The effect of opening up ANWR to drilling on the current price of oil

The Effect of Opening up ANWR to Drilling on the Current Price of Oil R. Morris Coats and Gary M. PecquetEveryone knows that oil discovered today, perhaps in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), has no effect on prices until that oil hits the market. For instance, on its website, the Democratic Policy Committee, (http://democrats.senate.gov/~dpc/pubs/107-1-72.html) states that “it will require seven to twelve years from approval before there is any oil production from the ANWR area. Therefore, production in ANWR will have no impact on current or short-term gasoline and oil supplies and prices.” While this is something that everyone seems to know, it is a case that the theory held by everyone just happens to be wrong. Since future prices are expected to be lower, future profits are also lower, so the value of oil not produced now, but held for future sales, is lower, making it more profitable to go ahead and produce and sell now instead of waiting for future profits. Using oil now reduces the amount of oil available for the future, which involves the opportunity cost of forgone future profits, which are sometime called the marginal user costs or scarcity rents. In this paper, we use simple two-period models to show that if an amount of newly discovered oil is significant enough to reduce prices in the future, any drop in future prices reduces the future profitability of oil, reducing the marginal user costs of oil now. That reduction in the marginal user costs reduces the current price of oil just as if there were a reduction in the marginal costs of extracting oil now. We explore the effects of the reduction in marginal user costs in the competitive or price-taker case as well as the price-searcher case, where a monopolist or dominant supplier responds to a substantial discovery by another seller, but where the discovery will not contribute to production for some years to come. In both cases, we find that oil that is expected to reach the market at some time in the future has an immediate impact on oil prices. Topic Area: Q4 EnergyANWR; resource discovery; timing of price impact; speculation

Texas Treasury Warrants, 1861-1865: A Test Of The Tax-Backing Of Money

vThe Confederacy relied heavily on inflationary finance. Of the states of the Confederacy, only Texas was able throughout the war to enforce mandatory tax payments. In November 1864, Texas enacted fiscal measures designed to support the value of its state-issued currency, while it was increasing the amount in circulation. These measures were effective in doubling the value of the Texas warrants. As a result, Texas was able to continue to operate even after the defeat of the Confederacy elsewhere, until the state was overrun by Union forces. These results strongly support the tax-backing theory of money.

Méthode d'enquête situationniste des comportements induits (M.E.S.C.I.) : Le cas des TICs.

La communication s ‘appuie sur les premières évaluations conduites sur trois enquêtes en cours dans les pays arabes ; l'usage des TICs (Tunisie, Maroc, Liban) par les cadres d'entreprise. Le protocole d'enquête est présenté en mettant en évidence l'importance du jeu d'hypothèses dans la construction de l'enquête. Le choix de techniques quantitatives et qualitatives est discuté dans la mesure des impacts sur les variables de gestion. Il en résulte la nécessité d'améliorer le protocole dans l'analyse des usages de ces nouveaux composants technologiques et notamment, le besoin de recourir à de nouvelles échelles de valeurs pour appréhender la mesure des paramètres de conception de la gestion à distanceépistémologie; methodology; enquête situationniste

Measuring safety climate as an indicator of effective safety and health programs in the construction industry

The purpose of this study was to measure the safety climate, safe behaviors, and EMR, of construction companies in southeastern Louisiana, and to measure selected demographic variables of construction workers employed at these companies. Two hundred and eight workers from twenty nine construction companies agreed to participate in the study. The Safety Climate Survey (SCS) was utilized to measure the safety climate level and safe behaviors of participants and collect selected demographic variables. Additionally, companies were asked to provide their Experience Modification Rates and North American Industry Classification System codes. A six-item Likert-type scale was utilized to measure safety climate perceptions and safe behavior experiences. Responses suggest that participants’ overall perceptions of their companies’ safety climates were good and that this did correlate to safe behavior at their respective companies. A small negative correlation was detected between education levels and Experience Modification Rates. A multiple regression analysis revealed that the variables safe behavior and safety coordinator explained 36.2% of the variance in safe behavior. A second multiple regression analysis revealed that the variable of education level explained 4.4% of the variance in Experience Modification Rates

