(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

Abstract: We model tradeoffs arising between protecting biodiversity hotspots and promoting economic growth in developing economies. Environmental valuation and economic growth are assumed to be inherently linked, whereas, the ability to enforce stricter environmental regulations is constrained by the presence of regulator-commercial nexus. A dynamic optimization framework is adopted to derive optimal time path of forest acreage preservation efforts from the perspective of a regulator, whose utility function may not be fully aligned with that of the society. Results indicate that due to the presence of a regulator-commercial nexus, the regulator's optimal plan leads to a discounting of biodiversity preservation goals in favor of short-term economic growth. Further, when the degradation of the environment provides negative feedback to local economic growth, the regulator's optimal plan deviates significantly from the socially optimal plan, resulting in losses to both economic growth and the biodiversity. Recommendations for Resource Managers: Regulator-commercial nexus can undermine the goal of preserving biodiversity hotspots. A regulator having significant nexus with the commercial exploiters of biodiversity would underinvest toward biodiversity preservation efforts. The resulting lax environmental regulations, even though they may appear to be providing beneficial results to the economy in the short term, could harm the environment as well as the economy in the long term. Short-term economic gains that materialize through the overexploitation of the biodiversity also help disguise and sustain the regulator-commercial nexus. When environmental degradation could provide negative feedback to economic growth, the differences in biodiversity preservation efforts under a socially optimal plan and that under a regulator-commercial nexus stand in sharp contrast. A socially optimal plan leads to lower rate of economic growth in the short term; however, the long-term outcomes for the environment as well as the economy are significantly higher as compared to what is possible under a regulator-commercial nexus. Copyright © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Economics

Natural Resource Modeling

Preserving ecologically sensitive hotspots under endogenous regulation and valuation constraints

This ethnoarchaeological study, carried out in the Upper Ganga Plains of North India, contributes to our understanding of the variation that exists in the organization of household ceramic production. The paper describes techniques, tools and facilities; division of work/tasks; location of production; range of products; differences in the scale and intensity of production between rural and urban households; and interweaves the archaeological implications in relation to the locus of production, scale, intensity and specialization. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

World University root node

History

Ethnoarchaeology

Households at Work: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Variation in Ceramic Production in North India

We analyze dynamic private provision of a discrete public good by heterogeneous agents, who differ in terms of their levels of impatience, in a differential game framework. In contrast to the strategic complementarity result for homogeneous individuals, we show that an asymmetric completion Markov perfect equilibrium exists, where the individual contributions and the strategic behaviors depend crucially on an impatience differential: the difference in rates of time preference across groups of individuals. When this differential is insignificant, contributions of both types of individuals are strategic complements. On the other hand, when this impatience differential exceeds a threshold, the contributions of impatient individuals become strategic substitutes, whereas the contributions of patient individuals remain strategic complements. We show that group size has an interesting role to play in the strategic behavior: increasing the number of patient individuals aggravates the incentives to free-ride by the impatient agents. We also derive a condition under which all the socially beneficial projects get completed in the equilibrium. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Journal of Public Economic Theory

Heterogeneity, impatience, and dynamic private provision of a discrete public good

Aquatic ecosystems around the globe are under threat from pollution, invasive species, over-exploitation, and other stressors. Given synergistic effects, policy measures to address particular stressors should be developed in tandem with policy measures to address others. We present a bio-economic model that addresses the optimal management of an aquatic ecosystem subject to multiple stressors. Specifically, we consider optimal management of a native fishery in a lake ecosystem subject to risks from pollution and an invasive species. Optimal plans exist for various cases defined by whether, one, both, or neither of the stressor events has occurred. Optimal fishery stocks vary between these cases, and depend on the order in which the stressor event occur if realized. The optimal native stock is the highest in the absence of either stressor. However, the combined influence of the multiple risks can rapidly reduce the probability of maintaining an un-invaded and un-polluted state for long. The synergistic effects of the risks interconnect optimal policies in interesting ways. We find that optimal pollution abatement in absence of both these stressors may turn out to be lower than when either or both stressors are present. The effectiveness of native fish stock in mitigating the risk of alien fish invasion can have a bearing on whether optimal native fish stock and abatement effort are used as substitutes or as complements. Pollution abatement levels that are chosen without consideration of alien invasion risk can lead indirectly to increased societal costs for invasion risk mitigation. © 2017 World Scientific Publishing Company.

