Social costs and incentives for optimal control of soil nutrient depletion in the central highlands of Ethiopia

This study analysed trade-offs between short- and long-term objectives of soil use by smallholder teff farmers in Ethiopia. Compared to socially optimal solutions it was found that smallholder farmers discount the future at higher private rates leading to overexploitation of soil nutrients. Current soil conservation efforts, however, are well above static optimization levels suggesting smallholder farmers consider the long-term (dynamic) costs of soil degradation. There is evidence of high social gains from better utilization of soil resources through appropriate policy such as tenure security, to improve incentives for smallholder farmers to adjust input use towards socially desirable dynamic optimization levels.     

Determining the disaggregated economic value of irrigation water in the Musi sub-basin in India

In this paper the residual method is used to determine the disaggregated economic value of irrigation water used in agriculture across crops, zones and seasons. This method relies on the belief that the value of a good (its price by its quantity) is equal to the summation of the quantity of each input multiplied by its average value. By applying this method to the Musi sub-basin; a subdivision of the Krishna basin in India, it was found that the value of irrigation water use is not equated across the crops, zones and seasons. The reasons why there is no sinlge value of irrigation water use are suggested. As farmers do not have perfect knowledge, do not all possess the same resource base, plant different crops for a variety of reasons (some for a financial return on land instead of water and others for sustenance), possess different crop rotation practices and are possibly riks adverse, they all value water differently. However, the results need to be interpreted with care as the crop with the lowest return to water is probably not the one to be sacrificed if water is restricted, since farmers plant crops for a variety of reasons (and sometimes not for the highest return to water that they can achieve).     

农资电子交易平台的身份认证研究与实现

通过分析比较网络安全中常用的身份认证方式,针对农资电子交易中的实际需求,结合常用认证方式的优缺点提出了一种新的综合身份认证方式,并介绍了该认证方式的实现方法。该认证方式将静态口令、手机口令和数字证书三者相结合,提高了身份认证的可靠性。分析结果表明,这种身份认证方式能够较好地保证电子交易的安全。     

Impact of Caligus treatments on unit costs of heterogeneous salmon farms in Chile

We measure the impact that sanitary treatments that control ectoparasite Caligus rogercresseyi abundance have on unit production costs of Salmo salar farms in Chile. We follow complete production cycles for a sample of farms between 2009 and 2015. We estimate a simultaneous salmon biomass growth and Caligus abundance model. The statistical analysis determines the effect of antiparasitic treatments, location of farms, environmental conditions and Caligus abundance on the salmon growth profile. Using outside cost information, we simulate how unit production costs vary by treatment and farm characteristics. Our results suggest that unit production costs increase on average by $1.4?US/kg with Caligus and treatments. Treatment costs are compensated by higher harvesting levels, and unit production costs are invariant to the situation without treatment. All estimated effects differ depending on farm’s environmental and spatial conditions, suggesting that the design of cost-effective intervention calls for discriminatory regulation under heterogeneous conditions.     

DNA‐analysis to monitor fisheries and aquaculture: Too costly?

Evidence from DNA‐analysis is commonplace in human criminal investigations, and while it is increasingly being used in wildlife crime, to date, its application to control and enforcement activities in fisheries and aquaculture has only been sporadic. Contemporary DNA‐analysis tools are capable of addressing a broad range of compliance issues, species identification, mislabelling of fish products, determining the origin of catches and the farm of origin of aquaculture escapees. Such applications have the potential to ensure traceability along the fish product supply chain and to combat consumer fraud and Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing. Nevertheless, DNA‐analysis is not yet used routinely in investigations into compliance with fisheries and aquaculture legislation. One potential reason for this is that DNA‐analysis techniques may have been regarded as too expensive. However, costs have plummeted over the past decade prompting us to objectively assess whether the costs associated with routine use of DNA‐analysis techniques for fisheries and aquaculture control and enforcement activities do constitute an impediment. Based on a number of recent fisheries and aquaculture compliance investigations that incorporated DNA‐analysis, our results indicate that the use of genetic analysis was justified and worthwhile in all cases examined. We therefore conclude that the costs associated with DNA‐analysis do not represent a barrier to the routine adoption of DNA‐analysis techniques in fisheries and aquaculture compliance investigations. Thus, control and enforcement agencies should be encouraged to use such techniques routinely.     

