Measuring Welfare Loss Caused by Air Pollution in Europe: A CGE Analysis

Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).To evaluate the socio-economic impacts of air pollution, we develop an integrated approach based on computable general equilibrium (CGE). Applying our approach to Europe shows that even there, where air quality is relatively high compared with other parts of the world, health-related damages caused by air pollution are substantial. We estimate that in 2005, air pollution in Europe caused a consumption loss of around 220 billion Euro (year 2000 prices, around 3 percent of consumption level) and a social welfare loss of around 370 billion Euro, measured as the sum of lost consumption and leisure (around 2 percent of welfare level). In addition, we estimated that a set of 2020-targeting air quality improvement policy scenarios, which are proposed in the 2005 CAFE program, would bring 18 European countries as a whole a welfare gain of 37 to 49 billion Euro (year 2000 prices) in year 2020 alone.This study received support from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which is funded by a consortium of government, industry and foundation sponsors

Children's understandings of different writing systems and scripts: Korean written in the Hangul alphabet and English written in the Roman alphabet

Although many children become literate within an environment in which different language systems exist, there is still little research on what children know about different writing systems and how they understand and develop them when they are learning more than one alongside each other. Based on sociocultural theory and the concept of emergent literacy, which assume children as active language users in social processes, this research explores how Korean preschool children aged six make use of literacy knowledge and skills, and how they understand two different scripts, the Korean alphabet Hangul and the Roman alphabet used for English, in a foreign language context. 10 Korean EFL preschool children took part in peer teaching sessions, in 5 pairs, with each pair having a tutor child, aged 6, and a pupil, aged, 5. The tutor children taught literacy in both Hangul and English to the tutee children, and they led each teaching session in their own ways as active participants by using their own materials brought from their classrooms or homes as a teaching resource. The tutor children’s communicative interactions around reading and writing, written explanations presented on the paper, their behaviours, comments and responses during the peer teaching were observed and analyzed focusing on the meaning of what each child said, acted and wrote. The findings showed that the children were able to use their literacy knowledge and skills whilst engaged in literacy activities, and those knowledge and skills were shown in both two languages, at different levels: context, texts, sentences, words, syllables, morphemes, and sounds-letters. The findings also showed that they were able not only to find out key orthographic principles which characterise each writing system but also to seek the similarities and differences between two languages from different points of views: shape of letters (block shaped vs. linear), language units (syllables vs. letters), and sound-letter relationship (shallow orthography vs. deep orthography). The findings of this study suggest that young children are able to look for key concepts from different scripts from an early age, with the use of their literacy knowledge and skills in each script as active language learners

Case of China's automobile industry

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-203).This dissertation consists of three self-contained essays, each of which examines part of the causal link among inward/outward foreign direct investment (FDI), intra-organizational proximity, and in-house technology development performances. The first essay explores why international joint ventures (IJVs)-an FDI-hosting arrangement often employed by the global South to strengthen foreign investors' commitment to local economic development-may lead to only partial success in nurturing local technological capability. The experience of China's passenger vehicle sector demonstrates that, in the existence of a substantial technological-capability gap between alliance partners, the IJV arrangement is likely to create a "passive" learning mode where foreign firms determine what, when, and how their local IJV partner firms should learn. Accordingly, learners using this IJV arrangement may be able to strengthen their production capability, where interests of both IJV partner firms often converge, but it leaves their project-execution and innovation capabilities largely undeveloped. The second essay discusses how outward FDI can complement the IJV-based technological capability-building process, through an analysis of the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) case. When a firm is upgrading its technological capability, outward FDI can allow learners to have access to human-embedded skills and knowledge and other intellectual assets that are hardly accessible through the inward globalization strategy. Access to a wide range of external resources is a critical ingredient for improving technological capability, and it can also promote self-learning capability by encouraging subsequent learning-by-doing practices. Accordingly, outward FDI can augment "active" nature in the "passive" learning mode created by the inward globalization strategy. The last essay examines why intra-organizational proximity matters for the technological catchup process, through a comparison of the Chinese Big Three automotive groups. As a firm's asset-seeking inward/outward globalization strategy and domestic mergers are accompanied by substantial growth in their organizations and assets, intra-firm governance affects the internalization outcome of the acquired assets. The comparative analysis demonstrates that SAIC surpasses the First Automotive Works and the Dongfeng Motor Group in terms of in-house technology development partly because the former has managed its corporate growth within a tight geographical and relational space, compared to the latter. Intra-organizational proximity contributed to SAIC's technological capability-building process by encouraging the sharing and integration of acquired resources across sub-operational units, thus creating group-wide synergy for the effective internalization of the resources.by Kyung-Min Nam.Ph.D

Development of KAISTSAT-4 Expanding the Role of Small Satellite for Scientific Research

The fourth Korean small satellite, KAISTSAT-4, is under development by Satellite Technology Research Center (SaTReC) of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). The KAISTSAT-4 program was commenced on October 1998 with multiple mission objectives, which include exploring space science, deploying satellite-based data collection system and development of precision star sensor. Despite severe constraints on mass and size, these advanced science and engineering payloads are expected to deliver various useful results and exhibit the unique role of small satellite. We present an overview of the KAISTSAT-4 mission and describe its current status. Finally the prospect of future small satellite programs is briefly introduced

Synergy between Pollution and Carbon Emissions Control: Comparing China and the U.S.

