A review of the pesticide MCPA in the land-water environment and emerging research needs

peer-reviewedDue to its high solubility and poor adsorption to the soil matrix, the postemergence herbicide 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (MCPA) is susceptible to transport into surface and groundwater bodies, where it can result in compromised water quality and breaches of legislative standards. However, there is still poor understanding of catchment scale dynamics and transport, particularly across heterogeneous hydrogeological settings. While it is known that MCPA degrades under aerobic conditions, negligible breakdown can occur in anaerobic environments, potentially creating a legacy in saturated soils. Fast runoff pathways post application are likely transport routes, but the relative contribution from the mobilization of legacy MCPA from anaerobic zones has yet to be quantified, making the delineation of MCPA sources encountered during monitoring programs challenging. While ecotoxicological effects have been examined, little is known about the interaction of MCPA (and its degradation products) with other pesticides, with nutrients or with colloids, and how this combines with environmental conditions to contribute to multiple stressor effects. We examine the state of MCPA knowledge, using case study examples from Ireland, and consider the implications of its widespread detection in waterbodies and drinking water supplies. Research themes required to ensure the sustainable and safe use of MCPA in an evolving agricultural, social and political landscape are identified here. These include the need to identify mitigation measures and/or alternative treatments, to gain insights into the conditions governing mobilization and attenuation, to map pathways of migration and to identify direct, synergistic and antagonistic ecotoxicological effects

Economic Crisis and Investor Behaviour

This study investigates the effects of crises on domestic and foreign investors’ behaviours by utilizing a nonlinear approach. Considering the nonlinearity inherent in many financial variables, this study proposes an appropriate econometric modelling for analysing the investors’ behaviour, particularly during turbulent times. Specifically, STAR-STGARCH family models and generalized impulse response function analysis (GIRF) are employed to understand the different reactions of foreign and domestic investors at the Malaysian Stock Exchange market during the 1997 Asian crisis. The results of the model and the GIRF analysis have shown that foreign investors exhibited a herding behavior during the crisis and responded the shock more quickly than the domestic investors. When the same analysis is applied to understand the effects of the 2008 Subprime Mortgage Crisis in the Malaysian market, the behaviors of foreign and domestic investors are found to be very similar

A Simple Specification Procedure for the Transition Function in Persistent Nonlinear Time Series Models

A simple procedure for the specification of the transition function describing the regime switch in nonlinear autoregressive models is proposed. This procedure is based on auxiliary regressions of unit root tests and is applicable to a variety of transition functions. In contrast to other procedures, complicated and computer-intense estimation of the candidate models is not necessary. Our approach entirely relies on OLS estimation of auxiliary regressions instead. We use standard information criteria for the selection of the unknown transition function. Our Monte Carlo simulations reveal that the approach works well in practice. Empirical applications to the S&P500 price-earnings ratio and the US interest spread highlight the merits of our suggested procedure

The Glass Funnel: A Tool to Analyse the Gender Regime of Healthcare Education and Work

The concepts glass escalator and glass ceiling have been widely used in studies of gender and organisations. In this paper we propose a novel metaphor to describe and analyse gender segregation and discrimination, that of aglass funnel. This concept does not relate to men and women as groups in the sense of fixed collective entities, but rather shows how taken-for-granted distinctions between men and women are reiterated and promote men in a way that downgrades women. However, as gender intersects with other power structures, both men and women can be propelled downwards through the funnelling motion made up of a market-oriented devaluation of the healthcare profession. Through an empirical investigation of the community of practice and gender regime of an upper secondary healthcare education programme in Sweden, we develop theglass funnelconcept, an analytical tool aiming to open up for intersectional analyses of healthcare education and work