Higher-Order Memory Schema and Conscious Experience

In the interesting and thought-provoking article Grazziano and colleagues argue for their Attention Schema Theory (AST) of consciousness. They present AST as a unification of Global Workspace Theory (GWT), Illusionism, and the Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theory. We argue it is a mistake to equate 'subjective experience,' ad related terms, with dualism. They simply denote experience. Also, as presented, AST does not accurately capture the essence of HOT for two reasons. HOT is presented as a version of strong illusionism, which it isn't, and HOT requires that one be aware of one's mental life, and postulates that his consists in a re-representation of what is occurring at at the lower-order levels. However, the authors deny that AST involves re-representing visual stimuli. We close by proposing an alternative unification: GWT and AST provide crucial accounts of how lower-order states are assembled and maintained, but higher-order theory provides the account of subjective experience

The tax treatment of housing: its effects on bounded and unbounded communities

This paper examines the potential impact of the federal tax treatment of housing, which provides tax advantages that increase with income and house value, on the pattern of development in U.S. metropolitan areas. The authors argue that the tax treatment of housing is likely to have impacts on older, developed communities with fixed boundaries, such as central cities, that differ from those on suburban areas, where there is an elastic supply of land. Using simple analytic models, the authors show that the tax treatment of housing not only increases the incentives for lower density development, but it also provides incentives for increased sorting of high- and low-income households into separate communities. Given the very large magnitude of the annual subsidies to housing ($65 billion) and the fact that these subsidies accrue to a relatively small share of home owners, the authors believe that the impact of these subsidies on the pattern of metropolitan development is potentially very important.Housing ; Taxation

CSR, Contracting and Socially Responsible Investment : Opportunities for Pakistani Firms

The purpose of our paper is to explore two ways in which Pakistani firms can take advantage of the growing corporate social responsibility movement so as to improve their own economic performance. First, the presence of MNCs in Pakistan, the vast majority of which have made significant CSR undertakings, means that Pakistani firms seeking to do business with them will often have to meet CSR tests themselves. Second, the increasing financial clout of so-called Socially Responsible Investement (SRI) funds means that Pakistani firms have an incentive to comply with CSR standards so as to become eligible investment instruments. We begin by canvassing briefly the history of CSR movement and what are by now relatively well-known CSR principles and standards. We then explore some examples of how Pakistan-based multinationals as well local firms are currently engaging in CSR practices. We argue that Pakistan can and should acquire the reputation for being a leader in this domain.corporate social responsibility movement, economic performance, CSR

Does the U.S. tax treatment of housing promote suburbanization and central city decline?

This paper examines the role of U.S. housing-related tax expenditures in creating incentives for decentralization and encouraging residential sorting by income and central city decline. Tax expenditures associated with the deductibility of mortgage interest and property taxes make housing less expensive relative to other goods and, hence, increase the quantity of housing and residential land purchased and lower the density of urban areas. Because the tax expenditures increase with income and the consumption of housing services, they lower the cost of geographic sorting by income typically associated with exclusionary zoning and other land- market imperfections. A direct consequence of this sorting process is that housing-related tax expenditures are concentrated in communities with the highest incomes and house values. These effects do not arise simply because of housing-tax policies alone, but rather from the interaction of these policies and other factors that affect local real e state markets, such as zoning or fixed housing capital stocks. Three models are developed to formally analyze these issues. In the authors' base case model in which there are no land-use constraints and local amenities are fixed, tax deductions related to home ownership result in population decentralization within the metropolitan area and a less dense central city, but do not induce sorting by income. Moreover, land prices in the city increase because the subsidy increases the aggregate demand for housing in all communities. Thus, the mere presence of the federal housing tax expenditures increases decentralization, but cannot generate America's patterns of income sorting and central city decline. These conclusions change in an important way in the authors' second model in which a land-use constraint, such as the type of minimum lot-size zoning prevalent in the suburbs, is introduced. In this case, the housing subsidies foster the separation of the rich from the poor. Inco me sorting results, and consequently, there is an increasing concentration of the poor in the central city. However, there still is no weakening of prices in city land markets in this model. The third and final model endogenizes the production of local amenities in the sense that they are made an increasing function of community income. In this case, three characteristics common to American urban form result: population decentralization within the metropolitan area, increased concentration of the poor in the urban core, and weak city land markets. These results indicate that America's current urban form reflects, at least in part, incentives arising from the interaction of the national tax and local zoning systems, rather than unique American tastes for low-density living environments.Cities and towns ; Housing ; Taxation

Spectral imaging in preclinical research and clinical pathology.

Spectral imaging methods are attracting increased interest from researchers and practitioners in basic science, pre-clinical and clinical arenas. A combination of better labeling reagents and better optics creates opportunities to detect and measure multiple parameters at the molecular and cellular level. These tools can provide valuable insights into the basic mechanisms of life, and yield diagnostic and prognostic information for clinical applications. There are many multispectral technologies available, each with its own advantages and limitations. This chapter will present an overview of the rationale for spectral imaging, and discuss the hardware, software and sample labeling strategies that can optimize its usefulness in clinical settings

Capitalization of federal taxes, the relative price of housing, and urban form: density and sorting effects.

