Resolution asking hazan to prepare inventory of property

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The White Possessive : Property, Power and Indigenous Sovereignty

The White Possessive explores the links between race, sovereignty, and possession through themes of property: owning property, being property, and becoming propertyless. Focusing on the Australian Aboriginal context, Aileen Moreton-Robinson questions current race theory in the first world and its preoccupation with foregrounding slavery and migration. The nation, she argues, is socially and culturally constructed as a white possession. Moreton-Robinson reveals how the core values of Australian national identity continue to have roots in Britishness and colonization, built on the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty. Whiteness studies are central to Moreton-Robinson’s reasoning, and she shows how blackness works as a white epistemological tool that bolsters the social production of whiteness—displacing Indigenous sovereignties and rendering them invisible in a civil rights discourse, sidestepping issues of settler colonialism. Throughout this critical examination Moreton-Robinson proposes a bold new agenda for critical Indigenous studies, one that involves deeper analysis of the prerogatives of white possession within the role of disciplines.

Minutes of meeting regarding purchase of property in Beaver Street

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Report on statement made to mayor regarding congregation's property and revenue

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Essays on the Economics of Intellectual Property Rights

Väitöskirjassani tarkastelen informaatiohyödykkeiden ja tekijänoikeuksien taloustiedettä kahdesta eri perspektiivistä. Niistä ensimmäinen kuuluu endogeenisen kasvuteorian alaan. Väitöskirjassani yleistän ”pool of knowledge” -tyyppisen endogeenisen kasvumallin tilanteeseen, jossa patentoitavissa olevalla innovaatiolla on minimikoko, ja jossa uudenlaisen tuotteen patentoinut yritys voi menettää monopolinsa tuotteeseen jäljittelyn johdosta. Mallin kontekstissa voidaan analysoida jäljittelyn ja innovaatioilta vaaditun ”minimikoon” vaikutuksia hyvinvointiin ja talouskasvuun. Kasvun maksimoiva imitaation määrä on mallissa aina nolla, mutta hyvinvoinnin maksimoiva imitaation määrä voi olla positiivinen. Talouskasvun ja hyvinvoinnin maksimoivalla patentoitavissa olevan innovaation ”minimikoolla” voi olla mikä tahansa teoreettista maksimia pienempi arvo. Väitöskirjani kahdessa jälkimmäisessä pääluvussa tarkastelen informaatiohyödykkeiden kaupallista piratismia mikrotaloustieteellisen mallin avulla. Informaatiohyödykkeistä laittomasti tehtyjen kopioiden tuotantokustannukset ovat pienet, ja miltei olemattomat silloin kun niitä levitetään esimerkiksi Internetissä. Koska piraattikopioilla on monta eri tuottajaa, niiden hinnan voitaisiin mikrotaloustieteen teorian perusteella olettaa laskevan melkein nollaan, ja jos näin kävisi, kaupallinen piratismi olisi mahdotonta. Mallissani selitän kaupallisen piratismin olemassaolon olettamalla, että piratismista saatavan rangaistuksen uhka riippuu siitä, kuinka monille kuluttajille piraatti tarjoaa laittomia hyödykkeitä, ja että se siksi vaikuttaa piraattikopioiden markkinoihin mainonnan kustannuksen tavoin. Kaupallisten piraattien kiinteiden kustannusten lisääminen on mallissani aina tekijänoikeuksien haltijan etujen mukaista, mutta ”mainonnan kustannuksen” lisääminen ei välttämättä ole, vaan se saattaa myös alentaa laillisten kopioiden myynnistä saatavia voittoja. Tämä tulos poikkeaa vastaavista aiemmista tuloksista sikäli, että se pätee vaikka tarkasteltuihin informaatiohyödykkeisiin ei liittyisi verkkovaikutuksia. Aiemmin ei-kaupallisen piratismin malleista on usein johdettu tulos, jonka mukaan informaatiohyödykkeen laittomat kopiot voivat kasvattaa laillisten kopioiden myynnistä saatavia voittoja jos laillisten kopioiden arvo niiden käyttäjille riippuu siitä, kuinka monet muut kuluttajat käyttävät samanlaista hyödykettä ja jos piraattikopioiden saatavuus lisää riittävästi laillisten kopioiden arvoa. Väitöskirjan viimeisessä pääluvussa yleistän mallini verkkotoimialoille, ja tutkin yleistämäni mallin avulla sitä, missä tapauksissa vastaava tulos pätee myös kaupalliseen piratismiin.

Studies on the Effects of Property Taxation, Rent Control and Housing Allowances

Tämä väitöskirja koostuu asuntomarkkinoiden taloustieteellistä analyysia esittelevästä johdantoluvusta ja kolmesta tutkimuksesta, joissa analysoidaan asuntomarkkinoihin vaikuttavia politiikkatoimenpiteitä. Luvussa 2 tutkitaan Suomen kiinteistöverojärjestelmän vaikutusta asuntorakentamiseen. Vuonna 2001 tehtiin uudistus, jonka myötä kunnat voivat verottaa rakentamatonta asuintonttia korkeammalla veroasteella kuin rakennettua tonttia. Maanomistajan rakentamispäätöksen teoreettisen mallin mukaan rakentamattoman tontin korotettu kiinteistöveron pitäisi nopeuttaa rakentamista, mutta toisaalta myös rakentamiseen investoitu rahamäärä saattaa muuttua. Asuintonttien kiinteistöverojen yleinen taso ei vaikuta maanomistajan käyttäytymiseen, sillä tontin verotusarvo ei riipu rakentamispäätöksestä. Vain rakentamattoman ja rakennetun tontin veroasteiden erolla on merkitystä. Empiiriset tulokset ovat sopusoinnussa teorian kanssa. Tulosten mukaan prosenttiyksikön nousu rakentamattoman ja rakennetun tontin veroasteiden erossa lisää omakotialoitusten määrää viidellä prosentilla lyhyellä aikavälillä. Luvussa 3 analysoidaan vuokrasääntelystä vuokralaisille aiheutuvia hyötyjä ja haittoja. Vuokrasäännellyissä asunnoissa asuvat kotitaloudet hyötyvät vuokrasääntelystä alhaisen vuokran muodossa. Heille saattaa kuitenkin koitua myös haittaa siitä, että toiveita vastaavan asunnon löytäminen on vuokrasääntelytilanteessa vaikeaa, koska vapaille asunnoille on suuri määrä ottajia. Vapaarahoitteisen vuokra-asuntokannan vuokrien sääntely purettiin Suomessa asteittain vuosina 1992–1995. Tutkimuksen empiiriset tulokset viittaavat siihen, että vuokrasääntelyn aiheuttamista suurista eroista halutun ja todellisen asuntokulutuksen välillä koituvat hyvinvointitappiot kumosivat merkittävän osan matalien vuokrien hyödyistä vuokralaisille. Luvussa 4 tutkitaan Suomen asumistukijärjestelmän kannustinvaikutuksia. Asumistuen määrää rajoittavat asunnon pinta-alalle ja neliövuokralle asetetut ylärajat. Neliövuokrarajoite voidaan tulkita asumisen laatua rajoittavana tekijänä. Tutkimuksen teoreettisessa osassa osoitetaan, että asumistukijärjestelmä luo vahvat kannustimet muuttaa asuntoihin, joissa pinta-ala- ja laaturajoitteet purevat. Empiiristen tulosten mukaan asumistukeen oikeutetut kotitaloudet eivät näytä reagoivan kannusteisiin. Tukeen oikeutettujen kotitalouksien asumisvalinnat suhteessa pinta-ala ja laaturajoitteisiin vastaavat muiden kotitalouksien valintoja ja asunnonvaihdon mahdollistama potentiaalinen asumistuen lisäys ei nosta muuttotodennäköisyyttä. Muuttamiseen liittyvät kustannukset ja vajavaiset tiedot tukijärjestelmästä saattavat selittää heikkoa reagointia asumistuen luomiin kannustimiin. Toinen mahdollinen selitys on asumistuen vajaakäyttö. Tutkimuksen mukaan vain 70–80 prosenttia asumistukeen oikeutetuista kotitalouksista nostaa tukea. Asumistuen hyödyntämisen todennäköisyys riippuu koulutustasosta, tuen määrästä ja tulo-odotuksista.

Statutory licences and third party dealings: Property analysis v statutory interpretation

Statutory licensing schemes are proliferating as a means of regulating commercial activity, resource exploitation and activities harmful to the environment. Statutes often declare that entitlements are non-transferable or are transferable only with approval or subject to conditions. Some entitlements, such as resource consents issued under the Resource Management Act 1991 (NZ), are declared not to be property. Despite these statutory declarations, entitlements are often held to be transferable in equity or to be property for the purposes of resolving private disputes. Recently, in Greenshell New Zealand Ltd v Tikapa Moana Enterprises Ltd, the High Court of New Zealand indicated that a resource consent was property that could support a claim for relief against forfeiture, continuing the trend in earlier cases that appear to depart from the statute. In this article we examine the juridical treatment of entitlements in private law. We identify factors influencing the courts’ enforcement of private arrangements which may circumvent the statutory intent. Our analysis will guide legislators in the design of provisions to implement new schemes.

