Large Expenditures Research Articles

Forecasting the Most Likely Status of Wild Salmon in the California Central Valley in 2100

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15447/sfews.2015v13iss1art1 Since the mid-1800s the Sacramento–San Joaquin river system in the California Central Valley has experienced a dramatic decline in the distribution and abundance of wild salmon, along with many extirpations. The causes of the decline are many, and have been well studied. Despite restoration efforts spanning decades and involving large expenditures, runs of wild salmon in the Central Valley continue to decline. Using the most probable policy and ecological scenarios (i.e., effects of continued harvest, continued stocking from hatcheries, changing climate, continued human population growth and associated demands for scarce water resources) and based on expert judgment, we assessed the most likely future of wild salmon runs in the Central Valley in 2100. We posed seven open-ended questions to senior salmon science and policy experts in federal and state agencies; local, regional, and national organizations; non-governmental organizations; and universities. With a promise of complete and permanent anonymity, these experts provided answers. Most experts concluded that by 2100 wild salmon in the Central Valley will be extirpated or minimally abundant if current trends continue.

Cost evaluation of desalination and sewage treatment based on plants operated in Oman and use of software models

The performance of desalination and sewage treatment plants operated by contractors at sites of a large company in Oman was evaluated in relation to benchmark costs. Such benchmark costs, which are dependent on plant size and process used, were established based on estimates provided in research literature and based on site-specific estimates made using software models. Desalination economic evaluation program software was used to estimate site-specific costs of desalination and financing for environmental, affordable, and strategic investments that bring on large scale expenditure software was used to estimate site-specific costs of sewage treatment. The estimated site-specific benchmark cost of desalination was 1.20 US$/m3. The desalination cost subject to many variables reported in the literature ranges between 0.52 and 1.30 US$/m3. The estimated site-specific benchmark operational cost of sewage treatment up to the BOD level of 10–15 mg/L of treated water was 0.29 US$/m3. The cost of sewage water treatment, up to the BOD level of 10–15 mg/L of treated water, averages to 0.41 US$/m3 based on studies conducted. The evaluation of costs reveals that the cost of desalination and sewage treatment at the company sites was close to benchmark costs provided in the research literature as well as site-specific estimates made using software models.

The Coordination Fallacy

This symposium piece tackles an important issue in campaign finance: the relationship between coordinated expenditures and corruption. Only one form of corruption, the quid pro quo, is constitutionally significant, and it has three logical elements: (1) an actor, such as an individual or corporation, conveys value to a politician, (2) the politician conveys value to the actor, and (3) a bargain links the two. Campaign finance regulations aim to deter quid pro quos by impeding the first or third element. Limits on contributions, for example, fight corruption by capping the value an actor can convey to a politician. What about limits on coordinated expenditures? By preventing coordination on large expenditures like television ads, the law turns very useful support into less useful support, reducing the value an actor can convey. But actors can surmount this with more money: $1 million spent on less useful ads can convey a lot of value, often more than smaller amounts spent on very useful ads or contributions. Limits on coordination may also inhibit bargaining, the third element of a quid pro quo, but again, sophisticated actors can surmount this: they can bargain without discussing the substance of any expenditures. So coordination regulations cannot deter much corruption, at least not when wealthy and sophisticated actors are involved, the very actors who cause the most concern. Consequently, coordination regulations may violate the Constitution. This is not because coordinated expenditures do not corrupt but because the regulations do not deter. Solving this problem requires more than a broader set of regulations. It requires confronting a fallacy at the heart of campaign finance: the belief that coordination relates in any operational way to corruption.

Do Consumers Learn from Their Own Experiences?

It is natural to think that a household may learn from its own experiences and subsequently increase savings. This paper tests empirically the hypothesis that Japanese households learn from their experiences of large expenditure and increase their targets for precautionary savings after such experiences. The results imply that households raise their targets for precautionary savings by 4–5 percent of annual income in response to such experiences. Moreover, data are consistent with the argument that targets for savings affect actual savings. Assuming this holds, the results in this paper suggest that consumers may increase their actual savings following large expenditure.

