Bio-energy from Mountain Pine Beetle Timber and Forest Residuals: The Economics Story

In light of the large volumes of pine killed in the Interior forests in British Columbia by the mountain pine beetle, many are keen to employ forest biomass as an energy source. To assess the feasibility of a wood biomass-fired power plant in the BC Interior it is necessary to know both how much physical biomass might be available over the life of a plant, but also its location because transportation costs are likely to be a major operating cost for any facility. To address these issues, we construct a mathematical programming model of fiber flows in the Quesnel Timber Supply Area of BC over a 25-year time horizon. The focus of the model is on minimizing the cost of supplying feedstock throughout space and time. Results indicate that over the life of the project feedstock costs will more than double, increasing from $54.60/BDt ($0.039/kWh) to $116.14/BDt ($0.083/kWh).forest economics, biomass and bio-energy, forest pests

An Economic Analysis of Mountain Pine Beetle Impacts in a Global Context

The economic effects of the mountain pine beetle outbreak in British Columbia are simulated using a multi-region spatial price equilibrium model coupled with a stochastic dynamic updating procedure. The simulation captures expected changes in the B.C. timber supply, growth of plantation forests in the southern hemisphere and an escalating Russian log export tax. The results indicate lumber and log prices will rise in B.C., offsetting some of the economic loss to timber producers. However, on net producers in the B.C. forest industry will experience a decrease in economic surplus.Mountain pine beetle; spatial price equilibirum; trade modeling

Implications of Expanding Bioenergy Production from Wood in British Columbia: An Application of a Regional Wood Fibre Allocation Model

Energy has been produced from woody biomass in British Columbia for many decades, but it was used primarily within the pulp and paper sector, using residual streams from timber processing, to create heat and electricity for on-site use. More recently, there has been limited stand-alone electricity production and increasing capacity to produce wood pellets, with both using ‘waste’ from the sawmill sector. Hence, most of the low-cost feedstock sources associated with traditional timber processing is now fully employed. While previous studies model bioenergy production in isolation, we employ a transportation model of the BC forest sector with 24 regions to demonstrate that it is necessary to consider the interaction between utilization of woody feedstock for pellet production and electricity generation and its traditional uses (e.g., production of pulp, oriented strand board, etc). We find that, despite the availability of large areas of mountain pine beetle killed timber, this wood does not enter the energy mix. Further expansion of biofeedstock for energy is met by a combination of woody debris collected at harvesting sites and/or bidding away of fibre from existing users.bioenergy production from wood fibre; mountain pine beetle; competition for fibre

Canada-US Softwood Lumber Trade Revisited: Examining the Role of Substitution Bias in the Context of a Spatial Price Equilibrium Framework

In the last two decades, softwood lumber trade between Canada and the United States has been characterized by numerous trade restrictions. Many studies have attempted to quantify the effects of such sanctions, and in doing so, softwood lumber was modeled as a single, homogenous commodity. However, recent research has suggested that this may be a misleading assumption, since not all softwood lumber products are equivalent substitutes. We refer to this problem as the substitution bias, and uniquely address this issue in estimating the effects of trade restricting policies. Using a spatial price equilibrium (spe) model, impacts of the post-sla import duties are estimated and compared to estimates of two alternative policy regimes – an export tax and quota. By controlling for substitution bias, our estimates indicate a larger share of the tariff burden is placed on us consumers, with Canadian producers suffering less injury compared to estimates using the traditional homogenous lumber assumption. In addition, by comparing the net impact associated with the alternative policy regimes, a policy equivalence result is found. Our results suggest that the short-run impact of a trade restriction is largely independent of the policy regime incorporated, with the collection of quota rents or tax revenues determining overall winners and losers.Softwood lumber trade, spatial price equilibrium, lumber substitutability

The Criminalization of Innovation: FDA Misdirection in the Najarian and Burzynski Cases

Najarian and Burzynski seem the perfect examples of the amazing potential of the American medical establishment. Their visionary work in their respective fields should be celebrated as monumental contributions to society. Rather than being lauded by the nation, though, both men have watched their careers and reputations come hurtling to a disastrous end as they faced criminal charges of fraud, embezzlement, and multiple violations of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laws which threatened to send them each to prison for the rest of their lives

Kvinneleg entreprenørskap i Ålesund i perioden 1865 til 1920. Ein studie av kvinnelege næringsdrivande si stilling i næringslivet og samfunnet elles, med Ålesund som utgangspunkt

Master's thesis in History (HI500

Masculinity Threat and Attitudes Toward Gay Men: A Replication

This study aims to replicate and reaffirm Peter Glick et al. (2007) in their research finding that when men’s masculinity is threated, they have an increased negative affect towards gay men; more specifically feminine gay men. It also aims to see how whether or not being involved in Greek life increases negative affect towards gay men as well. All participants first answered questions regarding demographics, and then answered 30 questions of the BEM Sex Role Inventory Test. After completing this, they received bogus feedback; either they had a feminine personality, or they had a masculine personality. Afterwards, all participants then answered 20 questions relating to attitudes of three different descriptions of men: one masculine gay man (MGM), one effeminate gay man (EGM), and one average heterosexual man (AHM). After analyzing 57 participants’ data using a repeated measures ANOVA with a between-subjects factor, there was no main effect for feedback, and no interaction, but there was a significant main effect for target description. Regardless of masculinity threat, it was found that both gay male descriptions were rated lower in favorability/likeability, with the feminine gay man description rated lowest, followed by the masculine gay man, and then the average heterosexual man rated highest. However there were not enough participants who said they were involved in Greek life so there not could be an analysis done on whether it further increased negative affect or not. Course: Psychology 304 – Advanced Research Methodshttps://commons.und.edu/es-showcase/1014/thumbnail.jp

Linking Forests and Economic Well-being: A Four Quadrant Approach

This paper has three main objectives: (1) to investigate whether the four-quadrant approach introduced by Maini (2003) reveals a useful typology for grouping countries by GDP and forest cover per capita, (2) to determine if the framework can enhance our understanding of the relationship between forest cover and GDP per capita, and (3) to investigate why countries in the four-quadrant world occupy different quadrants, and to determine the principal factors affecting country-movement across and within the individual quadrants. The examination reveals that countries can be classified into four broad categories, and that GDP and forest cover per capita have a low but consistent level of negative association. After regressing economic, institutional, social capital and other variables on a country’s occupancy and movement in the four-quadrant world, the results suggest that countries in each quadrant share different characteristics and that factors underlying country-movement varies according to the quadrant being observed. Overall, countries with less corruption and higher education are likely to experience increases in both forest cover and GDP per capita, while countries exporting a significant proportion of forest products have a reduced probability of increasing both variables.Economic well-being, forest cover, institutions, corruption, education

Bibliographic Induction: How KO Systems Optimize Browsing by Supporting Library Users' Prior Knowledge

We investigate category-based induction as an aspect of browsing a library collection. Category-based induction is one of the primary uses of categories that are stored in memory. Knowledge organizing systems represent concepts in broadly the same way as models of category-based induction. Accordingly, it is reasonable to suppose that knowledge organizing systems facilitate category-based inductions about the collections that they organize. The processes of familiarization and differentiation are key aspects of browsing (Ellis 1989). Intuitively, these approaches appear to involve category-based induction in a bibliographic context. By examining induction, we hope to shed new light on the role of knowledge organizing systems in shaping browsing behavior. We also seek to investigate the viability of using inductive confidence as a dependent variable in assessing the utility of a KOS. A system that supports induction is potentially of great benefit to people seeking to browse a collection, whether the collection exists virtually or is part of a library’s physical stacks