An economic air pollution control model-application : photochemical smog in Los Angeles County in 1975

An economic air pollution control model, which determines the least cost of reaching various air quality levels, is formulated. The model takes the form of a general, nonlinear, mathematical programming problem. Primary contaminant emission levels are the independent variables. The objective function is the cost of attaining various emission levels and is to be minimized subject to constraints that given air quality levels be attained.

The model is applied to a simplified statement of the photochemical smog problem in Los Angeles County in 1975 with emissions specified by a two-dimensional vector, total reactive hydrocarbon, (RHC), and nitrogen oxide, (NO_x), emissions. Air quality, also two-dimensional, is measured by the expected number of days per year that nitrogen dioxide, (NO₂), and mid-day ozone, (O₃), exceed standards in Central Los Angeles.

The minimum cost of reaching various emission levels is found by a linear programming model. The base or "uncontrolled" emission levels are those that will exist in 1975 with the present new car control program and with the degree of stationary source control existing in 1971. Controls, basically "add-on devices", are considered here for used cars, aircraft, and existing stationary sources. It is found that with these added controls, Los Angeles County emission levels [(1300 tons/day RHC, 1000 tons /day NO_x) in 1969] and [(670 tons/day RHC, 790 tons/day NO_x) at the base 1975 level], can be reduced to 260 tons/day RHC (minimum RHC program) and 460 tons/day NO_x (minimum NO_x program).

"Phenomenological" or statistical air quality models provide the relationship between air quality and emissions. These models estimate the relationship by using atmospheric monitoring data taken at one (yearly) emission level and by using certain simple physical assumptions, (e. g., that emissions are reduced proportionately at all points in space and time). For NO₂, (concentrations assumed proportional to NO_x emissions), it is found that standard violations in Central Los Angeles, (55 in 1969), can be reduced to 25, 5, and 0 days per year by controlling emissions to 800, 550, and 300 tons /day, respectively. A probabilistic model reveals that RHC control is much more effective than NO_x control in reducing Central Los Angeles ozone. The 150 days per year ozone violations in 1969 can be reduced to 75, 30, 10, and 0 days per year by abating RHC emissions to 700, 450, 300, and 150 tons/day, respectively, (at the 1969 NO_x emission level).

The control cost-emission level and air quality-emission level relationships are combined in a graphical solution of the complete model to find the cost of various air quality levels. Best possible air quality levels with the controls considered here are 8 O₃ and 10 NO₂ violations per year (minimum ozone program) or 25 O₃ and 3 NO₂ violations per year (minimum NO₂ program) with an annualized cost of $230,000,000 (above the estimated $150,000,000 per year for the new car control program for Los Angeles County motor vehicles in 1975).

Essays in Behavioral Decision Theory

This thesis studies decision making under uncertainty and how economic agents respond to information. The classic model of subjective expected utility and Bayesian updating is often at odds with empirical and experimental results; people exhibit systematic biases in information processing and often exhibit aversion to ambiguity. The aim of this work is to develop simple models that capture observed biases and study their economic implications.

In the first chapter I present an axiomatic model of cognitive dissonance, in which an agent's response to information explicitly depends upon past actions. I introduce novel behavioral axioms and derive a representation in which beliefs are directionally updated. The agent twists the information and overweights states in which his past actions provide a higher payoff. I then characterize two special cases of the representation. In the first case, the agent distorts the likelihood ratio of two states by a function of the utility values of the previous action in those states. In the second case, the agent's posterior beliefs are a convex combination of the Bayesian belief and the one which maximizes the conditional value of the previous action. Within the second case a unique parameter captures the agent's sensitivity to dissonance, and I characterize a way to compare sensitivity to dissonance between individuals. Lastly, I develop several simple applications and show that cognitive dissonance contributes to the equity premium and price volatility, asymmetric reaction to news, and belief polarization.

The second chapter characterizes a decision maker with sticky beliefs. That is, a decision maker who does not update enough in response to information, where enough means as a Bayesian decision maker would. This chapter provides axiomatic foundations for sticky beliefs by weakening the standard axioms of dynamic consistency and consequentialism. I derive a representation in which updated beliefs are a convex combination of the prior and the Bayesian posterior. A unique parameter captures the weight on the prior and is interpreted as the agent's measure of belief stickiness or conservatism bias. This parameter is endogenously identified from preferences and is easily elicited from experimental data.

The third chapter deals with updating in the face of ambiguity, using the framework of Gilboa and Schmeidler. There is no consensus on the correct way way to update a set of priors. Current methods either do not allow a decision maker to make an inference about her priors or require an extreme level of inference. In this chapter I propose and axiomatize a general model of updating a set of priors. A decision maker who updates her beliefs in accordance with the model can be thought of as one that chooses a threshold that is used to determine whether a prior is plausible, given some observation. She retains the plausible priors and applies Bayes' rule. This model includes generalized Bayesian updating and maximum likelihood updating as special cases.

