EVALUATING THE IMPACTS OF AN INCREASE IN FUEL-ETHANOL DEMAND ON AGRICULTURE AND THE ECONOMY

Fuel ethanol demand is projected to increase because of proposed ban on methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) in gasoline, renewable fuels standard, and the revised eight-hour ozone standards. In this paper, several scenarios of increased fuel ethanol demand and its effects on crop and feed prices, farm income and state finances under current tax-subsidy structure, are analyzed using a multi-sector econometric model AGMOD.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Tropical rainforest bird community structure in relation to altitude, tree species composition, and null models in the Western Ghats, India

Studies of species distributions on elevational gradients are essential to understand principles of community organisation as well as to conserve species in montane regions. This study examined the patterns of species richness, abundance, composition, range sizes, and distribution of rainforest birds at 14 sites along an elevational gradient (500-1400 m) in the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) of the Western Ghats, India. In contrast to theoretical expectation, resident bird species richness did not change significantly with elevation although the species composition changed substantially (<10% similarity) between the lowest and highest elevation sites. Constancy in species richness was possibly due to relative constancy in productivity and lack of elevational trends in vegetation structure. Elevational range size of birds, expected to increase with elevation according to Rapoport's rule, was found to show a contrasting inverse U-shaped pattern because species with narrow elevational distributions, including endemics, occurred at both ends of the gradient (below 800 m and above 1,200 m). Bird species composition also did not vary randomly along the gradient as assessed using a hierarchy of null models of community assembly, from completely unconstrained models to ones with species richness and range-size distribution restrictions. Instead, bird community composition was significantly correlated with elevation and tree species composition of sites, indicating the influence of deterministic factors on bird community structure. Conservation of low- and high-elevation areas and maintenance of tree species composition against habitat alteration are important for bird conservation in the southern Western Ghats rainforests.Comment: 36 pages, 5 figures, two tables (including one in the appendix) Submitted to the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society (JBNHS

Stability of Naked Singularity arising in gravitational collapse of Type I matter fields

Considering gravitational collapse of Type I matter fields, we prove that, given an arbitrary $C^{2}$- mass function $\textit{M}(r,v)$ and a $C^{1}$- function $h(r,v)$ (through the corresponding $C^{1}$- metric function $\nu(t,r)$), there exist infinitely many choices of energy distribution function $b(r)$ such that the `true' initial data ($\textit{M},h(r,v)$) leads the collapse to the formation of naked singularity. We further prove that the occurrence of such a naked singularity is stable with respect to small changes in the initial data. We remark that though the initial data leading to both black hole and naked singularity form a "big" subset of the true initial data set, their occurrence is not generic. The terms `stability' and `genericity' are appropriately defined following the theory of dynamical systems. The particular case of radial pressure $p_{r}(r)$ has been illustrated in details to get clear picture of how naked singularity is formed and how, it is stable with respect to initial data.Comment: 16 pages, no figure, Latex, submitted to Praman

Signatures of magnetic reconnection in solar eruptive flares: A multi-wavelength perspective

In this article, we review some key aspects of a multi-wavelength flare which have essentially contributed to form a standard flare model based on the magnetic reconnection. The emphasis is given on the recent observations taken by the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) on the X-ray emission originating from different regions of the coronal loops. We also briefly summarize those observations which do not seem to accommodate within the canonical flare picture and discuss the challenges for future investigations.Comment: 13 pages; Book chapter published in "Multi-scale Dynamical Processes in Space and Astrophysical Plasmas", Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelber