A LABORATORY COMPARISON OF UNIFORM AND DISCRIMINATIVE PRICE AUCTIONS FORREDUCING NON-POINT SOURCE POLLUTION

Land use changes to reduce non-point source pollution, such as nutrient runoff to waterways from agricultural production, incur opportunity costs that are privately known to landholders. Auctions may permit the regulator to identify those management changes that have greater environmental benefit and lower opportunity cost. This paper reports a testbed laboratory experiment in which landowner/sellers compete in sealed-offer auctions to obtain part of a fixed budget allocated by the regulator to subsidize pollution abatement. One treatment employs uniform price auction rules in which the price is set at the lowest price per unit of environmental benefits submitted by a seller who had all of her offers rejected. Another treatment employs discriminative price rules in which successful sellers receive their offer price. Our results indicate that subjects recognize the cost-revelation incentives of the uniform price auction, as a majority of offers are within 2 percent of cost. By contrast, a majority of offers in the discriminative price auction are at least 8 percent greater than cost. Nevertheless, the regulator spends more per unit of environmental benefit in the uniform price auction, and the discriminative price auction has superior overall market performance.Uniform Price Auctions, Discriminative Price Auctions, Land Use Change,Laboratory Experiments, Environmental Policy.

An Experimental Study of Compliance and Leverage in Auditing and Regulatory Enforcement

Evidence suggests that a large majority of firms and individuals comply with regulations and tax laws even though the frequency of inspections and audits is often low. Moreover, fines for noncompliance are also typically low when regulatory violations are discovered. These observations are not consistent with static compliance models. Harrington (1988) modified these static models by specifying a dynamic game in which some agents have an incentive to comply even when the cost of compliance each period is greater than the expected penalty. This paper reports a laboratory experiment based on the Harrington model framework, in which subjects move between two inspection groups that differ in the probability of inspection and severity of fine. Subjects decide to comply or not in the presence of low, medium or high compliance costs. Enforcement leverage arises in the Harrington model from movement between the inspection groups based on previous observed compliance and noncompliance. Our results indicate that consistent with the model, violation rates increase when compliance costs become higher and as the probability of switching groups becomes lower. Behavior does not change as sharply as the model predicts, however, since violation rates do not jump from 0 to 1 as parameters vary across critical thresholds. A simple model of bounded rationality explains these deviations from optimal behavior.Regulatory Compliance, Laboratory Experiments, Tax.

Emissions Variability in Tradable Permit Markets with Imperfect Enforcement and Banking

Unexpected variation in emissions can have a substantial impact on the prices and efficiency of tradable emission permit markets. In this paper we report results from a laboratory experiment in which subjects participate in an emissions trading market in the presence of emissions uncertainty. Subjects face exogenous, random positive or negative shocks to their emission levels after they make production and emission control plans. In some sessions we allow subjects to bank their unused permits for future use. In all sessions, subjects can trade in a reconciliation period to buy or sell extra permits following the shock realization. Subjects then report their emissions to the regulatory authority and they are placed in different inspection groups depending on their compliance history. The design of our experiment allows us to identify important interactions between emission shocks, banking, compliance and enforcement. We find that the relationship between emission shocks and price changes is significantly stronger without banking, so banking helps smooth out the price variability arising from the imperfect control of emissions. This greater price stability comes at a cost, however, since noncompliance and emissions are significantly greater when banking is allowed.Emissions Trading, Correlated Shocks, Banking, Laboratory Experiments.

Can Real-Effort Investments Inhibit the Convergence of Experimental Markets?

Evidence shows that real-effort investments can affect bilateral bargaining outcomes. This paper investigates whether similar investments can inhibit equilibrium convergence of experimental markets. In one treatment, sellers’ relative effort affects the allocation of production costs, but a random productivity shock ensures that the allocation is not necessarily equitable. In another treatment, sellers’ effort increases the buyers’ valuation of a good. We find that effort investments have a short-lived impact on trading behavior when sellers’ effort benefits buyers, but no effect when effort determines cost allocation. Efficiency rates are high and do not differ across treatments.Property Rights; Real Effort; Posted Offer Markets; Random Shock; Surplus Creation

Moral Hazard and Peer Monitoring in a Laboratory Microfinance Experiment

Most problems with formal sector credit lending to the poor in developing countries can be attributed to the lack of information and inadequate collateral. One common feature of successful credit mechanisms is group-lending, where the loan is advanced to an individual if he/she is a part of a group and members of the borrowing group can monitor each other. Since group members have better information about each other compared to lenders, peer monitoring is often less expensive than lender monitoring. Theoretically this leads to greater monitoring and greater rates of loan repayments. This paper reports the results from a laboratory experiment of group lending in the presence of moral hazard and (costly) peer monitoring. We compare peer monitoring treatments when credit is provided to members of the group sequentially and simultaneously, and individual lending with lender monitoring. The results depend on the relative cost of monitoring by the peer vis-à-vis the lender. In the more typical case where the cost of peer monitoring is lower than the cost of lender monitoring, our results suggest that peer monitoring results in higher loan frequencies, higher monitoring and higher repayment rates compared to lender monitoring. In the absence of monitoring cost differences, performance is mostly similar across group and individual lending schemes, although loan frequencies and monitoring rates are sometimes modestly greater with group lending. Within group lending, although the dynamic incentives provided by sequential leading generate the greatest equilibrium surplus, simultaneous group leading provides equivalent empirical performance.Group Lending, Monitoring, Moral Hazard, Laboratory Experiment, Loans, Development

Effects of time and diffusion phase-lags in a thick circular plate due to a ring load with axisymmetric heat supply

