Understanding Human Development Potentials and Demands for Greenhouse Gas Emissions:with Empirical Analysis using time series and cross-sectional data

Based on an investigation of the meaning of development, the neo-classical economic approach to development, and the post-welfarist theory of development, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding human development potentials, while undertaking empirical analysis using cross-sectional and time series data on human development. Human development is associated with basic necessities for subsistence, the quality of life, and political and civil rights, in addition to income indicators. Our analysis suggests that the concept of human development potentials has two dimensions: the rights of development and limits to human development. Both are largely ignored in the neoclassical theory of development. However, human development is not unbounded, which approaches to a relatively fixed constant at given economic, technological and institutional conditions. This conceptual understanding is supported by results from the empirical examination of the relationships between demands for carbon emis     

集中式污水厂重金属排放限值及其控制进展研究

介绍了中国集中式污水厂污水处理现状,主要包括污水厂进出水监测指标和进出水水质指标设计不足,重金属处理效果不明显;同时对国外污水处理现状以及重金属排放限值进行比较,探讨了中国污水处理厂污水中重金属排放限值及控制的问题,污水中重金属处理工艺未设计,进出水水质指标未将重金属指标纳入设计中,重金属排放限值远高于发达国家限值.结合现状分析,提出加强污水处理厂重金属源头控制与排放限值监管的相关建议,以确保排放水体的环境安全.     

The Environmental Limits to Globalization

Abstract:  Criticisms of globalization have been largely based on its socioeconomic effects, but the environmental impacts of globalization are equally important. These include acceleration of climate change; drawdown of global stocks of cheap energy; substantial increases in air, water, and soil pollution; decreases in biodiversity, including a massive loss of crop and livestock varieties; depletion of ocean fisheries; and a significant increase in invasions of exotic species, including plant, animal, and human pathogens. Because of negative feedback from these changes, the future of globalization itself is bleak. The environmental and social problems inherent in globalization are completely interrelated—any attempt to treat them as separate entities is unlikely to succeed in easing the transition to a postglobalized world.     

Continuous dose-response modeling and risk analysis with the gamma and reciprocal gamma distributions

Kodell and West (1993) describe two methods for calculating pointwise upper confidence limits on the risk function with normally distributed responses and using a certain definition of adverse quantitative effect. But Banga et al. (2000) have shown that these normal theory methods break down when applied to skew data. We accordingly develop a risk analysis model and associated likelihood-based methodology when the response follows either a gamma or reciprocal gamma distribution. The model supposes that the shape (index) parameter k of the response distribution is held fixed while the logarithm of the scale parameter is a linear model in terms of the dose level. Existence and uniqueness of the maximum likelihood estimates is established. Asymptotic likelihood-based upper and lower confidence limits on the risk are solutions of the Lagrange equations associated with a constrained optimization problem. Starting values for an iterative solution are obtained by replacing the Lagrange equations by the lowest order terms in their asymptotic expansions. Three methods are then compared for calculating confidence limits on the risk: (i) the aforementioned starting values (LRAL method), (ii) full iterative solution of the Lagrange equations (LREL method), and (iii) bounds obtained using approximate normality of the maximum likelihood estimates with standard errors derived from the information matrix (MLE method). Simulation is used to assess coverage probabilities for the resulting upper confidence limits when the log of the scale parameter is quadratic in the dose level. Results indicate that coverage for the MLE method can be off by as much as 15% points and converges very slowly to nominal coverage levels as the sample size increases. Coverage for the LRAL and LREL methods, on the other hand, is close to nominal levels unless (a) the sample size is small, say N < 25, (b) the index parameter is small, say k 1, and (c) the direction of adversity is to the left for the gamma distribution or to the right for the reciprocal gamma distribution.     

Direct calculation of likelihood-based benchmark dose levels for quantitative responses

A benchmark dose (BMD) for quantitative responses is a lower confidence limit (LCL) on the effective dose corresponding to a specified risk level r. A commonly adopted method for calculating the BMD is to obtain a pointwise upper confidence curve U(d) on the risk function and then invert this relationship by solving the equation U(d)=r. The solution d is taken to be the BMD. Sciullo et al. (2000) have shown that the coverage achieved by this inversion method is at least as great as the coverage achieved by U (·) but that there is otherwise no general relationship between the two coverage probabilities. The present paper develops a method for direct calculation of the BMD based on the asymptotic distribution of the likelihood ratio statistic. It is further shown that the direct method and the inversion method are equivalent when U (·) is also based on the likelihood ratio. Since the direct method is known to be asymptotically correct, it follows that the LR-based inversion method is also asymptotically correct. However, the direct method is computationally faster and easier to program. Finally, some simulation studies are conducted to assess the small sample coverage probabilities of the direct method when responses follow either a normal or a gamma distribution.     

Meeting Concentration Targets in the Post-Kyoto World: Does Kyoto Further a Least Cost Strategy?

