Further investigations of framing effects on cooperative choices in a provision point mechanism

We investigate whether framing effects of voluntary contributions are significant in a provision point mechanism. Our results show that framing significantly affects individuals of the same type: cooperative individuals appear to be more cooperative in the public bads game than in the public goods game, whereas individualistic subjects appear to be less cooperative in the public bads game than in the public goods game. At the aggregate level of pooling all individuals, the data suggests that framing effects are negligible, which is in contrast with the established result.

Matching Grants and Charitable Giving: Why People Sometimes Provide a Helping Hand to Fund Environmental Goods

Matching grants are a prevalent mechanism for funding environmental, conservation, and natural resource projects. However, economists have largely been silent regarding the potential benefits of these mechanisms at increasing voluntary contributions. To examine the behavioral responses to different match levels, this research uses controlled laboratory experiments with generically framed instructions and introduces a general-form matching-grant mechanism, referred to as the proportional contribution mechanism (PCM). Results show that contributions are positively correlated with both the match and the induced value of the public good even when a dominant strategy is free-riding. An implication of this partial demand revelation result is that manifestations of this type of “helping hand†social preference should be counted in benefit-cost analysis.matching grants, public goods, charitable giving, voluntary contributions, experimental economics, warm glow, helping hand, Environmental Economics and Policy, Public Economics,

Invasive species management in two-patch environments: Agricultural damage control in the raccoon (procyon lotor) problem, Hokkaido, Japan

We develop discrete-time models for analyzing the long run equilibrium outcomes on invasive species management in two-patch environments with migration. In particular, the focus is upon a situation where removal operations for invasive species are implemented only in one patch (controlled patch). The new features of the model are that (i) asymmetry in density dependent migration is considered, which may originate from impact of harvesting as well as heterogeneous habitat conditions, and (ii) the effect of density-dependent catchability is well-taken to account for the nature that required effort level to remove one individual may rise as the existing population decreases. The model is applied for agricultural damage control in the raccoon problem that has occurred in Hokkaido, Japan. Numerical illustration demonstrates that the long run equilibrium outcomes highly depend on the degree of asymmetry in migration as well as the sensitivity of catchability in response to a change in the population size of invasive species. Furthermore, we characterize the conditions under which the economically optimal effort levels are qualitatively affected by the above two factors and aiming at local extermination of invasive species in controlled patch is justified.catchability, meta-population, local extermination, removal effort, density dependent migration

A Small-Area HighPerformance 512-Point 2-Dimensional FFT Single-Chip

A single-chip 512-point FFT processor is presented. This processor is based on the cached-memory architecture (CMA) with the resource-saving multidatapath radix-2 3 computation element. The 2-stage CMA, including a pair of single-port SRAMs, is also introduced to speedup the execution time of the 2-dimensional FFTs. Using the above techniques, we have designed an FFT processor core which integrates 552,000 transistors within an area of 2.8 x 2.8 mm 2 with CMOS 0.35µm triple-layer-metal process. This processor can execute a 512-point, 36-bit-complex fixed-point data format, 1-dimensonal FFT in 23.2 µsec and a 2-dimensional one in only 23.8 msec at 133MHz operation. 1

Fast Search Method for Image Vector Quantization Based on Equal-Average Equal-Variance and Partial Sum Concept

ABSTRACT The encoding process of image vector quantization (VQ) is very heavy due to it performing a lot of k-dimensional Euclidean distance computations. In order to speed up VQ encoding, it is most important to avoid unnecessary exact Euclidean distance computations as many as possible by using features of a vector to estimate how large it is first so as to reject most of unlikely codewords. The mean, the variance, L 2 norm and partial sum of a vector have been proposed as effective features in previous works for fast VQ encoding. Recently, in the previous wor

Noninvasive Positive Pressure Ventilation against Reperfusion Pulmonary Edema following Percutaneous Transluminal Pulmonary Angioplasty

A 69-year-old man with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) was on amblatory oxygen inhalation therapy (3 L/min) and scheduled for percutaneous transluminal pulmonary angioplasty (PTPA). The patient's New York Heart Association functional status was class III with recent worsening of dyspnea and apparent leg edema. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed right ventricular enlargement with mean pulmonary artery pressure of 42 mmHg. After PTPA, he was complicated with postoperative reperfusion pulmonary edema, and noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NPPV) was applied immediately. Hypoxemia was successfully treated with 15 days of NPPV. Although mean pulmonary artery pressure was unchanged, his brain natriuretic peptide level decreased from preoperative 390.3 to postoperative 44.3 pg/dL. In addition, total pulmonary resistance decreased from preoperative 18 to postoperative 9.6 wood unit·m2. The patient was discharged on day 25 with SpO2 of 95% on 5 L/min of oxygen inhalation. Because pulmonary edema is a postsurgical life-threatening complication following PTPA, application of NPPV should be considered