Risks, lessons learned, and secondary markets for greenhouse gas reductions

Collectively or individually, countries are likely to implement policies designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Experience from tradable quota schemes suggests that emissions trading could significantly reduce the costs of emission limits. The Kyoto Protocol provides the framework for a common trading mechanism for all countries - including countries that would not face immediate emission limits. Significantly, the Protocol places the responsibility for meeting emission limits with national governments. How policymakers choose to implement emission limits will significantly shape the incentives that drive evolving secondary markets for greenhouse-gas-based instruments. Potential market participants who were surveyed rate policy-related risk as higher than business-related risks. Domestic polices designed to reduce fragmentation in secondary markets, establish clear baselines and procedures, and strengthen host-country institutions can all help reduce the risks and costs of emission limits.Economic Theory&Research,Labor Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Carbon Policy and Trading,Energy and Environment,Economic Theory&Research

Pulsed plasmoid electric propulsion

A method of electric propulsion is explored where plasmoids such as spheromaks and field reversed configurations (FRC) are formed and then allowed to expand down a diverging conducting shell. The plasmoids contain a toroidal electric current that provides both heating and a confining magnetic field. They are free to translate because there are no externally supplied magnetic fields that would restrict motion. Image currents in the diverging conducting shell keep the plasmoids from contacting the wall. Because these currents translate relative to the wall, losses due to magnetic flux diffusion into the wall are minimized. During the expansion of the plasma in the diverging cone, both the inductive and thermal plasma energy are converted to directed kinetic energy producing thrust. Specific impulses can be in the 4000 to 20000 sec range with thrusts from 0.1 to 1000 Newtons, depending on available power

Analysis of Pellet Ablation with Atomic Processes

A new type of a magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code applicable to solid, liquid and gas states, “CAP” has been developed in order to investigate ablation process of a pellet with ato mic processes in hot plasmas. One of the most important features of the code is to be able to treat re cession of the pellet surface by ablation without any artificial boundary condition between the pellet an d ablation cloud. A region excluding a magnetic field is induced because the magnetic pressure is overcome by the ablation pressure. It is found that a stationary shock wave is driven by ionization

Improving Health Literacy in Underserved Youth

Health literacy is an individual’s capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions. There are disparities in health literacy across age, gender, ethnicity, location and socioeconomic status. Children aged 12-17 are an important target group regarding health literacy research because of the fundamental cognitive, physical and emotional development processes occurring that affect health related skills and behaviors. The objectives of this project were to: Identify the disparities of health literacy in varying demographics with regards to age, gender, location and socioeconomic areas Determine barriers affecting health literacy comprehension and knowledge in the target population Create effective education methods stemming from evidence-based practices allowing target communities to increase health literacy in a manner that is both meaningful and sustainabl

Aid on Demand: African Leaders and the Geography of China s Foreign Assistance

We investigate whether the political leaders of aid-receiving countries use foreign aid inflows to further their own political or personal interests. Aid allocation biased by leaders selfish interests arguably reduces the effectiveness of aid, negatively affecting development outcomes. We examine whether more Chinese aid is allocated to the political leaders birth regions and regions populated by the ethnic group to which the leader belongs, controlling for objective indicators of need. We have collected data on 117 African leaders birthplaces and ethnic groups and geocoded 1,955 Chinese development finance projects across 3,553 physical locations in Africa over the 2000-2012 period. The results from various fixed-effects regressions show that current political leaders birth regions receive substantially larger financial flows than other regions. We do not find evidence that leaders shift aid to regions populated by groups who share their ethnicity

Self-Consistent Determination of Low-Za Pellet Ablation and Pellet Penetration

The ablation dynamics of LiT pellets are solved self-consistently over a modest range of parameters using a surface dissociation model. The self-consistently determined parameters are then used to modify the standard low-Z pellet penetration codes. Since LiT pellets have certain advantages over carbon [in particular, Li conditioning of the walls and T for refueling a D-T reaction], the penetration of LiT into fusion plasmas is considered

Are African leaders misusing Chinese development finance? The price of country ownership

In a 2012 blog post, MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and Harvard’s James Robinson call attention to a “fancy school” built in a small village in Sierra Leone and financed by Chinese development aid. They ask a pointed question: “Why would anyone want to build a wonderful school in the middle of what Africans call ‘the bush’?” As Acemoglu and Robinson explain, “Yoni is the home village of Sierra Leone’s president, Ernest Bai Koroma.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN A MAGNETIC FIELD

A Tibetan meditation system of 1882 suggested a way in which self awareness in student monks could be facilitated by using a bar magnet suspended NORTH UP over the crown of the head. This suggestion led to the design, in the present study, of a double-blind test of magnetostatic perception in meditators using a bar magnet oriented either NORTH UP, SOUTH UP, or ABSENT. Effects were evaluated with a questionnaire having five experiential categories, physical, emotional, mental, extrapersonal (parapsychologic), and trans personal. Two weak magnetostatic fields with strengths of 14 gauss (1.4 milliTeslas) and 140 gauss (14 milliTeslas), measured at the crown of the head, were used. Analysis of experiential data collected in three experiments revealed significant and consistent differential patterns of gender-related responses. Experiential subcategories which showed gender by magnetic field interactions included: Experiment I: (1) Physical Energized, 92) Physical Sensory Perturbations; Experiment 2: (1) Physical Energized, (2) Emotional Enegized; Experiment 3: Using a different protocol and analysis procedure, similar results were found. Major contributors to the interaction were: (1) Physical Energized, (2) Physical Body Perturbation, and (3) Physical Passive. The consistency of gender-related differential response patterns in these three investigations raises a question of gender based differential responses to "electromagnetic environmental pollution.