Eco-terrorism or Eco-tage: An Argument for the Proper Frame

What does the term “terrorism” mean? Is it accurate to lump illegal acts that destroy property but carefully avoid harming people into the same category as acts clearly intended to kill? Is this a difference of kind or just of degree? While we (the authors) don\u27t generally endorse the destruction of property as a method of generating social change, we believe that the destruction of property is fundamentally different from the intentional killing of people; therefore, to label acts of obstruction, trespassing, vandalism, sabotage, or arson as “terrorism” is inaccurate and has the potential to damage one\u27s understanding of real acts of terrorism, thereby reducing the potency of the term. We started this project with a hunch. In recent years, we have observed frequent use of the term “eco-terrorism,” in the news media and in conversations, in reference to the acts of environmentalists. Our observations were anecdotal, and we wanted to be sure they were accurate. We found no literature analyzing cultural acceptance of the term “eco-terrorism”; therefore, before embarking on an ethical analysis of this phenomenon, we set out to confirm our casual observation that the term was widely used in the United States. We conducted an analysis of the use of the term in US newspapers across a period of nearly 11 years. Our analysis indicates broad acceptance of the term among both journalists and their sources, making it all the more important to understand both the history and the implications of labeling obstruction, trespassing, vandalism, sabotage, and arson as “eco-terrorism.

Tetrisation of triangular meshes and its application in shape blending

The As-Rigid-As-Possible (ARAP) shape deformation framework is a versatile technique for morphing, surface modelling, and mesh editing. We discuss an improvement of the ARAP framework in a few aspects: 1. Given a triangular mesh in 3D space, we introduce a method to associate a tetrahedral structure, which encodes the geometry of the original mesh. 2. We use a Lie algebra based method to interpolate local transformation, which provides better handling of rotation with large angle. 3. We propose a new error function to compile local transformations into a global piecewise linear map, which is rotation invariant and easy to minimise. We implemented a shape blender based on our algorithm and its MIT licensed source code is available online

Impact vesiculation – a new trigger for volcanic bubble growth and degassing

We highlight a potentially important trigger for bubble growth and degassing in volcanic bombs. We have successfully triggered bubble growth in previously unvesiculated samples of silicate melt during experiments to simulate volcanic bomb impact, by firing pellets at, and dropping weights onto, melt samples. We call this phenomenon "impact vesiculation". Further work is required on real volcanic bombs to establish the extent to which impact vesiculation occurs in nature. However, our experiments are sufficient to demonstrate that impact vesiculation is a viable processes and should be borne in mind in analysis of bubble populations and degassing histories of bombs and spatter-fed lava flows. Degassing caused by impact vesiculation can occur only at ground-level, so any attempt to calculate the amount of erupted gas available for transport high into the atmosphere by convection above the source of a fountain-fed lava flow that is based on subtracting the volatile content of fluid inclusions from the volatile content of the resulting lava flow would be an overestimate if significant impact vesiculation has occurred

THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF CONSUMING A CANCER PREVENTION DIET

This study measures the welfare changes in agriculture and to consumers should people eat the recommended levels of fruits and vegetables for a cancer prevention diet. An equilibrium displacement model is used to measure the change in welfare to fruit and vegetable industries, other commodities, and agricultural input markets.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Linkages Between Greater Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and Agriculture

