Can regional policies shape migration flows?

Our empirical analysis focuses on the effect of regional policies on migration attraction factors in Europe. We employ a regression discontinuity design to assess the causal relationship between the reception of large amounts of public funds and migration flows in the EU-15 regions. In highly-subsidised regions, we find a large increase in the share of foreign citizens from less-developed countries when compared to low-subsidised regions with similar pre-treatment characteristics. The analysis shows that such an increase is due to the positive impact of the European regional policy on job market opportunities as well as the improvement of public goods supply.     

新型树启发式搜索算法的机器人路径规划

面对三维空间移动机器人从起始点到终止点的最短路径问题,提出一种新型的边缘点树启发式搜索(TreeEP)算法,该方法将地图空间进行密度可调的三维离散化处理,根据障碍安全距离筛选出障碍物的可靠边缘点信息,再利用树扩散架构选出最能引导搜索方向的潜力点进行扩散搜索,最终得出最短路径。提出局部调整策略,得到改进的Tree-EP算法。实验结果表明,在带障碍复杂地形最短路径搜索应用中,提出的Tree-EP算法与已有方法相比,能找到更短的移动路径。     

Strategic Planning for Employment Self-Containment in Metropolitan Sub-Regions

Metropolitan strategic plans often focus on strengthening local employment opportunities to address the congestion and commuting issues threatening city sustainability. The success of such strategies relies on a more equitable distribution of jobs between sub-regions and can be comparatively benchmarked through one of the three related measures of employment self-sufficiency, self-containment or jobs-housing balance. However, in practice, planning policy implementation to meet these targets seldom reduces automobile commuting. This paper investigates self-containment across a range of occupation and industry types to highlight large differences in commuting and employment patterns through a case study of Perth’s Northwest sub-region, Western Australia. Its findings suggest the application of current sub-regional policy and targets within Perth may reinforce the wage and skill disadvantage of outer metropolitan sub-regions over the inner core. It recommends a more nuanced understanding of these measures taking into account the complex dynamics of both employment opportunities and commuting patterns across sub-regions of a city.     

Experiences with Jatropha cultivation in sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for biofuels policies

Jatropha curcas L. has emerged in recent times as a leading energy crop in sub-Saharan Africa with over 32 countries in the region involved in its cultivation. By 2008, five countries in the region (Senegal, Nigeria, Mali, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe) had policies promoting Jatropha cultivation. These policies were not informed by empirical evidence arising from the performance of Jatropha in the region. This paper analyses performance data of Jatropha in the region with a view to synthesizing information that is useful for evidence-based policy formulation. Production data in terms of agronomic issues and seed yields are analyzed. The results show that most of the attributes generically associated with Jatropha have not been achieved in the region and there has been inadequate research to support Jatropha cultivation. Policies supporting cultivation of Jatropha need to be informed by these observations in order to promote viable cultivation of the crop.     

Accurate estimation of cost function parameters for thermal power plants using a novel optimization approach

Accurate parameter estimation of the input-output characteristics in thermal power plants is an important issue in power system because these characteristics directly affect the economic dispatch calculations. Parameter estimation is an optimization problem in which the optimal values of the unknown parameters should be estimated by an optimization technique. By considering the valve-point effect, the parameter estimation will be more difficult since the fitness function of this optimization problem turns into a non-smooth and non-convex function in which finding the global optimal is a challenging task. In this paper, a recently proposed metaheuristic approach, crow search algorithm (CSA), is proposed for accurate estimation of the input-output characteristics of thermal power plants with and without valve-point effect. Simulation results show that CSA finds more promising results than least squares method (LSM), particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA) and artificial bee colony (ABC).     

Economic effects of regulating the seismic strengthening of older buildings

The marked increase in the awareness of earthquake risk following the Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand offered a unique opportunity to investigate the economic effect of disaster-mitigation regulations on the commercial building stock. A difference-in-differences (DD) framework was used to determine whether earthquake risk has been capitalized into the property prices of buildings constructed prior to 1976, as a response to the national policy requiring assessment and strengthening (or demolition) of the existing earthquake-prone building stock. A negative externality is found in the policy announcement on affected (pre-1970s) office and retail buildings which caused office buildings to suffer a 12.5% stigma discount. However, retail properties were less impacted suffering a 2.3% stigma loss. The value of the commercial building stock has been affected by the policy. These findings provide policy-makers with timely evidence as to the economic effects of New Zealand’s earthquake-prone buildings policy. Facing losses in property value and financial responsibility for retrofitting their assets, building owners will be looking for a workable set of regulatory and non-regulatory incentives to encourage disaster risk management and protect the built environment.     