Historical Biography for Translational Medicine: An Important Genre for Translational Science

Historical Biography for Translational Medicine: An Important Genre for Translational Science

Carbon Tax and Revenue Recycling: Impacts on Households in British Columbia

This study investigates the distributional implications of the revenue-neutral carbon tax policy in British Columbia. We use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Canadian economy and disaggregate households into deciles by annual income using data from a large household expenditure survey. Using the model, we find that the existing BC carbon tax is highly progressive even prior to consideration of the revenue recycling scheme, such that the negative impact of the carbon tax on households with below-median income are smaller than that on households with above-median income. We show that our finding is a result of welfare effects of a carbon tax being determined primarily by the source of a households' income rather than by the destination of its expenditures. Finally, we show that the existing revenue recycling scheme is also progressive. Overall, the tax appears to be highly progressive.

Fines Migration in Fractured Wells: Integrating Modeling With Field and Laboratory Data

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 165108, ’Fines Migration in Fractured Wells: Integrating Modeling With Field and Laboratory Data,’ by M. Marquez, W. Williams, and M. Knobles, Chevron, and P. Bedrikovetsky, SPE, and Z. You, SPE, University of Adelaide, prepared for the 2013 SPE European Formation Damage Conference and Exhibition, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 5-7 June. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Production and drawdown data from 10 subsea deepwater fractured wells have been modeled with an analytical model for unsteady-state flow with fines migration. The simulation results and the field data indicated a good match, within 5%. This paper describes the methodology used to integrate the modeling predictions with field and laboratory data to identify probable causes for increasing skins and declining productivity-index (PI) values. Introduction Fines migration is a complex phenomenon that can challenge the economic viability of a project because of well-productivity decline, lower-than- expected hydrocarbon recoveries per well, large capital expenditures to drill and complete additional wells, and high operating costs from suboptimal facility designs. Excessive fines production may also result in equipment erosion and corrosion, formation of hard-to-break emulsions, and plugging of flowlines and surface facilities, all leading to potential hazardous situations. This paper describes a multidisciplinary approach in which fines-migration modeling has been integrated with field and laboratory data to ascertain whether fines migration may be associated with rapidly increasing skins and declining PI values observed in a subset of deepwater fractured wells. Laboratory studies exhibit fines release and migration during coreflooding and stress testing; the field well-productivity data are well-matched with the mathematical modeling.

China's Dilemmas on the Road to Reforms Under Xi Jinping

Abstract On 15 November 2012, at the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping was elected the Party' general secretary, whereas he also became the chairman of the influential Central Military Commission. Too eager to wait to be inaugurated as President of the People' Republic of China in March 2013, the new national leader announced that in the following decade he is guided by the main objective of his predecessor Hu Jintao to double the prosperity of the people by the year 2020 and to keep the country' economy stable and growing fast. Unfortunately, it will be difficult for the new leader of China to implement his intentions, since, presumably, the country' new leadership will be from the older generation, hardliners, and, most importantly, politically conservative. But the difficulties lie in carrying out economic reforms because of rampant corruption and shadow banking in the central apparatus and in regions. According to the World Bank' analysis, China has become the world' largest economy. But the large expenditures to military reform and environmental protection are not sufficient for Xi Jinping to accomplish the goal to raise significantly the poor living standards of Chinese people. China has also faced difficulties in complying with the basic principles of its foreign policy, especially after the annexation of Crimea and its incorporation into the Russian Federation by China' strategic partner, Russia. In the past, China has carried out campaigns against “Americanization”, although with no tangible results. Thus, the leaders of today' China are faced with a number of dilemmas.

