Citizens' demand for permits and Kwerel''s incentive compatible mechanism for pollution control

An interesting feature of pollution permit markets is that citizens may purchase permits to directly lower the levels of pollution. Kwerel's mechanism (Review of Economic Studies~1977) is not incentive compatible when citizens demand permits. We show that a modification of Kwerel''s mechainism, the minimum-price mechanism, is incentive compatible when citizens demand permits, even in the case where there is uncertainty about the damages from pollution.

Opportunity, Constraint, and Capital in Canadian Ice Hockey

The study explored the potential social benefits and motivations of participation in sport beyond those that pertain solely to healthy active living. Using organized youth ice hockey in Canada, the study also examined how cultural context can be a factor in the facilitation of such benefit, as well as the ways the game can reflect and reproduce inequalities in society more generally. A framework based on Pierre Bourdieu’s assertions on social, cultural, economic, and symbolic capital, was used to analyze data from ten semi-structured interviews with men who are former youth hockey players. The interview data revealed that through hockey – as a heteronormative institution – boys and men forge rich and extensive social networks, as well as acquire the linguistic skills, attitudes, and dispositions that help them to bond in a private and exclusive manner. Furthermore, their participation in an activity increasingly limited to the middle-to-upper class allows them to be socialized among this demographic, thus making economic capital – through job opportunities, for example – highly extractable from their social and cultural capital. To a certain extent, participants also derived a sense of connectedness to a Canadian national identity due to their participation in an activity that proliferates in their national context. Nevertheless, the study identifies a number of opportunities and constraints that create disparities in participation, and as such, the allocation of benefits. Since these inequalities in sport may help to reproduce inequalities in society at large, the study closes with recommendations for policy, programs, and future research

Security models for trusting network appliances

A significant characteristic of pervasive computing is the need for secure interactions between highly mobile entities and the services in their environment. Moreover,these decentralised systems are also characterised by partial views over the state of the global environment, implying that we cannot guarantee verification of the properties of the mobile entity entering an unfamiliar domain. Secure in this context encompasses both the need for cryptographic security and the need for trust, on the part of both parties, that the interaction is functioning as expected. In this paper we make a broad assumption that trust and cryptographic security can be considered as orthogonal concerns (i.e. cryptographic measures do not ensure transmission of correct information). We assume the existence of reliable encryption techniques and focus on the characteristics of a model that supports the management of the trust relationships between two devices during ad-hoc interactions

Autonomous Sweet Pepper Harvesting for Protected Cropping Systems

In this letter, we present a new robotic harvester (Harvey) that can autonomously harvest sweet pepper in protected cropping environments. Our approach combines effective vision algorithms with a novel end-effector design to enable successful harvesting of sweet peppers. Initial field trials in protected cropping environments, with two cultivar, demonstrate the efficacy of this approach achieving a 46% success rate for unmodified crop, and 58% for modified crop. Furthermore, for the more favourable cultivar we were also able to detach 90% of sweet peppers, indicating that improvements in the grasping success rate would result in greatly improved harvesting performance

Trust dynamics for collaborative global computing

Recent advances in networking technology have increased the potential for dynamic enterprise collaborations between an open set of entities on a global scale. The security of these collaborations is a major concern, and requires novel approaches suited to this new environment to be developed. Trust management appears to be a promising approach. Due to the dynamic nature of these collaborations,dynamism in the formation, evolution and exploitation of trust is essential. In this paper we explore the properties of trust dynamics in this context. Trust is formed and evolves according to personal experience and recommendations. The properties of trust dynamics are expressed through a formal model of trust. Specific examples, based on an e-purse application scenario are used to demonstrate these properties

Stochastic Dominance Analysis of Bioenergy Crops as a Production Alternative on an East Tennessee Beef and Crop Farm

This study evaluated prices and incentives for switchgrass stated in a biorefinery’s contract terms that induce switchgrass production on an east Tennessee representative farm when compared with traditional enterprises. The alternate contract terms imitated current subsidies/incentives offered as well as incentives and cost share terms not in the BCAP.switchgrass, contract, risk aversion, net return, Farm Management, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q12,

Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinase–3 (TIMP-3) induces FAS dependent apoptosis in human vascular smooth muscle cells

Over expression of Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinases-3 (TIMP-3) in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) induces apoptosis and reduces neointima formation occurring after saphenous vein interposition grafting or coronary stenting. In studies to address the mechanism of TIMP-3-driven apoptosis in human VSMCs we find that TIMP-3 increased activation of caspase-8 and apoptosis was inhibited by expression of Cytokine response modifier A (CrmA) and dominant negative FAS-Associated protein with Death Domain (FADD). TIMP-3 induced apoptosis did not cause mitochondrial depolarisation, increase activation of caspase-9 and was not inhibited by over-expression of B-cell Lymphoma 2 (Bcl2), indicating a mitochondrial independent/type-I death receptor pathway. TIMP-3 increased levels of the First Apoptosis Signal receptor (FAS) and depletion of FAS with shRNA showed TIMP-3-induced apoptosis was FAS dependent. TIMP-3 induced formation of the Death-Inducing Signalling Complex (DISC), as detected by immunoprecipitation and by immunofluorescence. Cellular-FADD-like IL-1 converting enzyme-Like Inhibitory Protein (c-FLIP) localised with FAS at the cell periphery in the absence of TIMP-3 and this localisation was lost on TIMP-3 expression with c-FLIP adopting a perinuclear localisation. Although TIMP-3 inhibited FAS shedding, this did not increase total surface levels of FAS but instead increased FAS levels within localised regions at the cell surface. A Disintegrin And Metalloproteinase 17 (ADAM17) is inhibited by TIMP-3 and depletion of ADAM17 with shRNA significantly decreased FAS shedding. However ADAM17 depletion did not induce apoptosis or replicate the effects of TIMP-3 by increasing localised clustering of cell surface FAS. ADAM17-depleted cells could activate caspase-3 when expressing levels of TIMP-3 that were otherwise sub-apoptotic, suggesting a partial role for ADAM17 mediated ectodomain shedding in TIMP-3 mediated apoptosis. We conclude that TIMP-3 induced apoptosis in VSMCs is highly dependent on FAS and is associated with changes in FAS and c-FLIP localisation, but is not solely dependent on shedding of the FAS ectodomain