1,721,020 research outputs found
The impact of us regional greenhouse gas initiative on firm-level innovation activities and market competitiveness / Md Azizur Rahman
No full textClimate change threatens the future of humanity, primarily driven by rapid industrialization and global competition. The challenge lies in balancing regulatory actions, which can raise costs against obligations to fight emissions, hinder productivity, and slow economic growth. The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) provides an effective solution for curbing global carbon emissions. Nevertheless, a prevailing view is that environmental regulations raise firm costs and prevent investment from clashing with expected innovation benefits. Recent observations challenge these notions and argue that well-structured regulations can encourage innovation and help stimulate firm performance. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), active across ten northeastern US states since 2009 to reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector, yields paradoxical outcomes. However, emissions decline within RGGI states while neighboring regions witness the opposite. Moreover, rising temperatures and waning green initiatives underscore our failure to find effective remedies. RGGI's impact on firm-level innovation and market competitiveness remains unexplored, especially considering its fully auction-based ETS structure. This research examines RGGI's influence on firm innovation and market competitiveness, scrutinizing direct and policy-driven effects across regulated and unregulated sectors. Focusing on US-listed electric power sector companies (regulated) and Fortune 500 companies (non-regulated), the research spans 2000 to 2019 for patent timelines. Using a quasi-experimental approach consisting of 'difference-in-difference' and propensity score matching techniques, the investigation reveals the positive impact of RGGI on regulated sector innovation. However, policy spillover into the unregulated sector proves insignificant. Supporting the 'weak' Porter hypothesis (PH) in regulated sectors and negating it in the unregulated sector, RGGI's deployment lacks a statistically significant impact on green innovation in both spheres. Acknowledging the 'strong' PH variant, RGGI enhances market competitiveness in regulated sectors but counteracts this trend in the unregulated sector. Innovation and green innovation enhance US firm competitiveness, yet RGGI's implementation dampens the connection between firm-level innovation and market competitiveness. This study widens insights by disclosing RGGI's effects on innovation and competitiveness, delving into the link between innovation and market prowess among US firms. Contributions abound: empirical evidence emerges for the market-based nature of RGGI, distinguishing it from freely allocated policies like EU-ETS and CN-ETS. Furthermore, the study enriches the policy spillover literature by uncovering innovation spillover in non-regulated sectors. Notably, RGGI's fully auction-based approach significantly boosts market competitiveness among regulated firms, a novel finding in policy evaluation and spillover literature. Additionally, the study contributes to the 'innovation' and 'green innovation' discourse, showcasing empirical proof of US firms' high innovativeness. Intriguingly, RGGI moderates this connection negatively while bolstering it positively for innovative firms, holding implications for their market sustainability. Recommendations stemming from this study extend to RGGI authorities and industry stakeholders, illuminating the policy's implications
Effects of Pesticides on Soil Microbiological Processes
Full text linkThe thesis can be divided into two parts. The first part is devoted to a comparison of the two methods, the steam distillation and Technicon automated methods, used for the determination of inorganic nitrogen. To test the precision and accuracy of the two methods, a 5 ppm standard of both ammonium and nitrate nitrogen was used for the steam distillation method and a 1 ppm standard of both ammonium and nitrate nitrogen was used for the Technicon method. By the steam distillation method the % recovery for the NH4-N standard was 95.2% and for NO3-N 94%. The major factor affecting the recovery of nitrogen was the loss of ammonia at the joint between the spray trap and the distillation flask. The joint on the apparatus was modified and tests achieved the recoveries for NH4-N of 99.6% and NO3-N of 99.6%. The inorganic-N was then determined by the Technicon AutoAnalyzer II. 1 ppm standards of both ammonium and nitrate-N prepared in water and 2M KCl were analysed. Standard deviations were 0.0275 and 0.0025 in water and KCl respectively for NH4-N and 0.0056 and 0.0051 in water and KCl for NO3-N. The standard deviation of NH4-N in water was very high. One source of variability was identified in that particular flasks consistently gave low results. A possible reason for the variability is due. to the adsorption of NH4+ ion by negative sites on the glass walls of the volumetric flasks. NO3- ion would not be affected by such negative adsorption sites and in KCl, K+ would be adsorbed in preference to NH4+ as K+ would be present at a much higher concentration. Both steam distillation and Technicon methods are found suitable in their own places. Though distillation procedures are time consuming they are simple, accurate and less expensive and not affected by the various organic and inorganic substances present in soil extracts. Using the Technicon AutoAnalyzer II a concentration as low as 0.001 mug/ml can be detected and large numbers of samples can be analysed quickly with a high degree of reproducibility. But these automated methods are very sophisticated and it is very difficult to run such complex systems which require a skilled operator and well furnished laboratories. So for developing countries steam distillation methods are more preferable. The second part of the thesis is devoted to testing the effects of three pesticides, captafol, carbaryl and malathion on three selected microbial processes, the phosphatase, dehydrogenase activities and nitrification in two soils of different properties. The two soils used were Darvel Series, a sandy clay loam of pH 6.4 and 8.82% organic matter content and Dreghorn Series, a sandy soil of pH 6.8 and 5.64% of organic matter content. Phosphatase activity involved the colorimetric estimation of p-nitrophenol released from p-nitrophenyl phosphate after incubation at 3
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Anti-cancer activity and apoptosis inducing effect of methanolic extract of <i>Cordia dichotoma</i> against human cancer cell line
Full text linkMTT assay and DAPI staining test were performed to evaluate anticancer potential and to assess apoptosis inducing effect of methanolic extract of Cordia dichotoma leaves (MECD) against human cervical cancer cell line (HeLa). Changes in MMP and intracellular ROS level were also assessed by JC-1 and DCFH-DA staining. Total phenolic contents were determined by colorimetric principle. Levels of statistical significance were determined by one-way analysis of variance followed by Dunnetts posttest. Results showed that MECD with obtained IC50 of 202 µg/mL inhibited in vitro proliferation of human cervical cancer cells and induced apoptosis indicating its promising anticancer activity as compared to the standard tamoxifen with obtained IC50 of 48 µg/mL. Total phenolic contents was found to be 176.5 mg GAE/g dried extract. It was concluded that MECD possess promising anticancer activity and induce apoptosis
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Anticancer activity and apoptosis inducing effect of methanolic extract of <i>Cordia dichotoma</i> against human cancer cell line
No full textAppropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Two-Stage Probe-Based Search Optimization Algorithm for the Traveling Salesman Problems
No full textAs a classical combinatorial optimization problem, the traveling salesman problem (TSP) has been extensively investigated in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research. Due to being NP-complete, it is still rather challenging to solve both effectively and efficiently. Because of its high theoretical significance and wide practical applications, great effort has been undertaken to solve it from the point of view of intelligent search. In this paper, we propose a two-stage probe-based search optimization algorithm for solving both symmetric and asymmetric TSPs through the stages of route development and a self-escape mechanism. Specifically, in the first stage, a reasonable proportion threshold filter of potential basis probes or partial routes is set up at each step during the complete route development process. In this way, the poor basis probes with longer routes are filtered out automatically. Moreover, four local augmentation operators are further employed to improve these potential basis probes at each step. In the second stage, a self-escape mechanism or operation is further implemented on the obtained complete routes to prevent the probe-based search from being trapped in a locally optimal solution. The experimental results on a collection of benchmark TSP datasets demonstrate that our proposed algorithm is more effective than other state-of-the-art optimization algorithms. In fact, it achieves the best-known TSP benchmark solutions in many datasets, while, in certain cases, it even generates solutions that are better than the best-known TSP benchmark solutions
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