The Economic Reunification of Korea: A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model

This paper constructs a dynamic specific factors model to examine the impact of the economic reunification of North and South Korea. The model is a compromise between the highly stylized neoclassical models of trade found in the theoretical trade literature, and the highly aggregated models used in dynamic macroeconomics. We find that the policies with the biggest effects on aggregate output are changes in government tax and spending rates, particularly spending on infrastructure. In contrast, we find that both skilled and unskilled wages are much more responsive to the particulars of trade policy, particularly openness to intra-Korea trade and intra-Korea labor mobility. The location of production in a fully integrated Korean economy is determined by the location of infrastructure.factor mobility; dynamic general equilibrium; specific-factors; Korea

MEASURING FOREST RESOURCE VALUES: AN ASSESSMENT OF CHOICE EXPERIMENTS AND PREFERENCE CONSTRUCTION METHODS AS PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT TOOLS

Human values arising from forests include market and non-market values. Timber values and values of non-timber forest products traded in markets (berries, wild rice, etc.) are considered market values. Among non-market values are recreation values and values associated with wildlife harvesting by Aboriginal People. These are considered non-market because participation in these activities does not require the purchase of market based permits; prices do not function as rationing devices in these activities. In addition to non-market values arising from activities, individuals may also have values associated with forest conditions (biodiversity, etc.). These are referred to as passive use values since the value is not associated with any specific use of the resource or activity related to the forest. Since forests in Canada are largely on public land, these passive use values are particularly relevant to Canadian forest management. These values reveal the preferences of the public for components of forest management. Eliciting these values is a form of public involvement in that the public is engaged in assessing forest management options and providing opinions and sentiments regarding these options. Ideally, values arising from forests would be collected from a broad range of the public and examined to provide guidance to forest managers. However, values over forest outputs and conditions may be very poorly formed when people have little experience with the range and complexity of forest ecology and management. In addition, eliciting values without framing them in a trade-off setting can result in misleading estimates. In this project we attempt to elicit passive use values in a manner that allows for poorly defined initial notions of value through an approach known as preference construction. Preference construction essentially provides for education and information processing in the development of passive use values. These estimates are also developed using a trade-off approach (choice experiments). The project focuses on the values of the local public within the NorSask forest. More formally, the objectives of this research are to: 1) ascertain the passive use values held by local people associated with forests in the NorSask Forest Management License Area; 2) explore differences in preferences based on the degree and frequency of formal preference construction exercises; and 3) evaluate this approach as a method of public involvement. A total of 43 individuals from the local community were involved in the valuation exercise. They participated in 3 groups or treatments, each with a different level of involvement in the valuation assessment. The first group was involved in three separate sessions, allowing for significant preference construction and information acquisition. The second group was involved in only one session and the third group was involved only minimally through a telephone contact and the completion of a survey delivered through the mail. The hypothesis being examined was that the degree of involvement in the exercise would affect the responses either in terms of the variances of the responses or the actual preferences. Not all forest values can be examined in a single valuation task. In this case values associated with key game species (moose), wildlife species reflecting biodiversity or threatened species (caribou), old age classes of forest, protected areas and local employment were assessed. These were selected based on the preference construction sessions with the first group. A general trend was found in the ranking of forest values. The values were highest for increases in older forest age classes and protected areas and lower for caribou and moose levels (expressed in percentage changes relative to current levels). The lowest value arose from the local jobs generated by forestry activity. Monetary measures of these values were also developed. The scenario choices made by the individuals revealed that a 5% increase in moose and caribou populations would be worth approximately $10 and$12 per year. A 5% increases in old age classes or protected areas was worth approximately 4 to 5 times as much. They were willing to pay approximately $7 per year in increased taxes for increases in local employment. The hypothesis that the group preferences would differ was not accepted. The preferences of the first and third groups, while expected to be very different, were in fact quite similar. The second group did appear to be different from these other two but it is possible that significant variation in demographic characteristics was driving that difference, rather than the level of preference construction effort. The sample in the third group did however exhibit more resistance to completing the exercise and registered more protests to the value assessment. In conclusion, the approach employed was successful in eliciting passive use values for components of forest management. These values alone provide interesting information for managers to consider in the development of management plans. Evidence supporting the hypothesis that preference construction approaches improve these valuation exercises was not found in this study although this result must be tempered by the limitations arising from sample size and demographic composition of the study groups.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Functional design for operational earth resources ground data processing

The author has identified the following significant results. Study emphasis was on developing a unified concept for the required ground system, capable of handling data from all viable acquisition platforms and sensor groupings envisaged as supporting operational earth survey programs. The platforms considered include both manned and unmanned spacecraft in near earth orbit, and continued use of low and high altitude aircraft. The sensor systems include both imaging and nonimaging devices, operated both passively and actively, from the ultraviolet to the microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum

Z-Spec: A MM-Wave Spectrometer For Measuring Redshifts Of Submillimeter Galaxies

We are building a background-limited, broadband millimeter-wave spectrometer (Z-Spec) for observations of CO rotational transitions from high-redshift dusty galaxies. The large instantaneous bandwidth (195 to 310 GHz) will enable redshifts of dust obscured galaxies to be unambiguously measured. Z-Spec uses a waveguide-coupled grating architecture in which the light propagation is confined within a parallel-plate waveguide. The grating is extremely compact compared to a classical free-space system. An array of silicon nitride bolometers cooled to 100 mK will provide background-limited performance. Z-Spec serves as a technology demonstration for a future space-borne far-infrared grating spectrometer

Improved models of upper-level wind for several astronomical observatories

An understanding of wind speed and direction as a function of height are critical to the proper modeling of atmospheric turbulence. We have used radiosonde data from launch sites near significant astronomical observatories and created mean profiles of wind speed and direction and have also computed Richardson number profiles. Using data from the last 30 years, we extend the 1977 Greenwood wind profile to include parameters that show seasonal variations and differences in location. The added information from our models is useful for the design of adaptive optics systems and other imaging systems. Our analysis of the Richardson number suggests that persistent turbulent layers may be inferred when low values are present in our long term averaged data. Knowledge of the presence of these layers may help with planning for adaptive optics and laser communications.Comment: 21 pages, 15 Figures, 8 table

Probing the Baryon Cycle of Galaxies with SPICA Mid- and Far-Infrared Observations

The SPICA mid- and far-infrared telescope will address fundamental issues in our understanding of star formation and ISM physics in galaxies. A particular hallmark of SPICA is the outstanding sensitivity enabled by the cold telescope, optimised detectors, and wide instantaneous bandwidth throughout the mid- and far-infrared. The spectroscopic, imaging, and polarimetric observations that SPICA will be able to collect will help in clarifying the complex physical mechanisms which underlie the baryon cycle of galaxies. In particular, (i) the access to a large suite of atomic and ionic fine-structure lines for large samples of galaxies will shed light on the origin of the observed spread in star-formation rates within and between galaxies, (ii) observations of HD rotational lines (out to ~10 Mpc) and fine structure lines such as [C ii] 158 μm (out to ~100 Mpc) will clarify the main reservoirs of interstellar matter in galaxies, including phases where CO does not emit, (iii) far-infrared spectroscopy of dust and ice features will address uncertainties in the mass and composition of dust in galaxies, and the contributions of supernovae to the interstellar dust budget will be quantified by photometry and monitoring of supernova remnants in nearby galaxies, (iv) observations of far-infrared cooling lines such as [O i] 63 μm from star-forming molecular clouds in our Galaxy will evaluate the importance of shocks to dissipate turbulent energy. The paper concludes with requirements for the telescope and instruments, and recommendations for the observing strategy

Wroclaw neutrino event generator

A neutrino event generator developed by the Wroclaw Neutrino Group is described. The physical models included in the generator are discussed and illustrated with the results of simulations. The considered processes are quasi-elastic scattering and pion production modelled by combining the $\Delta$ resonance excitation and deep inelastic scattering.Comment: Talk given at 2nd Scandanavian Neutrino Workshop (SNOW 2006), Stockholm, Sweden, 2-6 May 2006. 3 pages, 6 figure

The Origins Space Telescope

The Origins Space Telescope, one of four large Mission Concept Studies sponsored by NASA for review in the 2020 US Astrophysics Decadal Survey, will open unprecedented discovery space in the infrared, unveiling our cosmic origins

Warm Molecular Gas Traced with CO J=7->6 in the Galaxy's Central 2 Parsecs: Dynamical Heating of the Circumnuclear Disk

We present an 11 arcsec resolution map of the central two parsecs of the Galaxy in the CO J =7->6 rotational transition. The CO emission shows rotation about Sgr A*, but also evidence for non-circular turbulent motion and a clumpy morphology. We combine our dataset with available CO measurements to model the physical conditions in the disk. We find that the molecular gas in the region is both warm and dense, with T~200-300 K, n_H2~50,000-70,000 cm^-3. The mass of warm molecular gas we measure in the central two parsecs is at least 2000 M_solar, about 20 times the UV-excited atomic gas mass, ruling out an UV heating scenario for the molecular material. We compare the available spectral tracers with theoretical models and conclude that molecular gas is heated with magneto-hydrodynamic shocks with v~10-20 kms and B~0.3-0.5 mG. Using the conditions derived with the CO analysis, we include the other important coolants--neutral oxygen and molecular hydrogen--to estimate the total cooling budget of the molecular material. We derive a mass to luminosity ratio of 2-3 M_solar/ L_solar, which is consistent with the total power dissipated via turbulent decay in 0.1 pc cells with v_rms~15 kms. These size and velocity scales are comparable to the observed clumping scale and the velocity dispersion. At this rate, the material near Sgr A* its dissipating its orbital energy on an orbital timescale, and cannot last for more than a few orbits. Our conclusions support a scenario in which the features near Sgr A* such as the CND and northern arm are generated by infalling clouds with low specific angular momentum.Comment: 31 pages, including 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap