Ownership and Property Rights Issues in Watershed Resource Management

Well-defined property rights recognize the ownership of material and abstract things. The low enforcement of property rights for a certain resource may lead to its abuse. Hence, its application on watershed needs to be understood. This paper attempts to show the dualistic system of considering property rights and its implication to policy research.natural resources and environment, property rights, watershed

Anisotropy probe of galactic and extra-galactic Dark Matter annihilations

We study the flux and the angular power spectrum of gamma-rays produced by Dark Matter (DM) annihilations in the Milky Way (MW) and in extra-galactic halos. The annihilation signal receives contributions from: a) the smooth MW halo, b) resolved and unresolved substructures in the MW, c) external DM halos at all redshifts, including d) their substructures. Adopting a self-consistent description of local and extra-galactic substructures, we show that the annihilation flux from substructures in the MW dominates over all the other components for angles larger than O(1) degrees from the Galactic Center, unless an extreme prescription is adopted for the substructures concentration. We also compute the angular power spectrum of gamma-ray anisotropies and find that, for an optimistic choice of the particle physics parameters, an interesting signature of DM annihilations could soon be discovered by the Fermi LAT satellite at low multipoles, l<100, where the dominant contribution comes from MW substructures with mass M>10^4 solar masses. For the substructures models we have adopted, we find that the contribution of extra-galactic annihilations is instead negligible at all scales.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

The National Health Accounts of the Philippines: Continuing Development and New Findings

For more than a decade now, the national health accounts (NHA) of the Philippines has been providing data that are important for health policymaking. At present, the NHA not only continues to be important for health policymaking. It has also become indispensable as a tool for monitoring and tracking outcomes of health sector policies. To further expand its usefulness, the Philippine NHA underwent major restructuring, specifically in the classification of health expenditures by uses of funds. The revised NHA now includes several types of breakdown by uses of funds. Analysis of preliminary 2003 estimates of the revised NHA matrices reveals new details of the manner by which health funds are utilized in the Philippines--data that are not available in the original NHA.health sector, national health accounts, health funds

Effects of Agricultural Mechanization on Farm Income Patterns

This article is part of the seminar-workshop on the “Consequences of Small Farm Mechanization on Production, Employment and Incomes in the Philippines” sponsored jointly by the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Economic and Development Authority, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and the International Rice Research Institute held on December 1-2, 1983 at Tagaytay City. Utilizing cross-section results from a survey conducted, this article measures the importance of mechanization as a source of income variation. Analysis supports the fact that mechanization has effects on income changes. However, this article encourages the use of multivariate analysis for a better assessment of its impact and the inclusion of factor share analysis to account for the distribution of ownership.income changes, agriculture sector, impact analysis, mechanization

The 1979 Diary Family Income and Expenditure Survey: Experience and Preliminary Results

This paper is presented at the Third National Convention on Statistics on December 13-14, 1982. The 1979 Diary Family income and Expenditure Survey (DFIES) has utilized the diary method of data collection to minimize, if not eliminate, errors and biases arising from the traditional recall-record method of soliciting information. Jointly conducted by the National Tax Research Center and National Census and Statistics Office, DFIES aims to provide reliable quantitative information regarding personal/additional exemptions and household income/expenditure patterns. This article argues for the utilization of DFIES in the Philippines. Areas for improvement of the system are also cited.income, data and statistics, survey method, data collection

Target Zones in History and Theory: Lessons from an Austro-Hungarian Experiment (1896-1914)

The first known experiment with an exchange rate band took place in Austria- Hungary between 1896 and 1914. The rationale for introducing this policy rested on precisely those intuitions that the modern literature has emphasized: the band was designed to secure both exchange rate stability and monetary policy autonomy. However, unlike more recent experiences, such as the ERM, this policy was not undermined by credibility problems. The episode provides an ideal testing ground for some important ideas in modern macroeconomics: specifically, can formal rules, when faithfully adhered to, provide policy makers with some advantages such as short term autonomy? First, we find that a credible band has a "microeconomic" influence on exchange rate stability. By reducing uncertainty, a credible fluctuation band improves the quality of expectations, a channel that has been neglected in the modern literature. Second, we show that the standard test of the basic target zone model is flawed and develop an alternative methodology. We believe that these findings shed a new light on the economics of exchange rate bands

The gamma-ray burst monitor for Lobster-ISS

Lobster-ISS is an X-ray all-sky monitor experiment selected by ESA two years ago for a Phase A study (now almost completed) for a future flight (2009) aboard the Columbus Exposed Payload Facility of the International Space Station. The main instrument, based on MCP optics with Lobster-eye geometry, has an energy passband from 0.1 to 3.5 keV, an unprecedented daily sensitivity of 2x10^{-12} erg cm^{-2}s$^{-1}, and it is capable to scan, during each orbit, the entire sky with an angular resolution of 4--6 arcmin. This X-ray telescope is flanked by a Gamma Ray Burst Monitor, with the minimum requirement of recognizing true GRBs from other transient events. In this paper we describe the GRBM. In addition to the minimum requirement, the instrument proposed is capable to roughly localize GRBs which occur in the Lobster FOV (162x22.5 degrees) and to significantly extend the scientific capabilities of the main instrument for the study of GRBs and X-ray transients. The combination of the two instruments will allow an unprecedented spectral coverage (from 0.1 up to 300/700 keV) for a sensitive study of the GRB prompt emission in the passband where GRBs and X-Ray Flashes emit most of their energy. The low-energy spectral band (0.1-10 keV) is of key importance for the study of the GRB environment and the search of transient absorption and emission features from GRBs, both goals being crucial for unveiling the GRB phenomenon. The entire energy band of Lobster-ISS is not covered by either the Swift satellite or other GRB missions foreseen in the next decade.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Paper presented at the COSPAR 2004 General Assembly (Paris), accepted for publication in Advances in Space Research in June 2005 and available on-line at the Journal site (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02731177), section "Articles in press

The National Health Accounts of the Philippines: Continuing Development and New Findings

For more than a decade now, the national health accounts (NHA) of the Philippines has been providing data that are important for health policymaking. At present, the NHA not only continues to be important for health policymaking. It has also become indispensable as a tool for monitoring and tracking outcomes of health sector policies. To further expand its usefulness, the Philippine NHA underwent major restructuring, specifically in the classification of health expenditures by uses of funds. The revised NHA now includes several types of breakdown by uses of funds. Analysis of preliminary 2003 estimates of the revised NHA matrices reveals new details of the manner by which health funds are utilized in the Philippines--data that are not available in the original NHA.health sector, national health accounts, health funds

The Philippine Health Institutions: Some Problems, Approaches and Policy Issues

This paper presents a brief analysis of the current situation of Philippine health institutions using secondary data. It locates the different types of health institutions, describes its major problems, discusses recent approaches these institutions have adopted to improve delivery of health care services and extricates policy-related issues and data gaps from available literature.health sector, hospitals, hospital care, health centers

Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling and the "cosmic" Josephson effect

We discuss the possible influence of a cosmic magnetic field on the macroscopic quantum tunneling process associated, in a cosmological context, to the decay of the "false vacuum." We find a close analogy with the effects of an external magnetic field applied to a Josephson junction in the context of low-temperature/high-temperature superconducting devices.Comment: 4 pages, 1 pdf figure. Added references and an inset in Fig. 1, results unchanged. To appear in Phys. Rev. D (Brief Report