上海水环境与河道治理的思考

自2000年到2011年,上海市开展了三期苏州河环境综合整治、郊区万河整治、太湖流域治理、面源污染治理等重大水环境治理行动。但是,上海的多数区县水质仍然未能达标,水质性缺水的困境仍然未得到有效缓解,非工业废水排放增长较快。     

上海水环境与河道治理的思考

自2000年到2011年,上海市开展了三期苏州河环境综合整治、郊区万河整治、太湖流域治理、面源污染治理等重大水环境治理行动。但是,上海的多数区县水质仍然未能达标,水质性缺水的困境仍然未得到有效缓解,非工业废水排放增长较快。     

合流制排水系统截流倍数的选定及影响

截流倍数与河流水质关系研究中主要影响因素有降雨径流条件、城市分流制比率、污染物入河量、河流水力条件及水质目标等.在确定某城市合流制排水系统的截流倍数时,在截流总量、污染物排放总量和水体自净能力之间建立了动态平衡,采用旱季污水总量暴雨强度拟合法确定了合理的截流倍数,达到了节省工程投资和治理污染的目的.     

纳米二氧化钛存在条件下大型水蚤对铜的吸收作用研究

随着纳米技术的发展,必然导致越来越多的纳米颗粒进入水体。除了纳米材料本身的毒性外。由于吸附能力强。其对重金属的吸收也必然会产生一定的影响,进而通过食物链传递对水生动物甚至人类产生影响。其中二氧化钛纳米材料是应用最为广泛的纳米材料之一。本文以目前广泛使用的毒性测试生物一大型水蚤为例,研究了水体中加入纳米二氧化钛之后对重金属Cu吸收的影响。实验结果表明纳米二氧化钛的加入极大地促进了大型水蚤对铜的吸收,同时也促进了Cu吸收平衡的提前。由此可见单一的水体中重金属的浓度并不能完全说明水中生物受重金属污染的状况。在进行监测时要考虑到颗粒物以及其它污染物的综合作用。     

生态喷泉运用于景观水体水质稳定的可行性分析

景观水体已成为人们生活的重要组成部分,但也面临着严重的恶化问题.由于景观水体水质污染的特殊性,目前广泛研究和应用的景观水体水质稳定技术均是通过复氧和混合上下水层的原理来强化景观水体的自净能力.喷泉不但能给人以美感,而且具有扰动强度大、曝气量高两大特点.基于这些特点,本文提出了生态喷泉的设计构想,并从理论和实践两个角度,对生态喷泉运用于景观水体水质稳定的可行性进行了分析,为景观水体水质稳定技术的研究提供新思路.     

应用强化絮凝技术治理深圳市观澜河应急工程的实践

化学强化一级处理技术(或称"强化絮凝")是在一级处理工艺基础上,通过投加化学絮凝剂等强化措施去除污水中各种污染物.CEPT技术可在短时间内以较少的投资和较低的运行费用大幅度削减污染负荷,对解决我国目前面临着水资源的日益短缺、水体特别是各地流域水质污染状况进一步恶化的难题具有重要的现实意义.本文总结了深圳市宝安区观澜河应急工程采用絮凝强化处理技术对受污染的河水进行处理,收到了良好的效果.     

应用强化絮凝技术治理深圳市观澜河应急工程的实践

化学强化一级处理技术(或称"强化絮凝")是在一级处理工艺基础上,通过投加化学絮凝荆等强化措施去除污水中各种污染物.CEPT技术可在短时间内以较少的投资和较低的运行费用大幅度削减污染负荷,对解决我国目前面临着水资源的日益短缺、水体特别是各地流域水质污染状况进一步恶化的难题具有重要的现实意义.本文总结了深圳市宝安区观澜河应急工程采用絮凝强化处理技术对受污染的河水进行处理,收到了良好的效果.     

水杨酸在镉胁迫下对玉米种子发芽和幼苗生理特性的影响研究

采用水培的实验方法来培养玉米种子,通过玉米种子发芽试验来研究水杨酸在镉胁迫下对玉米种子的萌发及幼苗生理特性的影响.结果表明:不同镉离子浓度对玉米种子的发芽及幼苗生理特性有不同影响.在一定范围内,随着镉离子的浓度升高,玉米的发芽率及发芽势越低,玉米幼苗中可溶性糖、蛋白质和丙二醛的含量也越高.而加入适量的水杨酸后,玉米种子的发芽率相对对照组最高提高了7.78%;玉米幼苗叶片中可溶性糖最高提高了0.51%,可溶性蛋白质最高提高了371.14μg?ml-1;丙二醛的含量相对对照组最高降低了219.97μmol?g-1.表明水杨酸在镉胁迫下对玉米有一定的缓解效果.     

