Industry Compliance Costs Under the Renewable Fuel Standard: Evidence from Compliance Credits

The Renewable Fuel Standard requires US oil refineries to blend biofuels into domestic transportation fuels. To ensure that compliance costs under this mandate don’t disproportionately affect any subset of refiners, the regulation includes a compliance credit program, whereby refiners blending excess biofuels can sell their excess compliance to refiners that do not blend enough. The price of these credits can be interpreted as the marginal cost of compliance with the mandate. I measure how changes in the prices of these compliance credits affect the stock prices of oil refining firms. There are a number of ways one might expect these compliance credits to affect firms. Much economic research finds that oil refiners are able to pass the costs of RFS compliance to consumers quite easily, suggesting that changes in the compliance cost should not affect firms’ value at all. Large refiners tend to claim that the RFS imposes a large cost and drags down their profits. Perhaps the most interesting claim is that of the “merchant refiners”—generally small refiners who do not own the infrastructure to blend biofuels on their own and are thus forced to comply with the mandate completely with compliance credits. They claim that larger refiners are able to hoard the credits and sell them for windfall profits at the expense of the merchant refiners. My results indicate that positive shocks in compliance credit prices are associated with stock losses only among large, non-merchant refiners, and that even this association is small. This discredits the claims of merchant refiners, but opens a new puzzle: why are large, integrated refiners the only ones affected? I conclude my paper with a number of potential explanations, though I am not able to test between them using my data

Exploring the Policy Implications of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act

This paper explores how policy structure, institutions, and political climate impact the ability of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) to ensure the reclamation of surface coal mines. We conduct a policy review that traces the impacts of the three parts of SMCRA; Reclamation Standards, Reclamation Bonding Requirements, and the Abandoned Mine Land fund. We examine the implications the act and its approach have for the mining industry and their ability to reclaim mining areas. We find that each of the three parts of SMCRA’s approach face substantial problems in their implementation. Though largely a positive force for internalizing the environmental costs of surface mining, those issues commonly elucidated in the public choice literature reduce the efficacy of the policy approach and call into question the act’s ability to ensure reclamation occurs. Both in the structure of the bonding requirements and in the regulatory structure created by the act, misaligned incentives sometimes hamper effective reclamation. Further, the funds created under SMCRA to reclaim and restore mined lands have often been directed towards projects that are politically expedient for politicians instead of those that would best serve the fund’s original reclamation purpose. After revealing these problems and putting them in the context of the public choice literature, we suggest updates to the current policy that would align reclamation incentives and better ensure that the reclamation of surface mines occurs. We emphasize the cooperative elements of SMCRA and suggest how other countries, especially those without major existing frameworks for handling reclamation, can emulate the successes of SMCRA while avoiding its implementations snags

Building a Quality of Life Index

This chapter outlines how an index measuring quality of life should be developed and then applies that work at the county level in the United States. The index we create is a unique and data‐driven approach to calculating quality of life. In the chapter, we explain the process that leads us to selecting our five indicators: public safety, health, economic development, infrastructure, and education. Each indicator breaks apart into subindicators. This chapter theoretically and statistically verifies our chosen indicators. First, we develop theoretical arguments explaining the connections between quality of life and our indicators. Then, we perform confirmatory factor analyses on our index to empirically verify our theoretical arguments for why each component should be included in the index. Further, we finally verify our theory and index using survey results. We use only publicly available data to facilitate replication by others. The results of our confirmatory factor analysis provide statistical evidence for our choice of indicators in measuring quality of life. Our findings indicate that those measuring quality of life must account for the roles of: public safety, health, economic development, infrastructure, and education. Most importantly, our results indicate that our index is a valid measure of quality of life

Improving biosecurity: A necessity for aquaculture sustainability

The implementation of biosecurity measures is vital to the future development of aquaculture, if the culture of aquatic species is to make it possible to feed the global human population by 2030. Biosecurity includes control of the spread of aquatic plant and animal diseases and invasive pests, and the production of products that are safe to eat. For controls on diseases and invasive pests, it is necessary to implement programmes that involve all regional countries. Lessons from measures implemented in Asia need to be expanded/upscaled in Latin America, Africa and other emerging aquaculture regions. Such development will make countries more self sufficient and will feed local populations. Globally, there is good evidence that aquatic animal diseases and invasive animal and plant pests are being spread by hull fouling and ballast water in shipping, and serious aquatic animal diseases by the international trade in ornamental fish. While there has been a growing awareness of the danger of ballast water transfer, hull fouling remains a serious problem. It is widely recognized that ornamental fish present a disease risk, but individual countries have tried to address this alone, and there has not been an international effort to control the trade. Developments in genetics and molecular biology hold great potential for disease control, either by breeding for disease resistance, or by the use of rapid, specific, culture site testing. Currently, there is no evidence that the use of antibiotics in aquaculture poses a threat to human health or that antibiotic-resistant strains have developed; however, the future use of genetically modified aquatic organisms (GMOs) may negate the need for chemotherapy. Cultured aquatic organisms, selected for disease resistance or rapid growth, are likely to become more acceptable, and probably necessary, to feed the rapidly growing global population. Most global aquaculture occurs in developing Asian countries, in which aquaculture products can harbor zoonotic parasites, and there is a need to treat such products to negate the threat of parasitic zoonoses and permit international export. Climate change is likely to be a major influence on aquaculture in the future, with impacts on coastal aquaculture through increased sea levels affecting coastlines, and acidification. To feed the growing global population, it will be necessary to culture new species, for which research on diseases and invasiveness will be necessary to acquire the information necessary to implement biosecurity measures

Human and mouse essentiality screens as a resource for disease gene discovery.

