THE INFLUENCE OF SPATIAL LAND USE PATTERNS ON RURAL AMENITY VALUES AND WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR GROWTH MANAGEMENT: EVIDENCE FROM A CONTINGENT CHOICE SURVEY

This paper reports on a contingent choice study in which residents of a rural Rhode Island community were asked to express their preferences for packages of growth management outcomes, where surveys presented both spatial and non-spatial attributes of growth management outcomes. Survey results provide insight on the extent to which estimated willingness to pay (WTP) for marginal changes in specific landscape features or land uses may be influenced by spatial considerations. Results also characterize the potential impact of spatial context on public preferences and WTP for coordinated packages of growth management outcomes. Keywords: Land Use, Spatial, Contingent Choice, Growth Management, Economics, ValuationLand Use, Spatial, Contingent Choice, Growth Management, Economics, Valuation, Land Economics/Use,

STATED PREFERENCES AND LENGTH OF RESIDENCY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES: ARE DEVELOPMENT AND CONSERVATION VALUES HETEROGENEOUS?

Newer residents of rural, urban-fringe communities are often assumed to have preferences for the development and conservation of rural lands that differ from those of longer-term residents. The existing literature offers little to verify or quantify presumed preference shifts. This paper provides a systematic, quantitative examination of whether stated preferences for development and conservation tradeoffs differ according to length of residency in a rural community, and explores implications of these findings for assumptions regarding development and conservation preferences. Results are based on stated preferences estimated from a multi-attribute contingent choice survey of Rhode Island rural residents. Heterogeneity-according to length of town residency-is incorporated using Lagrangian Interpolation Polynomials. This approach models the influence of policy attributes as a polynomial function of residence time, thereby allowing estimated coefficient values to vary as a continuous function of residence duration.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use,

Preferences for Residential Development Attributes and Support for the Policy Process: Implications for Management and Conservation of Rural Landscapes

The rural public may not only be concerned with the consequences of land management; residents may also have systematic preferences for policy instruments applied to management goals. Preferences for outcomes do not necessarily imply matching support for the underlying policy process. This study assesses relationships among support for elements of the policy process and preferences for management outcomes. Preferences are examined within the context of alternative proposals to manage growth and conserve landscape attributes in southern New England. Results are based on (a) stated preferences estimated from a multi-attribute contingent choice survey of rural residents, and (b) Likert-scale assessment of strength of support for land use policy tools. Findings indicate general but not universal correlation among policy support indicators and preferences for associated land use outcomes, but also confirm the suspicion that policy support and land use preference may not always coincide.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Bachia heteropa

Number of Pages: 10Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Boom or Bust? Mapping Out the Known Unknowns of Global Shale Gas Production Potential

To assess the global production costs of shale gas, we combine global top-down data with detailed bottom-up information. Studies solely based on top-down approaches do not adequately account for the heterogeneity of shale gas deposits and hence, are unlikely to appropriately capture the extraction costs of shale gas. We design and provide an expedient bottom-up method based on publicly available US data to compute the levelized costs of shale gas extraction. Our results indicate the existence of economically attractive areas but also reveal a dramatic cost increase as lower-quality reservoirs are exploited. At the global level, our best estimate suggests that, at a cost of 6 US$/GJ, only 39% of the technically recoverable resources reported in top-down studies should be considered economically recoverable. This estimate increases to about 77% when considering an optimistic recovery of resources but could be lower than 12% when considering pessimistic ones. The current lack of information on the heterogeneity of shale gas deposits as well as on the development of future production technologies leads to significant uncertainties regarding recovery rates and production costs. Much of this uncertainty may be inherent, but for energy-system planning purposes, with or without climate change mitigation policies, it is crucial to recognize the full ranges of recoverable quantities and costs