辽河流域社会经济活动的环境污染压力研究——以氮污染为研究对象

水体中氮含量过高会造成水体富营养化,使水质恶化,破坏水体生态平衡。氮污染已引起人们的普遍关注,国家已将氨氮和氮氧化物列为"十二五"期间环境治理的重要污染指标。辽河流域大部分河段氨氮仍超过V类水质标准,支流水体污染依然十分严重。文章以辽河流域氮污染为研究对象,从农田化肥流失、畜禽养殖、工业生产、居民生活和城市径流五个方面估算了流域氮排放情况。结果表明:辽河流域2010年总氮排放量约13.6万吨,氨氮排放量约6.78万吨,居民生活和畜禽养殖排放合计分别占总氮和氨氮排放量的87%和90%,是流域氮污染的主要贡献方面;工业生产虽产生大量含氮废水,但工业废水和污染物的排放率较低,对环境污染的贡献有限,并不是流域氮污染的主要贡献者;短期内流域氮排放的削减幅度有限,未来一段时期内辽河流域氮污染的压力依然突出;对污染排放环节的技术改造和方式创新是削减流域氮污染高效可行的措施。     

潜流人工湿地预处理微污染饮用水源效能研究

本研究课题利用自然水体及生物生态系统的特点,采用潜流人工湿地工艺对微污染饮用水源进行预处理,以达到降低处理成本、简化运行管理的目的。共研究和分析了两种类型的潜流人工湿地（水平潜流人工湿地、上下折流潜流人工湿地）对黄河微污染水源水中的COD、氮及总磷等主要污染指标的去除效果。     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

Bayesian estimation of duration models: An application of the multiperiod probit model

The multiperiod probit model is presented and Bayesian estimation using the Gibbs sampler with data augmentation is described. As an empirical illustration, the multiperiod probit model is then used to estimate a duration model using employment duration data for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Bayesian estimation with unobserved heterogeneity is shown to be a simple extension of estimation of a duration model with no unobserved heterogeneity. More importantly, perhaps, some numerical problems encountered by other authors using Maximum Likelihood are avoided.I would like to thank M. Baker, G. Koop, A. Melino and D. Poirier for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank M. Baker for providing his data.     

Scenarios and creativity: Thinking in new boxes

To be creative and make change happen, leaders must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest, using the popular American expression. After all, the space outside the box is infinitely expansive. Moreover, there can be no guarantee that a solution to the problem will be found. The answer: ‘Think in new boxes.’ This requires developing the right new box; in other words, useful new models, a helpful new approach to a problem. That is the real art of practical creativity. This short article outlines the approach (Thinking in New Boxes) and its application to classic scenario planning with a few examples. The authors also present the ‘Expressway to Scenarios’, an approach that wins in impact and practicality what it loses in deep analysis, by having top executives involved in key steps.     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

How chaebol restructuring after the 1997 crisis has affected corporate decision and performance in Korea: debt financing,ownership structure,and investment

ABSTRACT

Korean chaebol firms, characterized by excessive debt financing and overinvestment, experienced restructuring after the 1997 crisis. By reducing debt financing and thus overinvestment, they tried to reorganize financing structure and ownership structure. Chaebols’ debt reduction turns out to have improved performance. However, polarization between chaebol and non-chaebol firms has become more significant. Even after the crisis, firms that give higher cash flows to a controlling shareholder take more capital investment, indicating that agency problems still exist within chaebols. Chaebol-affiliated firms continue to be more active in R&D than non-chaebol firms. However, the pattern is limited to the group of top 10 chaebols after the crisis.

Abbreviations: KFTC: Korea Fair Trade Commission     

On the Role of Paradigms in Understanding Economic Globalization

Any adequate analysis of economic globalization necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization. This paper is based on the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It argues that any view expressed with respect to economic globalization is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization which correspond to the four broad worldviews. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of economic globalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of economic globalization, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for each paradigm to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms.     

A Humean theory of choice of which rationality may be one consequence

For the reader who considers economic theory of choice as a special case of a more general theory of action, Hume's discussion of the determinants of action in the Treatise of Human Nature (1739?–?40), in the Enquiry on Human Understanding (1748) and in the Dissertation on Passions (1757) deserves attention. However, according to some modern commentators, Hume does not seem to have given any evidence that would favour what nowadays we would consider as the kind of rationality involved in modern theories of rational choice. On the contrary, this paper arrives at the conclusion that consistency between preferences and choice, like the usual properties of completeness and transitivity, may be considered as outcomes of a mental process, described by means of a decision algorithm that aims to represent Hume's theory of choice.     

The concept of freedom and its relation to economic development--a critical appreciation of the work of Amartya Sen

Following a brief review of the conception of freedom as employedin economic discourse, this paper focuses on the evolution ofthe concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen. It tracesthe development of Sen's thought from the capability analysisof the late 1970s to his more recent separation of freedom intoits opportunity and process aspects. While broadly appreciativeof Sen's development of the concept of positive freedom, thepaper identifies some difficulties arising from his definitionof capability as a set of options as well as from his separationof the opportunity and process aspects of freedom. Aspects ofthe relationship between Sen's conception of freedom and thatof Marx are discussed briefly in the context of Sen's recentdiscussion of the market as a source of freedom.