Location, location, location? Analysing property rents in medieval Gloucester

Although medieval rentals have been extensively studied, few scholars have used them to analyse variations in the rents paid on individual properties within a town. It has been claimed that medieval rents did not reflect economic values or market forces, but were set according to social and political rather than economic criteria, and remained ossified at customary levels. This paper uses hedonic regression methods to test whether property rents in medieval Gloucester were influenced by classic economic factors such as the location and use of a property. It investigates both rents and local rates (landgavel), and explores the relationship between the two. It also examines spatial autocorrelation. It finds significant relationships between urban rents and property characteristics that are similar to those found in modern studies. The findings are consistent with the view that, in Gloucester at least, medieval rents were strongly influenced by classical economic factors working through a competitive urban property market.

Taxes, corruption, and entry

Tax policies and corruption are important institutional considerations which can shape entrepreneurship. We investigate how tax rates, and the interaction between corruption and tax rates, influence variations in entry across a panel of 72 countries in the period 2005–2011. We use a series of panel estimations as well as several robustness checks to test these effects, using relevant controls for economic development, the size of the state, and other regulatory and tax policy measures. We find that higher tax rates consistently discourage entry. Further, we find that although the direct influence of corruption on entry is also consistently negative, the interaction influence of corruption and tax rate is positive. This indicates that corruption can offset the negative influence of high taxes on entry. We discuss the implications of our findings for policymakers and future research.

The distributional and nutritional impacts and mitigation potential of emission-based food taxes in the UK

Agriculture and food production are responsible for a substantial proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. An emission based food tax has been proposed as one option to reduce food related emissions. This study introduces a method to measure the impacts of emission based food taxes at a household level which involves the use of data augmentation to account for the fact that the data record purchases and not consumption. The method is applied to determine the distributional and nutritional impacts of an emission based food tax across socio-economic classes in the UK. We find that a tax of £2.841/tCO2e on all foods would reduce food related emissions by 6.3% and a tax on foods with above average levels of emissions would reduce emissions by 4.3%. The tax burden falls disproportionately on households in the lowest socio-economic class because they tend to spend a larger proportion of their food expenditure on emission intensive foods and because they buy cheaper products and therefore experience relatively larger price increases.

Rural property size drives patterns of upland and riparian forest retention in a tropical deforestation frontier

Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia accounts for a disproportionate global scale fraction of both carbon emissions from biomass burning and biodiversity erosion through habitat loss. Here we use field- and remote-sensing data to examine the effects of private landholding size on the amount and type of forest cover retained within economically active rural properties in an aging southern Amazonian deforestation frontier. Data on both upland and riparian forest cover from a survey of 300 rural properties indicated that 49.4% (SD = 29.0%) of the total forest cover was maintained as of 2007. and that property size is a key regional-scale determinant of patterns of deforestation and land-use change. Small properties (<= 150 ha) retained a lower proportion of forest (20.7%, SD = 17.6) than did large properties (>150 ha; 55.6%, SD = 27.2). Generalized linear models showed that property size had a positive effect on remaining areas of both upland and total forest cover. Using a Landsat time-series, the age of first clear-cutting that could be mapped within the boundaries of each property had a negative effect on the proportion of upland, riparian, and total forest cover retained. Based on these data, we show contrasts in land-use strategies between smallholders and largeholders, as well as differences in compliance with legal requirements in relation to minimum forest cover set-asides within private landholdings. This suggests that property size structure must be explicitly considered in landscape-scale conservation planning initiatives guiding agro-pastoral frontier expansion into remaining areas of tropical forest. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Longitudinal scaling property of the charge balance function in Au plus Au collisions at root s(NN)=200 GeV

We present measurements of the charge balance function, from the charged particles, for diverse pseudorapidity and transverse momentum ranges in Au + Au collisions at root S(NN) = 200 GeV using the STAR detector at RHIC. We observe that the balance function is boost-invariant within the pseudorapidity coverage vertical bar-1.3, 1.3 vertical bar. The balance function properly scaled by the width of the observed pseudorapidity window does not depend on the position or size of the pseudorapidity window. This scaling property also holds for particles in different transverse momentum ranges. In addition, we find that the width of the balance function decreases monotonically with increasing transverse momentum for all centrality classes. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reaction-diffusion systems coupled at the boundary and the Morse-Smale property

We study an one-dimensional nonlinear reaction-diffusion system coupled on the boundary. Such system comes from modeling problems of temperature distribution on two bars of same length, jointed together, with different diffusion coefficients. We prove the transversality property of unstable and stable manifolds assuming all equilibrium points are hyperbolic. To this end, we write the system as an equation with noncontinuous diffusion coefficient. We then study the nonincreasing property of the number of zeros of a linearized nonautonomous equation as well as the Sturm-Liouville properties of the solutions of a linear elliptic problem. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A stronger Dunford-Pettis property

We discuss a strong version of the Dunford-Pettis property, earlier named (DP*) property, which is shared by both l(1) and l(infinity) It is equivalent to the Dunford-Pettis property plus the fact that every quotient map onto c(0) is completely continuous. Other weak sequential continuity results on polynomials and analytic mappings related to the (DP*) property are shown.

