British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

This paper assesses farming eco-efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques. Eco-efficiency scores at both farm and environmental pressure-specific levels are computed for a sample of Spanish farmers operating in the rain-fed agricultural system of Campos County. The determinants of eco-efficiency are then studied using truncated regression and bootstrapping techniques. We contribute to previous literature in this field of research by including information on slacks in the assessment of the potential environmental pressure reductions in a DEA framework. Our results reveal that farmers are quite eco-inefficient, with very few differences emerging among specific environmental pressures. Moreover, eco-inefficiency is closely related to technical inefficiencies in the managemen...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Abstract: This article argues that Pippenger's (2011) ''Solution to the forward-bias puzzle'' must be regarded as an econometric explanation of the famous puzzle, although it does not offer an exhaustive economic answer to it. Some of Pippenger's (2011) findings are reproduced and established in a cointegrated multiple time series model. It is suggested that economists should stop trying to working out the forward-bias puzzle and start looking for fundamentally better models of foreign exchange rate determination. A tentative alternative is provided.

Science.gov (United States)

... Tower of Hanoi and Missionaries and Cannibals puzzles, of students solving algebra and physics problems, and of thinkers ...

Science.gov (United States)

... select moves. Greeno (1974) showed that only 3.6 repetitions of the Missionaries and Cannibals puzzle were required ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

My proposed econometric solution to the forward-bias puzzle provoked several comments. Those comments raise three primary objections to my solution. (1) It suffers from multicollinearity, miss-specification and other serious econometric problems. (2) My key test equation is a tautology or identity. (3) My econometric solution has nothing to do with either the forward-bias puzzle or uncovered interest parity. This is my reply to those objections.

Science.gov (United States)

PMID:21306364

Science.gov (United States)

the Missionaries and Cannibals, Fool's Disk, the Blocks World. and the 8-Puzzle. Also ...... place the sets of missionaries and cannibals by ob- ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

This note outlines the economic theory behind the theory of uncovered interest parity and some of the econometric issues involved in testing and interpretation. I illustrate some of the issues involved by estimating a rolling regression of the forward premium regression from 22 years of eight major currencies. I also conclude that Pippenger's model is not consistent with the theory of UIP and that furthermore there are severe econometric problems in estimating his model. The forward premium anomaly remains a paradox in international finance that is important and worthwhile to understand more fully.

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

As is well documented, subprime mortgage markets carried significant default risk. This paper investigates the relationship between default risk premium, stock market conditions and macroeconomic variables during the financial crisis. Using iTraxx Japan Credit Default Swap (CDS) index spreads covering the period from March 2006 to November 2009, we employ a time-varying dynamic factor model with Markov regime switching to generate regime probabilities for default risk. We analyze the sensitivity of default risk premium changes to stock market conditions and macroeconomic variables by using two-state Markov switching models: a crisis regime sparked by rising loan defaults in the sub-prime mortgage market, and a non-crisis regime. We found strong evidence that the relationship between defaul...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

BackgroundPhysicians have difficulty keeping up with new evidence from medical research.MethodsWe developed the McMaster Premium...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

SummaryAgeing is a complex, challenging phenomenon that will require multiple, interdisciplinary approaches to unravel its puzzles. To assist basic research on ageing, we developed...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

The contribution of the parietal cortex to episodic memory is a fascinating scientific puzzle. On one hand, parietal lesions do not normally yield severe episodic memory deficits, but on the...Full Text Available

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

The authors investigated the harmful effect of compound grease on premium connections. The pressure buildup of compound grease trapped between threads was measured during and after makeup of the connection. The resulting hoop stress in the coupling and the reduction in the seal interference were also measured. Mathematical models were developed to calculate coupling stress and grease pressure. Results indicate that for the conventional API buttress-thread profile, the pressure of trapped compound grease remains permanently high after the connection is made up because of the small thread-clearance area. This high pressure results in a high coupling stress and a large reduction in seal interference diameter, thereby degrading the integrity of the connection. To solve this problem, the thread profile was redesigned with a thread-clearance area larger than that of conventional buttress thread. The connection with the new thread design showed a significantly lower ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

The goal of this project is to develop a bench-scale procedure to produce clean, desulfurized, premium-quality chars from the Illinois basin coals. This goal is achieved by utilizing the effective capabilty of smectites in combination with methane to manipulate the char yields. The major objectives are: to determine the optimum water- ground particle size for the maximum reduction of pyrite and minerals by the selective-bitumen agglomeration process; to evaluate the type of smectite and its interlamellar cation which enhances the premium-quality char yields; to find the mode of dispersion of smectites in clean coal which retards the agglomeration of char during mild gasification; to probe the conditions that maximize the desulfurized clean-char yields under a combination of methane+oxygen or helium+oxygen; to characterize and accomplish a material balance of chars, liquids, and gases produced during mild gasification; to identify the conditions ...

