NONFARM EMPLOYMENT IN SMALL-SCALE FOREST-BASED ENTERPRISES: POLICY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Employment and income from non-farm activities are of increasing importance in the rural economy of developing countries. Small forest-based enterprise activities constitute one of the largest sources of such income. They also account for a large part of the total harvest from forests in many areas. Many agriculturalists supplement their income through gathering and trading products such as forest foods, medicinal plants, and fuel wood. Small-scale manufacturing of items such as furniture, baskets, mats, and craft goods constitute substantial informal sector industries. Income from these activities tends to be particularly important during seasonal shortfalls in food and cash crop income and in periods of drought or other emergencies. Ease of access to forest raw materials means that forest-based activities are particularly important for the poor and for women. However, some of the simpler activities provide very low returns to labor, and may thus provide only minimal and short-lived livelihood contributions. Some of the most important saleable forest products face uncertain markets because of growing competition from industrial or synthetic alternatives or domesticated sources of the materials. As demand grows, some activities are also threatened by depletion of, or reduced access to, forest resources. In developing policies in support of sustainable activities, it is therefore important to be able to distinguish between those that have a potential to grow and those that do not. Policy issues include regulations that discriminate against the informal sector, policies that result in the shift from managed to uncontrolled open access use of forest resources, and restrictions on private production and sale of forest products that impede the development of farm-based sources of these products.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Nucleosynthesis of Elements in Low to Intermediate Mass Stars through the AGB Phase

We present a review of the main phases of stellar evolution with particular emphasis on the nucleosynthesis and mixing mechanisms in low- and intermediate-mass stars. In addition to explicit studies of the effects of the first, second and third dredge-up, we also discuss cool bottom processing and hot bottom burning.Comment: 30 pages, latex, 18 figures, uses style files aipproc.cls aipproc.sty epsf.sty ; to be published in (refereed) conference proceedings "Astrophysical Implications of the Laboratory Study of Presolar Materials", ed. T. Bernatowitz and E. Zinner (AIP: Sunnyside, NY), in press; also available at http://www.maths.monash.edu.au/~boothroy

On the Possibility of Credit Rationing in the Stiglitz-Weiss Model

Contrary to what is consistently assumed in the literature, the return function cannot be hump-shaped in the Stiglitz-Weiss (1981) model. This has important consequences for the possible occurrence of credit rationing and redlining. With a single class of borrowers, banks offer credit in two stages. Demand possibly exceeds supply in stage one, but not in stage two. With several observationally distinguishable borrower classes, the firms in a borrower class are redlined only under circumstances which imply that they would not get credit in a perfect capital market either. Die Rendite-Funktion kann im Stiglitz-Weiss- (1981) Modell nicht - so wie das in der Literatur durchgängig angenommen wird - hügelförmig sein. Das hat wichtige Implikationen für die Möglichkeit von Kreditrationierung einerseits und für die Möglichkeit des Ausschlusses ganzer Kreditnehmergruppen vom Kapitalmarkt andererseits. Mit nur einer Klasse von Kreditnehmern erfolgt die Kreditvergabe in zwei Stufen. Während auf der ersten Stufe eine Übernachfrage vorliegen kann, herrscht auf der zweiten Stufe Markträumung. Bei mehreren unterscheidbaren Kreditnehmerklassen wird eine Klasse nur unter den Bedingungen vom Kreditmarkt ausgeschlossen, bei deren Vorliegen sie auch in einem vollkommenen Kreditmarkt keinen Kredit erhalten würde

A model for two phase cocurrent flow in a packed bed

Imperial Users onl

Call Me Ishimaru: Independent Enforcement of International Agreements

International law does not provide an adequate enforcement mechanism against illegal whaling. The Japanese government claims that its whaling practice falls within the scientific research exception of an international moratorium on commercial whaling. Despite an International Court of Justice ruling finding that its practice does not fall within this exception, Japan has continued to kill thousands of whales each year with no effective opposition. The area in which this whaling occurs, however, falls outside the jurisdiction of any nation. Although the United Nations Security Council has the authority to act, the delicate nature of international diplomacy effectively ties its members’ hands on this matter. To fill this void, the International Whaling Commission should amend the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling to include a provision allowing for enforcement of the moratorium by approved non-governmental organizations. Should this amendment pass, the needless slaughter of thousands of whales each year could be prevented

Voicing Dissent: Heresy Trials in Later Medieval England

Recent work on medieval heresy has emphasized the ‘constructedness’ of heresy by orthodox power, thus undermining the coherence of heretical sects and tending to suggest that those tried as heretics were essentially unwitting victims. This article examines the evidence from the entire range of surviving Lollard trials, and argues that we can see consciously ‘dissenting’ speech alongside the standard theological positions associated with (and perhaps imposed upon) Lollardy. In each area of dissent anticlerical, sceptical, disputational and rebellious a wider cultural context is explored, demonstrating that the language of dissent is not limited to ‘Lollardy’; at the same time however it is argued that it is precisely through the voicing and reception of such wider referents that a heretical movement comes to exist. The article traces trends in medieval speech through which specific opinions and beliefs are voiced as a challenge, and the linguistic and social contexts within which they give rise to wider meanings—including collective identifications. Thus, whilst we may wish to foreground the impositions of power and orthodoxy that ‘made’ heresy, we should not make ‘heretics’ disappear completely. Through the records of prosecution, we can still hear something of the voices of those who chose to voice dissent; and we can give recognition to that choice as a form of dissenting agency—dependent also however on the reception and interpretation of those voices by neighbours, witnesses and inquisitor