Invasive Species Management: Importers, Border Enforcement, and Risk

Invasive species are a negative externality associated with imported goods. Policies aimed at excluding pests associated with imports include pre-shipment treatment requirements, varied inspection schemes, treatment at the border, penalties, and import bans or restrictions. Existing policies are based on the reasoning that increased enforcement effort will result in higher detection levels, or more specifically, that increased inspection will result in a higher number of interceptions and in turn, higher compliance. In addition to a deterrence effect, however, under which importers respond to increased enforcement with increased due care with respect to pest control, importers may respond in ways that regulators do not intend. For example, importers may choose to not bring goods into the country, may ship a reduced amount, or may switch ports-of-entry. Moreover, different types of firms are likely to respond to enforcement in different ways. In this paper, we present a framework to analyze invasive species border enforcement given heterogeneous importers and ports. We develop a theoretical model of firm response to border enforcement, analyze both the intended and unintended effects of this enforcement for different types of firms, and evaluate the tradeoffs associated with location. Firms not only consider the changes in the levels of enforcement and other conditions at a single port, they consider the cost and benefit tradeoffs associated with location e.g., differences in inspection intensity or port-entry fees versus distance to port-of-entry and final market across ports and may switch ports. The result is that increased inspection intensity may not result the overall damages from invasive species introductions.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

THE INCREASING ROLE OF AGRIBUSINESS IN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

While the demand for traditional agricultural economics is diminishing, there is a growing need for the economics and management of the food sector and the environment. Departments of agricultural economics have shown great flexibility in including agribusiness in their Bachelor's and Master's teaching programs. Ph.D and research programs appear to adjust more slowly to changing demand. Although agricultural economics programs are providing a variety of service course offerings, opportunities for joint programs with biological, physical, and natural sciences, particularly resource management, are not being exploited. If business schools decide to compete for agribusiness students in the future, missed opportunities with other departments and schools may become very costly. If this profession is to remain viable in the long run, it must continue to evolve, developing opportunities with biological, physical, and natural disciplines, in order to meet the demands of a changing market.agribusiness, agricultural economics, education, extension, research, Agribusiness, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

DEMAND FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMIC INFORMATION

Using data gathered in two surveys we analyze the movement of information in agriculture. The relative importance of varying classes of information providers are assessed by classes of users. A network based framework expands models of human capital and bounded rationality to assess the calculus of choice of information.information, bounded rationality, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Amplified erosion above waterfalls and oversteepened bedrock reaches

None of the conventional bedrock erosion laws can predict incision immediately upslope of a waterfall lip where the flow is accelerating toward a freefall. Considering the expected increase in flow velocity and shear stress at the lip of a waterfall, we determine erosion amplification at a waterfall lip as [equation], where [equation] is the erosion rate at the upstream end of the flow acceleration zone above a waterfall, Fr is the Froude number at this setting, and n ranges between 0.5–1.7. This amplification expression suggests that erosion at the lip could be as much as 2–5 times higher relative to erosion at a normal setting with identical hydraulic geometry. Utilizing this erosion amplification expression in numerical simulations, we demonstrate its impact on reach-scale morphology above waterfalls. Amplified erosion at the lip of a waterfall can trigger the formation of an oversteepened reach whose length is longer than the flow acceleration zone, provided incision wave velocity (Vi) at the upstream edge of the flow acceleration zone is higher than the retreat velocity of the waterfall face. Such an oversteepened reach is expected to be more pronounced when Vi increases with increasing slope. The simulations also suggest that oversteepening can eventually lead to steady state gradients adjacent to a waterfall lip provided Vi decreases with increasing slope. Flow acceleration above waterfalls can thus account, at least partially, for prevalent oversteepened bedrock reaches above waterfalls. Using the cosmogenic isotope Cl-36, we demonstrate that incision wave velocity upstream of a waterfall at the Dead Sea western escarpment is probably high enough for freefall-induced oversteepening to be feasible

Environmental and Distributional Impacts of Conservation Targeting Strategies

Resource purchasing funds have become a major tool for environmental protection and resource conservation. These funds use various strategies to target resources for conservation, the choice of which may lead to striking differences in environmental performance. This paper develops an analytical framework to analyze the impact of alternative targeting strategies on different interest groups, including consumers, producers, labor, and environmentalists. We show that ignoring the output price effect of purchasing funds reduces environmental gain and in some cases may make a purchasing fund counterproductive, and we argue that the optimal design of targeting criteria must consider the price feedback effect

From photons to big-data applications: terminating terabits

Computer architectures have entered a watershed as the quantity of network data generated by user applications exceeds the data-processing capacity of any individual computer end-system. It will become impossible to scale existing computer systems while a gap grows between the quantity of networked data and the capacity for per system data processing. Despite this, the growth in demand in both task variety and task complexity continues unabated. Networked computer systems provide a fertile environment in which new applications develop. As networked computer systems become akin to infrastructure, any limitation upon the growth in capacity and capabilities becomes an important constraint of concern to all computer users. Considering a networked computer system capable of processing terabits per second, as a benchmark for scalability, we critique the state of the art in commodity computing, and propose a wholesale reconsideration in the design of computer architectures and their attendant ecosystem. Our proposal seeks to reduce costs, save power and increase performance in a multi-scale approach that has potential application from nanoscale to data-centre-scale computers.This work was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Internet Project EP/H040536/1. This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force Research Laboratory, under contract FA8750-11-C-0249