Restructuring the Capital Market to Protect Small Investors and More

We question the effectiveness of shareholders’ protection from the moral hazard risk that managers might make choices contrary to the shareholders’ best interests. We explore the evolution of the dynamic manager-shareholder relationship and suggest a change that can be made to improve it. Specifically, a significant group of shareholders should not be viewed as “owners” because they lack effective means to protect their interests via the normal tools of ownership, i.e., voting in corporate elections. Therefore, in exchange for their voting rights, they should receive an explicit contract that spells out their specific compensations and protections

The Effect Of Psychic Distance On Kenyas Export Destinations

Exports can be an important component of the growth strategy for developing countries, and an understanding of export destination choices can help to facilitate that growth. This paper uses the concept of psychic distance to examine Kenyas export pattern to selected markets. Regression analysis indicates that Kenyas total exports are significantly associated with countries that are psychically close (Uganda, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom), but not with countries that are psychically distant (Ethiopia, Egypt, and the United States). Thus, psychic distance explains Kenyas export choices better than geographic distance does. The paper concludes with suggestions about ways that an understanding of psychic distance can help Kenya and other countries that seek to expand their economies through export

The nitrogen footprint of Ukraine: why personal consumption matters

Unintended reactive nitrogen (N) losses from agriculture, energy and transportation pose significant environmental hazards, including eutrophication, acidification, water and air pollution, biodiversity loss, human health risks and climate change. The concept of a Nitrogen Footprint (NF) emerges as a pivotal metric, reflecting potential N losses in the entire production-consumption chain of goods and services used by an individual within a defined timeframe. In a pioneering assessment of per capita NF in Ukraine, key factors, such as the food production chain, consumption patterns, connection to wastewater treatment (WWT) system and the efficacy of WWT facilities, were identified as critical components. Addressing specific challenges, such as data availability, soil N depletion and manure waste, was found to be particularly complex. The apparent high nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in Ukrainian cropping systems was highlighted to be actually reflected in the elevated N mineralization rate in Ukrainian soils characterized by high organic matter content. The individual Ukraine NF (22.1 kg N cap-1 yr-1 as of 2017) was found to be much lower than that of the US and Australia being comparable to Western European countries. Even so, significant opportunities for reduction remain through a wide range of options towards healthier and more sustainable dietary choices. Potential reductions, ranging from 22% to 69%, were shown for omnivore, reduced red meat, no red meat, half meat products, vegetarian and vegan diets. In the absence of proper manure management in Ukraine, even greater reductions of an ‘actual’ NF can be achieved if wasted N manure is considered. The war's impact is assumed to result in a slight increase or no changes in individual food consumption NFs and an increase in food production NFs for local products, while reductions in individual transport and energy NFs were likely across Ukraine. Nonetheless, refugees massively displaced to less affected regions overload a largely outdated civilian infrastructure, leading to higher N losses. Looking ahead, sustained support, capital investments, legislative enhancements and regulatory frameworks, especially upon post-war renovation of Ukraine, are imperative for reducing the individual NF. This involves enhancing nitrogen use efficiency in agriculture, establishing efficient manure management, upgrading WWT facilities, promoting renewable energy adoption, bolstering requisite infrastructure and raising public awareness on environmental sustainability

The impact of management and climate on soil nitric oxide fluxes from arable land in the southern Ukraine

NO fluxes from soils are a significant source for tropospheric NOx, though global and regional estimates of the soil source strength are constrained by the paucity of measurements. In a continuous 18 month effort (2012–2014) soil NO fluxes from an intensively managed arable site in the black soil region of the Southern Ukraine (Odessa region) were measured using an automated dynamic chamber system. Measurements revealed three periods of peak NO emissions (fertigation, re-wetting of soils, and to a lower extend during winter), with a pulse emission peak during soil re-wetting in summer of 88.4 μg N m−2 h−1. The mean annual NO flux was 5.1 ± 8.9 μg N m−2 h−1 and total annual NO emissions were 0.44 ± 0.78 kg N ha−1 yr−1. The fertilizer induced emission factor for NO was 0.63% under beetroot. The combined effect of soil temperature, soil moisture and soil DIN (NH4+ and NO3−) concentrations were identified as drivers of the temporal and spatial variability of soil NO fluxes. This work shows that long-term measurements are needed for estimating annual fluxes and the importance of soils as a source for tropospheric NOx as the contribution of different seasons and crop growing periods to the annual budget differed markedly

Cold season soil NO fluxes from a temperate forest: drivers and contribution to annual budgets

