Who's behind that mask and cape? The Asian leopard cat's Agouti (ASIP) allele likely affects coat colour phenotype in the Bengal cat breed.

Coat colours and patterns are highly variable in cats and are determined mainly by several genes with Mendelian inheritance. A 2-bp deletion in agouti signalling protein (ASIP) is associated with melanism in domestic cats. Bengal cats are hybrids between domestic cats and Asian leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis), and the charcoal coat colouration/pattern in Bengals presents as a possible incomplete melanism. The complete coding region of ASIP was directly sequenced in Asian leopard, domestic and Bengal cats. Twenty-seven variants were identified between domestic and leopard cats and were investigated in Bengals and Savannahs, a hybrid with servals (Leptailurus serval). The leopard cat ASIP haplotype was distinguished from domestic cat by four synonymous and four non-synonymous exonic SNPs, as well as 19 intronic variants, including a 42-bp deletion in intron 4. Fifty-six of 64 reported charcoal cats were compound heterozygotes at ASIP, with leopard cat agouti (A(P) (be) ) and domestic cat non-agouti (a) haplotypes. Twenty-four Bengals had an additional unique haplotype (A2) for exon 2 that was not identified in leopard cats, servals or jungle cats (Felis chaus). The compound heterozygote state suggests the leopard cat allele, in combination with the recessive non-agouti allele, influences Bengal markings, producing a darker, yet not completely melanistic coat. This is the first validation of a leopard cat allele segregating in the Bengal breed and likely affecting their overall pelage phenotype. Genetic testing services need to be aware of the possible segregation of wild felid alleles in all assays performed on hybrid cats

Is energy performance too taxing? A CAMA approach to modelling residential energy in housing in Northern Ireland

Purpose Buildings contribute significantly to CO2 production. They are also subject to considerable taxation based on value. Analysis shows that while similar attributes contribute to both value and CO2 production, there is only a loose relationship between the two. If we wish to use taxation to affect policy change (drive energy efficiency behaviour), we are unlikely to achieve this using only the current tax base (value), or by increasing the tax take off this current tax base (unlike extra taxation of cigarettes to discourage smoking, for example). Taxation of buildings on the basis of energy efficiency is hampered by the lack of current evidence of performance. This paper aims to model the now-obligatory (at sale or letting) energy performance certificate (EPC) data to derive an acceptable appraisal model (marked to market, being the EPC scores) and deploys this to the entire population of properties. This provides an alternative tax base with which to model the effects of a tax base switch to energy efficiency and to understand the tax incidence effects of such a policy. Design/methodology/approach The research uses a multiplicative hedonic approach to model energy efficiency utilising EPC holding properties in a UK jurisdiction [Northern Ireland (NI)] as the sample. This model is then used to estimate discrete energy assessments for each property in the wider population, using attributes held in the domestic rating (property tax) database for NI (700,000+ properties). This produces a robust estimate of the EPC for every property in its current condition and its cost-effective improved condition. This energy assessment based tax base is further used to estimate a new millage rate and property tax bill (green property tax) which is compared against the existing property tax based on value to allow tax incidence changes to be analysed. Findings The findings show that such a policy would significantly redistribute the tax burden and would have a variety of expected and some unexpected effects. The results indicate that while assessing the energy performance of houses can be a complex process involving many parameters, much of the explanatory power can be achieved via a relatively small number of input variables, often already held by property tax jurisdictions. This offers the opportunity for useful housing stock modelling – such as the savings possible from power switching. The research also identifies that whilst urban areas display the expected “heat island” effect in terms of energy consumption, urban properties are on average more efficient than suburban/rural properties. This facilitates spatial targeting of policy messages and initiatives. Research limitations/implications Analogous with other studies, data deficiencies introduce the risk of omitted variable bias. Modelling of the energy efficiency in the sample is limited to property attributes that are available for the wider population of properties. While this limits the modelling exercise, it is a perennial issue facing mass appraisal worldwide (where knowledge of the transacted sample attributes generally exceeds knowledge of the unsold properties). That said, the research demonstrates the benefits of sharing data and improving knowledge of the housing stock, as taxation databases would be stronger, augmented with EPC-derived property attributes for example. Originality/value The EPC lead in time for wide residential coverage is likely to be considerable. The paper contributes to emerging literature and policy debate surrounding the effect, performance measurement and implementation of energy efficiency certification, through a greater understanding of the sectorial and geographical dispersion of energy efficiency. It provides high level research to help guide policy and decision-making, identifying key locales where there is more of a physical problem and locations where there is more to gain in terms of targeting energy improvement and/or encouraging behavioural change. The paper also allows a glimpse of the implications of a change towards a taxation regime based on energy efficiency, which contributes to the debate surrounding the “greening” of property based taxes. </jats:sec

