Chinese agricultural biotechnology in the field

The public debate in China on the safety of GE crops was “imported” from Europe, stated Zhangliang Chen. It is germane in particular to the improvement of rice productivity in that country, where GM varieties are in final field-trial stages. On the other hand, Peter Welters reported that the scare-mongering of anti-GM-activists in Europe is increasingly recognized for what it is. Examples showing benefits of applying genetic engineering to plants are finding acceptance by the general public. “We have only to inform people cor­rectly and constantly about the progress and the benefits of this new technology. Millions of farmers worldwide can’t be wrong.

The role of interstate trade and crop insurance programs on the U.S. agriculture’s capacity to adapt to climate change

This dissertation presents three essays related to the economics of agricultural policies and climate change. The first essay discusses the relationship between interstate trade and the mitigation of native impacts caused by increasing frequency of severe droughts due to climate change. I combine two commonly used reduced form models: gravity equation and Ricardian analysis to study how drought will affect the domestic trade flow, and further change local agricultural profit. I find that interstate trade, to a large extent, can mitigate the adverse impact of increasing droughts towards U.S. agriculture. The second essay studies the potential impacts of federal crop insurance program on farmers’ adaptation behavior. I extend the standard Ricardian framework to incorporate crop insurance. This extended Ricardian framework allows me to generate theoretical predictions on the changes in marginal effects of climate variable due to crop insurance. The empirical study using the most recent agricultural census data confirms the theoretical model. The third essay focuses on the misrating phenomenon in the federal crop insurance program (FCIP). This essay is the first attempt in the literature to formally quantify the scale of misrating issue, to study the spatial pattern of misrating status and to evaluate the fiscal impact of correcting the misrating in the program. The results suggest that the misrating is a large-scale phenomenon in FCIP, the misrating status possess a strong positive spatial autocorrelation pattern, and the correcting misrating can reduce the total outlay of the program but under very strict elasticity conditions for the demand of crop insurance

Analysis on the Factors that Influence the Utilization Rate of Renewable Energy in the Framework of Marxist Reproduction

Developing the renewable energy to replace traditional fossil energy is not only an essential part of sustainable development strategies of most countries all over the world, but also an important theoretical issue that draws the attention of the academic circle. On the basis of a Marxian reproduction scheme, the essay analyzes the influence of market demand, technological progress and policy promotion on the utilization rate of renewable energy and their mechanisms during the development of the renewable energy industry. A panel data set of 28 OECD countries for 34 years is constructed to examine the role of market, technology and policy on renewable energy's utilization rate. In addition, based on theoretical analysis and econometrical analysis, market, policy and technology—the three main factors will go through a thorough analysis

Long-term Orbital Period Variation of Hot Jupiters from Transiting Time Analysis using TESS Survey Data

Many hot Jupiters may experience orbital decays, which are manifested as long-term transit timing variations. We have analyzed 7068 transits from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for a sample of 326 hot Jupiters. These new mid-transit time data allow us to update ephemerides for these systems. By combining the new TESS transit timing data with archival data, we search for possible long-term orbital period variations in these hot Jupiters using a linear and a quadratic ephemeris model. We identified 26 candidates that exhibit possible long-term orbital period variations, including 18 candidates with decreasing orbital periods and 8 candidates with increasing orbital periods. Among them, 12 candidates have failed in our leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) test and thus should be considered as marginal candidates. In addition to tidal interaction, alternative mechanisms such as apsidal precession, R{\o}mer effect, and Applegate effect could also contribute to the observed period variations. The ephemerides derived in this work are useful for scheduling follow-up observations for these hot Jupiters in the future. The Python code used to generate the ephemerides is made available online.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

SiteFinding-PCR: a simple and efficient PCR method for chromosome walking

In this paper, we present a novel PCR method, termed SiteFinding-PCR, for gene or chromosome walking. The PCR was primed by a SiteFinder at a low temperature, and then the target molecules were amplified exponentially with gene-specific and SiteFinder primers, and screened out by another gene-specific primer and a vector primer. However, non-target molecules could not be amplified exponentially owing to the suppression effect of stem–loop structure and could not be screened out. This simple method proved to be efficient, reliable, inexpensive and time-saving, and may be suitable for the molecules for which gene-specific primers are available. More importantly, large DNA fragments can be obtained easily using this method. To demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of SiteFinding-PCR, we employed this method to do chromosome walking and obtained 16 positive results from 17 samples

Innovation: The Chinese Experience

Zhianglian Chen reports that, since 1991, the Chinese government has encouraged university professors to form companies. Even in public universities, a professor can run a business from her/his own laboratory, owning 100% of the company or shares thereof. Some professors have made large amounts of money. On the other hand, Chen expects that universities will continue to play a vital role in high-tech business development and innovation, making major contributions to a knowledge-based economy in China. This merging of universities and business was the most tightly coupled example described at the meeting

The role of interstate trade and crop insurance programs on the U.S. agriculture’s capacity to adapt to climate change

This dissertation presents three essays related to the economics of agricultural policies and climate change. The first essay discusses the relationship between interstate trade and the mitigation of native impacts caused by increasing frequency of severe droughts due to climate change. I combine two commonly used reduced form models: gravity equation and Ricardian analysis to study how drought will affect the domestic trade flow, and further change local agricultural profit. I find that interstate trade, to a large extent, can mitigate the adverse impact of increasing droughts towards U.S. agriculture. The second essay studies the potential impacts of federal crop insurance program on farmers’ adaptation behavior. I extend the standard Ricardian framework to incorporate crop insurance. This extended Ricardian framework allows me to generate theoretical predictions on the changes in marginal effects of climate variable due to crop insurance. The empirical study using the most recent agricultural census data confirms the theoretical model. The third essay focuses on the misrating phenomenon in the federal crop insurance program (FCIP). This essay is the first attempt in the literature to formally quantify the scale of misrating issue, to study the spatial pattern of misrating status and to evaluate the fiscal impact of correcting the misrating in the program. The results suggest that the misrating is a large-scale phenomenon in FCIP, the misrating status possess a strong positive spatial autocorrelation pattern, and the correcting misrating can reduce the total outlay of the program but under very strict elasticity conditions for the demand of crop insurance.U of I OnlyAuthor requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste