06-07 “The Economics of Inaction on Climate Change: A Sensitivity Analysis”

Economic models of climate change often take the problem seriously, but paradoxically conclude that the optimal policy is to do almost nothing about it. We explore this paradox as seen in the widely used DICE model. Three aspects of that model, involving the discount rate, the assumed benefits of moderate warming, and the treatment of the latest climate science, are sufficient to explain the timidity of the model's optimal policy recommendation. With modifications to those three points, DICE shows that the optimal policy is a much higher and rapidly rising marginal carbon price; that higher carbon price has a greater effect on physical measures of climate impacts. Our modifications exhibit nonlinear interactions; at least at low discount rates, there is synergy between individual changes to the model. At low discount rates, the inherent uncertainty about future damages looms larger in the analysis, rendering long-run economic modeling less useful. Our analysis highlights the sensitivity of the model to three debatable assumptions; it does not, and could not, lead to a more reliably “optimal” cost of carbon. Cost-effectiveness analysis, focusing on the generally shorter-term cost side of the problem, reduces the economic paradoxes of the long run, and may make a greater contribution than economic optimization modeling.

Predictions of listeners' in response to speakers’ repairs: Evidence from eye movements

There is now considerable evidence that upon hearing an utterance, listeners are able to make predictions about what is to follow. However, given the frequency of disfluency in normal speech we may wonder how this effects the predictions that listeners may make. While there is a growing body of literature concerned with how disfluencies may influence comprehension, there has been relatively little attention given to the case of repairs. The present paper presents an exploratory study using the visual world paradigm to investigate the predictions listeners make when speakers appear to change their mind while giving an instruction. We manipulated the lengths of the pauses and whether or not a retrace was present in the repair and found that this had an effect on both fixation likelihoods and their onsets. It is suggested that these findings may provide questions for future research, of which the visual world paradigm may continue to be a valuable tool

Testing the roles of disfluency and rate of speech in the coordination of conversation

This thesis is concerned with two different accounts of how speakers coordinate conversation. In both accounts it is suggested that aspects of the manner in which speech is performed (its disfluency and its rate) are integral to the smooth performance of conversation. In the first strand, we address Clark's (1996) suggestion that speakers design hesitations, such as filled pauses (e.g. uh and um), repetitions and prolongations, to signal to their audience that they are experiencing difficulties during language production. Such signals allow speakers to account for their use of time, particularly when they experience disruptions during production. The account is tested against three criteria, proposed by Kraljic and Brennan (2005), for evaluating whether a feature of speech is being designed: That it be produced with regularity, that it be interpretable by listeners, and that its production varies according to the speaker's communicative intention. While existing literature offers support for the first two criteria, neither an experiment with dyads nor analyses of dialogue in the Map Task Corpus (MTC; Anderson et al., 1991) found support for the third criterion. We conclude that, rather than being signals of difficulty, hesitations are merely symptoms which listeners may exploit to aid comprehension. In the second strand, we tested Wilson and Wilson's (2005) oscillator theory of the timing of turn-taking. This suggests that entrainment between conversational partners' rates of speech allow them to make precise predictions about when each others' turns are going to end, and, subsequently, when they can begin a turn of their own. As a critical test of the theory, we predicted that speakers who were more tightly entrained would produce more seamless turn-taking. Again using the MTC, we found no evidence of a relationship between how closely entrained speakers were and how precisely they timed the beginning of their turns relative to the ends of each others' turns.sub_shsunpub1631_ethesesunpu

Improving Low Power Processor Efficiency with Static Pipelining

A new generation of mobile applications requires reduced energy consumption without sacrificing execution performance. In this paper, we propose to respond to these conflicting demands with an innovative statically pipelined processor supported by an optimizing compiler. The central idea of the approach is that the control during each cycle for each portion of the processor is explicitly represented in each instruction. Thus the pipelining is in effect statically determined by the compiler. The benefits of this approach include simpler hardware and that it allows the compiler to perform optimizations that are not possible on traditional architectures. The initial results indicate that static pipelining can significantly reduce power consumption without adversely affecting performance

Towards sustainable land stewardship : reframing development in Wisconsin's dairy gateway

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-89).Changing economic realities in the dairy industry have profoundly affected the viability of the dairy farming community in Wisconsin. In addition they face mounting local opposition to dairy modernization and expansion, and an increased regulatory burden. This survey looks at ten farms in the Dairy Gateway counties and the broader trends in the industry, and reveals incongruities with neo-classical economic theory. An ecological economics framework is then applied in an attempt to better explain what it happening in the Dairy sector and to support policy directions that might lead the dairy community back towards both economically and ecologically sustainable land stewardship.by Ian James Finlayson.M.C.P