Traditional medicinal uses and biological activities of some plant extracts of African Combretum Loefl., Terminalia L. and Pteleopsis Engl. species

In Africa various species of Combretum, Terminalia and Pteleopsis are used in traditional medicine. Despite of this, some species of these genera have still not been studied for their biological effects to validate their traditional uses. The aim of this work has been to document the ethnomedicinal uses of several species of Combretum and Terminalia in Mbeya region, south-western Tanzania, and to use this information for finding species with good antimicrobial and cytotoxic potential. During a five weeks expedition to Tanzania in spring 1999 sixteen different species of Combretum and Terminalia, as well as Pteleopsis myrtifolia were collected from various locations in the districts of Mbeya, Iringa and Dar-es-Salaam. Traditional healers in seven different villages in the Mbeya region were interviewed in Swahili and Nyakyusa on the medicinal uses of Combretum and Terminalia species shown to them. A questionnaire was used during the interviews. The results of the interviews correlated well between different villages, the same species being used in similar ways in different villages. Of the ten species shown to the healers six were frequently used for treatment of skin diseases, bacterial infections, diarrhea, oedema and wounds. The dried plants were most commonly prepared into hot water decoctions or mixed into maize porridge, Ugali. Infusions made from dried or fresh plant material were also common. Wounds and topical infections were treated with ointments made from the dried plant material mixed with sheep fat. Twenty-one extracts of six species of Combretum and four of Terminalia, collected from Tanzania, were screened for their antibacterial effects against two gram-negative and five gram-positive bacteria, as well as the yeast, Candida albicans, using an agar diffusion method. Most of the screened plants showed substantial antimicrobial activity. A methanolic root extract of T. sambesiaca showed the most potent antibacterial effects of all the plant species screened, and gave a MIC value of 0.9 mg/ml against Enterobacter aerogenes. Also root extracts of T. sericea and T. kaiserana gave excellent antimicrobial effects, and notably a hot water extract of T. sericea was as potent as extracts of this species made from EtOH and MeOH. Thus, the traditional way of preparing T. sericea into hot water decoctions seems to extract antimicrobial compounds. Thirty-five extracts of five species of Terminalia, ten of Combretum and Pteleopsis myrtifolia were screened for their antifungal effects against five species of yeast (Candida spp.) and Cryptococcus neoformans. The species differed from each other to their antifungal effects, some being very effective whereas others showed no antifungal effects. The most effective extracts showed antifungal effects comparable to the standard antibiotics itraconazol and amphotericin B. Species of Terminalia gave in general stronger antifungal effects than those of Combretum. The best effects were obtained with methanolic root extracts of T. sambesiaca, T. sericea and T. kaiserana, and this investigation indicates that decoctions of these species might be used for treatment of HIV-related fungal infections. Twenty-seven crude extracts of eight species of Combretum, five of Terminalia and Pteleopsis myrtifolia were evaluated for their cytotoxic effects against human cancer cell lines (HeLa, cervical carcinoma; MCF 7, breast carcinoma, T 24 bladder carcinoma) and one endothelial cell line (BBCE, bovine brain capillary endothelial cells). The most outstanding effects were obtained with a leaf extract of Combretum fragrans, which nearly totally inhibited the proliferation of T 24 and HeLa cells at a concentration of 25 ug/ml and inhibited 60 % of the growth of the HeLa cells at a concentration of 4.3 ug/ml. The species of Terminalia were less cytotoxically potent than the Combretum species, although T. sericea and T. sambesiaca gave good cytotoxic effects (< 30 % proliferation). In summary this study indicates that some of the species of Terminalia, Combretum and Pteleopsis, used in Tanzanian traditional medicine, are powerful inhibitors of both microbial and cancer cell growth. In depth studies would be needed to find the active compounds behind these biological activities.

Impact of wildfires and floods on property values: A before and after analysis

One of the most evident casualties of a natural disaster is the property market. The private and social costs from such events run into millions of dollars. In this paper, we use a unique dataset to examine the impact on residential house prices affected by natural disasters using a hedonic property (HP) values approach. For this purpose, we use data before and after a wildfire and floods from Rockhampton in central Queensland, Australia. The data is unique because one suburb was affected by wildfires and another was affected by floods. For the analysis, three suburbs namely Frenchville, Park Avenue and Norman Gardens are used. Frenchville was significantly affected by wildfires in the latter part of 2009 and to a lesser extent in 2012, while Park Avenue was affected by floods at the end of 2010, January 2011–2013. Norman Gardens, which was relatively unaffected, is used as a control site. This enables us to examine the before and after effects on property values in the three suburbs. The results confirm that soon after a natural disaster property prices in affected areas decrease even though the large majority of individual houses remain unaffected. Furthermore, the results indicate that the largely unaffected suburb may gain immediately after a natural disaster but this gain may disappear if natural disasters continue to occur in the area/region due to the stigma created. The results have several important policy decision and welfare implications which are briefly discussed in the paper.

