Structural Vector Error Correction Modeling of Integrated Sportfishery Data

We demonstrate how to specify and estimate a time series model that can isolate the effects of changes in fishery policy and forecast the outcome of policy changes in the context of changing climate and economic factors. The approach is illustrated with data from the headboat fishery for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. The initial data analysis finds that effort and harvest are cointegrated series and that effort appears to respond somewhat to past changes in harvest. This suggested a structural vector error correction model specification. Model estimation results indicate that seasonal closures directly influence both harvest and effort, whereas bag and minimum size limits only affect harvest directly. Also, climate activity has a moderate influence on this fishery, mainly via changes in effort. Model forecasts are evaluated relative to a more naïve specification using out-of-sample data and the use of the model for policy analysis is demonstrated.Climate, Gulf of Mexico, red snapper, sportfishing demand, structural vector error correction, time series, Public Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, Q22 Q26 Q28 C32,

Hedonic Valuation of Sportfishing Harvest

A hedonic valuation strategy is introduced to estimate the marginal value of sportfishing harvest. The strategy uses market prices, thereby avoiding some of the measurement problems associated with the constructed or proxy prices used in common valuation methods. A charter fee hedonic equation is estimated using data from the market for offshore charter fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The marginal value of sportfishing harvest is identified using spatial variation in harvest rates and fish sizes. A two-stage minimum distance estimator is used to address potential omitted variables and cluster-sampling issues. Our results demonstrate that valid estimates of the marginal value of sportfishing harvest can be derived directly using market prices. The estimated marginal value per fish is consistent with published estimates using alternative methods. Thus, the hedonic approach suggested in this article offers promise as an independent validation of the typical methods used to value sportfishing harvest.Sportfishing, charter boats, hedonic, revealed preference, valuation, Public Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Q22, Q26, Q51,

The emergency observation and assessment ward

A recent development to reduce ED crowding and increase urgent patient admissions is the opening of an Emergency Observation and Assessment Ward (EOA Ward). At these wards urgent patients are temporarily hospitalized until they can be transferred to an inpatient bed. In this paper we present an overflow model to evaluate the effect of employing an EOA Ward on elective and urgent patient admissions

Electrochemical and electron-microscopical studies of anodically corroded silver-gold alloys

The aims of the project are to investigate the electrochemical parting of silver from silver-gold. Direct measurements by X-ray analysis of corroded specimens show that silver cannot be parted from alloys with initial concentrations of under 55at% silver, it can be incompletely parted from alloys with between 55at% and 80at% silver, and it can be fully parted from alloys which are over 80at% silver. The alloys are used to produce well-defined and characteristic voltammograms, and the lowest potential at which silver can be dissolved from them is shown to be composition-dependent, higher potentials being required to part silver from the less silver-rich alloys. Cyclic voltammograms, together with coulometric measurements, and X-ray analyses of specimen compositions before and after electrochemical treatments provide evidence that the dissolution of silver from these alloys is accompanied by the formation of a new phase, possibly a gold oxide. Since, at the potentials of under 1400mV used for this work, this new phase is not formed on pure gold, it is inferred that the dissolution of silver is associated with the formation a chemical and/or a physical environment in which the new phase can form. This phase has a maximum thickness for alloys with an initial silver concentration of about 64at%. A specialised electrochemical cell, designed and built for this work« is used for the electrochemical treatment of thin, electron-transparent specimens of gold and silver-gold. Following corrosion the specimens are examined with transmission electron microscopy. The development of corrosion micromorphologies is seen not to be strongly composition-dependent, commencing in all silver-rich silver-gold alloys by the formation of isolated pits with diameters of about 50A. After longer periods of corrosion, channels about 50A wide cover the surface of the intragranular regions; when more charge is passed, even these previously apparently uncorroded regions close to grain boundaries and holes through the alloy become covered with networks of channels. The electrochemical observations presented lead to the idea that gold atoms are redistributed from the centres of developing pits and channels by the formation and decomposition of the new phase during the dissolution of silver

The Reliability of Sportfishing Demand and Value Estimates: Evidence from the Gulf of Mexico

Estimates of the value of recreational fishing are widely used in policy analysis. For example, NOAA Fisheries calculates the change in economic value anticipated with proposed changes in saltwater fishing regulations. Studies to generate new estimates of economic value are costly and time consuming. It is, therefore, important to understand the reliability of value estimates over time in order to know when a study needs to be replicated to remain relevant for policy analysis. We replicated a sportfishing demand study in the Gulf of Mexico during 2020 and 2022 and compared the demand model parameters and related measures of willingness to pay. Our results suggest that the demand for and value of recreational fishing were relatively stable over the study period

Rural Cultural Studies: Introduction

This themed section of Australian Humanities Review seeks to establish the emerging field of \u27rural cultural studies\u27 firmly on the agenda of the contemporary humanities and social sciences. This is a timely intervention as rural Australia has featured increasingly over the last decade and especially over the last few years as a topic of national policy attention, public commentary and social analysis. If the notion of a crisis in rural Australia has become something of a one-sided cliché, the changes being faced in non-urban-rural, remote and regional-Australia are nonetheless significant, complex and widespread. For example, one of the topics for the federal 2020 Summit, \u27Rural Australia\u27, addressed future policy directions for rural industries and populations. In this wider context, the purpose of the present collection of papers is to argue for the significance of the cultural dimension-and the multiple dimensions of the cultural-in understanding the key issues of demographic change, economic productivity, environmental and climatic crisis, Indigenous/non-indigenous relations and land ownership, and the role of \u27cultural\u27 factors in the renewal, or potential renewal, of country towns and communities

UCDs in the Coma Cluster

As part of the HST/ACS Coma Cluster Treasury Survey, we have undertaken a Keck/LRIS spectroscopic campaign to determine membership for faint dwarf galaxies. In the process, we discovered a population of Ultra Compact Dwarf galaxies (UCDs) in the core region of the Coma cluster. At the distance of Coma, UCDs are expected to have angular sizes 0.01 < R_e < 0.2 arcsec. With ACS imaging, we can resolve all but the smallest ones with careful fitting. Candidate UCDs were chosen based on magnitude, color, and degree of resolution. We spectroscopically confirm 27 objects as bona fide UCD members of the Coma cluster, a 60% success rate for objects targeted with M_R < -12. We attribute the high success rate in part to the high resolution of HST data and to an apparent large population of UCDs in Coma. We find that the UCDs tend to be strongly clustered around giant galaxies, at least in the core region of the cluster, and have a distribution and colors that are similar to globular clusters. These findings suggest that UCDs are not independent galaxies, but rather have a star cluster origin. This current study provides the dense environment datapoint necessary for understanding the UCD population.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, to appear in the conference proceedings of "A Universe of Dwarf Galaxies" (Lyon, June 14-18, 2010