Investigation of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) released as a result of spoilage in whole broccoli, carrots, onions and potatoes with HS-SPME and GC-MS

Vegetable spoilage renders a product undesirable due to changes in sensory characteristics. The aim of this study was to investigate the change in the fingerprint of VOC composition that occur as a result of spoilage in broccoli, carrots, onions and potatoes. SPME and GC-MS techniques were used to identify and determine the relative abundance of VOC associated with both fresh and spoilt vegetables. Although a number of similar compounds were detected in varying quantities in the headspace of fresh and spoilt samples, certain compounds which were detected in the headspace of spoilt vegetables were however absent in fresh samples. Analysis of the headspace of fresh vegetables indicated the presence of a variety of alkanes, alkenes and terpenes. Among VOCs identified in the spoilt samples were dimethyl disulphide and dimethyl sulphide in broccoli; Ethyl propanoate and Butyl acetate in carrots; 1-Propanethioland 2-Hexyl-5-methyl-3(2H)-furanone in onions; and 2, 3-Butanediol in potatoes. The overall results of this study indicate the presence of VOCs that can serve as potential biomarkers for early detection of quality deterioration and in turn enhance operational and quality control decisions in the vegetable industry

The environment and security: what are the linkages?

In November 1997 the Australian Institute of International Affairs held a seminar in Canberra to explore the impact of environmental problems on Australia's security environment. The idea for the seminar arose during discussions about the meaning of environmental security and its regional consequences at meetings of the Australian National Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (AUS-CSCAP), of which the Institute and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre are members. The seminar brought together scholars, policy makers, defence officials, members of the environmental community and the interested public to listen to presentations from Australian and international speakers on various aspects of the environmental security problematique. The chapters in this monograph touch on most of the key themes running through the contemporary debate on environmental security and, in particular, the relationship between the environment and conflict. A number of chapters analyse the theoretical arguments between those who believe that environmental degradation is a significant and growing cause of conflict and sceptics who respond that the environment is at best a marginal factor in conflict and war. Other chapters look at the impact of ecological stress on the developing states of East Asia, and explore in some detail how water scarcity, deforestation and the depletion of renewable and non-renewable energy resources can aggravate existing political and social tensions and territorial and resource disputes. The last two chapters discuss the implications of environmental security issues for the Australian Defence Force and for foreign policy. The papers in this monograph confirm the extent to which the literature on environmental security has become an established part of the lexicon and discourse of international security studies. They also reveal the complexity and interconnectedness of the policy issues associated with the impact of environmental degradation on national and international security

A national study to investigate the clinical use of standardised instruments in autism spectrum disorder assessment of children and adults in Scotland

Background - There are few large scale studies about the nature and extent of the actual use of standardised assessments for Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis in clinical practice. This study compares and contrasts practice in diagnostic services for both adults and children. Method - We conducted an analysis of retrospective case notes from 150 cases (70 adult, 80 children) assessed for Autism Spectrum Disorder by 16 diagnostic services. Results - We found differences between adult and child services in staff training and use of standardised assessment during diagnosis. All child services had staff trained in and regularly using standardised assessments. Most adult services had staff trained in using instruments but only half used them regularly. Administration of standardised ASD assessments was ten times more likely in children than in adults (OR = 10.1; CI = 4.24, 24.0). Child services selected the ADOS as the standardised tool and adult services selected the DISCO, with very little overlap. Decisions to administer standardised tools were not based on case complexity but rather the same process was applied to all referrals within a service. The three recommended components of assessment (clinical history, clinical observation and contextual information) were included for the majority of cases, although clinical observation was more frequently used with children than with adults. Conclusions - Based on the findings, we suggest a need for a wider range of appropriate assessments for use with adults, particularly those with an intellectual disability and for further research into the reasons behind the choices clinicians make during the assessment process. For child services in Scotland, there is a need for more training in use of current diagnostic interviews. Clinicians did not vary tools used based on complexity, suggesting that this is a notion still to be clearly defined and operationalised in clinical decision making about the use of standardised assessments

Disfluency in dialogue:an intentional signal from the speaker?

Disfluency is a characteristic feature of spontaneous human speech, commonly seen as a consequence of problems with production. However, the question remains open as to why speakers are disfluent: Is it a mechanical by-product of planning difficulty, or do speakers use disfluency in dialogue to manage listeners' expectations? To address this question, we present two experiments investigating the production of disfluency in monologue and dialogue situations. Dialogue affected the linguistic choices made by participants, who aligned on referring expressions by choosing less frequent names for ambiguous images where those names had previously been mentioned. However, participants were no more disfluent in dialogue than in monologue situations, and the distribution of types of disfluency used remained constant. Our evidence rules out at least a straightforward interpretation of the view that disfluencies are an intentional signal in dialogue. © 2012 Psychonomic Society, Inc