We estimate the potential synergy between pollution and climate control in the U.S. and China, summarizing the results as emissions cross-elasticities of control. We set a range of NOx and SO2 targets, and record the ancillary reduction in CO2 to calculate the percentage change in CO2 divided by the percentage change in NOx (SO2) denoted as ECO2,NOx (ECO2,SO2). Then we conduct the opposite experiment, setting targets for CO2 and recording the ancillary reduction in NOx and SO2 to compute ENOx,CO2 and ESO2,CO2. For ECO2,NOx and ECO2,SO2 we find low values (0.06‒0.23) in both countries with small (10%) reduction targets that rise to 0.40‒0.67 in the U.S. and 0.83‒1.03 in China when targets are more stringent (75% reduction). This pattern reflects the availability of pollution control to target individual pollutants for smaller reductions but the need for wholesale change toward non-fossil technologies when large reductions are required. We trace the especially high cross elasticities in China to its higher dependence on coal. These results are promising in that China may have more incentive to greatly reduce SO2 and NOx with readily apparent pollution benefits in China, that at the same time would significantly reduce CO2 emissions. The majority of existing studies have focused on the effect of CO2 abatement on other pollutants, typically finding strong cross effects. We find similar strong effects but with less dependence on the stringency of control, and stronger effects in the U.S. than in China.The authors are grateful to Howard Herzog and Henry Chen for their valuable inputs for this study. We acknowledge the support of the French Development Agency (AFD), ENI, ICF International, and Shell, founding sponsors of the China Climate and Energy Project, for this application of the EPPA model, and BP’s support of Waugh's thesis, which provided the foundation work for representing air pollution control in the EPPA model. We also acknowledge general industrial and government sponsors of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change (http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors/all), including the DOE Integrated Assessment Grant (DE-FG02-94ER61937), through which we have developed and maintain the EPPA modeling framework

Climate Co-benefits of Tighter SO2 and NOx Regulations in China

Air pollution has been recognized as a significant problem in China. In its Twelfth Five Year Plan (FYP), China proposes to reduce SO2 and NOx emissions significantly, and here we investigate the cost of achieving those reductions and the implications of doing so for CO2 emissions. We extend the analysis through 2050, and either hold emissions policy targets at the level specified in the Twelfth FYP, or continue to reduce them gradually. We apply a computable general equilibrium model of the Chinese economy that includes a representation of pollution abatement derived from detailed assessment of abatement technology and costs. We find that China’s SO2 and NOx emissions control targets would have substantial effects on CO2 emissions leading to emissions savings far beyond those we estimate would be needed to meet its CO2 intensity targets. However, the cost of achieving and maintaining the pollution targets can be quite high given the growing economy. In fact, we find that the Twelfth FYP pollution targets can be met while still expanding the use of coal, but if they are, then there is a lock-in effect that makes it more costly to maintain or further reduce emissions. That is, if firms were to look ahead to tighter targets, they would make different technology choices in the near term, largely turning away from increased use of coal immediately.We acknowledge the support of ENI, ICF, and Shell, initial Founding sponsors of the China Climate and Energy Project, for this application of the EPPA model. We also acknowledge BP's support of Waugh's thesis, which provided the foundation work for representing air pollution control in the EPPA model. We also acknowledge general industrial and government sponsors of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change (http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors/all) through which we have developed and maintain the EPPA modeling framework

Packaging Determines Color and Odor of Irradiated Ground Beef

Irradiation of ground beef under aerobic conditions oxidized myoglobin and drastically reduced color a*-values. Under vacuum or non-oxygen conditions, however, irradiation did not influence the redness of ground beef. Also, the red color of ground beef was maintained even after the irradiated beef was exposed to aerobic conditions. Vacuum-packaged irradiated ground beef had lower metmyoglobin content and lower oxidation-reduction potential than the aerobically packaged ones. Irradiating ground beef under vacuum-packaging conditions was also advantageous in preventing lipid oxidation and aldehydes production. Vacuum-packaged irradiated beef, however, produced high levels of sulfur volatiles during irradiation and maintained their levels during storage, which resulted in the production of characteristic irradiation off-odor. Double-packaging (V3/A3: vacuum-packaging during irradiation and the first 3 days of storage and then aerobic-packaging for the remaining 3 days) was an effective alternative in maintaining original beef color (red), and minimizing lipid oxidation and irradiation off-odor. The levels of off-odor volatiles in double-packaged irradiated ground beef were comparable to that of aerobically packaged ones, and the degree of lipid oxidation and color changes were close to those of vacuum-packaged ones. Ascorbic acid at 200 ppm level was not effective in preventing color changes and lipid oxidation in irradiated ground beef under aerobic conditions, but was helpful in minimizing quality changes in doublepackaged irradiated ground beef. This suggested that preventing oxygen contact from meat during irradiation and early storage period (V3/A3 double-packaging) and doublepackaging+ascorbic acid combination are excellent strategies to prevent off-odor production and color changes in irradiated ground beef. Developing methods that can prevent quality changes of irradiated beef is important for the implication of irradiation, which will improve the safety of beef