Why Do Regulatory Agencies Punish? The Impact of Political Principals,Agency Culture,and Transaction Costs in Predicting Environmental Criminal Prosecution Outcomes in the United States

Studies of administrative behavior are keen to examine the internal dynamics of agency decision making, as well the impact of external political actors on agency actions. Yet few studies apply these findings to the question of why agencies use their most punitive enforcement powers. Contrasting principal–agent, transaction costs, and organizational culture models of agency behavior, this study examines why regulatory agencies punish. Through content analysis of nearly one thousand of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's criminal investigations and subsequent prosecutions, 2001–11, findings suggest that punishment severity in environmental criminal cases is based less on transaction costs and political pressure and more on professional norms that value strong enforcement. These findings have important implications for explaining regulatory outcomes and administrative behavior.     

Can whale-fall studies inform human forensics?

Experimental knowledge of human body decomposition in the deep ocean is very limited, partly due to the logistical challenges of deep-sea research. The literature on ecological responses to the arrival of naturally sunk and implanted whale carcasses on the seafloor represents a potential source of information relevant to questions of human body survival and recovery in the deep ocean. Whale falls trigger the formation of complex, localized, and dense biological communities that have become a point of interest for marine biologists for the past 2–3 decades. Researchers have documented whale falls by whale type, size, geographic location, water depth and water chemistry, and there have been some comparative analyses of decomposition rates and faunal presence on carcasses. We undertook a review and meta-analysis of the whale-fall literature to identify and statistically model trends relevant to human forensics. Results from studies using deep-sea cameras baited with pig carcasses and simulated carrion provided further validation of noted trends. The stages of whale carcass decomposition most relevant to human forensics are those characterised by mobile scavengers that strip the soft tissues from carcasses, and to a lesser degree, other biota that degrade skeletal material. Our statistical models used the number of faunal taxa attracted to the whale carcasses as a measure of the ecological response and the potential rate of decomposition. Negative binomial models identified significant influences of carcass age and dissolved oxygen concentration on the ecological response (taxon numbers). The strongest environmental effects were identified in data from experimental studies that implanted whale carcasses across a broad range of dissolved-oxygen conditions. We propose directions for further experimental research to refine models of environmental controls on decomposition in the deep sea. Our results also highlight the potential use of publicly available global databases on environmental conditions in the deep ocean for informing body scavenging activity and thus body survival. Applying a forensic lens to whale-fall studies provides a window into an otherwise unseen world from the standpoint of human forensic taphonomy.     

基于深度卷积神经网络的语音降噪研究

目的为了提高实际工作中获取到的音频资料中语音的质量,降低噪声对语音质量及可懂度的影响,提出了一种基于深度卷积神经网络的语音降噪模型。方法该模型通过卷积、加偏置、批量归一化、Relu激活的多层循环结构,能够有效地对低信噪比条件下语音中的洗衣机噪声、鼓掌噪声、汽车内部噪声等多种常见的环境噪声进行降噪处理。结果最终含噪语音经过模型处理后的MOS评分达到3.91分,其中最高分4.05分,最低分3.81分。结论该模型能够切实提高含噪语音的质量及可懂度,对于实际的公安工作、智慧警务建设、语音分析、语音文本识别等具有重要的意义和价值。     

An interview with Eben Venter: Trencherman and environmentalism in South Africa

This interview explores the role of environmentalism – specifically as it relates to meat and agriculture – in the literature of South African writer Eben Venter. As discussed in the interview, Venter’s novel Trencherman, through its envisioning of a post-apocalyptic South Africa, serves as an especially productive text for examining the interplay of colonialism and ecological violence.     

环境警察权的构成要素

在环境警察权的宏观结构中,权力主体、权力内容及其运行规则是主要的构成要素.环境警察权的权力主体是环境警察机关及其所属的环境警察,其机构设置及人员素质会对环境警察权的实际运行产生较大影响.环境警察权的权力内容不宜过多,应仅限于环境执法,主要包括环境刑事执法权、环境行政执法权和环境监督管理权.而环境警察权的行使则必须遵循法定性原则、有限性原则、公益性原则、程序性原则和责任性原则.     

论我国资源税征税范围

随着我国经济的快速发展,生产与生活中开发、利用自然资源的程度逐渐加深。相对于国外资源税征税范围,我国资源税征税范围较小,有些自然资源没有纳入资源税的征收范围。本文对自然资源与资源税进行梳理与分析,将资源税与资源费进行对比,提出应该逐渐扩大资源税的征税范围。     

论作为概念群落的环境权

环境权是环境法学研究的重课题。对环境权的界定涉及对环境法律关系的主体、人与自然之间关系的法学意蕴、传统权利概念等重理论问题的重新理解。环境权不是一个单一的法律概念,而是由三种权利类型构成的统一整体,这三种权利分别为：环境的权利、环境物权、环境人权。三种权利的统一基础则在于通过法律权利衡平人与自然之间和谐的共生关系。     

Local Government Capital Spending During and After Recessions: A Cause for Concern?

This article combines literature on cutback management with the results of a survey of county commissioners. Specifically, it focuses on the use of capital spending reductions in county government to cope with fiscal stress and the potential long-term impact of such reductions in response to the limited amount of research on this form of local government. In light of the literature and survey results, it recommends that county governments change their behavior and avoid cuts to their capital budgets due to the long-term costs of delayed maintenance and the opportunity costs incurred by stifling economic development. It also presents policy choices available to many counties that enable them to maintain capital investments, including public–private partnerships and earmarked local option sales taxes. The study concludes with a call for quantitative research on the long-term effects of capital reductions during economic downturns.     

Environmental pollution: corporate crime and cancer mortality

Corporate crime remains more costly and arguably more harmful than street crime and such harms include environmental, air, and water pollution resulting in increasing cancer mortality rates around the globe. More importantly, these corporate crimes are global in nature and facilitated by transnational corporations’ capture of the USA Environmental Protection Agency.     

Council of Europe/UNEP,Pan‐European biological and landscape diversity strategy,Invasive Alien Species

Abstract

The notion of sustainable development has become, over the last fifteen years, an integral part of international environmental law and policy. It is recognition that environmental issues do not exist in a vacuum, but rather arc part of much wider structural issues involving both economic and social dimensions. However, does this concern for sustainable development now mean that protecting the natural environment is no longer about ecological conservation per se, but rather is simply abour ensuring an adequate environment to maintain economic development? And if so, what of those environments where the economic value is a secondary consideration? Or where human activity has a disproportionate effect? Can sustainable development be interpreted in a way that reconciles these seemingly opposite demands? This paper examines these issues from the perspective of the 1991 Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. It will suggest that sustainable development is a broader concept than one that simply requires an instrumental approach to environmental protection. In fact, the paper will conclude that sustainable development is a relatively meaningless notion if it docs not also contain a strong element of environmental conservation, and not only in such ecologically important areas as Antarctica.