Is investment in Africa too low or too high : macro and micro evidence

The authors investigate the relationship between weak growth performance and low investment rates in Africa. The cross-country evidence suggests no direct relationship. The positive and significant coefficient on private investment appears to be driven by Botswana's presence in the sample. Allowing for the endogeneity of private investment, controlling for policy, and positing a nonlinear relationship make no difference to the conclusion. Higher investment in Africa would not by itself produce faster GDP growth. Africa's low investment and growth rates seem to be symptoms of underlying factors. To investigate those factors and to correct for some of the problems with cross-country analysis, the authors undertook a case study of manufacturing investment in Tanzania. They tried to identify why output per worker declined while capital per worker increased. Some of the usual suspects--such as shifts from high- to low-productivity subsectors, the presence of state-owned enterprises, or poor polices--did not play a significant role in this decline. Instead, low capacity utilization (possibly the by-product of poor policies) and constraints on absorptive capacity for skill acquisition seem to be critical factors. If Tanzania is not atypical,the low productivity of investment in Africa was the result of a combination of factors that occurred simultaneously, not any single factor. What does this tell us? First, we should be more careful about calling for an investment boom so that Africa can resume growth. Unless some or all of the underlying problems are addressed, the results may be disappointing. We should also be more circumspect about Africa's low savings rate; it may be low because returns to investment were so low. The relatively high level of capital flight from Africa may have been a level rational response to the lack of investment oportunities at home. Second, there is probably no single key to unlocking investment and GDP growth in Africa. All of the factors contributing to low productivity should be addressed simultaneously.Economic Growth,Achieving Shared Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies,Trade and Regional Integration,Economic Theory&Research

Low Investment is Not the Constraint on African Development

While many analysts decry the lack of sufficient investment in Africa, we find no evidence that private and public investment are productive, either in Africa as a whole (unless Botswana is included in the sample), or in the manufacturing sector in Tanzania. In this restricted sense, inadequate investment is not the major obstacle to African economic development.African Development, private and public investment, economic development

Cruise Report W-131 : scientific activities undertaken aboard SSV Westward, West Palm Beach - Montego Bay - Routan - Miami, 7 February - 18 March 1994

West Palm Beach, FL - Montego Bay - Roatan - Miami, FL, 7 February to 18 March 1994This report outlines the scientific and academic program conducted aboard SSV Westward during February and March, 1994. It consists of summaries of research stations occupied, data collected, and highlights some of the results obtained during oceanographic operations. It also contains a list, and conclusions of, student projects completed during the trip. The report represents a preliminary analysis of data collected during W-131

Cruise Report C-138 : scientific activities undertaken aboard SSV Corwith Cramer, Miami, Florida - Bermuda - Dominican Republic - Miami, Florida, 23 March to 1 May 1995

Miami, Florida - Bermuda - Dominican Republic - Miami, Florida, 23 March to 1 May 1995This report outlines the scientific and academic program conducted aboard SSV Corwith Cramer during March and April, 1995. It consists of summaries of research stations occupied, data collected, and highlights some of the results obtained during oceanographic operations. It also contains a list, and conclusions of, student projects completed during the trip. The report represents a preliminary analysis of data collected during C-138

Recent work: William R. Howard

1998 Fall.The work that I have accomplished during my graduate degree reflects an integration of traditional printmaking with some of the technological advancements in photography and computers. Although printmaking has not always been favorable to new and non-traditional techniques, current trends have broadened the definition of a print, embracing computer technology as one of the tools in intaglio printmaking. In my recent work I have combined traditional approaches with some of the newer technology. For example, in my prints a photograph is scanned on the computer where it is altered, then copied and transferred onto a zinc plate. It is then etched in a traditional manner and transformed into an intaglio plate. The distance from the photograph that is achieved through the etching process, enables me to attract audiences outside of photography such as printmakers and painters. The result is, I believe, a unique work of art that focuses on my own sensibilities as an individual and artist. In my work, collections of people, or groups of individual images, shown as a series, reflect the way that each individual relates to another to form a group or a "community." By bringing a group of individuals together, one begins to compare and contrast each individual, but at the same time is still able to see them as a whole. Although I am addressing social conditions, the idea of each personality figures into the perception of the work. The manipulated heads, hands, and bodies of the individuals reflect the idiosyncrasies of each subject allowing the viewer to isolate subtle differences between them. In the end what exists is a community of individuals rich with cultural associations and individual characteristics. My work is derived from the reconstruction of several photographs into an expressive whole. By reassembling individual photographs into a single piece, a statement about my own sensibiities as an artist comes through and the result is a taxonomy or set of people that has personal meaning to me. By looking at the set of individuals the viewers can make their own associations and leave with their own conclusions. These conclusions will be different according to each background and experience that the viewer has, and I assume will often be different than mine

Hybrid Cognition for Target Tracking in Cognitive Radar Networks

This work investigates online learning techniques for a cognitive radar network utilizing feedback from a central coordinator. The available spectrum is divided into channels, and each radar node must transmit in one channel per time step. The network attempts to optimize radar tracking accuracy by learning the optimal channel selection for spectrum sharing and radar performance. We define optimal selection for such a network in relation to the radar observation quality obtainable in a given channel. This is a difficult problem since the network must seek the optimal assignment from nodes to channels, rather than just seek the best overall channel. Since the presence of primary users appears as interference, the approach also improves spectrum sharing performance. In other words, maximizing radar performance also minimizes interference to primary users. Each node is able to learn the quality of several available channels through repeated sensing. We define hybrid cognition as the condition where both the independent radar nodes as well as the central coordinator are modeled as cognitive agents, with restrictions on the amount of information that can be exchanged between the radars and the coordinator. Importantly, each part of the network acts as an online learner, observing the environment to inform future actions. We show that in interference-limited spectrum, where the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio varies by channel and over time for a target with fixed radar cross section, a cognitive radar network is able to use information from the central coordinator in order to reduce the amount of time necessary to learn the optimal channel selection. We also show that even limited use of a central coordinator can eliminate collisions, which occur when two nodes select the same channel.Comment: 34 pages, single-column, 10 figure