Soils, and here specifically acidic forest soils exposed to high rates of atmospheric nitrogen deposition, are a significant source for the secondary greenhouse gas nitric oxide (NO). However, as flux estimates are mainly based on measurements during the vegetation period, annual NO emissions budgets may hold uncertainty as cold season soil NO fluxes have rarely been quantified. Here we analyzed cold season soil NO fluxes and potential environmental drivers on the basis of the most extensive database on forest soil NO fluxes obtained at the Höglwald Forest, Germany, spanning the years 1994 to 2010. On average, the cold season (daily average air temperature <3 °C) contributed to 22% of the annual soil NO budget, varying from 13% to 41% between individual cold seasons. Temperature was the main controlling factor of the cold season NO fluxes, whereas during freeze-thaw cycles soil moisture availability determined NO emission rates. The importance of cold season soil NO fluxes for annual NO fluxes depended positively on the length of the cold season, but responded negatively to frost events. Snow cover did not significantly affect cold season soil NO fluxes. Cold season NO fluxes significantly correlated with cold season soil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. During freeze-thaw periods strong positive correlations between NO and N2O fluxes were observed, though stimulation of NO fluxes by freeze-thaw was by far less pronounced as compared to N2O. Except for freeze-thaw periods NO fluxes significantly exceeded those for N2O during the cold season period. We conclude that in temperate forest ecosystems cold season NO emissions can contribute substantially to the annual NO budget and this contribution is significantly higher in years with long lasting but mild (less frost events) cold seasons

Machine learning for identifying emergent and floating aquatic vegetation from space: a case study in the Dniester Delta, Ukraine

Monitoring aquatic vegetation, including both floating and emergent types, plays a crucial role in understanding the dynamics of freshwater ecosystems. Our research focused on the Lower Dniester Basin in Southern Ukraine, covering approximately 1800 square kilometers of steppe plains and wetlands. We applied traditional machine learning algorithms, specifically random forest and boosting trees, to analyze Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for segmenting aquatic vegetation into emergent and floating types. Our methodology was validated against detailed in-situ field measurements collected annually over a 5-year study period. The machine learning classifiers achieved an F1-score of 0.88 ± 0.03 in classifying floating vegetation, outperforming our previously suggested histogram-based thresholding methodology for the same task. While emergent vegetation and open water were easily identifiable from satellite imagery, the robustness and temporal transferability of our methodology included accurately delineating floating vegetation as well. Additionally, we explored the significance of various features through the Minimum Redundancy - Maximum Relevance algorithm. This study highlights advancements in aquatic vegetation mapping and demonstrates a valuable tool for ecological monitoring and future research endeavors

Assessing the contribution of soil NOx emissions to European atmospheric pollution

Atmospheric NOx concentrations are declining steadily due to successful abatement strategies predominantly targeting combustion sources. On the European continent, total NOx emissions fell by 55% between 1990 and 2017, but only modest reductions were achieved from the agricultural sector; with 7.8% from 20 Eastern European countries and 19.1% from 22 Western European countries. Consequently, the share of agricultural NOx emissions for these 42 European countries have increased from 3.6% to 7.2%. These values are highly uncertain due to serious lack of studies from agricultural soils and manure management. The emission factor (EFNO 1.33%), currently used for calculating soil NOx emissions from European agricultural categories 'N applied to soils' and 'manure management' was evaluated here by including recently published data from temperate climate zones. The newly calculated EFNO (average 0.60%, 0.0625th%/0.5475th%, n = 65 studies) is not notably different from the current value, given the large uncertainties associated with the small pool of studies, and therefore continued use of EFNO (1.33%) is recommended until more data become available. An assessment of the contribution of agricultural and non-agricultural NOx sources found that of the 42 European countries, the 8 most populated countries achieved considerable reductions (1990–2017) from categories 'non-agricultural sources' (55%), 'N applied to soils' (43%) and 'manure management' (1.2%), compared to small reductions from the remaining 34 countries. Forests are also large sources of soil NOx. On average, emissions from Eastern European forests were 4 times larger than from 'N applied agricultural soil', whereas Western European NOx emissions from 'N applied agricultural soil' were two times larger than from forest soils. Given that non-agricultural sources of NOx continue to decline, soil related emissions from agriculture, forests and manure management become more important, and require rigorous investigation in order to improve atmospheric pollution forecasts

Weakened growth of cropland‐N2O emissions in China associated with nationwide policy interventions

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41671464; 7181101181), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0800501; 2018YFC0213304), 111 Project (B14001), the GCP-INI Global N2O Budget and the INMS Asia Demo Activities. The input of P.S. contributes to the UK-China Virtual Joint Centre on Nitrogen ìN-Circleî funded by the Newton Fund via UK BBSRC/NERC (BB/N013484/1). We acknowledged Eric Ceschia, Kristiina Regina, Dario Papale, and the NANORP for sharing a part of observation data.Peer reviewedPostprin