ON AVOIDANCE ACTIVITIES IN FISHERY ENFORCEMENT MODELS

Compliance and enforcement in fisheries are important issues from an economic point of view since management measures are useless without a certain level of enforcement. These conclusions come from the well‐established theoretical literature on compliance and enforcement problems within fisheries and a common result is that, it is efficient to set fines as high as possible and monitoring as low as possible, when fines are costless and offenders are risk neutral. However, this result is sensitive to the assumption that fishermen cannot engage in avoidance activities, e.g., activities to reduce the likelihood of being detected when noncomplying. The paper presents a model of fisheries that allows the fishermen to engage in avoidance activities. The conclusions from the model are that, under certain circumstances, fines are costly transfers to society since they not only have a direct positive effect on the level of deterrence, but also an indirect negative effect in the form of increased avoidance activities to reduce the probability of detection. The paper contributes to the literature on avoidance activities by introducing the externality from the illegal behavior as an endogenous effect on other offenders. For an externality, that has an exogenous effect on other actors, Malik shows that fines are only costly transfers for conditional deterrence (when one actor is deterred while another actor is not). For fisheries, we show that fines are also costly transfers under no deterrence (when no agents are deterred).     

Isocratic reversed-phase liquid chromatographic method for the simultaneous determination of (S)-methoprene,MGK264, piperonyl butoxide,sumithrin and permethrin in pesticide formulation

An isocratic reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method development for the simultaneous determination of five active ingredients (S)-methoprene, MGK264, PBO, sumithrin and permethrin in a new complex pesticide formulation is described. These active ingredients have similar polarities and contain isomers. The RP-HPLC method development approach began with the selection of a column based on the component structure information, bonded phase, and particle physical characteristics. Second, the mobile phase composition was changed to improve peak resolution and peak sensitivity, especially with analytes containing isomers. Choosing the match between the stationary phase and mobile phase composition, the developed RP-HPLC method not only can simplify the procedure appreciably but also significantly decrease total analysis time and increase peak height. The developed isocratic RP-HPLC method for the analysis of this new formulation was then validated for specificity, linearity, precision, and accuracy. The chromatographic peak identification was identified by LC-MS using the electrospray ionisation in the positive-ion mode.     

Forensic analysis of a single particle of partially burnt gunpowder by solid phase micro-extraction–gas chromatography-nitrogen phosphorus detector

Solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) was adopted to extract organic gun shot residues (OGSRs) from a single particle of partially burnt gunpowder. The partially burnt particle samples were collected from gun shot residue (GSR) deposited near the target areas. OGSRs, such as diphenylamine (DPA), methyl centralite (MC), ethyl centralite (EC), from only one single particle of partially burnt gunpowder were successfully extracted by SPME and analyzed by a gas chromatography coupled to a nitrogen phosphorus detector (GC-NPD). The results confirmed that the new extraction procedure is capable of extracting trace amount of MC and EC as signature molecules for the identification of GSR. The method represents a solvent-free extraction as a complementary analytical procedure for the forensic analysis of GSR-related evidences. The new extraction scheme with the capability of analyzing single particle of partially burnt gunpowder can also be applied to the identification of explosive residues, such as in post-blast investigations of improvised explosive devices.     

Two-step growth of goethite from ferrihydrite

Goethite (alpha-FeOOH) is an antiferromagnetic iron oxyhydroxide that is often synthesized by precipitation from homogeneous, aqueous solution followed by aging. This paper addresses goethite growth by phase transformation of six-line ferrihydrite nanoparticles to goethite followed by oriented aggregation of the goethite primary particles. Data tracking goethite nanocrystal growth as a function of pH, temperature, and time is presented. In general, goethite growth by oriented aggregation is faster at higher pH and at higher temperature even as growth by coarsening becomes increasingly important as pH increases. In addition, particle size measurements demonstrate that the primary nanoparticles grow by Ostwald ripening even as they are being consumed by oriented aggregation. Finally, the use of a microwave anneal step in the preparation of the precursor six-line ferrihydrite nanoparticles substantially improves the homogeneity of the final goethite product. Final goethite nanoparticles are unaggregated, acicular crystals in the tens of nanometers size range. These particles may be ideal for mineral liquid crystal and magnetic-recording media applications.     

Orthogonal Polynomials and Second-order Differential Equations

We show that a sequence of polynomials can be eigenfunctionsof a second-order differential operator only under severe restrictions.