Economic Effects of Environmental Taxation on Chemical Fertilizers

This paper analyzes the economic effects of environmental taxes on chemical fertilizer in producing rice. A charge of 10 percent tax on nitrogen fertilizer leads to a reduction in fertilizer use of 1.5 percent without changing rice yield, but the farm income is reduced by 0.6 percent. The tax rate of 100 percent leads to a reduction of 14.6 percent in fertilizer use, a 0.4 percent reduction in rice yield, and a 3.6 percent reduction in farm income. A significant feature of eco-taxes imposed on chemical fertilizers is their revenue potential, which could contribute to increasing government budgets for finance pollution control programs, such as education and R&D. This study provides an insight into the application of market-based instrument to achieve sustainable agricultural development.polluter-pays-principle, nonpoint pollution, environmental tax, nitrogen fertilizer, negative externalities, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q28, Q52,

World Agriculture Organization (WAO): New Global Governance for Agricultural Trade

It is increasingly questionable whether the WTO regime is the most appropriate form of governance for addressing global problems related to agriculture. In particular, climate change, sustainability, hunger/poverty in developing countries, and expected imbalance in food demand-supply by 2050 are emerging as grave challenges to humanity and the WTO is still struggling to resolve issues (related to the multifunctional roles of agriculture) of the 20th century while completely lacking the capacity to tackle such new global issues of the 21st century. Given this outmoded institution, the primary objective of this article is to propose that a new system of governance is needed so as to exclusively and effectively deal with problems arising from the interactions among climate change, agricultural sustainability, food security, and trade.Global public goods, climate change, sustainable agriculture, food security, WTO, agricultural trade, International Relations/Trade,

Quasielastic Charged-Current Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering with Nonrelativistic Nuclear Energy Density Functionals

Charged-current neutrino-nucleus scattering is studied in the quasielastic region with the KIDS (Korea-IBS-Daegu-SKKU) nuclear energy density functional. We focus on the uncertainties stemming from the axial mass and the in-medium effective mass of the nucleon. Comparing the result of theory to the state-of-the-art data from MiniBooNE, T2K, and MINER$\nu$A, we constrain the axial mass and the effective mass that are compatible with the data. We find that the total cross section is insensitive to the effective mass, so the axial mass could be determined independently of the uncertainty in the effective mass. Differential cross sections at different kinematics are, on the other hand, sensitive to the effective mass as well as the axial mass. Within the uncertainty of the axial mass constrained from the total cross section, dependence on the effective mass is examined. As a result we obtain the axial mass and the effective mass that are consistent with the experimental data.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Integrated Decision Model for Evaluating Alternative Swine Waste Management Systems under Environmental Constraints in Oklahoma

Agricultural Economic

Neutron skin of 27^{27}Al with Skyrme and Korea-IBS-Daegu-SKKU density functionals

Recent measurement of the parity-violating (PV) asymmetry in the elastic electron scattering on $^{27}$Al target evokes the interest in the distribution of the neutron in the nucleus. In this work, we calculate the neutron skin thickness ($R_{np}$) of $^{27}$Al with nonrelativistic nuclear structure models. We focus on the role of the effective mass, symmetry energy and pairing force. Models are selected to have effective masses in the range $(0.58-1.05)M$ where $M$ is the nucleon mass in free space, and stiffness of the symmetry energy is varied by choosing the slope of the symmetry energy in the range 9.4 -- 100.5 MeV. Effect of pairing force is investigated by calculating $R_{np}$ with and without pairing, and using two different forms of the pairing force. With nine models, we obtain $R_{np} = 0.001 - 0.014$ fm. The result is independent of the effective mass, symmetry energy, and the form of pairing force. However, $R_{np}$ is negative when the pairing force is switched off, so the pairing force plays an essential role to make $R_{np}$ positive and constrained in a narrow range. We also calculate the PV asymmetry ($A_{\rm pv}$) in the elastic electron-$^{27}$Al scattering in the Born approximation at the kinematics of the Qweak experiment. We obtain a very narrow-ranged result $A_{\rm pv} =$ (2.07 -- 2.09) $\times 10^{-6}$. The result is consistent with the experiment and insensitive to the effective mass, symmetry energy and pairing force.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Biomarkers of Oxidative Stress and Endogenous Antioxidants for Patients with Chronic Subjective Dizziness

As a neurotologic disorder of persistent non-vertiginous dizziness, chronic subjective dizziness (CSD) arises unsteadily by psychological and physiological imbalance. The CSD is hypersensitivity reaction due to exposure to complex motions visual stimuli. However, the pathophysiological features and mechanism of the CSD still remains unclearly. The present study was purposed to establish possible endogenous contributors of the CSD using serum samples from patients with the CSD. A total 199 participants were gathered and divided into two groups; healthy (n = 152, male for 61, and female for 91) and CSD (n = 47, male for 5, female for 42), respectively. Oxidative stress parameters such as, hydrogen peroxide and reactive substances were significantly elevated (p < 0.01 or p < 0.001), whereas endogenous antioxidant components including total glutathione contents, and activities of catalase and superoxide dismutase were significantly deteriorated in the CSD group (p < 0.01 or p < 0.001) as comparing to the healthy group, respectively. Serum levels of tumor necrosis factor -α and interferon-γ were significantly increased in the CSD participants (p < 0.001). Additionally, emotional stress related hormones including cortisol, adrenaline, and serotonin were abnormally observed in the serum levels of the CSD group (p < 0.01 or p < 0.001). Our results confirmed that oxidative stress and antioxidants are a critical contributor of pathophysiology of the CSD, and that is first explored to establish features of redox system in the CSD subjects compared to a healthy population

Direct observation of CD4 T cell morphologies and their cross-sectional traction force derivation on quartz nanopillar substrates using focused ion beam technique

Direct observations of the primary mouse CD4 T cell morphologies, e.g., cell adhesion and cell spreading by culturing CD4 T cells in a short period of incubation (e.g., 20 min) on streptavidin-functionalized quartz nanopillar arrays (QNPA) using a high-content scanning electron microscopy method were reported. Furthermore, we first demonstrated cross-sectional cell traction force distribution of surface-bound CD4 T cells on QNPA substrates by culturing the cells on top of the QNPA and further analysis in deflection of underlying QNPA via focused ion beam-assisted technique

Effects of Zeeman spin splitting on the modular symmetry in the quantum Hall effect

Magnetic-field-induced phase transitions in the integer quantum Hall effect are studied under the formation of paired Landau bands arising from Zeeman spin splitting. By investigating features of modular symmetry, we showed that modifications to the particle-hole transformation should be considered under the coupling between the paired Landau bands. Our study indicates that such a transformation should be modified either when the Zeeman gap is much smaller than the cyclotron gap, or when these two gaps are comparable.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure