PROTEST BIDDERS IN CONTINGENT VALUATION

Protest bids are often excluded during analysis of contingent valuation method data. It is suggested that this procedure might introduce significant bias. Protest bids are often registered by respondents who may actually place a higher- or lower-than-average value on the commodity in question but refuse to pay on the basis of ethical or other reasons. Exclusion of protest bids may therefore bias willingness to pay (WTP) results, but the direction of bias is indeterminate a priori.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Electricity deregulation and the valuation of visibility loss in wilderness areas: A research note.

Visibility in most wilderness areas in the northeastern United States has declined substantially since the 1970s. As noted by Hill et al. (2000), despite the 1977 Clean Air Act and subsequent amendments, human induced smog conditions are becoming increasingly worse. Average visibility in class I airsheds, such as the Great Gulf Wilderness in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, is now about one-third of natural conditions. A particular concern is that deregulation of electricity production could result in further degradation because consumers may switch to lower cost fossil fuel generation (Harper 2000). To the extent that this system reduces electricity costs, it may also affect firm location decisions (Halstead and Deller 1997). Yet, little is known about the extent to which consumers are likely to make tradeoffs between electric bills and reduced visibility in nearby wilderness areas. This applied research uses a contingent valuation approach in an empirical case study of consumers’ tradeoffs between cheaper electric bills and reduced visibility in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. We also examine some of the problems associated with uncertainty with this type of analysis; that is, how confident respondents are in their answers to the valuation questions. Finally, policy implications of decreased visibility due to electricity deregulation are discussed

TINKERING WITH VALUATION ESTIMATES: IS THERE A FUTURE FOR WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT MEASURES?

This paper examines various methods proposed in the literature to calibrate welfare measures, especially willingness to accept and willingness to pay, derived from contingent valuation surveys. Through simulation and a case study, we hope to provide guidance for empirical welfare measurement in response to the theoretical dispute regarding WTA/WTP disparities.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Time Evolution of Temperature and Entropy of Various Collapsing Domain Walls

We investigate the time evolution of the temperature and entropy of gravitationally collapsing domain walls as seen by an asymptotic observer. In particular, we seek to understand how topology and the addition of a cosmological constant affect the gravitational collapse. Previous work has shown that the entropy of a spherically symmetric collapsing domain approaches a constant. In this paper, we reproduce these results, using both a fully quantum and a semi-classical approach, then we repeat the process for a de Sitter Schwarzschild domain wall (spherical with cosmological constant) and a (3+1) BTZ domain wall (cylindrical). We do this by coupling a scalar field to the background of the domain wall and analyzing the spectrum of radiation as a function of time. We find that the spectrum is quasi-thermal, with the degree of thermality increasing as the domain wall approaches the horizon. The thermal distribution allows for the determination of the temperature as a function of time, and we find that the late time temperature is very close to the Hawking temperature and that it also exhibits the proper scaling with the mass. From the temperature we find the entropy. Since the collapsing domain wall is what forms a black hole, we can compare the results to those of the standard entropy-area relation. We find that the entropy does in fact approach a constant that is close to the Hawking entropy. However, both the de Sitter Schwarzschild domain wall and the (3+1) BTZ domain wall show periods of decreasing entropy, which suggests that spontaneous collapse may be prevented.Comment: This paper is a merging of two previously submitted papers: Time Evolution of Temperature and Entropy of a Gravitationally Collapsing Cylinder [arXiv:1106.2278]; Time Evolution of Temperature and Entropy of a Gravitationally Collapsing de Sitter Schwarzschild Domain Wal

Silvanidae and Laemophloeidae (Coleoptera : Cucujoidea) from the Maltese Islands (Central Mediterranean)

The Silvanidae and Laemophloeidae of the Maltese archipelago are reviewed, based on literature records and, where available, examination of voucher material, as well as the study of additional material collected in recent years. A total of five species of Silvanidae are included of which, Airaphilus nasutus Chevrolat, 1860 and Oryzaephilus mercator (Fauvel, 1889) represent new records for the Maltese Islands. Silvanus lewisi Reitter, 1876, a tropical species, was collected alive from under bark of logs imported from Cameroon (intended for the timber industry). Six species of Laemophloeidae are also recorded from the Maltese Islands, of which, Placonotus testaceus (Fabricius, 1787), Cryptolestes capensis (Waltl, 1834), C. pusilloides (Steel & Howe, 1952) and Leptophloeus juniperi (Grouvelle, 1874) represent new records for the Maltese Islands. The record of Leptophloeus hypobori (Perris, 1855) by Cameron & Caruana Gatto (1907) was found to be incorrect as their material is Cryptolestes capensis (Waltl, 1834).peer-reviewe

Systematic alteration of ATAC-seq for profiling open chromatin in cryopreserved nuclei preparations from livestock tissues.

The use of Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin (ATAC-seq) to profile chromatin accessibility has surged over the past years, but its applicability to tissues has been very limited. With the intent of preserving nuclear architecture during long-term storage, cryopreserved nuclei preparations from chicken lung were used to optimize ATAC-seq. Sequencing data were compared with existing DNase-seq, ChIP-seq, and RNA-seq data to evaluate library quality, ultimately resulting in a modified ATAC-seq method capable of generating high quality chromatin accessibility data from cryopreserved nuclei preparations. Using this method, nucleosome-free regions (NFR) identified in chicken lung overlapped half of DNase-I hypersensitive sites, coincided with active histone modifications, and specifically marked actively expressed genes. Notably, sequencing only the subnucleosomal fraction dramatically improved signal, while separation of subnucleosomal reads post-sequencing did not improve signal or peak calling. The broader applicability of this modified ATAC-seq technique was tested using cryopreserved nuclei preparations from pig tissues, resulting in NFR that were highly consistent among biological replicates. Furthermore, tissue-specific NFR were enriched for binding motifs of transcription factors related to tissue-specific functions, and marked genes functionally enriched for tissue-specific processes. Overall, these results provide insights into the optimization of ATAC-seq and a platform for profiling open chromatin in animal tissues

Finding Top UI/UX Design Talent on Adobe Behance

AbstractThe Behance social network allows professionals of diverse artistic disciplines to exhibit their work and connect amongst each other. We investigate the network properties of the UX/UI designer subgraph. Considering the subgraph is motivated by the idea that professionals in the same discipline are more likely to give a realistic assessment of a colleague's work. We therefore developed a metric to assess the influence and importance of a specific member of the community based on structural properties of the subgraph and additional measures of prestige. For that purpose, we identified appreciations as a useful measure to include in a weighted PageRank algorithm, as it adds a notion of perceived quality of the work in the artist's portfolio to the ranking, which is not contained in the structural information of the graph. With this weighted PageRank, we identified locations that have a high density of influential UX/UI designers

Examining Walkability and Social Capital as Indicators of Quality of Life at the Municipal and Neighborhood Scales

Walkability has been linked to quality of life in many ways. Health related benefits of physical exercise, the accessibility and access benefits of being able to walk to obtain some of your daily needs, or the mental health and social benefits of reduced isolation are a few of the many positive impacts on quality of life that can result from a walkable neighborhood. In the age of increasing energy costs and climate considerations, the ability to walk to important locations is a key component of sustainable communities. While the health and environmental implications of walkable communities are being extensively studied, the social benefits have not been investigated as broadly. Social capital is a measure of an individual’s or group’s networks, personal connections, and involvement. Like economic and human capital, social capital is considered to have important values to both individuals and communities. Through a case study approach this article argues that the generation and maintenance of social capital is another important component of quality of life that may be facilitated by living in a walkable community. Residents living in neighborhoods of varying built form and thus varying levels of walkability in three communities in New Hampshire were surveyed about their levels of social capital and travel behaviors. Comparisons between the more walkable and less walkable neighborhoods show that levels of social capital are higher in more walkable neighborhoods