The role of consumer in saving the cultural landscape in the countryside

The purpose of the study is to observe and to evaluate participation in the land use process and the potential of civil activity in influencing the impacts of planning in the cultural landscape in the countryside

The right to mine? Discourse analysis of social impact assessments of mining projects in Finnish Lapland in the 2000s

Lapland, the northernmost county of Finland, has promising mineral deposits and over half of all Finnish mining operations. In the 2000s two new metallic mineral mines were opened in Lapland, while three projects are undergoing the environmental impact assessment procedure (EIA). This process also involves a social impact assessment (SIA) that reports on the expected impacts of mining on the host communities. SIAs influence the permit process and the ensuing activity and officially represent the views of the local people in the planning and decision-making process. In this study, social impact assessments are examined by discourse analysis introduced by Maarten Hajer. The document analysis identified three recurrent story lines shared by all the investigated SIAs. A story line combines elements from different domains and suggests a common understanding on an issue. The second phase of the discourse analysis was to analyse these story lines in the context they were produced. The first story line sees mines as the only way to develop the remote regions of Lapland. Large-scale mining projects are seen as a solution to economic problems, unemployment and out-migration. The second story line stresses the importance of mines in supporting the “general interest” of the whole province. After the Second World War, the intensive use of natural resources was justified by national interests; now it is justified by the interests of the region. The third story line argues that nature has no intrinsic value – it is merely a resource to be used. With the help of such story lines, SIAs grant the right to mine in Lapland.publishedVersio

Gliocladium catenulatum as an antagonist against grey mould on strawberry

Gliocladium catenulatum gave excellent control of Botrytis on strawberry in several field trials in Finland

Distortion costs and effects of price liberalisation in Russian energy markets: A CGE analysis

Russia’s economy is energy intense and wasteful of resources. This situation has arisen in part due to the country’s ample energy supplies and regulated privileges for domestic con-sumers. Recently enacted and proposed reforms intended to increase the efficiency of the energy sector by raising domestic energy prices also have implications for the export levels of Russian energy commodities. In this study, we estimate the costs of the subsidised en-ergy system in an allocative sense and then analyse recent moves of the Duma to boost gas and electricity prices to bring them into line with market-based pricing. Our analysis uses a multi-region general equilibrium model (GTAP) modified to express the global dimensions of the subsidisation policy and suggested reforms. Preliminary results show that current subsidies extract over 6% of GDP and limit the potential benefits of Russia’s comparative advantage in energy commodities. Increases of 6% in electricity and 10% in the price of regulated gas improve efficiency by reducing distorting subsidies and distinctly shifting output from domestic markets to exports.CGE modelling; energy market liberalisation; Russia

Consumption and Uncertain Access to the Asset Market

This paper presents a new approach to modelling credit restrictions by considering uncertain access to the asset market. The asset market and the stochastic process governing access are considered fully exogenous and independent of income. The model generates stable debt trajectories for a broader array of interest rate levels than the one corresponding to the agent’s rate of time preference. The agent exhibits excess sensitivity of consumption to current period income, even for low probabilities of constraints. Because this sensitivity is inversely related to the maturity of debt contracts, the availability of long-term debt contracts reduces the income-sensitivity of consumption. A very tractable approximative Euler equation for the model is presented.consumption; liquidity constraints; permanent income hypothesis

Decentralized sequential change detection using physical layer fusion

The problem of decentralized sequential detection with conditionally independent observations is studied. The sensors form a star topology with a central node called fusion center as the hub. The sensors make noisy observations of a parameter that changes from an initial state to a final state at a random time where the random change time has a geometric distribution. The sensors amplify and forward the observations over a wireless Gaussian multiple access channel and operate under either a power constraint or an energy constraint. The optimal transmission strategy at each stage is shown to be the one that maximizes a certain Ali-Silvey distance between the distributions for the hypotheses before and after the change. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed analog technique has lower detection delays when compared with existing schemes. Simulations further demonstrate that the energy-constrained formulation enables better use of the total available energy than the power-constrained formulation in the change detection problem.Comment: 10 pages, two-column, 10 figures, revised based on feedback from reviewers, accepted for publication in IEEE Trans. on Wireless Communication

Versatility of Bicoronal flap approach in Head and neck surgeries

Bicoronal approach popularised by Tessier is one of the versatile approaches for skulland frontal region (1-6).In this article we present our experience regarding Bicoronal flapapproach in 3 different cases. Each patient had different pathologies in frontal region forwhich the same approach had been used. We also describe in detail about the incision, itsindications and contra indications, advantages and disadvantages. Incision was made in hairbearing area. Hence post operatively, cosmetic results were appealing in all the patients 9. Itpreserves the supraorbital neurovascular bundle, so complaints related to that are avoided. Inthis article, we discuss about the individual patient, merits and demerits of this particularapproach in each patient. 

THE EFFECT OF ARMINGTON STRUCTURE ON WELFARE EVALUATIONS IN GLOBAL CGE-MODELS

In this paper, the welfare results in trade liberalisation scenarios in global CGE models (like GTAP) are analysed. The default modeling strategy in trade is the Armington assumption with bilateral trade flows in industries. The negative terms of trade effects that often dominate the negative welfare outcome in simulation experiments are decomposed to imports and exports price effects. The numerical examples show that even in unilateral liberalisation with decreasing import tariffs, the welfare effects are dominated by domestic price level changes that also drive the exports prices. The numerical examples are built around simple GTAP tariff cut experiments with 3x3 country and commodity aggregation. The inherent feature in this type of models is that they support arguments for unilateral market access, like preferences, at the expense of multilateral trade liberalisation.CGE Modeling, trade liberalisation, terms of trade, International Relations/Trade, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,