Innovation as a policy strategy for natural resource protection

Growing global food demands place major strains on water resources, including quality impairments and increased water scarcity. Drawing on the largely separate bodies of literature on externalities and technological innovation, this article develops a dynamic framework to explore the long‐term impacts of alternative policy approaches to the agricultural impacts on water resources. Environmental policies, which focus on correcting environmental externalities, lead to an overall gain because costs to farmers are more than offset by reduced environmental damages. Technology policies, which direct public investments into agricultural eco‐innovations, lead to benefits for farmers as well as the environment. Joint implementation of both types of policies leads to the largest overall gain. In principle, a technology policy alone could have greater environmental benefits than an environmental policy alone. This outcome is most likely in cases where the productivity effect of new technology is large and the cost of research is low. Recommendations for research managers

• As an alternative to traditional environmental policy, investments in research can provide win–win solutions that benefit the environment and agricultural producers.
• Conceivably, eco‐innovations could lead to environmental conditions that are better than those achieved by environmental policy alone.
• Adding research investments to existing environmental policy would lead to further improvements in environmental quality while also benefitting farmers.
• Unlike environmental policies that are perceived to impose costs on agriculture, technology policies impart benefits to farmers and are less likely to face political opposition from industry.
• Technology policies are likely to be the most effective when eco‐innovation leads to technologies that meaningfully reduce environmental impacts and also raise farm productivity.

     

Relationship between the Jung constant and acertain projection constant in Banach spaces

Summary For a Banach spaceX the parameter λ₁(X) is the infimum of the numbers a with the following property: for everyZ )X with dimZ/X=1 there exists a projectionP:Z→X with |P|≤a. We give an upper bound for λ₁(X) in terms of the Jung constantJ(X). Some known and some new results are then deduced. A characteristic property ofJ ₁-spaces is also proved.

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Riassunto Scopo di questa nota è mostrare la stretta relazione che intercorre tra la costante di JungJ(X) di uno spazio di BanachX e la costante λ₁(X). Si stabilisce una limitazione superiore di λ₁, come funzione diJ, dalla quale si possono dedurre alcuni nuovi risultati e altri conosciuti. è inoltre dimostrata una caratterizzazione deiJ ₁-spazi.

     

Relation between the constant rank and the relaxed constant rank constraint qualifications

This article discusses a relation between the constant rank constraint qualification (CRCQ) and the recently proposed relaxed constant rank constraint qualification (RCRCQ). We show that a parametric constraint system satisfying the RCRCQ is locally diffeomorphic to a system satisfying the CRCQ. We use this result to extend some existing results for the CRCQ to the RCRCQ, establish a relation between the RCRCQ and the Mangasarian–Fromovitz constraint qualification, and obtain a weakened version of the Aubin property under the RCRCQ.     

Unique temperature distribution and explicit efficiency formula for one-dimensional thermoelectric generators under constant Seebeck coefficients

A thermoelectric generator converts a temperature difference into electrical energy. Its energy conversion efficiency is determined by the steady-state temperature distribution inside the generator. By assuming the thermoelectric material in the generator has a temperature-independent Seebeck coefficient and the generator is one-dimensional, we show that the second-order integro-differential equation describing the inside temperature distribution has a unique solution for any given ratio of external load resistance to the internal resistance. Hence the efficiency is well defined. Furthermore, we show the efficiency has an explicit formula in terms of the temperature-dependent thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity of the thermoelectric material. On the contrary, the integro-differential equation may have multiple solutions if an external load resistance value is given instead of the external-load-to-internal resistance ratio.     

Airline efficiency differences between Europe and the US: Implications for the pace of EC integration and domestic regulation

In this paper we examine the performance of the eight largest European and the eight largest American airlines during the period 1976–1986. During this period the American industry was deregulated and the European industry's competitive posture was significantly liberalized. Two alternative methodologies for identifying productive efficiency are used - a parametric one using statistical estimation and a nonparametric one using linear programming. We find that were European carriers under deregulation to be as productively efficient as their American counterparts, the European industry would save approximately $4 billion per year (in 1986 dollars).     

Trade-offs between target hardening and overarching protection

Defenders concerned about protecting multiple targets can either protect them individually (through target hardening), or collectively (through overarching protections such as border security, public health, emergency response, or intelligence). Decision makers may find it relatively straightforward to choose which targets to harden, but are likely to find it more difficult to compare seemingly incommensurate forms of protection - e.g., target hardening, versus a reduction in the likelihood of weapons being smuggled across the border. Unfortunately, little previous research has addressed this question, and fundamental research is needed to provide guidance and practical solution approaches. In this paper, we first develop a model to optimally allocate resources between target hardening and overarching protection, then investigate the factors affecting the relative desirability of target hardening versus overarching protection, and finally apply our model to a case study involving critical assets in Wisconsin. The case study demonstrates the value of our method by showing that the optimal solution obtained using our model is in some cases substantially better than the historical budget allocation.     