CERN Document Server

A complete macromolecule modeling package must be able to solve the simplest structure prediction problems. Despite recent successes in high resolution structure modeling and design, the Rosetta software suite fares poorly on deceptively small protein and RNA puzzles, some as small as four residues. To illustrate these problems, this manuscript presents extensive Rosetta results for four well-defined test cases: the 20-residue mini-protein Trp cage, an even smaller disulfide-stabilized conotoxin, the reactive loop of a serine protease inhibitor, and a UUCG RNA tetraloop. In contrast to previous Rosetta studies, several lines of evidence indicate that conformational sampling is not the major bottleneck in modeling these small systems. Instead, approximations and omissions in the Rosetta all-atom energy function currently preclude discriminating experimentally observed conformations from de novo models at atomic resolution. These molecular ...

Wastenet

...Box Contains One Month Supply Dietary supplement with a premium patented formula of L-Arginine, Ginseng, Ginkgo plus 13 essential vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals to support male sexual function . ArginMax for Male Sexual Fitness is a patented combination of l-Arginine, Ginseng, Ginkgo, and 13 essential vitamins and ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Limited field trial results of a heating oil additive package developed to minimize unscheduled maintenance indicate that it achieves its goal of keeping heating oil systems cleaner. The multifunctional additive package was developed to provide improved fuel oxidation stability, improved corrosion protection, and dispersency. This combination of performance benefits was chosen because we believed it would retard the formation of sludge, as well as allow sludge already present to be carried through the system without fouling the fuel system components (dispersency should keep sludge particles small so they pass through the filtering system). Since many unscheduled maintenance calls are linked to fouling of the fuel filtering system, the overall goal of this technology is to reduce these maintenance calls. Photographic evidence shows that the additive package not only reduces the amount of sludge formed, but even removes existing sludge from filters and pump strainers. This ...

CERN Document Server

We perform a combined analysis of $B \\to \\pi \\pi$ and $B \\to \\pi K$ decays with the current experimental data. Assuming SU(3) flavor symmetry and no new physics contributions to the topological amplitudes, we demonstrate that the conventional parametrization in the Standard Model (SM) does not describe the data very well, in contrast with a similar analysis based on the earlier data. It is also shown that the introduction of smaller amplitudes and reasonable SU(3) breaking parameters does not improve the fits much. Interpreting these puzzling behaviors in the SM as a new physics (NP) signal, we study various NP scenarios. We find that when a single NP amplitude dominates, the NP in the electroweak penguin sector is the most favorable. However, other NP solutions, such as NP residing in the QCD-penguin sector and color-suppressed electroweak penguin sector simultaneously, can also solve the puzzle.

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

The origin of life is a long-standing mystery puzzling many people. This mystery possesses not only philosophical but also important biological significance. To unveil this mystery, the searches for the root of life, or the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), based on comparative-genomic analysis have been intensively performed on rRNAs, tRNAs and proteins sequences. The current search pointed to a Methanopyrus-proximal LUCA, which opens up the reconstruction of Lucan biology and helps to delineate the evolutionary pathways.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Proposed features of the competitive electricity market in Ontario were reviewed. The speaker predicted that demand for renewable energy in Ontario`s competitive electricity market will be affected by green power, emissions trading, labelling, and renewables portfolio standard. Under current regulations retailers can charge customers a premium for purchasing electricity generated by `green` sources. The existing limits on emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxides will remain in place, but an emissions cap and trading program for all Ontario-based generation is an option to consider. Ontario`s Market Design Committee (MDC) has recommended the implementation of emissions trading for electricity-related air pollutants for all generators located in Ontario. The complex mechanics of emission trading are explained. The MDC recommendation of the use of standard labels to disclose the mix of energy sources used by sellers of electricity and their ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Summary. Ratiometric fluorescent dyes are often used to monitor free ion concentrations in vivo, especially in cells that are recalcitrant to transformation with genetically encoded fluorescent markers. Although intracellular dye distributions are often found to be cytosolic, dye localisation has often not been examined in detail. We began exploring the use of BCECF (2?,7?-bis(2-carboxyethyl)-5(6)-carboxyfluorescein) to monitor pH in the giant alga Chara australis and discovered that younger leaf cells could be loaded using the acetoxymethyl ester of BCECF. However, we were puzzled to find in microphotometric measurements that the fluorescence ratio appeared insensitive to manipulations affecting cytosolic pH. Confocal imaging of C. australis cells loaded with BCECF showed an accumulation ...