Preliminary analysis based on an aggregate model of global carbon emissions suggests that constraining emissions to the levels that would be imposed by compliance with the results of the Kyoto negotiations can increase the discounted cost of ultimately limiting atmospheric concentrations. Kyoto targets can be either too restrictive or too permissive depending upon the (currently unknown) trajectory of carbon emissions over the near- to medium-term and the (as yet unspecified) concentration target that frames long-term policy. The discounted cost of meeting low concentration targets like 450 ppmv. is diminished by allowing large sinks and/or by imposing more restrictive near-term emissions benchmarks (even if only Annex B countries are bound by the Kyoto accord). Conversely, the cost of achieving high concentration targets like 650 ppmv. is diminished by disallowing sinks and/or by imposing less restrictive emissions benchmarks. Intermediate concentration targets like 550 ppmv. look like high concentration targets (favoring no sinks and expanded near-term emissions) along low emissions paths; but they look like low concentration targets (favoring the opposite) along high emissions paths. Emissions trajectories that lie above the median, but not excessively so, represent cases for which adjustments in the Kyoto emissions benchmarks and/or negotiated allowances for sinks have the smallest effect on the cost of mitigation.     

Threatened Peripheral Populations in Context: Geographical Variation in Population Frequency and Size and Sexual Reproduction in a Clonal Woody Shrub

Abstract:  Geographically peripheral populations of widespread species are often the focus of conservation because they are locally rare within political jurisdictions. Yet the ecology and genetics of these populations are rarely evaluated in a broader geographic context. Most expectations concerning the ecology and evolution of peripheral populations derive from the abundant-center model, which predicts that peripheral populations should be less frequent, smaller, less dense, and have a lower reproductive rate than central populations. We tested these predictions and in doing so evaluated the conservation value of peripheral populations for the clonal shrub Vaccinium stamineum L. (Ericaceae, deerberry), which is listed as threatened in Canada. Based on 51 populations sampled from the center to the northern range limits over 2 years, population frequency and size declined toward the range limit, but ramet density increased. Sexual reproductive output varied widely among populations and between years, with many populations producing very few seeds, but did not decline toward range margins. In fact seed mass increased steadily toward range limit, and this was associated with faster germination and seedling growth, which may be adaptive in seasonal northern environments. Our results did not support the prediction that clonal reproduction is more prevalent in peripheral populations or that it contributed antagonistically to the wide variation in seed production. Peripheral populations of V. stamineum are as productive as central populations and may be locally adapted to northern environments. This emphasizes the importance of a broad geographical perspective for evaluating the ecology, evolution, and conservation of peripheral populations.     

Adaptation to What and Why?

Adaptation in response to anthropogenic climate change seeks to maintain viability by maximising benefits and minimising losses. It is necessary because some climatic change is now inevitable, despite the international focus on mitigation measures. Indeed, the measures agreed at Kyoto would by themselves result in only a small reduction in the climate changes to be expected over the next century.Discussion of the expected changes and possible impacts leads to the following conclusions regarding climate change scenarios in relation to impacts and adaptation: Climate change in the foreseeable future will not be some new stable "equilibrium" climate, but rather an ongoing "transient" process; Climate change predictions relevant to impacts on most sectors and ecosystems are still highly uncertain; There is a need for a greater focus on developing countries and tropical regions, and on relevant key variables, including the magnitude and frequency of extreme events; The focus should shift from single predictions, or extreme ranges of uncertainty, to risk assessment; Thresholds critical to impacted sectors and ecosystems should be identified, and expressed as functions of climatic variables; Planned adaptations will be necessary to cope with multiple stresses, including those due to non-climatic changes; A major task of adaptation science is to identify the limits of adaptation, i.e., to identify "dangerous levels of greenhouse gases" beyond which adaptation becomes impractical or prohibitively expensive.     

基于OPMSE的畜禽养殖行业排放限值仿真

通过对清河流域畜禽养殖行业产生污水的各指标(BOD5,COD,NH_3-N)浓度进行统计,得出了排放污水中各污染物指标的浓度值范围。通过OPMSE的仿真计算,得出了排放污水经过BAT处理后,污染物浓度正态分布均值在90%,95%,99%置信水平下的置信区间。在置信水平为99%时,畜禽养殖行业的COD置信区间为(42.00,48.19),BOD_5置信区间为(7.47,8.74),NH_3-N置信区间为(6.78,7.88)。同时,依据仿真计算结果还得出了处理后污染物浓度的极小值和极大值,畜禽养殖行业的最佳出水COD,BOD_5,NH3_-N指标质量浓度分别为22.0,2.1,3.09 mg/L,最差出水COD,BOD_5,NH_3-N指标质量浓度分别为84.4,14.2,13.29 mg/L。将仿真结果与现有排放标准对比,拟定畜禽养殖行业的COD,BOD_5,NH_3-N直接排放限值分别为50,9,8 mg/L。     

典型北方滨海核电厂温排水混合区边缘温升限值研究

随着我国电力事业的快速发展,电厂循环冷却水(温排水)的余热排放对受纳水体生态环境造成的负面热影响(即热污染)已日益引起社会关注。基于国内现有的温排水排放控制标准可执行性不强的现状,对我国电厂温排水的热污染控制标准的基础技术要素——温排水混合区边缘温升限值进行了研究。以我国北方某典型滨海核电厂址邻近海域的代表性海洋生物为研究对象,以各季节不同受试物种最大临界温度(CTM)的统计分析结果,作为确定该厂址温排水混合区边缘温升限值的主要依据。并结合法规调研法,最终确定该典型滨海核电厂址温排水混合区边缘温升限值的推荐值为3.6℃。