An asymptotic expansion for the normalizing constant of the Conway–Maxwell–Poisson distribution

The Conway–Maxwell–Poisson distribution is a two-parameter generalization of the Poisson distribution that can be used to model data that are under- or over-dispersed relative to the Poisson distribution. The normalizing constant \(Z(\lambda ,\nu )\) is given by an infinite series that in general has no closed form, although several papers have derived approximations for this sum. In this work, we start by using probabilistic argument to obtain the leading term in the asymptotic expansion of \(Z(\lambda ,\nu )\) in the limit \(\lambda \rightarrow \infty \) that holds for all \(\nu >0\). We then use an integral representation to obtain the entire asymptotic series and give explicit formulas for the first eight coefficients. We apply this asymptotic series to obtain approximations for the mean, variance, cumulants, skewness, excess kurtosis and raw moments of CMP random variables. Numerical results confirm that these correction terms yield more accurate estimates than those obtained using just the leading-order term.

     

Symmetry distribution between hook length and part length for partitions

It is known that the two statistics on integer partitions “hook length” and “part length” are equidistributed over the set of all partitions of n. We extend this result by proving that the bivariate joint generating function by those two statistics is symmetric. Our method is based on a generating function by a triple statistic much easier to calculate.     

Weibull 分布基于恒加试验尺度参数估计

对 Weibull 分布场合恒加寿命试验的参数估计进行了讨论,在现有参数估计的基础上作了进一步改进,从而使改进后的参数估计更优.     

Exact marginals and normalizing constant for Gibbs distributions

We present a recursive algorithm for the calculation of the marginal of a Gibbs distribution π. A direct consequence is the calculation of the normalizing constant of π.     

Upper and lower bounds for the Voronoi-Minkowski constant

We study the behavior of the constant C(s) as s → ∞ arising in the estimate of the number of relative minima of s-dimensional integer lattices Γ via the logarithm log₂ N raised to the s ? 1th power, where N = D(Γ) is the determinant of Γ.     

Tests for specific nonparametric relations between two distribution functions with applications

Let (X,Y) be a random vector and let G and H be the marginal distributions of X and Y, respectively. In this paper, we propose two tests, one of Kolmogorov‐Smirnov type and the other of Wilcoxon type, for the null hypothesis Ψ(G) = H against the alternative Ψ(G) < H, where Ψ() is a function such that Ψ(G) is a distribution function. The tests are based on the empirical distribution functions of the observations on X and Y, which are dependent. We obtain their asymptotic null distributions. A suspected relationship between the distribution functions of two dependent outcomes can be specified as a hypothesis to be tested in examples like the load sharing models, record values, and auction bidding models. As an application, we consider in detail the problem of testing the effect of load sharing in two component parallel systems.     

The exceptional set for the distribution of primes between consecutive powers

A well known conjecture about the distribution of primes asserts that between two consecutive squares there is always at least one prime number. The proof of this conjecture is quite out of reach at present, even under the assumption of the Riemann Hypothesis. This paper is concerned with the distribution of prime numbers between two consecutive powers of integers, as a natural generalization of the afore-mentioned conjecture.      

Decay and regularity for dispersive equations with constant coefficients

This article discusses some smoothing estimates of the initial value problem for dispersive equations with constant coefficients. In particular, it is shown that a certain condition for the principal part of the symbol (see the assumption (1.3) below, which is equivalent to the one “of principal type” in the paper by Ben-Artzi and Devinatz [2]) is necessary and sufficient for the maximal smoothing in space-time. Dedicated to Professor Norio Shimakura The author was supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (No. 13640187).     

The James constant, the Jordan-von Neumann constant, weak orthogonality, and fixed points for multivalued mappings

We give some sufficient conditions for the Domínguez-Lorenzo condition in terms of the James constant, the Jordan-von Neumann constant, and the coefficient of weak orthogonality. As a consequence, we obtain fixed point theorems for multivalued nonexpansive mappings.     

Software rejuvenation and resource reservation policies for optimizing server resource availability using cyclic nonhomogeneous Markov chains

Software rejuvenation is modeled in a client–server system, which provides resources to priority classes of users. To assure availability, resource reservation policies are adopted for the higher priority classes. In addition software rejuvenation is proposed to optimize resource availability. The system is modeled by a cyclic nonhomogeneous Markov chain to capture the variation of the arrival and service rates during a day period. An optimization problem is solved based on a similar previous work and given the optimal resource reservation policy obtained by its solution, rejuvenation is performed and the optimal rejuvenation policy is determined. As a measure of resource availability the blocking probability of each priority class is used. Performability indicators expressing the total cost are also derived, with respect to the optimal resource reservation and optimal rejuvenation policies, to examine whether rejuvenation benefits the system in terms of cost. To derive the blocking probabilities, the limiting probability distribution is computed using explicit generalized approximate inverse preconditioning for solving efficiently sparse linear systems of algebraic equations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.