Legumes or nitrification inhibitors to reduce {N2O} emissions from subtropical cereal cropping systems in Oxisols?

The DAYCENT biogeochemical model was used to investigate how the use of fertilizers coated with nitrification inhibitors and the introduction of legumes in the crop rotation can affect subtropical cereal production and {N2O} emissions. The model was validated using comprehensive multi-seasonal, high-frequency dataset from two field investigations conducted on an Oxisol, which is the most common soil type in subtropical regions. Different N fertilizer rates were tested for each N management strategy and simulated under varying weather conditions. DAYCENT was able to reliably predict soil N dynamics, seasonal {N2O} emissions and crop production, although some discrepancies were observed in the treatments with low or no added N inputs and in the simulation of daily {N2O} fluxes. Simulations highlighted that the high clay content and the relatively low C levels of the Oxisol analyzed in this study limit the chances for significant amounts of N to be lost via deep leaching or denitrification. The application of urea coated with a nitrification inhibitor was the most effective strategy to minimize {N2O} emissions. This strategy however did not increase yields since the nitrification inhibitor did not substantially decrease overall N losses compared to conventional urea. Simulations indicated that replacing part of crop N requirements with N mineralized by legume residues is the most effective strategy to reduce {N2O} emissions and support cereal productivity. The results of this study show that legumes have significant potential to enhance the sustainable and profitable intensification of subtropical cereal cropping systems in Oxisols.

Nitrification (DMPP) and urease (NBPT) inhibitors had no effect on pasture yield, nitrous oxide emissions nor nitrate leaching under irrigation in a hot-dry climate

Modern dairy farming in Australia relies on substantial inputs of fertiliser nitrogen (N) to underpin economic production. However, N lost from dairy systems represents an opportunity cost and can pose a number of environmental risks. Nitrogen cycle inhibitors can be co-applied with N fertilisers to slow the conversion of urea to NH4+ to reduce losses via volatilisation, and slow the conversion of NH4+ to NO3- to minimize leaching of NO3- and gaseous losses via nitrification and denitrification. In a field campaign in a high input ryegrass-kikuyu pasture system we compared the soil N pools, losses and pasture production between a) urea coated with the nitrification inhibitor (3,4-dimethyl pyrazole phosphate - DMPP) b) urea coated with the urease inhibitor (N-(n-butyl) thiophosphoric triamide - NBPT) and c) standard urea. There was no treatment effect (P>0.05) on soil mineral N, pasture yield, N2O flux nor leaching of NO3- cf. standard urea. We hypothesise that at our site, because gaseous losses were highly episodic (rainfall was erratic and displayed no seasonal rainfall nor soil wetting pattern) that there was a lack of coincidence of N application and conditions conducive to gaseous losses, thus the effectiveness of the inhibitor products was minimal and did not result in an increase in pasture yield. There remains a paucity of knowledge on N cycle inhibitors in relation to their effective use in field system to increase N use efficiency. Further research is required to define under what field conditions inhibitor products are effective in order to be able to provide accurate advice to managers of nitrogen in production systems.

Analysis of the amino acid sequences of plant Bowman-Birk inhibitors

Plant seeds contain a large number of protease inhibitors of animal, fungal, and bacterial origin. One of the well-studied families of these inhibitors is the Bowman-Birk family(BBI). The BBIs from dicotyledonous seeds are 8K, double-headed proteins. In contrast, the 8K inhibitors from monocotyledonous seeds are single headed. Monocots also have a 16K, double-headed inhibitor. We have determined the primary structure of a Bowman-Birk inhibitor from a dicot, horsegram, by sequential edman analysis of the intact protein and peptides derived from enzymatic and chemical cleavage. The 76-residue-long inhibitor is very similar to that ofMacrotyloma axillare. An analysis of this inhibitor along with 26 other Bowman-Birk inhibitor domains (MW 8K) available in the SWISSPROT databank revealed that the proteins from monocots and dicots belong to related but distinct families. Inhibitors from monocots show larger variation in sequence. Sequence comparison shows that a crucial disulphide which connects the amino and carboxy termini of the active site loop is lost in monocots. The loss of a reactive site in monocots seems to be correlated to this. However, it appears that this disulphide is not absolutely essential for retention of inhibitory function. Our analysis suggests that gene duplication leading to a 16K inhibitor in monocots has occurred, probably after the divergence of monocots and dicots, and also after the loss of second reactive site in monocots.