Socio-economic implications of the fish export trade on the fishers and fisheries of Lake Victoria in Uganda

The purpose of this study was to investigate the implications of the fish export trade on the fishers and the fisheries resources of Lake Victoria, Uganda with respect to sustainability. Eight fish processing factories and ninety fishers were qualitatively investigated. Socio-economic characteristics of fishers and the economic characteristics of fish factories formed a basis for the analysis. Results of the research indicate that there is a relationship between the growth in fish export trade, particularly the growth in industrial fish processing (for export) and declining fisheries resources of the lake. However, whether or not that impact is positive or negative, and to what extent there is an impact, is highly dependent upon the underlying socio-economic considerations of the fishers to the process. The fish-ban imposed by the European Union countries was particularly decried by fishers and factory owners as the main cause for the present poverty among the fishers. Fundamentally, several conflicting issues: ecological, physical and economic activities are a threat to the sustainability of the Lake Victoria fisheries, and for all that depend on and interact with the lake. There is urgent need to address the immediate issue of the growing riparian population and the global fish trade, to educate and train all the relevant actors in appropriate fisheries management techniques. Attitudes of fishers towards the fish factory developments are positive and this is a way forward for co-management for the sustainability of the fisheries resource.

A brief study of economic Penstock design : Supplementary to Course 800, Department of Civil Engineering

No abstract.

Social, economic, and health impact of the respiratory syncytial virus: a systematic search

Background: Bronchiolitis caused by the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and its related complications are common in infants born prematurely, with severe congenital heart disease, or bronchopulmonary dysplasia, as well as in immunosuppressed infants. There is a rich literature on the different aspects of RSV infection with a focus, for the most part, on specific risk populations. However, there is a need for a systematic global analysis of the impact of RSV infection in terms of use of resources and health impact on both children and adults. With this aim, we performed a systematic search of scientific evidence on the social, economic, and health impact of RSV infection. Methods: A systematic search of the following databases was performed: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Spanish Medical Index, MEDES-MEDicina in Spanish, Cochrane Plus Library, and Google without time limits. We selected 421 abstracts based on the 6,598 articles identified. From these abstracts, 4 RSV experts selected the most relevant articles. They selected 65 articles. After reading the full articles, 23 of their references were also selected. Finally, one more article found through a literature information alert system was included. Results: The information collected was summarized and organized into the following topics: 1. Impact on health (infections and respiratory complications, mid-to long-term lung function decline, recurrent wheezing, asthma, other complications such as otitis and rhino-conjunctivitis, and mortality; 2. Impact on resources (visits to primary care and specialists offices, emergency room visits, hospital admissions, ICU admissions, diagnostic tests, and treatments); 3. Impact on costs (direct and indirect costs); 4. Impact on quality of life; and 5. Strategies to reduce the impact (interventions on social and hygienic factors and prophylactic treatments). Conclusions: We concluded that 1. The health impact of RSV infection is relevant and goes beyond the acute episode phase; 2. The health impact of RSV infection on children is much better documented than the impact on adults; 3. Further research is needed on mid-and long-term impact of RSV infection on the adult population, especially those at high-risk; 4. There is a need for interventions aimed at reducing the impact of RSV infection by targeting health education, information, and prophylaxis in high-risk populations.

Para além da Tragédia do Comum. Conflito e produção de subjetividade no capitalismo contemporâneo

A presente tese investiga as dimensões históricas, filosóficas e políticas do conceito de comum, a partir de uma problematização influenciada pelos estudos marxistas heterodoxos e pelo pensamento de Michel Foucault. O percurso teórico inicia com a análise da hipótese da tragédia do comum, veiculado por Garret Hardin em um famoso artigo na Revista Science, em 1968. O desenvolvimento posterior busca compreender tal formulação a partir das análises foucaultianas sobre a arte de governar liberal e ngeoliberal, com ênfase nos conceitos de biopolítica e produção de subjetividade. Esse campo de análise é preenchido por estudos da corrente denominada bioeconomia, que busca entrelaçar a biopolítica com a compreensão das atuais formas de crise e acumulação capitalistas. A partir de uma pesquisa que se direciona para o campo definido como marxismo heterodoxo, busca-se estudar a relação entre o comum e os novos modos de acumulação primitiva, percebendo como o primeiro conceito passa a ocupar progressivamente essa corrente de estudos críticos. Nesse domínio, enfatiza-se a concepção de acumulação primitiva social e de subjetividade, com base em estudos de Karl Marx (Grundrisse), Antonio Negri e Jason Read. O último capítulo é dedicado ao conceito de produção do comum, tendo como ponto de partida o trabalho de Jean-Luc-Nancy e, principalmente, as investigações de Antonio Negri e Michael Hardt. O comum aparece como conceito central para a compreensão da produção biopolítica da riqueza social no capitalismo contemporâneo, e também sua expropriação por novos modos de acumulação. Por outro lado, o comum também emerge como antagonismo ao capital e à dicotomia público-privado, apontando para novas formas de compreender o comunismo.