Kepler-18b,c, and d: A System of Three Planets Confirmed by Transit Timing Variations, Light Curve Validation, Warm-Spitzer Photometry, and Radial Velocity Measurements

We report the detection of three transiting planets around a Sun-like star, which we designate Kepler-18. The transit signals were detected in photometric data from the Kepler satellite, and were confirmed to arise from planets using a combination of large transit-timing variations (TTVs), radial velocity variations, Warm-Spitzer observations, and statistical analysis of false-positive probabilities. The Kepler-18 star has a mass of 0.97 M_☉, a radius of 1.1 R_☉, an effective temperature of 5345 K, and an iron abundance of [Fe/H] = +0.19. The planets have orbital periods of approximately 3.5, 7.6, and 14.9 days. The innermost planet "b" is a "super-Earth" with a mass of 6.9 ± 3.4 M_⊕, a radius of 2.00 ± 0.10 R_⊕, and a mean density of 4.9 ± 2.4 g cm^3. The two outer planets "c" and "d" are both low-density Neptune-mass planets. Kepler-18c has a mass of 17.3 ± 1.9 M_⊕, a radius of 5.49 ± 0.26 R_⊕, and a mean density of 0.59 ± 0.07 g cm^3, while Kepler-18d has a mass of 16.4 ± 1.4 M_⊕, a radius of 6.98 ± 0.33 R_⊕ and a mean density of 0.27 ± 0.03 g cm^3. Kepler-18c and Kepler-18d have orbital periods near a 2:1 mean-motion resonance, leading to large and readily detected TTVs

Geology and Structure of the Rough Creek Area, Western Kentucky

The Rough Creek area is a rectangular area about 113 mi east to west and 35 mi north to south encompassing about 3,900 mi2 in west-central and western Kentucky. The Ohio River delineates most of the western border with Illinois and locally also part of the northern border with Indiana. The northeast corner of the area is about 27 mi southwest of Louisville. The principal cities are Owensboro and Henderson. The Precambrian basement has been penetrated in only two wells in western Kentucky at depths somewhat greater than 14,000 ft. Basement is projected to underlie much of the area at a depth of more than 25,000 ft, and perhaps locally even more than 30,000 ft, in this, the deepest part of the Illinois Basin. Rocks of all geologic ages from Cambrian to Quaternary, except those of Mesozoic age, are present within the Rough Creek area; Upper Cretaceous strata occur as close as 20 mi south of the southeastern corner, however. All Paleozoic rocks older than Early Mississippian are restricted to the subsurface, so that the exposed rocks are dominantly of Mississippian (Meramecian and Chesterian) and Pennsylvanian ages. Strata of the Fort Payne Formation (Osagean) are present locally in the Rough Creek Fault Zone. Also, rocks of Early Permian age have been identified in a graben in the fault zone. Although no Pleistocene ice sheets penetrated south of the Ohio River in the Rough Creek area, the river valley was a major sluiceway for glacial debris from the Wisconsinan ice sheet, so the valley is filled with outwash, and loess blown from the valley blankets the area adjacent on the south. Remnants of Tertiary and Quarternary stream terraces are present in the Ohio and Green River Valleys, and thick lacustrine deposits covered by younger alluvium fill the larger stream valleys tributary to the Ohio River. The Rough Creek area is in the southern part of the Illinois Basin, and the principal structural features of the region that are present within or close to the study area, and at times influenced depositional patterns during the Paleozoic, include the Rough Creek–Shawneetown Fault System, the Moorman–Eagle Valley Syncline, the Pennyrile Fault System, and faults of the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District. The Rough Creek–Shawneetown Fault System, which extends from western Kentucky into southeastern Illinois, where it is called the Shawneetown Fault Zone, is defined on its northern and western margins in Illinois by a southward-dipping, high-angle reverse fault with as much as 3,500 ft of reverse displacement. The frontal fault extends into Kentucky, but the degree of displacement is less than in Illinois; eastward along the structure, the frontal fault is broken into several long, arcuate segments by high-angle normal faults, and is displaced southward until it is no longer the frontal fault. In Kentucky, the Rough Creek zone is characterized by many steeply dipping fault blocks bounded by high-angle normal and reverse faults. The Moorman–Eagle Valley Syncline lies immediately south of the Rough Creek–Shawneetown Fault System, and that structure forms its steep northern and western limbs; the Kentucky part is the Moorman Syncline. The Pennyrile Fault System defines the gentle southern limb of the Moorman Syncline. In the deepest part of the composite syncline, which is close to its northern limb, structural relief on the Precambrian basement is more than 30,000 ft. The Moorman–Eagle Valley Syncline overlies the Rough Creek Graben in the basement. The Pennyrile Fault System, which lies mostly south of the Rough Creek area, is a broad feature composed of three branches of east- to northeast-trending, high-angle normal faults in an en echelon pattern that break the gently dipping strata into a series of fault blocks. Displacement on the faults generally increases to the west toward the junction of the fault system with faults of the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District. The Pennyrile overlies the southern margin of the Rough Creek Graben, a structural feature in basement rocks

Keithfield Plantation Bluff & Wharf Sites

This 36-page, unpublished document was written by SCIAA Research Associates Steve Howard, William R. (Billy) Judd, and Drew Ruddy for use by SCIAA