, significantly simplifying the numerics, and revealing some interesting dynamical properties.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Attoyac Bayou GIS Inventory, Source Survey and Land Use Cover Report

The Attoyac Bayou watershed is one of many rural watersheds included in the Texas Water Quality Inventory and 303(d) List as an impaired water body due to excessive E. coli levels. In many cases the assessed data in these waterbodies is limited and information regarding potential sources of pollution or other factors that may influence the presence of pollutant sources is not readily available. To address this need, a comprehensive geographic information system (GIS) inventory of the watershed will be developed and will integrate numerous existing information resources into a single location. Generally, the GIS will illustrate waterbodies, roadways, permitted point-source dischargers, and other points of concern. Additionally, current land use/land cover (LULC) maps for the watershed will be updated. Existing LULC layers will be utilized as a starting point and will be re-delineated utilizing groundtruthed data points collected for the GIS inventory to verify the accuracy of the LULC map. Through the development of the GIS and update of the LULC maps, a physical source survey will also be conducted across the watershed to document the primary sources of bacteria in the watershed

Mixing by microorganisms in stratified fluids

We examine the vertical mixing induced by the swimming of microorganisms at low Reynolds and Péclet numbers in a stably stratified ocean, and show that the global contribution of oceanic microswimmers to vertical mixing is negligible. We propose two approaches to estimating the mixing efficiency, η, or the ratio of the rate of potential energy creation to the total rate-of-working on the ocean by microswimmers. The first is based on scaling arguments and estimates η in terms of the ratio between the typical organism size, a, and an intrinsic length scale for the stratified flow, l = (νκ/N2)1/4, where ν is the kinematic viscosity, κ the diffusivity, and N the buoyancy frequency. In particular, for small organisms in the relevant oceanic limit, a/l \u3c\u3c 1, we predict the scaling η ∼ (a/l)3. The second estimate of η is formed by solving the full coupled flow-stratification problem by modeling the swimmer as a regularized force dipole, and computing the efficiency numerically. Our computational results, which are examined for all ratios a/l, validate the scaling arguments in the limit a/l \u3c\u3c 1 and further predict η ≈ 1.2(a/l)3 for vertical swimming and η ≈ 0.15 (a/l)3 for horizontal swimming. These results, relevant for any stratified fluid rich in biological activity, imply that the mixing efficiency of swimming microorganisms in the ocean is at very most 8% and is likely smaller by at least two orders of magnitude

Transition to turbulence in wind-drift layers

A light breeze rising over calm water initiates an intricate chain of events that culminates in a centimeters-deep turbulent shear layer capped by gravity-capillary ripples. At first, viscous stress accelerates a laminar wind-drift layer until small surface ripples appear. Then a second "wave-catalyzed" instability grows in the wind-drift layer, before sharpening into along-wind jets and downwelling plumes, and finally devolving into three-dimensional turbulence. This paper elucidates the evolution of wind-drift layers after ripple inception using wave-averaged numerical simulations with a random initial condition and a constant-amplitude representation of the incipient surface ripples. Our model reproduces qualitative aspects of laboratory measurements similar those reported by Veron & Melville (2001), validating the wave-averaged approach. But we also find that our results are disturbingly sensitive to the amplitude of the prescribed surface wave field, raising the question whether wave-averaged models are truly "predictive" if they do not also describe the evolution of the coupled evolution of the surface waves together with the flow beneath