The purpose of this paper is to depict the effect of time, thermal, and diffusion phase lags due to axisymmetric heat supply in a ring. The problem is discussed within the context of DPLT and DPLD models. The upper and lower surfaces of the ring are traction-free and subjected to an axisymmetric heat supply. The solution is found by using Laplace and Hankel transform techniques. The analytical expressions of displacements, stresses and chemical potential, temperature and mass concentration are computed in transformed domain. Numerical inversion technique has been applied to obtain the results in the physical domain. Numerically simulated results are depicted graphically. The effect of time, diffusion, and thermal phase-lags are shown on the various components. Some particular results are also deduced from the present investigation

Mifepristone for cervical ripening and induction of labour

Background: The study was aimed to evaluate the efficacy of Mifepristone for induction of labour and in improving the Bishop score at term. The study also aimed to assess induction delivery interval and maternal and fetal outcomes with Mifepristone.Methods: The study was carried out on 200 pregnant females with 2 study groups of 100 each. Group A females received tablet Mifepristone 400mg and   Group B females received placebo. Results: Time interval between induction to onset of labour was 28 hours 54 min and 42 hours 18 min respectively in cases and control group. Mean induction delivery interval was 35 hours 38 min and 49 hours 52 minutes respectively in cases and control group. LSCS rate was less with Mifepristone group.Conclusions: This study showed that treatment with Mifepristone is a simple and effective method of inducing labour in women with term pregnancy with unripe cervix. The use of Mifepristone provides an interesting new alternative to classic uterotonic agents when induction is necessary. The potential advantage of Mifepristone over PGs or oxytocin requires further evaluation in scarred uterus

Diversity of fungi as human pathogen

Worldwide human pathogenic fungi cause I nvasive diseases, pose a serious and growing health problem and are a major cause of death. Superficial mycosis is more prevalent in tropical and subtropical countries including India, where heat and moisture play an important role in promoting of Anthropophilic dermatophytes and tends to get worse during summer, with symptoms alleviating during the winter. Such fungi are known as Dermatophytes and usually colonize the outer layer of the skin, occasionally invade subcutaneous tissues, resulting in kerion development of ringworm symptoms. These symptoms develop by a number of different fungal species e.g. Trichophyton , Microsporum  and Epidermatophyton are proved most common causative agents. Such fungi attack various parts of the body and lead to Dermatophytosis as Tinea pedis (athlete's foot) affects  on the feet; Tinea unguium on the fingernails and toenails; Tinea corporis on the arms, legs and trunk, Tinea cruris (jock itch) groin area ; Tinea manuum  hands and palm area ,Tinea capitis on the scalp, Tinea barbae affects facial hair; Tinea faciei on the face etc..  The other superficial mycoses (not classic ringworm or dermatophytes) are Tinea versicolor caused by Malassezia furfur and Tinea nigra caused by Hortaea werneckii

Role of bilateral internal iliac artery ligation in severe obstetric and gynaecological hemorrhage

Background: Massive pelvic haemorrhage is a potentially lethal complication while undergoing obstetric and gynaecological surgery. The objective of this study was to study of role of bilateral internal iliac artery ligation in severe obstetric and gynaecological haemorrhage. It was a prospective interventional study carried out in a multi-speciality tertiary care hospital in New Delhi.Methods: Thirty-five patients (31 obstetric and 4 gynaecological) fulfilling the inclusion criteria over a period of 2 years were included in the study cohort after informed consent. After laparotomy, internal iliac arteries were exposed by incising the peritoneal fold between the infundibulo-pelvic and round ligaments. A number 1 silk suture and right-angled artery forceps were used to tie the internal iliac arteries approximately 1 inch below their origin. The success and complications of the procedure were analysed.Results: In the present study 31 out of 35 cases underwent BIIAL for obstetrical cause of haemorrhage and rest 4 for gynaecological cause. In 19 out of 31 patients, hysterectomy preceded or followed BILAL depending upon the clinical situation making a uterine salvation rate of 38.7%. The success rate of BIIAL was 67.7% in 31 obstetric cases. In the 4 gynaecological cases BILAL was done to arrest post-hysterectomy haemorrhage and success rate was 100%. Among 35 patients one patient died of haemorrhagic shock and 4 other died of full blown sepsis and MODS in surgical ICU. No significant procedure related complications were encountered.Conclusions: BILAL is a very effective procedure to control PPH and pelvic haemorrhage due to other causes and helps save the much precious lives and uteri. This procedure can always be tried where procedures like embolization are unavailable

Water Structure and Its Correlation to Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation

Clouds, a mixture of water vapor, condensed liquid droplets, solid crystals and aerosol particles, exert an importance on weather and climate via controlling the amount of precipitation and transportation of radiative fluxes. One of the major processes involved in clouds is heterogeneous ice nucleation, which is nucleation facilitated by the presence of mineral substrates. Understanding the role played by solid surfaces in influencing the structure and dynamics of water and thus regulating ice nucleation paves the road for forecasting long-term climate change and designing surfaces with customer-specified ice nucleation properties. The goal of our research is to be able to predict the nucleating ability of a surface based on the interfacial water structure and dynamics. To investigate this problem, we focus on mica, which has a molecularly smooth nature to begin with, thus eases out the complexity of dealing with surface defects. By combining molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), we probe the change in interfacial water arrangement, spatial correlation and dynamics on mica surface. The interplay of ion-water, ion-surface, and surface-water interactions affect the interfacial water arrangement along with the hydrogen bond network, which is found to be the crucial part in altering surface nucleating ability