Technological literacy for students aged 6–18: a new method for holistic measuring of knowledge, capabilities, critical thinking and decision-making

Technological literacy is identified as a vital achievement of technology- and engineering-intensive education. It guides the design of technology and technical components of educational systems and defines competitive employment in technological society. Existing methods for measuring technological literacy are incomplete or complicated, unreliable, unstable and imprecise, time-consuming, and require large expenditures on resources. This paper presents a new method for valid and reliable measuring of technological literacy. The method encompasses three main components—knowledge, capabilities, and critical thinking and decision-making. It is centred on the standards for technological literacy issued by the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association. It has three key features. (1) A construct-measure-result front-ended approach, where a construct consists of an object, attribute, and entity; which causes reduction of measure-induced distortion and error. (2) A broad test range definition that provides stable and accurate measuring of technological literacy for 6–18-year-old students. (3) A genuine design approach including a multiple choice test item form determination consisting of content, criterion and construct validity, item discrimination, difficulty index, and an intraclass correlation measure for time stability and scooping its heterogeneous nature. Only the method is described herein and its pilot test results are presented. It is moderately reliable over time (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.68, p 0.7). High content validity evidence was ensured through a two-stage validation method, while test item discrimination coefficient values are acceptable (rpbis > 0.1). The method is time-efficient (measuring lasts 45 min), valid, stable, and enables holistic investigation of large sample sizes.

Characteristics of Colorado Forestry Contractors and Their Role in Current Forest Health Issues

Abstract Overcrowded forests have allowed several catastrophic wildfires to burn in Colorado. Many of these fires have received national attention and inspired large public expenditures into community wildfire mitigation projects. Forestry projects in Colorado have shifted away from traditional logging and toward service-type projects, such as forest thinning and defensible space, and Colorado's forestry contractors are essential in realizing forest management objectives in the state. Many southeastern and northeastern states conduct regular surveys of forestry contractors to better understand their attributes and ability to adapt to changing conditions. This article presents results of a Colorado forestry contractor survey conducted in 2014. Objectives of this survey were to gain statistical information about the contractors, establish a baseline for future surveys, and determine the capacity of the workforce to address the state's forest health issues. The survey revealed a diminished workforce that has struggled to find identity following policy changes and economic events of the 21st century. This survey also revealed that with the current contractor capacity, Colorado will be unable to face the many threats to forest health and prevent catastrophic wildfire.

Enhancing Algal Growth by Stimulation with LED Lighting and Ultrasound

Algae are not only rich in natural nutrients, but are also a high‐priced health food. An important constituent called “growth factor” is extracted from algae and used as an ingredient in medical drugs, foods, cosmetics, and other products. Its enormous potential market should not be taken lightly. Algae are mostly found near coastal areas and their habitats are limited by a number of natural factors, leading to large labor and financial expenditures to harvest. This report describes our study of indoor algae production using LED lights and ultrasound and manipulating other growth factors at different temperatures. Ultrasound treatment at the alga’s natural resonant frequency was varied to determine optimal algal growth using the Taguchi method to plan and to analyze the experiments. The results were very satisfying, showing an 8.23% increase in the growth rate by the fifth day due to ultrasound treatment and an amazing 27.01% growth rate due to biomechanical stimulation.

The rise of shareholder activism—what you need to know

The past few years have seen a dramatic rise in shareholder activism in Europe and the US and it is a trend becoming more common in Australia. Companies operating in the oil and gas sector have been subject to particular attention and there are a growing number of examples of this in Australia. The targets of shareholder activism range in size and performance, but are often companies with perceived board weakness, those that are considered to adhere to outdated corporate governance, those whose strategic direction is in question or those that have an under-performing share price, though other factors can also be relevant. Using these issues or concerns as a pretext, activists are increasingly focused on using tactics that allow them to exert control or exercise influence to realise returns or agitate for change in companies that: have significant assets (such as oil and gas reserves) relative to their market value; have high costs, large capital expenditures and long revenue generation lead time (such as exploration projects); or, operate in low growth or fluctuating markets (such as with the price of oil and gas). Unsurprisingly, the oil and gas sector is being increasingly seen by certain funds and investors as fertile ground for shareholder activism. The Australian legal landscape also presents shareholders with a platform from which to exert influence. For instance: shareholders are able to requisition general meetings (and resolutions to be put to those meetings) if they hold sufficient shares and put the entire board up for re-election following the introduction of the two strikes rule; and, directors are required to adhere to statutory and common law duties in responding to shareholders. Shareholder activist campaigns are often played out in public and can be highly disruptive to companies’ operations. Accordingly, directors and senior management of oil and gas companies should be aware of shareholder activism in Australia and, in the broader interests of all shareholders and their company, consider how they should respond or be ready to respond. This may be done through various processes, including testing the company’s perceived weaknesses and addressing them and having a plan to address activism should it arise.

