The Political Economy of Environmental Policy

This paper provides a review and assessment of the extensive literature on the political determination of environmental regulation. A promising theoretical literature has emerged relatively recently that provides models of the political interaction of government with various interest groups in the setting of environmental standards and the choice of regulatory instruments. A large empirical literature supports such models, finding evidence of the influence of interest groups but also evidence that net social benefits are often an important determinant of environmental policy choices. We then take up the issue of environmental federalism and the large and growing theoretical literature that addresses the competitive “race to the bottom.” The paper concludes with a brief look at the evolution of environmental policy and finds that economics has come to play a growing role both in the setting of standards for environmental quality and in the design of regulatory measures.environmental regulation, environmental management, environmental policy

Bioeconomic modelling of male Holstein-Friesian dairy calf-to-beef production systems on Irish farms

peer-reviewedWith the abolition of milk quota in 2015 and increase in the use of Holstein-Friesian sires in recent years there is predicted to be an increase in the number of male Holstein-Friesian animals available for beef production. In broad terms, farmers have two options for finishing these animals; as bulls or steers. In either case, Irish beef cattle systems are based on maximising lifetime live-weight gain from grass-based diets. Managing the relationship between the supply and demand for grazed grass is complicated in these pasture-based systems due to the seasonal variability in grass growth. The Grange Dairy Beef Systems Model (GDBSM) was used to simulate the relationship between grazed grass supply and demand and then determine the profitability of Holstein-Friesian male animals finished as bulls at 16 (B16), 19 (B19) and 22 (B22) months of age and steers at 24 (S24) months of age. Combinations of these cattle finishing options were also evaluated. The most profitable system was S24. All systems were very sensitive to variations in beef and concentrate prices and less sensitive to calf price changes with fertiliser price changes having very little effect. Bull systems were more sensitive than the steer system to variation in beef, calf and concentrate prices. There was no advantage of combination systems in terms of utilisation of grass grown or net margin

Enlightenment Assemblages: Mapping Material Relationships in 18th-Century France

This dissertation explores manifestations of assemblic connectivity in literary, philosophical, and epistolary texts of 18th-century France. In scientific treatises, encyclopedias, novels and personal correspondence, early modern writers imagined increasingly complex interconnections between phenomena, both material and otherwise. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of assemblage, I demonstrate the illustrative and exploratory power of “assemblic imagination” as a conceptual framework for envisioning proto-network connectivity across a range of cultural and intellectual contexts. I study how four different types of assemblage--corporeal, epistemological, epistolary, and sexual--work to organize, imagine and connect material phenomena within their respective texts. My analysis of corporeal assemblages focuses on Julien-Offray de La Mettrie’s 1747 medical/philosophical treatise L’homme machine, which problematizes the Cartesian idea of mind-body separation by drawing connections between multiple human and nonhuman factors that influence human subjectivity. My investigation of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1751-1772) reveals the epistemological assemblage, a web of intertextual references and novel organizational schemes connecting articles on a wide range of subject matter. The epistolary assemblage is contained within a series of letters between the Chevalier de Boufflers and his longtime lover, the Countess of Sabran. It encompasses written letters, material objects, enslaved humans and other elements, creating links across great distances. My fourth and final assemblage, the sexual assemblage, manifests in the anonymously published 1748 libertine/pornographic novel Thérèse philosophe. The sexual assemblage considers the impact of external and internal factors upon human sexual desire, mapping pathways of stimulation between individuals, objects, and ideas. These assemblages illustrate the evolving nature of 18th-century materialist thought towards an ever-increasing awareness of the interconnected nature of humans, objects, ideas, and other phenomena and prefigure the curated and controlled networks of the 21st century

Insight into the Carboxyl Transferase Domain Mechanism of Pyruvate Carboxylase from \u3cem\u3eRhizobium etli\u3c/em\u3e