Inserção internacional no governo Lula o papel da política africana

O arco geográfico de atuação internacional de um país se delimita a partir das linhas de ação traçadas pela política externa. No caso brasileiro, o continente africano é percebido pelo pensamento diplomático como espaço privilegiado para a presença internacional do Brasil, em vista dos laços históricos e culturais, além de complementaridades econômicas e políticas. Essa percepção apresentou oscilações ao longo dos anos, nas relações Brasil-África, em uma dinâmica de maior aproximação ou afastamento, em vista de conjunturas internacionais e domésticas de ambos os lados. Nos últimos anos, ao longo do governo de Lula da Silva no Brasil, esse movimento convergiu para o estreitamento de laços e estabelecimento de parcerias e acordos de cooperação diversos. A compreensão desse processo, bem como de seus desdobramentos iniciais, é o que se pretende tratar na dissertação ora apresentada. Ao arguir acerca da relevância das relações diplomáticas do Brasil com países africanos, a presente dissertação baseou-se em levantamento de dados de comércio exterior, análise de discurso diplomático, leitura de reflexões de especialistas e acompanhamento dos desdobramentos suscitados pela valorização do continente africano para a política externa brasileira. A pesquisa efetuada encaminhou-se para o levantamento da hipótese acerca da assertividade e pragmatismo da política africana de Lula da Silva, em vista de seus resultados e vínculos com o interesse nacional.

The impact of economic crises on social inequalities in health: what do we know so far?

Since 2008, Western countries are going through a deep economic crisis whose health impacts seem to be fundamentally counter-cyclical: when economic conditions worsen, so does health, and mortality tends to rise. While a growing number of studies have presented evidence on the effect of crises on the average population health, a largely neglected aspect of research is the impact of crises and the related political responses on social inequalities in health, even if the negative consequences of the crises are primarily borne by the most disadvantaged populations. This commentary will reflect on the results of the studies that have analyzed the effect of economic crises on social inequalities in health up to 2013. With some exceptions, the studies show an increase in health inequalities during crises, especially during the Southeast Asian and Japanese crises and the Soviet Union crisis, although it is not always evident for both sexes or all health or socioeconomic variables. In the Nordic countries during the nineties, a clear worsening of health equity did not occur. Results about the impacts of the current economic recession on health equity are still inconsistent. Some of the factors that could explain this variability in results are the role of welfare state policies, the diversity of time periods used in the analyses, the heterogeneity of socioeconomic and health variables considered, the changes in the socioeconomic profile of the groups under comparison in times of crises, and the type of measures used to analyze the magnitude of social inequalities in health. Social epidemiology should further collaborate with other disciplines to help produce more accurate and useful evidence about the relationship between crises and health equity.

Análisis de la desigualdad económica en los municipios del País Vasco agrupados por tamaño de la población. Economic Inequality in the municipalities of the Basque Country aggregated by population size.

This paper analyses the economic inequality in the municipalities of the Basque Country during the period 1996 and 2010. We have used dates from the Udalmap database mainly the GDP per capita. We have drawn Lorenz Curves and also we have computed Gini indexes to analyse the evolution of inequality during this period. Therefore, we have concluded that there has been an increase of the economic inequality in the municipalities of the Basque Country during this period of time.

Economic analysis of the privatization of publicly-owned firms

modelo económico sobre la privatización de Telefónica

Financial and Economic Report of a Specific Business Group

As a result of the natural evolution of the economy, ever-changing, unpredictable and cyclical, companies must adapt as far as possible to the changes that have taken place in order to continue with their normal operating activities. Likewise, they should also try to maintain a structure for long-term growth, trying at all times to generate the maximum value. The main objective of this project is to provide financial advisory services to a business group, trying to forward solutions and measures that according to the author can be effective. For this end, the situation of the group in question is analysed from early 2008 to the present day, examining its evolution, what steps have been taken together with their corresponding results and the economic-financial situation of the company at the end of last year. Contact with the company was kept throughout the process of analysis and assessment trying to take advantage of the feedback generated so that the appropriate measures can be adopted if the management considers it to be adequate.

