The Economics of Corrections: An Exposition

The purpose of this dissertation is to present an exposition of the applications of economics to corrections. The approach includes a synthesis of knowledge in the area, suggestions on how economics might be further brought to bear on correctional issues, and recommendations for future research. The overall framework is one of policy analysis, in which objective, scientifically-based information is used in the action setting of public programs. A review of the history of corrections is included to provide an appreciation for the multiple, conflicting goals under which corrections functions today. A review of the state-of-the-art in corrections provides a sense of the magnitude of the populations, activities, and expenditures which characterize this component of the criminal justice system. The role and contributions of cost, comparative cost, cost-effectiveness, and cost-benefit analysis are extensively surveyed, illustrating the substantial existing knowledge of correctional inputs and the lesser state of output measures and valuation. Economic research on institutions (prisons and jails) is reviewed and critiqued. Preliminary findings on correctional cost functions, the nature of marginal and average costs for state and federal institutions are reviewed and policy recommendations discussed. Prison industries are discussed in the context of opportunity costs, human resource accounting, and the need for goal specification prior to further analysis. Corrections in the community is analyzed from an economic perspective; private sector service providers, subsidy programs, and offender restitution, fees, and financial aid are reviewed from both the viewpoint of current research findings and the potential for additional economic research. Contributions and recommendations are examined for their feasibility in a policy setting and suggestions are offered to improve future research and widen the application of economics to corrections

Promoting uptake and use of conservation science in South Africa by government

This paper aims to analyse how to encourage science uptake, here defined as the uptake and use of scientific research products (including journal articles, scientific reports, tools, expert knowledge, etc.), in the South African context. While science uptake into implementation is a very case- and context-specific process, the authors propose that a general framework for analysis of the policy-making context in South Africa needs to be considered when analysing how to promote science uptake in specific cases. In this paper, the National Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Areas (NFEPA) project is used as an example to illustrate how to apply this framework and how science projects in South Africa can be better positioned for impact and use. The paper starts by introducing the framework for conceptualising the complex set of dynamic processes and actors that can be involved in science uptake by government in South Africa, i.e., the policy-making context. From this theoretical platform the authors analyse to what extent the NFEPA project will be able to support more effective implementation of existing environmental and water legislation. This is done by exploring the challenges that hinder the uptake of science in government departments and then offering recommendations on how to address these.Keywords: Science uptake, implementation, scientific research products, conservation science, South Afric

Power assignment problems in wireless communication

A fundamental class of problems in wireless communication is concerned with the assignment of suitable transmission powers to wireless devices/stations such that the resulting communication graph satisfies certain desired properties and the overall energy consumed is minimized. Many concrete communication tasks in a wireless network like broadcast, multicast, point-to-point routing, creation of a communication backbone, etc. can be regarded as such a power assignment problem. This paper considers several problems of that kind; for example one problem studied before in (Vittorio Bil{\`o} et al: Geometric Clustering to Minimize the Sum of Cluster Sizes, ESA 2005) and (Helmut Alt et al.: Minimum-cost coverage of point sets by disks, SCG 2006) aims to select and assign powers to $k$ of the stations such that all other stations are within reach of at least one of the selected stations. We improve the running time for obtaining a $(1+\epsilon)$-approximate solution for this problem from $n^{((\alpha/\epsilon)^{O(d)})}$ as reported by Bil{\`o} et al. (see Vittorio Bil{\`o} et al: Geometric Clustering to Minimize the Sum of Cluster Sizes, ESA 2005) to $O\left( n+ {\left(\frac{k^{2d+1}}{\epsilon^d}\right)}^{ \min{\{\; 2k,\;\; (\alpha/\epsilon)^{O(d)} \;\}} } \right)$ that is, we obtain a running time that is \emph{linear} in the network size. Further results include a constant approximation algorithm for the TSP problem under squared (non-metric!) edge costs, which can be employed to implement a novel data aggregation protocol, as well as efficient schemes to perform $k$-hop multicasts

Invest in fast-charging infrastructure or in longer battery ranges? A cost-efficiency comparison for Germany

To reach ambitious CO₂ mitigation targets, the transport sector has to become nearly emission-free and the most promising option for passenger cars are battery electric vehicles (BEV) powered using renewable energy. Despite their important benefits, BEV still face technological barriers, mainly their limited battery range and the limited availability of public fast-charging infrastructure. These factors are hindering the diffusion of electric vehicles (EV). The question of how to address these technical barriers has been widely analyzed in the literature, but so far there has been no cost-efficiency comparison of longer battery ranges and more widespread fast-charging infrastructure that evaluates them both technically and economically. This paper aims to find cost-efficient ways to address limited battery ranges and availability of public fast-charging infrastructure. We focus on German passenger cars that are licensed to commercial owners, since these are an important first market for EV. Our results indicate that fast-charging infrastructure is very cost-efficient as it enables significant proportions of BEV in the fleet at low infrastructure density. The technically feasible maximum BEV shares in the commercial sector can only be achieved with longer battery ranges. However, longer battery ranges are currently associated with comparatively high additional costs

Scenarios for the South African Water Sector in 2025

In 2008 the Water Research Commission initiated a project to develop ‘Water Sector Institutional Landscape in 2025 Scenarios’. The aim was to build knowledge about key drivers and uncertainties related to the future of the South African water sector. A diverse group of stakeholders contributed to the development of the drivers, which translated into different scenarios and associated stories that have potential implications for social and economic development, as well as for the management of water resources and water services. The four scenarios were derived from a matrix with two axes that represent the ability of the decision-making paradigm of water institutions to deal with complexity, and the reconciliation of environmental, social and economic demands of present and future generations (sustainability). The Wise Tortoise scenario describes a sector which deals with complexity and is sensitive to sustainability issues, whereas the Ignorant Ostrich scenario describes the opposite conditions. The Greedy Jackal and Busy Bee scenarios describe the other combinations of the key drivers. The scenarios provide stakeholders and policy-makers in South Africa’s water sector with insights to strengthen decision-making and to counter undesirable trajectories of change. The knowledge will empower role players in the water sector to engage in participative governance by equipping them with insights into potential futures that the South African water sector may face. This paper reports on the process to develop these scenarios for the South African water sector institutional landscape in 2025, presents the key forces, introduces the stories, and reflects on the use of scenarios in the water sector.Keywords: Scenarios, water sector, South Africa, water institutions, water future

Degenerate Whittaker functions for Sp_n(R)

In this paper, we construct Whittaker functions with exponential growth for the degenerate principal series of the symplectic group of genus n induced from the Siegel parabolic subgroup. This is achieved by explicitly constructing a certain Goodman–Wallach operator which yields an intertwining map from the degenerate principal series to the space of Whittaker functions, and by evaluating it on weight- ℓ standard sections. We define a differential operator on such Whittaker functions which can be viewed as generalization of the ξ -operator on harmonic Maass forms for \SL2(\R)