The effects of mutations in the active site of the carboxyl transferase domain of Rhizobium etli pyruvate carboxylase have been determined for the forward reaction to form oxaloacetate, the reverse reaction to form MgATP, the oxamate-induced decarboxylation of oxaloacetate, the phosphorylation of MgADP by carbamoyl phosphate, and the bicarbonate-dependent ATPase reaction. Additional studies with these mutants examined the effect of pyruvate and oxamate on the reactions of the biotin carboxylase domain. From these mutagenic studies, putative roles for catalytically relevant active site residues were assigned and a more accurate description of the mechanism of the carboxyl transferase domain is presented. The T882A mutant showed no catalytic activity for reactions involving the carboxyl transferase domain but surprisingly showed 7- and 3.5-fold increases in activity, as compared to that of the wild-type enzyme, for the ADP phosphorylation and bicarbonate-dependent ATPase reactions, respectively. Furthermore, the partial inhibition of the T882A-catalyzed BC domain reactions by oxamate and pyruvate further supports the critical role of Thr882 in the proton transfer between biotin and pyruvate in the carboxyl transferase domain. The catalytic mechanism appears to involve the decarboxylation of carboxybiotin and removal of a proton from Thr882 by the resulting biotin enolate with either a concerted or subsequent transfer of a proton from pyruvate to Thr882. The resulting enolpyruvate then reacts with CO2 to form oxaloacetate and complete the reaction

Electrodynamics in Iron and Steel

In order to calculate the reflected EM fields at low amplitudes in iron and steel, more must be understood about the nature of long wavelength excitations in these metals. A bulk piece of iron is a very complex material with microstructure, a split band structure, magnetic domains and crystallographic textures that affect domain orientation. Probing iron and other bulk ferromagnetic materials with weak reflected and transmitted inductive low frequency fields is an easy operation to perform but the responses are difficult to interpret because of the complexity and variety of the structures affected by the fields. First starting with a simple single coil induction measurement and classical EM calculation to show the error is grossly under estimating the measured response. Extending this experiment to measuring the transmission of the induced fields allows the extraction of three dispersion curves which define these internal fields. One dispersion curve yielded an exceedingly small effective mass of 1.8 10^{-39}kg (1.3 10^{-9} m_e) for those spin waves. There is a second distinct dispersion curve more representative of the density function of a zero momentum bound state rather than a propagating wave. The third dispersion curve describes a magneto-elastic coupling to a very long wave length propagating mode. These experiments taken together display the characteristics of a high temperature Bose-Einstein like condensation that can be initiated by pumping two different states. A weak time dependent field drives the formation of coupled J=0 spin wave pairs with the reduced effective mass reflecting the increased size of the coherent state. These field can dominate induction measurements well past the Curie temperature.Comment: 37 pages, 16 figures, major addition

Jean-Paul Marat: The Politics of Death

The following thesis discusses the death and quasi-deification of Jean-Paul Marat, politician and journalist of the French Revolution. I focus on the tensions between social, artistic, and political movements that sprung up in the wake of the radical’s martyrdom. I also demonstrate the drastic change in general attitudes and policies— political, social and artistic—toward Marat between the years of the Terror and Thermidor. I hope to prove that Marat, in transcending his own policies and words after death by becoming a visual and tactile symbol representing both social justice and political terror, is a pivotal figure for the French Revolution. For secondary sources, my research included histories of the French Revolution, biographies of Marat, theoretical texts on historical memory, and art history texts. I used primary sources in the form of English translation of French newspapers and speeches. My primary sources also included original artworks. My research indicated that Marat proved emblematic of the cults of civil religions during the French Revolution. Because the Cult of Marat was in some ways both a popular movement and an official propaganda campaign, the study of this unique demonstrates the nexus between French radicals in the government and among those among Parisian rabble. Yet the study of the Cult of Marat also shows the tensions between popular radicals and their counterparts in the National Convention. From my study of the Cult of Marat, I discovered that the Jacobin line was generally one of ambivalence toward popular movements. The figures of Maximillien Robespierre and Jacques-Louis David demonstrate this complex relationship of the members of the Jacobin Club and the National Convention toward the crowds of Paris radicals. While Robespierre wanted to suppress the Cult of Marat, David nurtured the movement and orchestrated much of its propaganda. Outside Jacobin circles, there was an even greater gulf of opinion. This development is best seen by the shift in attitudes toward Marat following the moderate reaction of Thermidor. Using the theoretical framework of historical memory, I was able to explain the creation and destruction of the Cult of Marat as a social phenomenon as much as a political phenomenon

A study of the effects of awareness of family systems on the staff, leadership, and congregations of First United Methodist Church Paulsboro

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1406/thumbnail.jp

Uses being made of adequate secondary school sites in Massachusetts

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Lysimachia quadriflora Sims

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/20861/thumbnail.jp