The identification of causal variants in sequencing studies remains a considerable challenge that can be partially addressed by new gene-specific knowledge. Here, we integrate measures of how essential a gene is to supporting life, as inferred from viability and phenotyping screens performed on knockout mice by the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium and essentiality screens carried out on human cell lines. We propose a cross-species gene classification across the Full Spectrum of Intolerance to Loss-of-function (FUSIL) and demonstrate that genes in five mutually exclusive FUSIL categories have differing biological properties. Most notably, Mendelian disease genes, particularly those associated with developmental disorders, are highly overrepresented among genes non-essential for cell survival but required for organism development. After screening developmental disorder cases from three independent disease sequencing consortia, we identify potentially pathogenic variants in genes not previously associated with rare diseases. We therefore propose FUSIL as an efficient approach for disease gene discovery

Human and mouse essentiality screens as a resource for disease gene discovery

The identification of causal variants in sequencing studies remains a considerable challenge that can be partially addressed by new gene-specific knowledge. Here, we integrate measures of how essential a gene is to supporting life, as inferred from viability and phenotyping screens performed on knockout mice by the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium and essentiality screens carried out on human cell lines. We propose a cross-species gene classification across the Full Spectrum of Intolerance to Loss-of-function (FUSIL) and demonstrate that genes in five mutually exclusive FUSIL categories have differing biological properties. Most notably, Mendelian disease genes, particularly those associated with developmental disorders, are highly overrepresented among genes non-essential for cell survival but required for organism development. After screening developmental disorder cases from three independent disease sequencing consortia, we identify potentially pathogenic variants in genes not previously associated with rare diseases. We therefore propose FUSIL as an efficient approach for disease gene discovery. Discovery of causal variants for monogenic disorders has been facilitated by whole exome and genome sequencing, but does not provide a diagnosis for all patients. Here, the authors propose a Full Spectrum of Intolerance to Loss-of-Function (FUSIL) categorization that integrates gene essentiality information to aid disease gene discovery

Alignment of the CMS tracker with LHC and cosmic ray data

© CERN 2014 for the benefit of the CMS collaboration, published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License by IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab srl. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation and DOI.The central component of the CMS detector is the largest silicon tracker ever built. The precise alignment of this complex device is a formidable challenge, and only achievable with a significant extension of the technologies routinely used for tracking detectors in the past. This article describes the full-scale alignment procedure as it is used during LHC operations. Among the specific features of the method are the simultaneous determination of up to 200 000 alignment parameters with tracks, the measurement of individual sensor curvature parameters, the control of systematic misalignment effects, and the implementation of the whole procedure in a multi-processor environment for high execution speed. Overall, the achieved statistical accuracy on the module alignment is found to be significantly better than 10μm

BHPR research: qualitative1. Complex reasoning determines patients' perception of outcome following foot surgery in rheumatoid arhtritis

Background: Foot surgery is common in patients with RA but research into surgical outcomes is limited and conceptually flawed as current outcome measures lack face validity: to date no one has asked patients what is important to them. This study aimed to determine which factors are important to patients when evaluating the success of foot surgery in RA Methods: Semi structured interviews of RA patients who had undergone foot surgery were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis of interviews was conducted to explore issues that were important to patients. Results: 11 RA patients (9 ♂, mean age 59, dis dur = 22yrs, mean of 3 yrs post op) with mixed experiences of foot surgery were interviewed. Patients interpreted outcome in respect to a multitude of factors, frequently positive change in one aspect contrasted with negative opinions about another. Overall, four major themes emerged. Function: Functional ability & participation in valued activities were very important to patients. Walking ability was a key concern but patients interpreted levels of activity in light of other aspects of their disease, reflecting on change in functional ability more than overall level. Positive feelings of improved mobility were often moderated by negative self perception ("I mean, I still walk like a waddling duck”). Appearance: Appearance was important to almost all patients but perhaps the most complex theme of all. Physical appearance, foot shape, and footwear were closely interlinked, yet patients saw these as distinct separate concepts. Patients need to legitimize these feelings was clear and they frequently entered into a defensive repertoire ("it's not cosmetic surgery; it's something that's more important than that, you know?”). Clinician opinion: Surgeons' post operative evaluation of the procedure was very influential. The impact of this appraisal continued to affect patients' lasting impression irrespective of how the outcome compared to their initial goals ("when he'd done it ... he said that hasn't worked as good as he'd wanted to ... but the pain has gone”). Pain: Whilst pain was important to almost all patients, it appeared to be less important than the other themes. Pain was predominately raised when it influenced other themes, such as function; many still felt the need to legitimize their foot pain in order for health professionals to take it seriously ("in the end I went to my GP because it had happened a few times and I went to an orthopaedic surgeon who was quite dismissive of it, it was like what are you complaining about”). Conclusions: Patients interpret the outcome of foot surgery using a multitude of interrelated factors, particularly functional ability, appearance and surgeons' appraisal of the procedure. While pain was often noted, this appeared less important than other factors in the overall outcome of the surgery. Future research into foot surgery should incorporate the complexity of how patients determine their outcome Disclosure statement: All authors have declared no conflicts of interes

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good