Simulation of Land Use and Investment Behaviour under Different Policy Scenarios: Results of the extended farm/household model. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 27, July 2012

Factor markets are a central issue in analyses of farm development and of agricultural sector vitality. Among the different production factors, land is one of the most studied. Several studies seek to estimate the effect of government policy payments on land value or land rental prices. The studies mostly agree that government payments and other types of policy support are significant in explaining land prices and account for a large share of them. In October 2011, the European Commission published a new policy proposal for the common agricultural policy (CAP) up to 2020. The proposed regulation includes a shift from historical to regional payments. The objective of this paper is to provide an ex ante analysis of the impact of the new CAP policy instruments on the land market. In particular, the effect of the regionalisation of payments in Italy is examined. The analysis is based on the use of a mathematical programming model to simulate the changes in land demand for a farm in Emilia Romagna. The results highlight the relevance of the new policy mechanism in determining a change in land demand. Yet the effect is highly dependent on initial ownership of entitlements under the historical payment scheme

Simulation of Land Use and Investment Behaviour under Different Policy Scenarios Results of the extended farm/household model

Factor markets are a central issue in analyses of farm development and of agricultural sector vitality. Among the different production factors, land is one of the most studied. Several studies seek to estimate the effect of government policy payments on land value or land rental prices. The studies mostly agree that government payments and other types of policy support are significant in explaining land prices and account for a large share of them. In October 2011, the European Commission published a new policy proposal for the common agricultural policy (CAP) up to 2020. The proposed regulation includes a shift from historical to regional payments. The objective of this paper is to provide an ex ante analysis of the impact of the new CAP policy instruments on the land market. In particular, the effect of the regionalisation of payments in Italy is examined. The analysis is based on the use of a mathematical programming model to simulate the changes in land demand for a farm in Emilia Romagna. The results highlight the relevance of the new policy mechanism in determining a change in land demand. Yet the effect is highly dependent on initial ownership of entitlements under the historical payment scheme

Farm/Household-Level Simulation: Results of Testing Policy and Other Scenarios. Factor Markets Working Document No. 54, June 2013

Among the different production factors, land is the one that most often limits farm development and one of the most studied. The connection between policy and other context variables and land markets is at the core of the policy debate, including the present reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The proposal of the latter has been published in October 2011 and in Italy it will include the switch of the payment regime from an historical to a regional basis. The authors’ objective is to simulate the impact of the proposed policy reform on the land market, particularly on land values and propensity to transaction. They combine insights and data from a farm household investment model revised and extended in order to simulate the demand curve for land in different policy scenarios and a survey of farmers stated intention carried out in the province of Bologna (Italy) in 2012. Based on these results, the authors calibrate a mathematical programming model of land market exchanges for the province of Bologna and use this model form simulation. The results of the model largely corroborate the results from the survey and both hint at a relevant reaction of the land demand and supply to the shift from the historical to the regionalised payments. As effect, the regionalisation would result in increased rental prices and in a tendency to the re-allocation of land

The Impact of the 2013 CAP Reform on Land Markets in Italy

The connection between policy and other context variables and land markets is at the core of the policy debate, including the present reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The current proposals for the post- 2013 CAP will include the switch of the payment regime from an historical to a regional basis. This component, as well as the greening and other ‘microprovisions’ can have an effect on the land markets. The objective of this chapter is to assess the potential impact of the proposed policy reform (in particularconcerning the regionalisation of payments) on the land market. Attention will focus on changes in propensity to rent-in and out and in transactions due to the proposed provisions for the post-2013 CAP. To achieve this goal, the authors jointly use: a) a survey of farmers stated intention, and b) a mathematical programming model simulating the land markets in different policy scenarios. Both are applied to a case study at the scale of the province of Bologna, Italy (NUTS 3). The results of the model corroborate the results from the survey, though the model is much more reactive to policy changes, while the survey has a larger share of “no changes”. Both hint at a relevant reaction of the land demand and supply to the shift from the historical to the regionalised payments, due to the differentiated and opposite effects that the reform would have on different farm types and sub-regions. The payment would be more capitalised into the land value, at the margin, as long as it is less constrained by the ownership of entitlements. As an effect, the regionalisation would potentially result in increased rental prices and in a tendency to re-allocate land

Farm/Household-Level Simulation Results of Testing Policy and Other Scenarios

Among the different production factors, land is the one that most often limits farm development and one of the most studied. The connection between policy and other context variables and land markets is at the core of the policy debate, including the present reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The proposal of the latter has been published in October 2011 and in Italy it will include the switch of the payment regime from an historical to a regional basis. The authors’ objective is to simulate the impact of the proposed policy reform on the land market, particularly on land values and propensity to transaction. They combine insights and data from a farm household investment model revised and extended in order to simulate the demand curve for land in different policy scenarios and a survey of farmers stated intention carried out in the province of Bologna (Italy) in 2012. Based on these results, the authors calibrate a mathematical programming model of land market exchanges for the province of Bologna and use this model form simulation. The results of the model largely corroborate the results from the survey and both hint at a relevant reaction of the land demand and supply to the shift from the historical to the regionalised payments. As effect, the regionalisation would result in increased rental prices and in a tendency to the re-allocation of land

