Accepting market failure: Cultural worldviews and the opposition to corrective environmental policies

To explore whether and why people sometimes reject environmental policies that improve individual and collective outcomes, we create an experimental market in which transactions generate a negative externality. Market participants endogenously determine whether to implement corrective policies. We consider three policy instruments (Pigouvian taxes and subsidies, and quantity regulation) and two levels of policy efficiency (full and half). We then explore how individual cultural worldviews might contribute to the rejection of policies that correct the market failure. Our results indicate that people often oppose policies that improve their material outcomes, and we find that such opposition is significantly explained by cultural worldviews. Interesting connections emerge between individual worldviews and specific policy instruments.     

The design of water markets when instream flows have value

The main objective of this paper is to design and test a decentralized exchange mechanism that generates the location-specific pricing necessary to achieve efficient allocations in the presence of instream flow values. Although a market-oriented approach has the potential to improve upon traditional command and control regulations, questions remain about how these rights-based institutions can be implemented such that the potential gains from liberalized trade can be realized. This article uses laboratory experiments to test three different water market institutions designed to incorporate instream flow values into the allocation mechanism through active participation of an environmental trader. The smart, computer-coordinated market described herein offers the potential to significantly reduce coordination problems and transaction costs associated with finding mutually beneficial trades that satisfy environmental constraints. We find that direct environmental participation in the market can achieve highly efficient and stable outcomes, although the potential does exist for the environmental agent to influence outcomes.     

Enhanced photocatalytic activity of TiO2 by surface fluorination in degradation of organic cationic compound

Experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of TiO2 surface fluorination on the photodegradation of a representative organic cationic compound, Methylene Blue （MB）. The eleetropositive MB shows poor adsorption on TiO2 surface; its degradation performs a HO. radical-mediated mechanism. In the F-modified system, the kinetic reaction rate enlarged more than 2.5 fold that was attributed mainly to the accumulating adsorption of MB and the increased photogenerated hole available on the F-modified TiO2 surface.     

用增量网格法对空心复合挤压的实验研究

用增量网格法对带内孔坯复合挤压的载荷、上下通道流出量、金属内部应力应变分布情况进行实验分析,并分析内孔直径和凹模锥角等参数的影响,对设计模具与选择成形设备有指导意义.文中还阐述这种实验方法的实施过程和功能,指出这是一种研究成形问题的有效手段.     

Solving the probabilistic reserve selection problem

The Reserve Selection Problem consists in selecting certain sites among a set of potential sites for biodiversity protection. In many models of the literature, the species present and able to survive in each site are supposed to be known. Here, for every potential site and for every species considered, only the probability that the species survives in the site is supposed to be known. The problem to select, under a budgetary constraint, a set of sites which maximizes the expected number of species is known in the literature under the name of probabilistic reserve selection problem. In this article, this problem is studied with species weighting to deal differently with common species and rare species. A spatial constraint is also considered preventing to obtain too fragmented reserve networks. As in Polasky et al. (2000), the problem is formulated by a nonlinear mathematical program in Boolean variables. Camm et al. (2002) developed a mixed-integer linear programming approximation that may be solved with standard integer programming software. The method gives tight approximate solutions but does not allow to tell how far these solutions are from the optimum. In this paper, a slightly different approach is proposed to approximate the problem. The interesting aspect of the approach, which also uses only standard mixed-integer programming software, is that it leads, not only to an approximate solution, but also to an upper limit on the true optimal value. In other words, the method gives an approximate solution with a guarantee on its accuracy. The linear reformulation is based on an upper approximation of the logarithmic function by a piecewise-linear function. The approach is very effective on artificial instances that include up to 400 sites and 300 species. Within an average CPU time of about 12 min, near-optimal solutions are obtained with an average relative error, in comparison to the optimum, of less than 0.2%.     

Evaluation of the parameters influencing electrostatic charging of powder in a pipe flow

Triboelectric charging of powders during pneumatic transport can lead to hazardous spark discharges. In this study, the charging process was studied numerically by means of large eddy simulations. A range of design parameters was then analyzed statistically applying the Design of Experiments methodology. It is shown that the electric charge of the powder can be significantly decreased by reducing the conveying air velocity. Furthermore, the usage of pipes of a larger diameter and the application of higher solid mass flow rates also reduce the powder charge.     

Do you not like Pigou, or do you not understand him? Tax aversion and revenue recycling in the lab

Tax-aversion reduces the likelihood that price rationing can be a politically viable tool for environmental protection. We examine the case of the classic Pigouvian tax to control a negative externality, and consider how recycling the revenues, labeling of the tax and information about its purpose affects the support for taxation. We test the support for taxation within a single-price market experiment, in which purchases by some buyers impose external costs on others. Observing behavior consistent with tax-aversion, we also find that recycling the revenues to more narrowly targeted groups seems to increase support for taxation. In the absence of narrow revenue recycling, labeling a Pigouvian instrument as a ‘tax’ may significantly lower the likelihood of voter support.     

NaClO_2碱性溶液脱硝的热力学计算与实验研究

液相氧化脱硝技术被认为是最有前景的脱硝技术之一。在自制的鼓泡反应器中,进行NaClO2/NaOH溶液脱硝实验。热力学计算表明,300~380K,脱硝反应是放热反应,反应的平衡系数均非常大,但随温度的升高而减小。选取吸收时间、NaClO2浓度、初始、反应温度、模拟烟气流量以及烟气中pHNO含量为过程参数,脱硝率作为响应量,分别进行了单因素实验。结果表明:脱硝率随NaClO2浓度、反应温度的增加而升高,随吸收时间、烟气流量或NO含量的增加而降低,在pH7~10范围内,体系获得较好的脱硝效果;NaClO2浓度,初始0.02mol/LpH,10温度70℃,烟气流量0.4L/min的条件下,处理NO含量0.02%~0.05%范围内的烟气,吸收20min内体系脱硝率几乎为100%。