Salmon action plan. River Ribble - June 2000

In February 1996 A Strategy for the Management of Salmon in England and Wales was launched by the National Rivers Authority. The strategy concentrates on four main objectives for the management of salmon fisheries in England and Wales: (i) Optimise the number of salmon returning to home water fisheries, (ii) Maintain and improve the fitness and diversity of salmon stocks, (iii) Optimise the total economic value of surplus stocks, (iv) Ensure necessary costs are met by beneficiaries. These four objectives will be addressed through local Salmon Action Plans (SAPs) which will be produced for each of the principle salmon rivers in England and Wales by the year 2001. A consultation report was produced for the River Ribble and released publicly in October 1999. This document determined an egg deposition figure of 8.5 million eggs for the Ribble, that would allow maximum gain from the net and rod fisheries; raised a number of issues which are thought to currently limit salmon production; identified actions which may be undertaken by the Environment Agency and other bodies to improve stocks. This action plan re-addresses the issues raised in the consultation document, taking into account the comments received, and also identifies areas of possible improvement in data gathering that would allow more accurate estimation of the spawning target and compliance in future years. The progress of this plan will be monitored and reported annually.

Relação universidade e desenvolvimento regional: possibilidades e comprometimentos

Esta tese tem como objetivo investigar os modos de articulação da produção e socialização do conhecimento na perspectiva do tratamento de problemáticas regionais, e sua relação com as políticas acadêmicas na Universidade Federal Fluminense em função de sua inserção na região onde se constrói, atualmente, o Complexo Petroquímico do Estado do Rio de Janeiro COMPERJ. Parte da concepção de universidade de Karl Jaspers, considerada um modelo neo-humboltiano, para depois situar o pensamento educacional de Anísio Teixeira, Florestan Fernandes e Darcy Ribeiro, como base para a formação da ideia de universidade no Brasil. As contribuições de diferentes autores sobre a formação das universidades brasileiras, o contexto histórico, social e econômico em que se inserem e como discutem os conceitos de indissociabilidade entre ensino e pesquisa, autonomia universitária e legitimidade da universidade são apresentas. Tendo como referência autores que se preocupam com as transformações impostas à sociedade pelo uso intensivo da tecnologia, pelas mudanças na dinâmica territorial, pela reorganização do espaço geográfico, pelo crescimento das desigualdades nas cidades, apresenta-se contribuições para o diálogo com o objeto de estudo. Por se tratar de objeto em construção, escolheu-se a pesquisa qualitativa como metodologia de estudo, por permitir captar, no seu próprio movimento, um conjunto de processos de mudanças institucionais no mesmo momento de sua manifestação. O estudo demonstrou possibilidades de interlocução bastante profícuas, com resultados expressivos na direção da produção do saber novo, contextualizado, ao apresentar a relação desses estudos e pesquisas com o ensino e a extensão praticados pelos docentes. Se, no entanto, para que se crie um clima competição interlocal visando atrair capitais privados e recursos de programas do governo federal, forem impostas condições que coloquem em risco a liberdade intelectual e a autonomia universitária, o projeto de universidade que se defende estará irremediavelmente comprometido. Espera-se que o resultado desta pesquisa possa contribuir com as discussões teóricas referentes ao papel da universidade na sociedade.

Três décadas de Prado e Barreto: a política municipal em Sobral, do golpe militar à Nova República (1963-96)

O presente estudo investiga a história política de Sobral no período entre 1963-1996. Ao longo dessas décadas, o executivo municipal esteve sob a liderança dos grupos políticos Prado e Barreto que se revezaram na direção do poder local na vigência do Regime Militar no Brasil, sobrevivendo ainda uma década do fim da ditadura. Para alguns analistas, foram três décadas de estagnação econômica e política, mas para outros, foi um período de importantes investimentos infraestruturais, com resultados positivos ainda hoje. O objetivo desta tese é compreender as mudanças e permanências ocorridas na cidade de Sobral ao longo da gestão desses administradores. A investigação está balizada pelo referencial teórico-metodológico da Nova História Política que, embora não tenha a pretensão de afirmar que tudo é político, compreende que o político é o lugar para onde conflui a maioria das atividades humanas. O conceito de cultura política, pensada como conjunto coerente de elementos que permite definir uma forma de identidade do indivíduo que dela se reclama; é aqui o instrumento de análise do objeto proposto. As fontes analisadas foram documentos do Poder Executivo, do Poder Legislativo e do Judiciário, além de periódicos, peça de teatro, fotografias, vídeos, depoimentos, entre muitos outros materiais que permitiram elucidar as questões propostas a esta investigação.