This study will estimate the benefits to fruit and vegetable industries and consumers should people in the U.S. meet the USDA minimum dietary guidelines. Specifically the objectives of the study are to 1) estimate the benefits to fruit and vegetable industries and consumers should people eat the general and subgroup 7-a-day and 9-a-day recommendation; 2) estimate the benefits should smaller increases of only 10 percent or 25 percent be achieved; and 3) determine how agricultural inputs, including land and labor, would be affected by the increase in demand for fruits and vegetables. To protect against the incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer the 2005 USDA dietary guidelines recommend the consumption of 3 to 4 fruit servings and 4 to 5 vegetable servings a day. They also provide recommendations on the composition of fruit and vegetable consumption as well as the level. For example, almost one serving of dark leafy vegetables is recommended per day. Depite the known health benefits, many people do not eat the amounts recommended in the USDA dietary guidelines and low income consumers (those whose median household income is less than $25,000 a year) eat fewer servings. Based on the NHANES4 (National health and nutrition examination survey) and NHANES5, average consumption of fruit by low-income consumers would need to increase by at least 83 percent at meet the 3 a day recommendation and 39 percent in order to meet the 4 a day recommendation. People in higher-income households only need to increase consumption by only 60 percent for fruit and 30 percent for vegetables. The proportional increases in consumption assume that people no longer eat potato chips or french fries in order to meet dietary guidelines on fat consumption. A shift in consumption patterns to the recommended levels would cause the demand for fruits and vegetables to rise significantly, leading to higher prices and increased production, shifting the use of agricultural resources (such as land, labor, and water) into the production of those commodities, and benefiting the entire agricultural sector. Despite the potential gains to agriculture, these values have been ignored in previous studies of improved nutrient intake. Such a benefit to producers might justify additional public sector investment in promoting healthier diets. The changes in prices, agricultural production, agricultural input usage, and trade will be simulated using an equilibrium displacement model. The dual approach used in this analysis lays out basic demand and supply equations from demand and cost functions to show how equilibrium conditions change in response to shocks, such as an increase in the demand for fruits and vegetables. The functions characterize the final market, allow for substitutability between marketing and non-marketing inputs in the marketing sector, includes the farm sector, and changes in input use resulting from changes in crop mix and substitutability in land, labor and other inputs. Equilibrium displacement models have been widely used to estimate the benefits of agricultural research agricultural policies and the benefits to the dairy industry of a social marketing program to middle school children. The model is parameterized with farm, market and consumption data. The increase in fruit and vegetable consumption is modeled as a shift in the demand curve with the shift equal to the percentage increase needed to meet the USDA dietary guidelines. Producer surplus is estimated from the changes in grower prices and agricultural production, less changes in the cost of inputs. Consumer surplus for people living in low-income households (less than$25,000 a year median income) and higher income households is estimated from the changes in retail prices and final market quantities consumed by each income group.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Effects of Agricultural Research and Farm Subsidy Policies on Human Nutrition and Obesity

Agricultural policies including farm programs and R&D are said to have contributed to obesity by making food commodities cheaper and thereby encouraging consumption. This paper explores the links from agricultural policy to food prices and consumption and suggests that contribution of agricultural policy to obesity is not so clear.Agricultural and Food Policy,

ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF MANDATED GRADING AND TESTING TO AVOID A NEGATIVE FOOD SAFETY EVENT: EX ANTE ANALYSIS OF THE FEDERAL MARKETING ORDER FOR PISTACHIOS

The California pistachio industry led an initiative to establish a federal marketing order, which mandates quality standards and an inspection program to assure food safety and consistency in the quality of California pistachios. We develop a stochastic dynamic simulation model of the pistachio market to investigate quantitatively the likely effects of such collective action enforced by government mandates. Simulation results indicate that, across the full range of parameters used in the analysis, the benefit-cost analysis was always favorable to the proposed policy. The measured benefits to producers, the nation, or the world always well exceeded the corresponding measure of costs, typically by many times.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Luxury brands and their role in eco-innovation diffusion

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to understand the role of luxury brands in the diffusion of ecoinnovations through the fashion industry, and whether the trickle-down theory applies. Methodology: Structured qualitative interviews were carried out with 13 individuals working in luxury, mass and value market fashion brands to understand the perceptions of how innovation and ecoinnovation were generated and diffused through the fashion industry. Rogers’ theory of innovation diffusion was used to analyse and explore interview responses. Findings: The results of the research suggest the interviewees perceived the trickle-down effect as less relevant for eco-innovations than for aesthetic innovations (newness in style, design or colour). It was found that suppliers, competitors and senior management play a more important role in diffusion of eco-innovation. A five point model for successful eco-innovation diffusion within a fashion business was established from the research. Limitations: As the first stage of a larger project, this research focused on one interviewee from the product design and development team within each brand. Further research will be carried out to explore the perceptions of eco-innovations for other functions within the brands. Implications: Fashion brands wishing to adopt eco-innovations can use the five point model to help them establish the right conditions for successful adoption within their business. Originality/value: This research extends existing work on the adoption of sustainability within the fashion industry by exploring the adoption routes for eco-innovation and using Rogers’ framework to create a five point model for innovation

Optimising the structure of a cascaded modular battery system for enhancing the performance of battery packs

The overall performance of battery packs may be affected by imbalances between the series connected cells which is more likely in packs with high number of cells needed to provide a high voltage as needed for example in electric vehicles. In this case, the overall capacity and power capability of the pack is limited by the weakest cell in the stack which results in incomplete utilization of the pack’s capabilities. In traditional centralized battery systems (TCBS), this is addressed by implementing cell active/passive balancing circuitry/techniques which restore some of the pack’s energy capability. This paper proposes the use of cascaded modular battery systems (CMBS) to remove the need for extra balancing circuitry and maximises the performance and reliability of a battery system containing unequal matched/aged cells. The analysis is assessing the CMBS overall system efficiency, reliability and weight compared to the TCBS for a design of a 300V/3.6kW battery system as a case study