A novel physiological property of snake bradykinin-potentiating peptides-Reversion of MK-801 inhibition of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors

The first naturally occurring angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors described are pyroglutamyl proline-rich oligopeptides, found in the venom of the viper Bothrops jararaca, and named as bradykinin-potentiating peptides (BPPs). Biochemical and pharmacological properties of these peptides were essential for the development of Captopril, the first active site-directed inhibitor of ACE, currently used for the treatment of human hypertension. However, a number of data have suggested that the pharmacological activity of BPPs could not only be explained by their inhibitory action on enzymatic activity of somatic ACE. In fact, we showed recently that the strong and long-lasting anti-hypertensive effect of BPP-10c [

Effect of polyol excess on the electrical property of vegetable-polyurethane film

Freestanding castor oil-based polyurethane (PU) film was obtained using spin-coating method. The effect of polyol content was analysed by means of thermally stimulated depolarisation current and AC dielectric measurements techniques. Two relaxation peaks were observed in the temperature range of -40 to 60 degrees C for PU with different polyol contents. The presence of polyol excess provides a shift to lower temperature of the a relaxation and the decrease in the activation energy of the transition in this region might be attributed to the plasticising effect of the polyol. The peak at higher temperature is due to the Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars relaxation, which also shifts in the low temperature direction as the polyol content is increased.

Intellectual Property Protection : an External Factor that Influences a Foreign Company’s Market Entry Mode into a Prospective Market

Intellectual Property Protection is been understood in this paper as IP laws and enforcement of these laws in order to protect intellectual property rights. The goal of this research work is to understand how Swedish companies view issues regarding to Intellectual Property Protection (IPP) and how it influences a foreign company?s market entry mode. In order to achieve this objective, the Nigerian market situation and its? laws that govern IPP will be used to analyzed this issue. This paper argues that IPP is an important factor that influences a company?s entry mode and this argument finds IP laws and enforcement as two variables that influence the market while the market situation influences the foreign company. In carrying out this research literature was reviewed and interviews carried out. The research methodology section has presented a qualitative research and explains the nature of the interview stages that have been used to achieve the goals concerning the findings of the empirical data. A qualitative method was adopted by carrying out in-depth semi-structured interviews. The empirical data collected from the investigation were gathered and analyzed based on the research questions. The findings show that IPP of a host market influences a potential foreign company through the market situation that is also influenced by IP laws and enforcement. The outcome of these findings argues that the Swedish companies that were interviewed in this research will enter the Nigerian market through an intermediary mode. This has been based on the current IPP system of Nigerian.

Module property verification : A method to plan and perform quality verifications in modular architectures

Modular product architectures have generated numerous benefits for companies in terms of cost, lead-time and quality. The defined interfaces and the module’s properties decrease the effort to develop new product variants, and provide an opportunity to perform parallel tasks in design, manufacturing and assembly. The background of this thesis is that companies perform verifications (tests, inspections and controls) of products late, when most of the parts have been assembled. This extends the lead-time to delivery and ruins benefits from a modular product architecture; specifically when the verifications are extensive and the frequency of detected defects is high. Due to the number of product variants obtained from the modular product architecture, verifications must handle a wide range of equipment, instructions and goal values to ensure that high quality products can be delivered. As a result, the total benefits from a modular product architecture are difficult to achieve. This thesis describes a method for planning and performing verifications within a modular product architecture. The method supports companies by utilizing the defined modules for verifications already at module level, so called MPV (Module Property Verification). With MPV, defects are detected at an earlier point, compared to verification of a complete product, and the number of verifications is decreased. The MPV method is built up of three phases. In Phase A, candidate modules are evaluated on the basis of costs and lead-time of the verifications and the repair of defects. An MPV-index is obtained which quantifies the module and indicates if the module should be verified at product level or by MPV. In Phase B, the interface interaction between the modules is evaluated, as well as the distribution of properties among the modules. The purpose is to evaluate the extent to which supplementary verifications at product level is needed. Phase C supports a selection of the final verification strategy. The cost and lead-time for the supplementary verifications are considered together with the results from Phase A and B. The MPV method is based on a set of qualitative and quantitative measures and tools which provide an overview and support the achievement of cost and time efficient company specific verifications. A practical application in industry shows how the MPV method can be used, and the subsequent benefits