Economics of Nuclear Power and Climate Change Mitigation Policies

The events of March 2011 at the nuclear power complex in Fukushima, Japan, raised questions about the safe operation of nuclear power plants, with early retirement of existing nuclear power plants being debated in the policy arena and considered by regulators. Also, the future of building new nuclear power plants is highly uncertain. Should nuclear power policies become more restrictive, one potential option for climate change mitigation will be less available. However, a systematic analysis of nuclear power policies, including early retirement, has been missing in the climate change mitigation literature. We apply an energy economy model framework to derive scenarios and analyze the interactions and tradeoffs between these two policy fields. Our results indicate that early retirement of nuclear power plants leads to discounted cumulative global GDP losses of 0.07% by 2020. If, in addition, new nuclear investments are excluded, total losses will double. The effect of climate policies imposed by an intertemporal carbon budget on incremental costs of policies restricting nuclear power use is small. However, climate policies have much larger impacts than policies restricting the use of nuclear power. The carbon budget leads to cumulative discounted near term reductions of global GDP of 0.64% until 2020. Intertemporal flexibility of the carbon budget approach enables higher near-term emissions as a result of increased power generation from natural gas to fill the emerging gap in electricity supply, while still remaining within the overall carbon budget. Demand reductions and efficiency improvements are the second major response strategy

Assembly and Mechanism of Action of Sulfolobus solfataricus DNA Replication Complexes

DNA replication enzymes are essential for the maintenance and propagation of genetic information which precisely governs the growth and development of our cells. Aberrant DNA replication processes have been implicated in a wide variety of human diseases, most notably cancer, and therefore, mechanistic understanding of DNA replication processes is paramount for the development of human therapeutic agents. The study of the eukaryotic replication system however, is difficult, as the system contains a large number of enzymes and regulatory factors making assembly of these systems for in vitro study complicated. Thus, in order to gain insight into the workings of the eukaryotic replication system, several model systems are used, where the complexity of the replication pathways is not as great. The DNA replication system from the thermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus is a recently identified model with components sharing high levels of sequence homology to their eukaryotic counterparts. This system is ideal for gaining insight into the mechanistic workings of DNA replication which can be translated to the eukaryotic system. A key advantage to the study of thermophilic enzymes is in the ability to utilize reaction temperatures far lower than the physiological conditions for the organisms. This results in slower kinetics with no significant change in overall function, allowing an easier discernment of the enzyme’s mechanistic details. I have contributed to the development of Sulfolobus solfataricus as a model system primarily through characterization of nucleotide transferase enzymes including DNA polymerases and primases. Firstly, I have determined that the DNA polymerase, SsoPolB3, possesses a low rate of synthesis and fidelity more similar to those involved in lesion bypass. Secondly, I characterized the assembly and mechanism of action SsoPolB1 replication holoenzyme which replicates in a distributive fashion similar to the eukaryotic Pold holoenzyme, and maintains stimulated replication rates through rapid re-recruitment of the polymerase to the processivity clamp. Finally, I discovered and characterized the interactions of a unique primosome complex formed between the bacterial like DnaG primase and eukaryotic like MCM helicase. In all, my thesis provides for a more thorough understanding of the interactions, kinetics, and dynamics occurring at the replication fork

Nachweis über die Dauer der Infektionsfähigkeit von Steinbrand- (Tilletia caries) und Zwergsteinbrandsporen (Tilletia controversa) im Boden und Stallmist in Biobetrieben

This research work is scoping on whether in the case of huge infestation with common and/or dwarf bunt farmers have to stop temporarily wheat cultivation and furthermore how many years wheat should not be grown on these fields. For answering these questions, 3-years randomized crop rotation field trials are performed at 3 sites with 4 replicates on infested fields with crop rotation links commonly used in organic farming to determine whether it is possible to decrease the spore potential in soil. Brassica species setting free isothiocyanate after mulching are cultivated to examine if it is possible to reduce the viability of spores. Additionally, the influence of stable manure on bunt spores it tested. Soil samples are taken half-yearly from each plot and common and dwarf bunt spore potential is determined under the microscope as well as the germination ability of the spores on agar plates. Variation of the number of spores in stable manure is determined half-yearly during storage. Physical and chemical facts hamper a really high finding of spores out of soil. Retrieval rates of about 50 % could be achieved at present. After one year storage, spore potential in the stable manure has been decreased by more than 90 %. Optimal germination conditions for common and dwarf bunt spores from bunt balls have been elaborated and established. These conditions are tested at present with spores out of soil