House prices and neighbourhood amenities: beyond the norm?

PURPOSE : Understanding the key locational and neighbourhood determinants and their accessibility is a topic of great interest to policymakers, planners and property valuers. In Northern Ireland, the high level of market segregation means that it is problematic to understand the nature of the relationship between house prices and the accessibility to services and prominent neighbourhood landmarks and amenities. Therefore, this paper aims to quantify and measure the (dis)amenity effects on house pricing levels within particular geographic housing sub-markets. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH : Most hedonic models are estimated using regression techniques which produce one coefficient for the entirety of the pricing distribution, culminating in a single marginal implicit price. This paper uses a quantile regression (QR) approach that provides a “more complete” depiction of the marginal impacts for different quantiles of the price distribution using sales data obtained from 3,780 house sales transactions within the Belfast Housing market over 2014. FINDINGS : The findings emerging from this research demonstrate that housing and market characteristics are valued differently across the quantile values and that conditional quantiles are asymmetrical. Pertinently, the findings demonstrate that ordinary least squares (OLS) coefficient estimates have a tendency to over or under specify the marginal mean conditional pricing effects because of their inability to adequately capture and comprehend the complex spatial relationships which exist across the pricing distribution. ORIGINALITY/VALUE : Numerous studies have used OLS regression to measure the impact of key housing market externalities on house prices, providing a single estimate. This paper uses a QR approach to examine the impact of local amenities on house prices across the house price distribution.http://www.emeraldinsight.com/loi/ijhmahj2019Taxatio

Flexible production and entry: institutional, technological, and organizational determinants

Academics, the media, and policymakers have all raised concerns about the implications of human workers being replaced by machines or software. Few have discussed the implications of the reverse: firms’ ability to replace capital with workers. We show that this flexibility can help new firms overcome uncertainty and increase entrepreneurial entry. We develop a simple real options model where permissive labor regulations allow firms to take advantage of capital-labor substitutability by replacing ‘rigid’ capital with ‘flexible’ labor. The model highlights institutional, technological, and organizational preconditions to using this flexibility. Using a large and comprehensive dataset on entry by standalone firms and group affiliates, we provide evidence in support of the model

Confirmation of low genetic diversity and multiple breeding females in a social group of Eurasian badgers from microsatellite and field data

The Eurasian badger ( Meles meles ) is a facultatively social carnivore that shows only rudimentary co-operative behaviour and a poorly defined social hierarchy. Behavioural evidence and limited genetic data have suggested that more than one female may breed in a social group. We combine pregnancy detection by ultrasound and microsatellite locus scores from a well-studied badger population from Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, UK, to demonstrate that multiple females reproduce within a social group. We found that at least three of seven potential mothers reproduced in a group that contained 11 reproductive age females and nine offspring. Twelve primers showed variability across the species range and only five of these were variable in Wytham. The microsatellites showed a reduced repeat number, a significantly higher number of nonperfect repeats, and moderate heterozygosity levels in Wytham. The high frequency of imperfect repeats and demographic phenomena might be responsible for the reduced levels of variability observed in the badger