Water Economics and Policy

Protecting and Restoring Aquatic Ecosystems in Multiple Stressor Environments

This paper aims to identify the appropriateness of various parameters identified previously to define legibility in the context of Latin script done for the context of Indic typefaces like Bengali and Devanagari. The analysis is based on anatomical features, gridlines, letter binding, letter support, direction of stroke, stroke density, and variance. The paper also discusses various challenges of Indic scripts in terms of letter identification with respect to visibility and familiarity. Finally, various design parameters for identification are proposed for measurement of legibility of Bengali and Devanagari. The insight of the paper is to make type designers and researchers aware of effective design parameters that are necessary to understand during the design of Indic typeface. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017.

Design

Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies

Legibility: Same for all scripts!

Substrate-cell interactions for a bioimplant are driven by substrate's surface characteristics. In addition, the performance of an implant and resistance to degradation are primarily governed by its surface properties. A bioimplant typically degrades by wear and corrosion in the physiological environment, resulting in metallosis. Surface engineering strategies for limiting degradation of implants and enhancing their performance may reduce or eliminate the need for implant removal surgeries and the associated cost. In the current study, we tailored the surface properties of stainless steel using submerged friction stir processing (FSP), a severe plastic deformation technique. FSP resulted in significant microstructural refinement from 22 μm grain size for the as-received alloy to 0.8 μm grain size for the processed sample with increase in hardness by nearly 1.5 times. The wear and corrosion behavior of the processed alloy was evaluated in simulated body fluid. The processed sample demonstrated remarkable improvement in both wear and corrosion resistance, which is explained by surface strengthening and formation of a highly stable passive layer. The methylthiazol tetrazolium assay demonstrated that the processed sample is better in supporting cell attachment, proliferation with minimal toxicity, and hemolysis. The athrombogenic characteristic of the as-received and processed samples was evaluated by fibrinogen adsorption and platelet adhesion via the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and lactate dehydrogenase assay, respectively. The processed sample showed less platelet and fibrinogen adhesion compared with the as-received alloy, signifying its high thromboresistance. The current study suggests friction stir processing to be a versatile toolbox for enhancing the performance and reliability of currently used bioimplant materials. © 2017 American Chemical Society.

Life Sciences

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

Mechanical Engineering

(SoE) School of Engineering

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

Friction Stir Processing of Stainless Steel for Ascertaining Its Superlative Performance in Bioimplant Applications

Repeated Trade with Two $ sided Incomplete Information

A model of concessional bargaining among farmers explains the success (or lack thereof) of cooperative institutions in rural farm settings in the developing regions. Concessional bargaining in day-to-day interactions generates goodwill, which helps smoothen future dealings amongst farmers as well as with outside agents. In particular, we model the existence of goodwill amongst farmers as enhancing their ability to collectively bargain with an outside dealer that buys their farm produce. Results suggest that when dealing with each other, farmers offer higher concessions when the risk of loss or reversal in bargaining power is high; however, the level of concession is also influenced by the degree of reciprocity and parameters that affect bargaining surplus. Findings provide further insights over the success of cooperative institutions in rural farm settings where inter-farmer goodwill dynamics determines the cooperative's bargaining outcomes. Specifically, when farmers generously reciprocate each other's goodwill gestures, it leads to better outcomes through increasing their cooperative reservation price. In contrast, when the degree of reciprocity is lower, or when the risk of bargaining power switching is higher, farmers extract more surplus from other farmers, and this also lowers the cooperative's bargaining outcomes and makes the cooperative arrangement unviable in the long term. © 2017 The Authors Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2017 CIRIEC

Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics

BARGAINING AMONG FARMERS, GOODWILL, AND THE SUCCESS OF COOPERATIVES

Sociology

Tourism and Ethnodevelopment: Inclusion, Empowerment and Self-determination

Exotic tourists, ethnic hosts: A critical approach to tourism and ethnodevelopment

We study the stable market outcome that evolves in a spatially differentiated market when price-competing firms choose actions by imitation of the most profitable firm. We compare and contrast the stable outcomes under two imitation procedures: one, where each firm immediately imitates the most profitable firm, and the other when a firm imitates another firm only if it is more profitable while being “sufficiently similar” (in context of the market segment it operates in) or “sufficiently close”. In either case, the symmetric pure strategy Nash equilibrium is always a stable outcome. However, when imitation of the most profitable firm is immediate and market differentiation is ‘moderate’, states with prices lower than the Nash equilibrium are also stable. In contrast, when imitation of the most profitable firm is more gradual and market differentiation is below a threshold, states with prices above the Nash equilibrium are also stable. Thus, while competitive evolutionary pressure in this imitation based model does result in the Nash equilibrium always being stable, other outcomes may be stable as well. Interestingly, the states that are stable under gradual imitation give the firms a higher profit than the stable states under immediate imitation. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.