Evaluating urban services using economic valuation techniques :towards better urban environmental quality and promotion of sustainable development

PhD ThesisThis PhD thesis examines and evaluates the importance of urban services in environmental quality using economic evaluation techniques. It is a consensus that one of the features of countries that are under development is the rapid growth of urbanization. Rapid urbanization is followed by an intense demand for qualitative and quantitative development in physical dimensions and urban systems. An efficient urban management system is required to tackle and solve the problems of urbanization, using appropriate policies, methods and data to ensure that not only has the urban population got access to the labour market, housing and urban services, but also urban environments are organized to enhance the quality of life for its citizens. Consequently, this research seeks to assess and define a method to help local authorities and policy makers in affective decision making and efficient city management. Thus, the main objective of this thesis is to establish a non-market benefits valuation models for use in current and future policy applications with the aim of better built environment quality and promoting sustainable development. This research shows that allocating appropriate urban services plays a key role in promoting urban environmental quality, and fostering essential amenities such as comfort, safety, aesthetic, attractiveness etc. to citizens. Distribution and accessibility of urban services plays an important role in people’s movements, forming the city size, shape, and density, and importantly living quality in the city. This research reveals how economic valuation techniques can be used to define the market and the value of the urban services and assesses public preferences by determining willingness to pay for better access to preferred urban services. By employing the perspective of welfare economics to identify the structure of public preferences, including preference differences between socioeconomic groups, this study provides valuable information which should help to inform public policy deliberations over city management and land use planning objectives of promoting sustainable development and increasing quality of life and environment

Seasonality Effects on Consumers Preferences Over Quality Attributes of Different Beef Products

Using discrete choice modelling, the study investigates 946 American consumers willingness-to-pay and preferences for diverse beef products. A novel experiment was used to elicit the number of beef products that each consumer would purchase. The range of products explored in this study included ground, diced, roast, and six cuts of steaks (sirloin, tenderloin, flank, flap, New York and cowboy or rib-eye). The outcome of the study suggests that US consumers vary in their preferences for beef products by season. The presence of a USDA certification logo is by far the most important factor affecting consumers willingness to pay for all beef cuts, which is also heavily dependent on season. In relation to packaging, US consumers have mixed preference for different beef products by season. The results from a scaled adjusted ordered logit model showed that after price, safety-related attributes such as certification logos, types of packaging, and antibiotic free and organic products are a stronger influence on American consumers choice. Furthermore, US consumers on average purchase diced and roast products more often in winter slow cooking season, than in summer, whereas New York strip and flank steak are more popular in the summer grilling season. This study provides valuable insights for businesses as well as policymakers to make inform decisions while considering how consumers relatively value among different labelling and product attributes by season and better address any ethical, safety and aesthetic concerns that consumers might have

Preserve or retreat? Willingness-to-pay for Coastline Protection in New South Wales

Coastal erosion is a global and pervasive phenomenon that predicates a need for a strategic approach to the future management of coastal values and assets (both built and natural), should we invest in protective structures like seawalls that aim to preserve specific coastal features, or allow natural coastline retreat to preserve sandy beaches and other coastal ecosystems. Determining the most suitable management approach in a specific context requires a better understanding of the full suite of economic values the populations holds for coastal assets, including non-market values. In this study, we characterise New South Wales residents willingness to pay to maintain sandy beaches (width and length). We use an innovative application of a Latent Class Binary Logit model to deal with Yea-sayers and Nay-sayers, as well as revealing the latent heterogeneity among sample members. We find that 65% of the population would be willing to pay some amount of levy, dependent on the policy setting. In most cases, there is no effect of degree of beach deterioration characterised as loss of width and length of sandy beaches of between 5% and 100% on respondents willingness to pay for a management levy. This suggests that respondents who agreed to pay a management levy were motivated to preserve sandy beaches in their current state irrespective of the severity of sand loss likely to occur as a result of coastal erosion. Willingness to pay also varies according to beach type (amongst Iconic, Main, Bay and Surf beaches) a finding that can assist with spatial prioritisation of coastal management. Not recognizing the presence of nay-sayers in the data or recognizing them but eliminating them from the estimation will result in biased WTP results and, consequently, biased policy propositions by coastal managers.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1902.0241

Circulatory system of red tail catfish (Phractocephalus hemioliopterus Bloch & Schneider, 1801): a corrosion cast study

Red tail catfish, Phractocephalus hemioliopterus, in one of the popular ornamental fish. The present study is aimed to describe and visualizes the cardiovascular system of this species with corrosion cast study method. For this purpose, 10 red tail catfish with 580 gr average weight were obtained and were filled their blood vessels and heart with fluid artificial resin made on the basis of methylmetacrylate after anaesthetizing and euthanizing. For complete polymerization and hardening of the methylmetacrylate, the fish were further submersed for 12-24 hrs in water bath following by 24-48 hrs submersion in a 25% solution of KOH to full maceration. Based on the results we describe the cardiovascular system i.e. the afferent and efferent vessels of gill, different parts of the heart, ventral aorta, dorsal aorta, intestinal and gastric vessels, liver, anterior and posterior parts of the kidneys, spleen, portal and hepatic vein

Ocean Wind Energy Technologies in Modern Electric Networks: Opportunity and Challenges

Wind energy is one of the most important sources of energy in the world. In recent decades, wind as one of the massive marine energy resources in the ocean to produce electricity has been used. This chapter introduces a comprehensive overview of the efficient ocean wind energy technologies, and the global wind energies in both offshore and onshore sides are discussed. Also, the classification of global ocean wind energy resources is presented. Moreover, different components of a wind farm offshore as well as the technologies used in them are investigated. Possible layouts regarding the foundation of an offshore wind turbine, floating offshore, as well as the operation of wind farms in the shallow and deep location of the ocean are studied. Finally, the offshore wind power plant challenges are described

The values and benefits of environmental elements on housing rents

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. The value provided by availability of environmental elements on human quality of urban life is difficult to assess and incorporate into urban planning and development. Researchers worldwide have seldom objectively factored these attributes into property pricing and associated decisions. This study contends that a better understanding of the effect of environmental elements requires systematic study of the relationship between objective and subjective measures of environmental phenomena and human responses. This paper summarizes the outcomes from applying Hedonic Pricing (HP) and Life Satisfaction (LS) methods - providing valuation in an increasingly expanding and privatized property Iranian market. A survey was carried out from 400 households that are more likely to make location choices and pay rent and property expenses in the city of Shiraz. The findings indicates that Shiraz neighbourhoods are likely to be characterized by deep environmental segregation. This study informs the decisions of policy makers and property developers regarding sales and purchases conversion, property development, urban nature conservation, and design of ecological green-space networks

Deep oxidative desulfurization of gas oil by iron(III)-substituted polyoxometalate immobilized on nickel(II) oxide, ((n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39]@NiO, as an efficient nanocatalyst

Abstract Sulfur compounds are among the most unfavorable constituents of petroleum derivatives, so stringent regulations have been established to curb their atmospheric emissions. In this regard, a new nanocomposite ((n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39]@NiO) was synthesized composed of quaternary ammonium bromide salt of ironIII-substituted Keggin-type polyoxometalate immobilized on nickel(II) oxide nanoceramics via sol–gel method. The assembled (n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39]@NiO nanocomposite was identified by FT-IR, UV–Vis, XRD, SEM, EDX, and TGA-DTG methods. The characterization results exhibited that ((n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39] dispersed uniformly over the surface of the NiO nanoceramics. The ((n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39]@NiO nanocomposite was employed as a heterogeneous nanocatalyst in the extractive coupled oxidation desulfurization (ECOD) of real gas oil and dibenzothiophene (DBT) as a model compound. Under relatively moderate conditions, the catalytic performance of the ((n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39]@NiO in the ECOD procedure was studied by incorporating acetic acid/hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant system at a volume ratio of 1:2. According to the ECOD results, the ((n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39]@NiO demonstrated the effectiveness of up to 95% with 0.1 g at 60 °C under optimal operating conditions. Moreover, the ((n-C4H9)4N)4H[PW11FeO39]@NiO nanocatalyst could be separated and reused for five runs without a noticeable decrease in the ECOD process. This study provides a promising way to meet the target of ultra-low sulfur as an essential process in oil refineries

Antibacterial Effects of Citrus aurantium on Bacteria Isolated from Urinary Tract Infection

Background :  Emerging antibacterial resistance rates and beta-lactamase producing bacteria recovered from UTI is an increasing problem in different regions, limiting therapeutic options. Therefore, this survey consider to use the extract and essence of the citrus aurantium (which have a so many rate of planting in Iran) and also survey on extract on bacteria whose cause urinary tract infections, and compare this with common antibiotics. Methods and Materials: This study was experimental design.We have been isolate the E.coli,Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus agalactiae and Enterococcus faecalis from UTI and then determine of antibacterial effect of Citrus aurantium against this bacteria with subculture and put the exact diagnosis on them. Antibacterial effects of the herb extract by well diffusion assay and  nalidixic acid and Co-trimoxazol were evaluated by method of agar disc diffusion. Results:Enterococcus faecalis had 100% sensitivity against of extract,essence and Co-trimoxazole , and 80% against nalidixic acid . E.coli had 100% sensitivity against Co-trimoxazol, nalidixic acid and it was totally resistance to extract and essence.Klebsiella Pneumonie had 80% to Co-trimoxazol, 75% to nalidixic acid and resistance against extract and essence.Streptococcus agalactiae was 100% sensitivity to essence and Co-trimoxazol and 90% against nalidixic acid and shown 80% sensitivity against extract.Staphylococcus aureus MRSA shown 100% sensitivity against Co-trimoxazol and 70% sensitivity against essence, extract and nalidixic acid. Conclusion: Detection of antibiotic resistance among isolates is important in prevention and control of infections. In this study, it was shown that extracts of citrus aurantium have high antibacterial effects on gram positive bacteria compare to gram negative bacteria