The union of European football association’s club licensing and financial fair play regulations - are they working?

Good governance of sport is of the highest importance, particularly in professional team sports, which require large expenditure to maintain a club’s position in a league. This has led to a number of clubs, such as Portsmouth in the English Premier League, being forced into administration. Furthermore, the Global Financial Crisis has emphasised the need for more appropriate and robust corporate governance, including for sporting bodies. The Union of European Football Association (UEFA), under its president, Michel Platini, has introduced Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations. They aim to bring greater security and financial viability to the management of European football. These Regulations focus on the non-payment of liabilities to other clubs, employees, and players, and the break-even requirement. These changes emphasise the need for European football clubs to meet their financial commitments in a timely manner and operate their clubs within their income revenue, rather than from loans or investments from wealthy club patrons or owners. The regulations seek to bring financial integrity and stability to European football. The Regulations seem to have achieved this and have generally been accepted by the clubs, but they are under legal challenge before the European Court. Meanwhile, the use of the Regulations in Australia would not be appropriate, as Australian sports, including football, have developed indirect means of curbing the financial spending of clubs through the use of salary and transfer fee caps.

МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЕ УДАРА НА КОПРОВОЙ УСТАНОВКЕ ЭЛАСТОМЕРНОГО АМОРТИЗАТОРА УДАРА

Development of a new draft gear require large material expenditures. Possibility of modeling different types of tests is allowed to achieve the required performance at the design stage of shock absorber. The article deals with the modeling pile driver test as a kind of bench test. Proposes mathematical model of drop work testing of elastomer draft gear working in laminar mode fluid flowing. Received power characteristics of the device, it was found that the device have time to recover between repeated blows

Working with Gypsy and Traveller offenders

Gypsy and Traveller communities have a marginalized status in the UK, facing specific problems such as low levels of literacy, poor health outcomes and high levels of homelessness. There has been very little research into Traveller offenders’ experiences of probation, or, for that matter, of their experiences in the criminal justice system generally. In light of this, Thames Valley probation commissioned the ‘Working with Gypsies and Travellers’ study to explore the needs of Gypsy and Traveller offenders subject to probation supervision. This article highlights some of the core findings from this research, drawing on the suggestions and insights of officers and of Travellers themselves to make constructive recommendations for best-practice. Addressing the needs of Gypsy and Traveller offenders does not require large scale expenditure by the probation service. However, improved socio-cultural awareness combined with a number of modest adaptations in provision could lead to improved outcomes for this group.

A brief review of higher dietary protein diets in weight loss: a focus on athletes.

Thermodynamics dictates that for body weight (i.e. stored substrate) loss to occur a person must ingest less energy than they expend. Athletes, who owing to their oftentimes large daily energy expenditures, may have greater flexibility than non-athletes in this regard; however, they may also have different goals for weight loss. In particular, weight lost may be less important to an athlete than from which compartment the weight is lost: fat or lean. A critical question is thus, what balance of macronutrients might promote a greater fat loss, a relative retention of lean mass, and still allow athletic performance to remain uncompromised? It is the central thesis of this review that dietary protein should be a nutrient around which changes in macronutrient composition should be framed. The requirement for protein to sustain lean mass increases while in negative energy balance and protein, as macronutrient, may have advantages with respect to satiety during energy balance, and it may allow greater fat loss during a negative energy balance. However, athletes should be mindful of the fact that increasing dietary protein intake while in negative energy balance would come at the ‘expense’ of another macronutrient. Most recently there has been interest in lower carbohydrate diets, which may not allow performance to be sustained given the importance of dietary carbohydrate in high-intensity exercise. The relative merits of higher protein diets for athletes are discussed.

The "empty void" is a crowded space: health service provision at the margins of fragile and conflict affected states.

