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Wentworth McClanahan posted an update a month ago
Questions on sustainable and appropriate cropping systems for bioenergy sweet sorghum in the smallholder farming sector still exist. Therefore, a short-term experiment was carried out to study the influence of management on microbial biomass carbon (MBC), β-glucosidase, acid phosphatase, and urease activities in a sweet sorghum cropping system in South Africa. Tillage [no-till (NT) and conventional tillage (CT)], rotation [sorghum-vetch-sorghum (S-V-S) and sorghum-fallow-sorghum (S-F-S)] and residue retention [0%, 15% and 30%] were evaluated. Tillage× rotation× residue management interaction influenced (P less then 0.05) MBC whilst crop rotation residue influenced (P less then 0.05) β-glucosidase. Tillage affected β-glucosidase (P less then 0.05), acid phosphatase (P less then 0.001), and urease enzyme (P less then 0.01) while crop rotation only influenced acid phosphatase (P less then 0.01). Residue retention affected acid phosphatase (P less then 0.001) and urease enzyme (P less then 0.001). NT + S-V-S+30% interaction resulted in the highest MBC content compared to CT + S-F-S+0%. NT+30% enhanced β-glucosidase activity, S-V-S enhanced acid phosphatase compared to S-F-S. MBC and enzyme activities were positively correlated with each other. Tillage and residue management were the main factors influencing soil biological indicators under bioenergy sweet sorghum in South African marginal soils in the short-term. Soil biological indicators were higher under NT and 30% residue retention respectively. NT + S-V-S+30% was a better treatment combination to enhance soil quality under bioenergy sweet sorghum in South African marginal soils.Conventional algebraic estimate of the fiscal multipliers ignores the concept of velocity of money and mistakenly assumes that money changes hands an infinite number of times during a given year while we know money only has a finite velocity. Apart from the velocity of money, fiscal multipliers tend to depend on average propensity to consume and average propensity to import of the economy as a whole and also on average tax rate among other things which are not reflected in the modern SVAR based estimation. Here, in the first place, we amend the algebraic definition of the fiscal multipliers considering the impact of velocity of money, provide a micro-foundation relating fiscal multipliers with money velocity and other macro variables and later propose a modification in the conventional SVAR set up by incorporating aforesaid macro variables arranged in a logical manner. Proposed amendments to the SVAR set up entail relatively stable estimates of the fiscal multipliers as can be seen from empirical estimation of the multiplier values for US and UK data during the period 1972-2018.Fires are important responsible factors to cause catastrophic events in the process industries, whose consequences usually initiate domino effects. BODIPY 493/503 mw The artificial neural network has been shown to be one of the rapid methods to simulate processes in the risk analysis field. In the present work, experimental data points on jet fire shape ratios, defined by the 800 K isotherm, have been applied for ANN development. The mass flow rates and the nozzle diameters of these jet flames have been considered as input dataset; while, the jet flame lengths and widths have been collected as output dataset by the ANN models. A Bayesian Regularization algorithm has been chosen as the three-layer backpropagation training from Multi-layer perceptron algorithm. Then it has been compared with a Radial based functions algorithm, based on single hidden layer. The optimized number of neurons in the first and second hidden layers of the MLP algorithm, and in the single hidden layer of the RBF algorithm has been found to be twenty and fifteen, respectively. The best MSE validation performance of MLP and RBF networks has been found to be 0.00286 and 0.00426 at 100 and 20 epochs, respectively.This paper aims to investigate the direct and indirect effects of financial development on CO2 emissions, using a global sample of 100 countries from 1990 – 2012. Our main contribution to the literature lies in the identification and explanation of possible transmission channels that allow financial development to affect environmental quality. The paper employs 2SLS and 3SLS estimators to investigate these channels. Empirical results confirm the positive direct effect of financial development on environmental degradation. Development of the financial system also gives rise to more energy demand and consequently leads to more pollutant emissions. Besides, there is evidence about a trade-off between income inequality and environmental quality. Financial development can help redistribute income more effectively. However, high living standards will put pressure on environmental conservation. The paper also considers the nonlinear effects of financial development on carbon emission rates. Only a small proportion of the population receive the benefits at the early stages of financial development. After a certain amount of time, financial development benefits a more significant part of the population and reduces income inequality.Over the periods of 2015-2018 there have been declining trends for Nigeria in Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) signifying a major challenge to its entrepreneurship development. To understand some of the explanatory variables for this phenomenon Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was deployed and extended to examine indirect effects of entrepreneurial training effectiveness and government entrepreneurial supports on the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students venturing intention into IT related entrepreneurship through attitude and perceived behavioral control for gaining insights to address the aforesaid challenge. Quantitative approach was employed through data collected from sampled TVET students which was analyzed using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The result supports all the hypothesized indirect-path effects. It implied that naturally built attitude and behavioral control alone cannot influence TVET students venturing intention; it needs enhancement through effective entrepreneurial training and government entrepreneurial supports.