Signs sense: exploring signs in urban place making

Signs are prominent elements of the urban landscape; they display messages to the public, orient people in complex environments, act as social landmarks, and serve as a means of cultural expression. Despite the omnipresence of signs, designers have yet to capitalize on their potential urban spaces as creative design tools for enhancing a sense of place. Using literature and urban case studies, this thesis explores several quantitative methods to learn about effects produced by signs in the urban landscape. Case studies in New Orleans, Louisiana locate every sign in defined areas on Bourbon, Royal, and Canal Street to compare and contrast multiple views through four processes: site, linear, volumetric, and sequential. These processes use statistics, drawings, and photographs to analyze the data by combining traditional means of sign discussion with an exploration of designer’s methods for site analysis. Comparing the results of the three sites exposes differences in sign distribution due to street character and street width. Signs are integral in creating place identity and defining spatial relationships. While this study reveals several interesting results about effects of signs in the urban landscape, it primarily discusses new methods for analyzing signs in existing urban landscapes. The literature review exposes six topics concerning signs in the landscape. While most writings focus only on one topic, this thesis includes elements from each. The ultimate goal is for designers to produce individual identities for places through creative design recommendations

Acute respiratory failure induced by bleomycin and hyperoxia

Bleomycin, a chemotherapeutic agent, and oxygen at concentrations greater than 20%, induce acute pulmonary damage separately and when administered together. The interaction of 5 U/kg intratracheal bleomycin and 24 hours of exposure to 80% oxygen in hamsters produces delayed onset acute respiratory distress syndrome three days after treatment. As little as 12 hours of 80% O2 exposure, after intratracheal bleomycin, induces severe pulmonary damage. Lung lesions are characterized as diffuse alveolar damage. Significant pulmonary edema, measured by iodine-125-bovine serum albumin and technetium-99m-diethylenetriaminepentaacetate, occurs 72 hours after treat-ment. Lesions progress from focal mild alveolar interstitial and air-space macrophage and granulocyte infiltrates at 24 hours to marked infiltrates and severe interstitial and air-space edema with hemorrhages and hyaline membranes at 96 hours. Significant changes measured by electron microscopy morphometry are increases in volume fractions of neutrophils, alveolar tissue and mononuclear leukocytes. Morphological changes in alveolar capillary endothelial cells detected by electron microscopy are focal attenuations, overlapping cell junctions, gaps between cells or in cell cytoplasm, and focal segmental cell necrosis. Surfactant assay of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid shows a marked decrease in the lecithin/sphingomyelin ratio at 72 hours. Proposed mechanisms of bleomycin and hyperoxia synergism include enhanced production of superoxide radicals either directly or indirectly by increasing neutrophil activity or numbers, or by alteration of cell mediators. The pulmonary edema, without evidence of severe morphological changes, may be secondary to alterations of transalveolar transport mechanisms

Un interdit des maçons lyela et sa transgression (Burkina Faso)

«   Nous ne sommes sûrs qu'il y a représentation que quand il y a comportement. » Marcel Mauss, 1927 . Chantier de construction lyela (Burkina Faso, province du Sanguié). Deux maçons travaillent ensemble à l'édification d'un mur circulaire d'une pièce d'habitation. Ils sont à l'extérieur du mur qu'ils montent et laissent à leurs flancs. Ils le surplombent. Au point de départ de cette nouvelle assise à édifier, ils se font face. En plaçant devant eux l'une après l'autre et les unes dans les a..

Educational Theory-Integrated Construction Industry Training: State-of-the-Art Review

Workforce training is needed throughout the construction industry to create and maintain competent workers; unfortunately, most construction training and education research focuses on university student education. Integrating education science theory into construction training has the potential to improve industry training, but the status of this integration has not been well articulated. To address this gap, this article undertakes a state-of-the-art review of education theory–integrated construction training for current industry professionals. To measure the extent of educational theory integration, this article identifies and summarizes studies that meet inclusion criteria, identifies the frequency of occurrence of Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs as a measure of student learning outcomes, and identifies and compares commonly used words within the identified construction training literature and foundational educational theory literature. This article presents a systematic review of published construction workforce training studies that have incorporated educational theory in the design and implementation of the training. The results reveal that, of the 15 construction training studies that met the inclusion criteria, two-thirds (2/3) focused on worker safety and only three studies (20%) targeted managers or designers. Fewer than 35% of terms that were identified as frequently used terms in the published construction training studies were categorized as educational. The results of this study provide a baseline of education theory–integrated construction training research, from which gaps and best practices can be identified and implemented to improve construction industry training