BackgroundDefinitions of fragile states focus on state willingness and capacity to ensure security and provide essential services, including health. Conventional analyses and subsequent policies that focus on state-delivered essential services miss many developments in severely disrupted healthcare arenas. The research seeks to gain insights about the large sections of the health field left to evolve spontaneously by the absent or diminished state.MethodsThe study examined six diverse case studies: Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haïti, Palestine, and Somalia. A comprehensive documentary analysis was complemented by site visits in 2011–2012 and interviews with key informants.ResultsDespite differing histories, countries shared chronic disruption of health services, with limited state service provision, and low community expectations of quality of care. The space left by compromised or absent state-provided services is filled by multiple diverse actors. Health is commoditized, health services are heterogeneous and irregular, with public goods such as immunization and preventive services lagging behind curative ones. Health workers with disparate skills, and atypical health facilities proliferate. Health care absorbs large private expenditures, sustained by households, remittances, charitable and solidarity funding, and constitutes a substantial portion of the country economy. Pharmaceutical markets thrive. Trans-border healthcare provision is prominent in most studied settings, conferring regional and sometimes true globalized characteristics to these arenas.ConclusionsWe identify three distortions in the way the global development community has considered health service provision. The first distortion is the assumption that beyond the reach of state- and donor-sponsored services is a “void”, waiting to be filled. Our analysis suggests that the opposite is the case. The second distortion relates to the inadequacy of the usual binary categories structuring conventional health system analyses, when applied to these contexts. The third distortion reflects the failure of the global development community to recognise—or engage—the emergent networks of health providers. To effectively harness the service provision currently available in this crowded space, development actors need to adapt their current approaches, engage non-state providers, and support local capacity and governance, particularly grassroots social institutions with a public-good orientation.

How should commodities be taxed? A counter-argument to the recommendation in the Mirrlees Review

The Mirrlees Review recommends that commodity taxation should in general be uniform, but with some goods consumed in conjunction with labour supply (such as child care) left untaxed. This article examines the validity of this claim in an optimal income tax framework. Contrary to the recommendation of the review, our theoretical results imply that even if all goods other than the good needed for working are separable from leisure, the optimal tax on these goods should not be uniform. Instead, commodity taxes should discourage consumption of goods with large expenditure elasticities. Our results imply that the optimal commodity tax system is dependent on the expenditure side of the government. For instance, if the government fully subsidizes the cost of the good needed for working, then commodity taxation is uniform under the standard separability assumption. Calibration exercises suggest that these results can be quantitatively important.

What Is the Level of Evidence Substantiating the Medicare Local Coverage Determinations?

Total joint arthroplasty (TJA) accounts for large expenditures of Medicare resources. Recovery audit contractors (RACs) utilize Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs) documents to retrospectively assess the medical necessity of performed procedures. The Florida LCD requires 3months of documented unsuccessful nonoperative care prior to TJA. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the applicability and quality of the evidence cited in the Florida LCD for patients undergoing TJA. Applicability was assessed by evaluating the efficacy of nonoperative treatment in candidates for TJA. There were 23 citations, of which 11 mentioned nonoperative treatment and only 5 provided references. No citations provided Level I or II evidence substantiating the effectiveness of 3months of nonoperative treatment in patients who would otherwise be candidates for TJA.

Plug-in electric vehicles in electric distribution networks: A review of smart charging approaches

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) are emerging as an efficient and sustainable alternative for private and public road transportation. From the point of view of electric grids, PEVs are currently considered as simple loads due to their low market penetration. However, as the PEV fleet grows, implementation of an intelligent management system will be necessary in order to avoid large capital expenditures in network reinforcements and negative effects on electric distribution networks, such as: voltage deviations, transformers and lines saturations, increase of electrical losses, etc. These issues may jeopardize the safety and reliability of the grid. As a consequence, this topic has been researched in many papers where a wide range of solutions have been proposed. This paper presents a review of different strategies, algorithms and methods to implement a smart charging control system. Also significant projects around the world about PEVs integration are presented. Finally, on the basis of this review, main findings and some recommendations are presented.