基于伪布尔模型和启发式算法求解无容量设施选址问题

采用伪布尔模型和启发式算法来求解无容量设施选址问题。首先给出了问题的伪布尔(pseudo-Boolean)表示，然后基于Khumawala规则对问题进行预处理，最后提出两种启发式分支准则来求解问题。实验结果表明所提算法简单有效。     

Optimal carbon reduction level and ordering quantity under financial constraints

Carbon tax policy is widely adopted by many countries to curb carbon emissions. In the context of carbon tax policy, firms have more incentive to improve carbon reduction levels by reducing their carbon tax costs. However, firms need to bear carbon reduction costs that may cause shortage of capital. Thus, firms may face problems of financial constraints, which may demotivate firms to produce greener products. To address the decision‐making challenges of firms in the contexts of carbon tax policy and financial constraints, we consider a supply chain with a manufacturer who produces green products and a retailer who sells these products. Our study develops five models to investigate the two firms’ optimal wholesale price, carbon reduction level and ordering quantity, according to the manufacturer and retailer with or without financial constraints. Our goal in this study is to explore how carbon tax policy and banks’ interest rates affect the profits of the two firms, supply chain and consumer surplus. Certain managerial insights are obtained as follows. We demonstrate that carbon tax policy and banks’ interest rates demotivate the manufacturer to produce greener products and demotivate the retailer to order more products. If the interest rate to the manufacturer (retailer) is relatively low, then the manufacturer with financial constraint benefits (harms) the consumers compared with the retailer with financial constraint. Importantly, our analysis suggests that carbon tax policy harms the firms but benefits consumers, and the government in some conditions should reduce unit carbon tax.     

“Thank heavens for the lease”: histories of shared ownership

Drawing on and developing Kingdon’s multiple streams analysis, this article examines the development of one aspect of the UK’s low cost home ownership programme: shared ownership. We demonstrate how key human and non-human policy entrepreneurs were able to set the agenda from 1973–1983 in favour of shared ownership; they neutralized the alternatives, while retaining some of their instruments; and solved a number of early problems by bringing key players into the programme. Our data-sets include a range of archival material and elite interviews. The policy entrepreneurs included John Stanley (who was the housing minister in the First Thatcher government), the National Federation of Housing Associations, and the Building Societies Association. Our development of the multiple streams analysis is to argue that documents, including the lease, act as policy entrepreneurs in their own right. The lease was central to the development of shared ownership and its transformation into a model lease enrolled other organizations, most critically the building societies.     

鄂尔多斯盆地致密油水平井注水吞吐开发实践——以延长组长7油层组为例

针对致密油藏长水平井自然能量开发后期如何补充能量的难题，在致密油藏注水吞吐采油机理、可动油定量评价和矿场试验评价的基础上，提出了水平井注水吞吐的选井条件和技术政策：①初期产量较高、含水较低、有一定稳产期的水平井实施注水吞吐效果较好。②从经济性和储层非均质性两方面考虑，若水平井单段人工裂缝破裂压力差异小，则采用经济、操作简单的笼统注水吞吐方式；若水平井单段人工裂缝破裂压力差异较大，采用分段注水吞吐方式能够较好提高段间注水波及面积，缺点是成本较高。③鄂尔多斯盆地延长组长7油层组致密油自然能量开发转注水吞吐补充能量时机为地层压力保持水平降到原始地层压力的60%；注水吞吐注水后地层压力保持水平达到原始地层压力的110%；单段注水速度为10~20 m³/d；焖井时间为10~13 d （1 000 m³注水量）；开井后水平井百米日产液量为1.5 m³/d。对鄂尔多斯盆地延长组长7油层组的50多个井组开展了致密油水平井注水吞吐试验，有效井组的比例达到了约70%，平均井组增油量为610 t，取得了较好的实施效果。