Farmers' behavior and the provision of public goods: towards an analytical framework

The new CAP reform aims to stimulate the role of agriculture as provider of public goods. An analytical framework is developed to model farmers’ decision making and to gain insight into farmers’ behavior in response to a number of policy instruments. The framework integrates characteristics of farm, farmer, market, as well as the policy instruments. Theoretical analysis suggests that attitudes, off-farm employment opportunities, non-pecuniary benefits and expectations of future developments can play important roles in farmer’s decision making regarding the provision of public goods. Empirical research is needed to test the hypothesis

Thioglycolic acid on the gold (111) surface and Raman vibrational spectra

The interaction of thioglycolic acid with the Au(111) surface is investigaged, and it is found that at the low coverage the molecule lies down on the substrate. If the mercaptan-hydrogen atom is eliminated, the resulting SCH_2COOH molecule is randomly oriented on the surface. If the carboxylic acid group in the HSCH_2COOH molecule is deprotonated instead, the HSCH_2COO^ molecule lies down on the surface. However, when the mercaptan-hydrogen atom in the HSCH_2COO^- molecule is removed, the resulting SCH_2COO^- molecule rises up to a certain level on the substrate. The calculated Raman vibrational spectra decipher which compounds and atomic displacements contribute to the corresponding frequencies. We thus propose a consistent mechanism for the deposition of thioglycolic acid on the Au(111) surface.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Chem. Phy

A New Decision Support Framework for Managing Foot-and-mouth Disease Epidemics

Animal disease epidemics such as the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) pose recurrent threat to countries with intensive livestock production. Efficient FMD control is crucial in limiting the damage of FMD epidemics and securing food production. Decision making in FMD control involves a hierarchy of decisions made at strategic, tactical, and operational levels. These decisions are interdependent and have to be made under uncertainty about future development of the epidemic. Addressing this decision problem, this paper presents a new decision-support framework based on multi-level hierarchic Markov processes (MLHMP). The MLHMP model simultaneously optimizes decisions at strategic, tactical, and operational levels, using Bayesian forecasting methods to model uncertainty and learning about the epidemic. As illustrated by the example, the framework is especially useful in contingency planning for future FMD epidemic

A rescaled method for RBF approximation

In the recent paper [8], a new method to compute stable kernel-based interpolants has been presented. This \textit{rescaled interpolation} method combines the standard kernel interpolation with a properly defined rescaling operation, which smooths the oscillations of the interpolant. Although promising, this procedure lacks a systematic theoretical investigation. Through our analysis, this novel method can be understood as standard kernel interpolation by means of a properly rescaled kernel. This point of view allow us to consider its error and stability properties

A rescaled method for RBF approximation

A new method to compute stable kernel-based interpolants has been presented by the second and third authors. This rescaled interpolation method combines the standard kernel interpolation with a properly defined rescaling operation, which smooths the oscillations of the interpolant. Although promising, this procedure lacks a systematic theoretical investigation. Through our analysis, this novel method can be understood as standard kernel interpolation by means of a properly rescaled kernel. This point of view allow us to consider its error and stability properties. First, we prove that the method is an instance of the Shepard\u2019s method, when certain weight functions are used. In particular, the method can reproduce constant functions. Second, it is possible to define a modified set of cardinal functions strictly related to the ones of the not-rescaled kernel. Through these functions, we define a Lebesgue function for the rescaled interpolation process, and study its maximum - the Lebesgue constant - in different settings. Also, a preliminary theoretical result on the estimation of the interpolation error is presented. As an application, we couple our method with a partition of unity algorithm. This setting seems to be the most promising, and we illustrate its behavior with some experiments

Statistical description of small quantum systems beyond weak-coupling limit

An explicit expression is derived for the statistical description of small quantum systems, which are relatively-weakly and directly coupled to only small parts of their environments. The derived expression has a canonical form, but is given by a renormalized self-Hamiltonian of the studied system, which appropriately takes into account the influence of the system-environment interaction. In the case that the system has a narrow spectrum and the environment is sufficiently large, the modification to the self-Hamiltonian usually has a mean-field feature, given by an environmental average of the interaction Hamiltonian. In other cases, the modification may be beyond the mean-field approximation.Comment: 9 pages, published versio

Determination of the Sign of g factors for Conduction Electrons Using Time-resolved Kerr Rotation

The knowledge of electron g factor is essential for spin manipulation in the field of spintronics and quantum computing. While there exist technical difficulties in determining the sign of g factor in semiconductors by the established magneto-optical spectroscopic methods. We develop a time resolved Kerr rotation technique to precisely measure the sign and the amplitude of electron g factor in semiconductors

Y(so(5)) symmtry of the nonlinear Schro¨\ddot{o}dinger model with four-cmponents

The quantum nonlinear Schr$\ddot{o}$dinger(NLS) model with four-component fermions exhibits a $Y(so(5))$ symmetry when considered on an infintite interval. The constructed generators of Yangian are proved to satisfy the Drinfel'd formula and furthermore, the $RTT$ relation with the general form of rational R-matrix given by Yang-Baxterization associated with $so(5)$ algebraic structure.Comment: 10 pages, no figure