Biotechnology in the Conservation Field: Removal of Sulphates Using Bacteria and Bioconsolidation of Paintings and Stuccos

The aim of this study was to explore the use of biotechnologies in the restoration of wall paintings and stuccos which often show a great complexity regarding constitutive materials and conservative conditions. ‘Biological methods’ were compared to traditional methods, focusing on restoring the cohesion of the superficial layers (bioconsolidation) and the removal of sulphates (biocleaning) often found on the frescoes as decay products. The experimentation took place as part of a graduate thesis and was divided in two stages: the first was spent in the laboratory working on samples of painted plaster and the second was spent in situ, on the frescoes and stuccos in the Church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, Italy. Application of the products was followed by a campaign of investigations aimed at determining the efficacy, and the advantages and disadvantages of these methods compared to conventional ones

The Impact of the SFP System on Italian Farmland Prices and Tenure Contracts. Factor Markets Working Document No. 65, August 2013

EDITED VERSION TO BE PUBLISHED SOON. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the estimation of the potential effects of the CAP reform on propensity to transaction, particularly comparing the effect of different new instruments/policy settings with the current policy (CAP health check) used as a baseline. The work is focused on three of new policy instruments within the post 2013 CAP reform proposal: regionalization, greening and capping. The first and second are analysed in more detail. The analysis will be based on a survey of farmers in the Province of Bologna, Emilia Romagna, Italy. The questionnaire focuses on mechanism of access to land and related incentives towards different land use/economic behaviour. The survey includes information about respondent characteristics (farm, farmer, household and payments received) and stated intention about potential changes in land operated under alternative agricultural policy scenarios (particularly the post-2013 reform proposals)

Propuesta de un sistema ergonómico para mejorar las condiciones ergonómicas de los laboratorios de una universidad privada de la región Lambayeque

Este proyecto se basa en proponer un sistema ergonómico para poder mejorar las condiciones ergonómicas de los laboratorios de una universidad del departamento de Lambayeque, la cual mediante la medición de diferentes variables como iluminación, ruido y riesgos ergonómicos se realizará el diseño de este sistema. Para el confort lumínico se tuvo una eficiencia del 0% y para el confort acústico una eficiencia del 0% y los riesgos ergonómicos mediante la metodología REBA dio una puntuación de 9 con un nivel alto de riesgo lo cual es ocasionado por el mobiliario y su mala distribución. Como resultados de la propuesta en el confort lumínico se mejoró la eficiencia en un 100%, para el confort acústico de la misma manera se mejoró la eficiencia en un 100% y para los riesgos ergonómicos se cambió el mobiliario y su distribución evaluando nuevamente mediante REBA y teniendo una nueva puntuación de 3 con un nivel de riesgo bajo. Esta implementación evitaría pagar a la universidad una multa de S/. 5 600 000 ahorrando por cada unidad de inversión S/. 59,30 siendo sumamente rentable para la universidad

Search and comparison of (epi)genomic feature patterns in multiple genome browser tracks

Background: Genome browsers are widely used for locating interesting genomic regions, but their interactive use is obviously limited to inspecting short genomic portions. An ideal interaction is to provide patterns of regions on the browser, and then extract other genomic regions over the whole genome where such patterns occur, ranked by similarity. Results: We developed SimSearch, an optimized pattern-search method and an open source plugin for the Integrated Genome Browser (IGB), to find genomic region sets that are similar to a given region pattern. It provides efficient visual genome-wide analytics computation in large datasets; the plugin supports intuitive user interactions for selecting an interesting pattern on IGB tracks and visualizing the computed occurrences of similar patterns along the entire genome. SimSearch also includes functions for the annotation and enrichment of results, and is enhanced with a Quickload repository including numerous epigenomic feature datasets from ENCODE and Roadmap Epigenomics. The paper also includes some use cases to show multiple genome-wide analyses of biological interest, which can be easily performed by taking advantage of the presented approach. Conclusions: The novel SimSearch method provides innovative support for effective genome-wide pattern search and visualization; its relevance and practical usefulness is demonstrated through a number of significant use cases of biological interest. The SimSearch IGB plugin, documentation, and code are freely available at https://deibgeco.github.io/simsearch-app/ and https://github.com/DEIB-GECO/simsearch-app/