Do donors get what they paid for? micro evidence on the fungibility of development project aid

Recipient government responses to development project aid have typically been studied at high levels of aggregation, using cross-country comparisons and/or aggregate time series data. Yet increasingly the relevant decisions are being made at the local level, in response to specific community-level projects. The authors use local-level data to test for fungibility of World Bank financing of rural road rehabilitation targeted to specific geographic areas of Vietnam. A simple double difference estimate suggests that the project's net contribution to rehabilitated road increments is close to zero, suggesting complete displacement of funding. However, with better controls for the endogeneity of project placement the authors find much less evidence of fungibility, with displacement accounting for around one-third of the aid. The results point to the importance ofdealing with selection bias in assessing project aid fungibility.Housing&Human Habitats,Roads&Highways,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis

Dynamic Wind Tunnel Load and Attitude Measurements Using State Estimation

Sting-mounted models that undergo significant unsteady motion suffer from degraded data quality because the data is time-averaged to remove the unsteady fluctuations. However, time-averaged data is not always an accurate representation of the true data. Eliminating such errors is addressed in this study by developing and evaluating the performance of a Kalman filter for estimating instantaneous load and model attitude data for a sting-mounted wind tunnel model. The particular model is 6.25% scale WB-57 that is tested in the Oran W. Nicks Low Speed Wind Tunnel at Texas A&M University. The pitch and plunge motion of the model are measured using accelerometers and the loads and moments are measured using an internal balance. This work shows that a simplified state-space model consisting of 3 state variables and one measurement can successfully estimate plunge position and normal force of a sting-mounted test article by minimizing the difference between actual and predicted measurements in the Kalman filter. The aerodynamic normal force results compared well with conventional time-averaged wind tunnel data used as a metric to measure the successfulness of the state estimation technique. A more extensive state space model with 6 state variables and 4 measurements has the potential to estimate the pitch position and pitching moment in conjunction with the plunge position and loads. Doing so would require a different technique to quantify and tune the process noise covariance matrix

Is the emerging nonfarm market economy the route out of poverty in Vietnam?

Are the household characteristics that are good for transition to a more diversified market-oriented development process in Vietnam also important for reducing poverty? Or are there tradeoffs? The determinants of both poverty incidence and participation in rural off-farm activities are modeled as functions of household and community characteristics using comprehensive national household surveys for 1993 and 1998. Despite some common causative factors, such as education and region of residence, the processes determining poverty and inhibiting diversification are clearly not the same. Participation in the emerging rural nonfarm market economy will be the route out of poverty for some, but certainly not all, of Vietnam's poor.Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Labor Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment,Governance Indicators,Achieving Shared Growth

Beowulf

Typescript.That poem may surely be said to be abstract in character in which the motive is more real than the deed, in which the thoughts of a man's heart are given more dramatic prominence than the facts of his appearance, in which few figures appear on the stage of action and little or not setting is provided, in which a wealth of terms results in comparatively little pictorial effect. It is my thesis that the foregoing description fits the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf.--Page 2-3.Includes bibliographical references

Dr. Rudolph Gmelin and His Collection of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa Plants

Through the kindness of Mr. Henry C. Gmelin of Elkader, Iowa, a collection of dried plants numbering two hundred and sixty-nine species which were collected by his father, Dr. Rudolph Gmelin, in southeastern Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa, between the years 1874 and 1894, were presented to the Iowa State College. It fell to the lot of the writer to arrange and mount the collection, and because of the prominence of the collector and the unusual care taken in preparing and preserving the specimens, it has been thought proper to place on record a short biographical sketch of Dr. Gmelin and append a list of the plants

The Genus Rumex in Iowa

The genus Rumex includes about 140 species, commonly known as Docks or Sorrels, and is best represented in the North Temperate Zone, a few occurring in South America, South Africa and Australia

Iowa Plant Notes, II

Since issuing No.1 of my paper on the above subject1 quite a number of interesting plants, many of them new to the state, have been added to the State College Herbarium, which it is desired to notice at this time. As might be expected, many of them are introduced plants, some of which may not remain with us long, while others will undoubtedly become permanent additions to our flora

Probing the Locally Generated Even and Odd Order Nonlinearity in Y-Ba-Cu-O and Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O (2212) Microwave Resonators around TC

Spatial scanning of the synchronously generated 2nd and 3rd order intermodulation distortion in superconducting resonators uncovers local nonlinearity hot spots, and possible time reversal symmetry breaking, using a simple probe fashioned from coaxial cable. It is clear that even and odd order nonlinearity in these samples do not share the same physical origins, as their temperature and static magnetic field dependences are quite different. 2nd order intermodulation distortion (IMD) remains strong in these measurements as the temperature continues to drop below TC to 77K even though the 3rd order peaks near TC and becomes smaller at lower temperature as predicted by the nonlinear Meissner effect. Both YBa2Cu3O7 and Tl2Ba2CaCu2O8 resonators of the same structure exhibit similar temperature dependence in the 2nd order with 2nd order remaining high at lower temperature. The YBa2Cu3O7 sample has lower 3rd order IMD with a pronounced peak at TC

The Address of the President - The Ministry of Science

We are living in a very progressive age - one which when compared with that of our forebears, is filled with advantages for our welfare and enjoyment that challenges the attention of every thoughtful person. That knowledge is power was never a more self-evident truth than it is today, and science, which is simply classified knowledge, is every day coming more closely in touch with human lives, and ministers to us in innumerable ways undreamed of a century ago. Just how great our debt is for all this it is difficult to say. Captain Roald Amundson, that modern Viking whom all the world delights to honor, says, We must realize that all we have and are we owe to scientists, those patient searchers after knowledge