CERN Document Server

The nature of the `inner engine' that accelerate and collimate the relativistic flow at the cores of GRBs is the most interesting current puzzle concerning GRBs. Numerical simulations have shown that the internal shocks' light curve reflects the activity of this inner engine. Using a simple analytic toy model we clarify the relations between the observed $ \\gamma $-rays light curve and the inner engine's activity and the dependence of the light curves on the inner engine's parameters. This simple model also explains the observed similarity between the observed distributions of pulses widths and the intervals between pulses and the correlation between the width of a pulse and the length of the preceding interval. Our analysis suggests that the variability in the wind's Lorentz factors arises due to a modulation of the mass injected into a constant energy flow.

CERN Document Server

Although hydrogen is the simplest of atoms, it does not form the simplest of solids or liquids. Quantum effects in these phases are considerable (a consequence of the light proton mass) and they have a demonstrable and often puzzling influence on many physical properties, including spatial order. To date, the structure of dense hydrogen remains experimentally elusive. Recent studies of the melting curve of hydrogen indicate that at high (but experimentally accessible) pressures, compressed hydrogen will adopt a liquid state, even at low temperatures. In reaching this phase, hydrogen is also projected to pass through an insulator-to-metal transition. This raises the possibility of new state of matter: a near ground-state liquid metal, and its ordered states in the quantum domain. Ordered quantum fluids are traditionally categorized as superconductors or superfluids; these respective systems feature dissipationless electrical currents or mass flow. Here we report an ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Claims of property value loss are commonly raised by homeowners when noxious facilities are sited or when new information about the hazards of existing facilities is made public. While the capitalization of externalities into land values is consistent with economic theory, empirical measurement of impacts has not generated consistent results. This is true both for hedonic measurements as well as other types of econometric analyses. While it is well established that job and site risks have similar impacts on regional labor markets, there are no studies relating the presence of a broad range of noxious facilities to local wage premiums. In contrast, this study employs an interregional framework in a hedonic analysis of both wage and property markets and considers eight different facility classifications. This paper discusses the development of the hedonic model employed in this study. It develops more fully the theoretical advantages of the intercity model and ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Professor Richard H. Dalitz passed away on January 13, 2006. He was almost 81 years old and his outstanding contributions are intimately connected to some of the major breakthroughs of the 20th century in particle and nuclear physics. These outstanding contributions go beyond the Dalitz Plot, Dalitz Pair and CDD poles that bear his name. He pioneered the theoretical study of strange baryon resonances, of baryon spectroscopy in the quark model, and of hypernuclei, to all of which he made lasting contributions. His formulation of the ''{theta} - {tau} puzzle'' led to the discovery that parity is not a symmetry of the weak interactions. A brief scientific evaluation of Dalitz's major contributions to particle and nuclear physics is hereby presented, followed by the first comprehensive list of his scientific publications, as assembled from several sources. The list is divided into two categories: the first, main part ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ekpyrotic and cyclic cosmologies provide theories of the very early and of the very late universe. In these models, the big bang is described as a collision of branes - and thus the big bang is not the beginning of time. Before the big bang, there is an ekpyrotic phase with equation of state w=P/({rho}) >>1 (where P is the average pressure and {rho} the average energy density) during which the universe slowly contracts. This phase resolves the standard cosmological puzzles and generates a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological perturbations containing a significant non-Gaussian component. At the same time it produces small-amplitude gravitational waves with a blue spectrum. The dark energy dominating the present-day cosmological evolution is reinterpreted as a small attractive force between our brane and a parallel one. This force eventually induces a new ekpyrotic phase and a new brane collision, leading to the idea of a cyclic universe. ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

The most developed systems for the generation of electricity from coal are the Integrated coal Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and the Pressurized Fluidized Bed Combustion (PFBC) system. They both represent state-of-the-art technology and provide electric power at 41-46% LHV efficiency. However, the high level of complexity leads to lower reliability and higher costs. A simpler system, based on a coal-fired steam boiler integrated with a gas turbine, has been proposed. In such a plant, known as the externally fired combined cycle (EFCC), compressed air is heated indirectly in a heat exchanger located in the coal furnace. The hot air is then expanded in a turbine, and the exhaust is passed on to the coal furnace as preheated combustion air. Steam produced in the boiler generates additional power in a steam turbine. The exclusion of coal combustion products from the gas turbine avoids hot gas clean-up and turbine blade corrosion by coal ash. In order to obtain a high level of ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pipeline automated ultrasonic testing (AUT) uses fully automated equipment that travels around a pipe on a welding band in a linear scan to allow array pulses to provide ultrasound information on weld zones. Pipeline AUT is also used for zone discrimination as well as with special calibration blocks, dual gate output displays, and rapid defect sizing. AUT allows for the inspection of welds soon after completion, and can save construction costs by process control when combined with engineering critical assessment (ECA) to minimize rejection rates. Ultrasonic phased arrays (UPA) use an array of elements that are all individually wired, pulsed, and time-shifted. Elements are pulsed in groups of approximately 16 elements at a time for pipeline welds. Phased arrays can be used to combine electronic scanning, sectorial scanning and precision focusing to give a practical combination of displays. Optimum angles can be selected for welds and other components, and the electronic scanning ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

To many, recent developments in electric markets are perplexing. Competition has appeared, often in the form of new players who do not own and operate generation or transmission facilities. Yet, these players happily enter into contracts obliging them to make or take delivery of power at set prices for months or even years into the future. They seem unconcerned about predicted capacity shortages, fuel price uncertainty or unpredictable plant outages. For the most part, these new players understand these risks quite well. They simply believe in the efficacy of markets. Until recently, price ensured recovery of cost. They foresee a true market where price makes supply equal demand and cost is not a factor in the short term at least. The appearance of such players is an augury of the new industry structure, one in which specialists in taking and managing distinct business risks evolve from within or enter from outside. They take and manage price risk in much the same way that other new ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Full text: A 51-year-old woman with end stage renal failure secondary to Haemolytic Uraemic syndrome underwent a cadaveric renal transplant. A routine post transplant DTPA scan was performed which demonstrated satisfactory renal transplant perfusion and function. Incidental note was made of tracer uptake in the pelvis in the mid-line, which was suspected to be a uterine fibroid. This was confirmed on ultrasonography and at surgery. One week post transplantation the patient became acutely unwell and at laparotomy a perforated diverticular abscess was drained. Intraoperatively the transplant kidney was examined and the surgeon thought there was a area of infarction. This was confirmed on biopsy. As the patient's creatinine was rising a repeat DTPA study was performed. Perfusion and function of the transplant kidney was virtually absent while Doppler studies showed no flow. The patient however continued to produce urine and the creatinine was stable. Subsequently a ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

The extensive research and development effort was initiated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2002 at West Virginia University (WVU) in order to investigate practical ways of reducing the structural weight and increasing the durability of heavy vehicles through the judicious use of lightweight composite materials. While this project was initially focused on specific Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) material, namely Aluminum/Silicon Carbide (Al/SiC) commercially referenced as ''LANXIDE'', the current research effort was expanded from the component level to the system level and from MMC to other composite material systems. Broadening the scope of this research is warranted not only by the structural and economical deficiencies of the ''LANXIDE'' MMC material, but also by the strong coupling that exists between the material and the geometric characteristics of the structure. Such coupling requires a truly ...

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

This document gathers the available presentations (articles and transparencies) given at this annual meeting, the 2007 topic of which was the technological, geopolitical, economical, environmental, societal and development stakes of energy. 1 - technological stakes - which energies for the future: new energies, illusion or solution of the future; the Lorraine region, an energy land: strategies and stakes for a sustainable development; from China to Brazil: understanding the nuclear energy revival; hydroelectric power: renewable and sustainable energy; renewable energies and environment protection: the contribution of biofuels; wind power in Germany between success and contestation; 2 - geopolitical stakes - energy levier of power: the Gulf of Guinea hydrocarbons: between development and geopolitics; the complex evaluation of resources and reserves between technology, market and geopolitics; the new Bakou-Tbilissi-Ceyhan pipeline: what impacts for Turkey and the European Union; 3 - ...