The authors investigate the impact of the tax treatment of owner-occupied housing on urban form in an economy in which high- and low-income households choose among city and suburban communities. Because housing tax policies differentially affect the relative, after-tax price of housing for high- and low-income households, and because the extent of capitalization of housing tax policies can differ across city and suburban communities, their analysis finds that housing tax policies can affect not only the density of the metropolitan area, but also can influence where rich and poor households choose to live.> > The authors also show that the impacts of housing tax policies differ depending upon whether land use constraints such as suburban large lot zoning exist. If there are no land use constraints present, increasing a subsidy to home ownership that is positively correlated with the income of the owner tends to lead to the decentralization of both rich and poor, although there are conditions under which the rich would choose to concentrate in the central city. The ambiguity of the effect on the choices of high income households suggests that impacts of the federal tax treatment of housing may differ across metropolitan areas.> > In the presence of binding large lot zoning in the suburbs, the rich have a greater incentive to decentralize while the poor are constrained to the city. Thus, housing tax policy that affects the relative price of land differentially for the rich and poor could have helped exacerbate the intense residential sorting by income that we see in many parts of the United States. Importantly, our analysis of community choice is not driven by different preferences for city or suburb that may be associated with the income elasticity of housing demand. Rather, it results from changes in relative after-tax housing prices faced by poor and rich households. Determining the empirical relevance of prices versus preferences in this matter should be an urgent task for future research.Housing ; Taxation

The Welfare Economics of Moral Hazard

This paper shows that, except in certain limiting cases, competitive equilibrium with moral hazard is constrained inefficient. The first section compares the competitive equilibrium and the constrained social optimum in a fairly general model, and identifies types of market failure. Each of the subsequent sections focuses on a particular market failure.

Entanglement scaling and spatial correlations of the transverse field Ising model with perturbations

We study numerically the entanglement entropy and spatial correlations of the one dimensional transverse field Ising model with three different perturbations. First, we focus on the out of equilibrium, steady state with an energy current passing through the system. By employing a variety of matrix-product state based methods, we confirm the phase diagram and compute the entanglement entropy. Second, we consider a small perturbation that takes the system away from integrability and calculate the correlations, the central charge and the entanglement entropy. Third, we consider periodically weakened bonds, exploring the phase diagram and entanglement properties first in the situation when the weak and strong bonds alternate (period two-bonds) and then the general situation of a period of n bonds. In the latter case we find a critical weak bond that scales with the transverse field as $J'_c/J$ = $(h/J)^n$, where $J$ is the strength of the strong bond, $J'$ of the weak bond and $h$ the transverse field. We explicitly show that the energy current is not a conserved quantity in this case.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, version accepted in PR

Reviewing factors affecting the effectiveness of decentralised domestic wastewater treatment systems for phosphorus and pathogen removal

Environmental pollution and risks to human health can result from diffuse sources of pollution originating from decentralised wastewater treatment systems (DWTS). In particular phosphorus pollution can lead to eutrophication and the downgrading of the quality of water bodies, for example, under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the EU, and pathogen pollution can result in increased risks of human exposure to pathogens and impacts on industries such as shellfish growing and tourism. The study reported in this paper reviews the effectiveness of various DWTS in removing phosphorus and pathogens from onsite systems. It was found that DWTS are typically not designed to specifically treat these pollutants and the most common type of DWTS, septic tanks, provide only basic treatment. Additional treatment such as filtration-based or wetland systems must be used to achieve desired levels of treatments. The performance of these systems is affected by site specific conditions, such as input load and sources, and climatic conditions and as such operational characteristics and treatment measures must be designed to take account of these factors

Rural trajectories: Diversification and farm-community linkages in Whakatane District, 1999-2003

In New Zealand and elsewhere the interdependence of development in farming and the broader rural community can no longer be taken for granted. Five years ago we conducted a comparative analysis of the interrelated dynamics of change in agriculture and rural communities in the Central North Island. The observed trends from this research suggested that: (i) long and short cycles of change affecting the rural sector are promoting greater diversity in agriculture-community relations; (ii) adjustment processes are ongoing; and (iii) current evidence does not point unambiguously to either the decoupling or re-linking of agriculture and the broader rural community. This paper explores further the ambiguity encountered in the earlier research through a follow-up case study grounded in Whakatane District. The key finding is that as a result of individual effort and the will to diversify, the rural economy of Whakatane District is buoyant and farming remains the major economic activity. However, despite the apparent persistence of strong and pervasive agriculture-community linkages, the district remains vulnerable to forces embedded in short and long cycles of change. In terms of short-cycle change, the pressure on dairy farming from price fluctuation and the increasing attractiveness of conversion to horticulture is affecting the agricultural side of the equation, while the proliferation of lifestyle blocks is notable on the community side. In terms of long-cycle change, the influence of a renaissance of Maori rural living is beginning to be felt on the community side, while the effect of climate change and associated weather extremes is beginning to impact on agriculture