Factorization of Operators Through Orlicz Spaces

[EN] We study factorization of operators between quasi-Banach spaces. We prove the equivalence between certain vector norm inequalities and the factorization of operators through Orlicz spaces. As a consequence, we obtain the Maurey-Rosenthal factorization of operators into L-p-spaces. We give several applications. In particular, we prove a variant of Maurey's Extension Theorem.The research of the first author was supported by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland, Grant No. 2011/01/B/ST1/06243. The research of the second author was supported by Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain, under project #MTM2012-36740-C02-02Mastylo, M.; Sánchez Pérez, EA. (2017). Factorization of Operators Through Orlicz Spaces. Bulletin of the Malaysian Mathematical Sciences Society. 40(4):1653-1675. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40840-015-0158-5S16531675404Calderón, A.P.: Intermediate spaces and interpolation, the complex method. Stud. Math. 24, 113–190 (1964)Davis, W.J., Garling, D.J.H., Tomczak-Jaegermann, N.: The complex convexity of quasi-normed linear spaces. J. Funct. Anal. 55, 110–150 (1984)Defant, A.: Variants of the Maurey–Rosenthal theorem for quasi Köthe function spaces. Positivity 5, 153–175 (2001)Defant, A., Mastyło, M., Michels, C.: Orlicz norm estimates for eigenvalues of matrices. Isr. J. Math. 132, 45–59 (2002)Defant, A., Sánchez Pérez, E.A.: Maurey–Rosenthal factorization of positive operators and convexity. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 297, 771–790 (2004)Defant, A., Sánchez Pérez, E.A.: Domination of operators on function spaces. Math. Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 146, 57–66 (2009)Diestel, J.: Sequences and Series in Banach Spaces. Springer, Berlin (1984)Diestel, J., Jarchow, H., Tonge, A.: Absolutely Summing Operators. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1995)Dilworth, S.J.: Special Banach lattices and their applications. In: Handbook of the Geometry of Banach Spaces, vol. 1. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2001)Figiel, T., Pisier, G.: Séries alétoires dans les espaces uniformément convexes ou uniformément lisses. Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Série A 279, 611–614 (1974)Kalton, N.J., Montgomery-Smith, S.J.: Set-functions and factorization. Arch. Math. (Basel) 61(2), 183–200 (1993)Kamińska, A., Mastyło, M.: Abstract duality Sawyer formula and its applications. Monatsh. Math. 151(3), 223–245 (2007)Kantorovich, L.V., Akilov, G.P.: Functional Analysis, 2nd edn. Pergamon Press, Oxford (1982)Lindenstrauss, J., Tzafriri, L.: Classical Banach Spaces II. Springer, Berlin (1979)Lozanovskii, G.Ya.: On some Banach lattices IV, Sibirsk. Mat. Z. 14, 140–155 (1973) (in Russian); English transl.: Siberian. Math. J. 14, 97–108 (1973)Lozanovskii, G.Ya.:Transformations of ideal Banach spaces by means of concave functions. In: Qualitative and Approximate Methods for the Investigation of Operator Equations, Yaroslavl, vol. 3, pp. 122–147 (1978) (Russian)Mastyło, M., Szwedek, R.: Interpolative constructions and factorization of operators. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 401, 198–208 (2013)Nikišin, E.M.: Resonance theorems and superlinear operators. Usp. Mat. Nauk 25, 129–191 (1970) (Russian)Okada, S., Ricker, W.J., Sánchez Pérez, E.A.: Optimal Domain and Integral Extension of Operators acting in Function Spaces. Operator Theory: Adv. Appl., vol. 180. Birkhäuser, Basel (2008)Pisier, G.: Factorization of linear operators and geometry of Banach spaces. CBMS Regional Conference Series in Mathematics, vol. 60. Published for the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences, Washington, DC (1986)Reisner, S.: On two theorems of Lozanovskii concerning intermediate Banach lattices, geometric aspects of functional analysis (1986/87). Lecture Notes in Math., vol. 1317, pp. 67–83. Springer, Berlin (1988)Wojtaszczyk, P.: Banach Spaces for Analysts. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1991