活立木市场交易价格影响因素研究

基于2018—2020年浙江省龙泉市900宗活立木交易数据,采用半对数多元线性回归模型研究木材市场价格、单位面积蓄积、林分质量等因素对活立木交易价格的影响。结果表明,龙泉市活立木交易平均价格为3 976元/hm²,木材市场价格、单位面积蓄积、单位面积株数、平均胸径对活立木交易价格有显著的正向影响;流入方性质和流出方性质对活立木交易价格有显著影响,且影响存在差异性。提出规范木材市场交易,加强森林资源评估工作,提升交易的公平性,全面推进林权抵押贷款等建议。     

A comprehensive approach for assessing the economic contribution of forage and livestock improvement options to smallholder farming enterprises

The importance of livestock production activities to improving the livelihoods of smallholder farming households and the efficiency of their underlying farming systems is increasingly recognized.A rapid increase in livestock numbers, especially beef cattle, and special purpose forages is being promoted for smallholder farms which have traditionally undertaken subsistence cropping activities or simple livestock rearing activities using low quality feedstuffs.Because limited plantings of specialized forages combined with a poor knowledge of animal nutrition are a challenge to establishing sustainable livestock enterprises, much public policy and research is now being focused on the use of new forages and improved feeding practices.A number of economic studies have suggested that specialized forage growing and livestock feeding activities can make a positive contribution to smallholder welfare.The studies have typically compared the total level of farm or household income with and without livestock activities.Little attention is given to how much the new forage or livestock activities actually contribute to or draw resources from other farm activities to assess their real economic contribution to the enterprise, and the availability of simple tools to assist in making such assessments are limited.This paper describes a simple modelling approach that was developed for an Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research(ACIAR)-supported project to explore the real as opposed to apparent economic impact of integrating improved forages and livestock within smallholder farming systems in the Red Soils region of south-central China.Application of the model is demonstrated using a simple case study of a smallholder enterprise that plans to introduce a new beef cattle rearing activity to its existing farm activity mix.The case study highlights the importance of explicitly valuing transfers of resources between different farm activities to gauge the real contribution of those activities to economic returns.     

城市居民对森林碳汇的认知及参与意愿的实证分析——以哈尔滨市为例

我国碳汇市场的建立从理论阶段开始进入市场阶段,企业与个人成为交易的主体是必然的趋势。文章从这一角度出发,采用问卷调查法,运用logistic模型对哈尔滨城市居民参与森林碳汇的意愿进行实证分析,得出结论并给出建议。     

Hematological differences between stingrays at tourist and non-visited sites suggest physiological costs of wildlife tourism

Wildlife tourism alters the environmental conditions in which the focal animal lives, and it is therefore necessary to assess the ability of the animal to adjust to and persist in these novel conditions if the industry is to be sustainable. Here, we report on the physiological responses of southern stingrays (Dasyatis americana) which are the focus of intense marine provisioning-tourism in the Cayman Islands. Using stingrays from non-tourist sites about Grand Cayman as a basis for comparison, we show in this natural experiment that tourist-exposed stingrays exhibit hematological changes indicative of physiological costs of wildlife tourism. The novel conditions with which the stingrays must interact include non-natural food, higher injury rates (from boats, conspecifics and predators), and higher parasite loads (from crowding conditions). As a result of this year-round environment, stingrays display sub-optimal health: lower hematocrit, total serum protein concentrations, and oxidative stress (i.e., lower total antioxidant capacity combined with higher total oxidative status). Moreover, they show evidence of attenuation of the defense system: for tourist stingrays only, animals possessing both injuries and high parasite loads also exhibit lowest leukocrit, serum proteins and antioxidant potential, as well as differing proportions of differential leukocytes indicative of suppression (lymphocytes and heterophils) and down-regulation (eosinophils), thus suggesting that the physiological changes of tourist stingrays are in partial response to these stressors. While survival- and reproduction- quantification was not possible in this long-lived marine species, the physiological measures -situated within ecological context, indicate that the long-term health and survival of tourist stingrays have a significant probability of being affected. Consequently, management of the tourism attraction is essential. The indicators chosen in this study reflect general health indices and defense capabilities used across taxa, and represent a tradeoff between ease of collection/analysis and interpretation so that managers can continue the research for monitoring purposes.     

基于移动Agent的分布式事务模型的研究

传统的分布式事务模型都是基于Client／Server(C／S)的,C／S模型在并发度和系统规模方面都受到一定限制。本文作者在分析了Agent技术的基础上,将Agent技术用于分布式事务模型的建立,提出了基于Agent技术的分布式事务模型,在该模型中,事务是用Agent实现的。由于Agent具有自治性、移动性和通信性,使得事务的执行效率更高,尤其适用于大规模的分布式数据库系统中。