Towards a resource-driven model of governance Application to lower-income transition economies

'Many developing market economies were strongly distorted during the 1960s and 1970s by fashionable policies to force industrialisation and they experienced growth collapses when exposed to the price shocks of the 1970s. In this context, the centrally planned economies were even more highly distorted and they too experienced collapse, albeit a decade later because they were less exposed to trade shocks. Economic reform has had mixed results in both sets of countries and this paper develops a model of governance to explain the main variations among the transition countries. The model incorporates a neglected factor, namely how the scale of the natural resource rents and their socio-economic linkages condition government behaviour. It posits that resource-poor countries are more likely than resource-rich countries to engender a developmental political state, which has sufficient autonomy to pursue coherent policies and also the aim of raising social welfare. The two principal reasons for this are, first, that the governments of resource-poor countries tend to be less distracted from the task of wealth generation by the capture of resource rents and, second, the political economy of resource-poor countries tends to build greater political accountability. The basic model is adapted to explain differential progress with reform among the transition economies by adding to the resource rents two more key initial conditions identified in the literature, namely history (the length of exposure to central planning) and geography (proximity to a dynamic market economy). The model predicts that the most propitious conditions for transition reform arise among the relatively undistorted, resource-poor coastal economies of East Asia, followed by the moderately distorted higher-income (and low-rent) countries of Eastern Europe. The paper shows that the transition countries broadly support the predictions. There are anomalies, however, which require two additional factors to explain them, namely access to geopolitical rents conformity to a regional norm of political state.' (author's abstract)Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht wirtschaftliche Reformmodelle in Transformationsoekonomien unter besonderer Beruecksichtigung des ressourcen-geleiteten Modells von Governance. Viele Oekonomien von Entwicklungslaendern waren durch die Industrialisierungspolitik in den 60er und 70er Jahren stark verzerrt und erlitten einen Wachstumseinbruch, als sie in den 70er Jahren den Preisschocks ausgesetzt waren. Die Planwirtschaften waren noch staerker verzerrt und erlitten ein Jahrzehnt spaeter ebenfalls einen Kollaps, als sie Handelschocks ausgesetzt waren. Wirtschaftsreformen fuehrten in beiden Laendertypen zu verschiedenen Ergebnissen. Der vorliegende Beitrag entwickelt ein Governance-Modell, dass die wichtigsten Abweichungen in den Transformationslaendern erklaert. Das Modell beinhaltet einen bislang vernachlaessigten Faktor, naemlich die Frage, wie sich die Renten aus natuerlichen Ressourcen auswirken und wie deren sozio-oekonomischen Verbindungen das Regierungsverhalten bedingen. Es wird dabei davon ausgegangen, dass ressourcenarme Laender eher einen entwicklungspolitisch aktiven Staat hervorbringen als ressourcenreiche Laender. Die zwei Hauptgruende dafuer sind: (1) Die Regierungen ressourcenarmer Laender werden bei der Schaffung von Wohlstand weniger durch Ressourceneinkuenfte abgelenkt. (2) Die politische Oekonomie ressourcenarmer Laender tendiert zu mehr politischer Verantwortlichkeit. Das Ausgangsmodell wird dabei angepasst, um die unterschiedlichen Reformprozesse in Transformationsoekonomien zu erklaeren, indem zwei Schluesselfaktoren hinzugefuegt werden, naemlich die historischen und geographischen Bedingungen. Das Modell sagt voraus, dass die besten Bedingungen fuer Uebergangsreformen in den relativ unverzerrten ressourcenarmen Kuestenstaaten Ostasiens bestehen, gefolgt von den moderat verzerrten Laendern Osteuropas. (ICDUebers)German title: Ein ressourcengeleitetes Modell von 'Governance': die Anwendung auf Uebergangsoekonomien mit NiedrigeinkommenAvailable from http://www.zef.de/download/zef dp/zef dp60.pdf / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Dielectric properties of Jovian satellite ice analogs for subsurface radar exploration: A review

The first European mission dedicated to the exploration of Jupiter and its icy moons (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer - JUICE) will be launched in 2022 and will reach its final destination in 2030. The main goals of this mission are to understand the internal structure of the icy crusts of three Galilean satellites (Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) and, ultimately, to detect Europa's subsurface ocean, which is believed to be the closest to the surface among those hypothesized to exist on these moons. JUICE will be equipped with the 9 MHz subsurface-penetrating radar RIME (Radar for Icy Moon Exploration), which is designed to image the ice down to a depth of 9 km. Moreover, a parallel mission to Europa, which will host onboard REASON (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface) equipped with 9MHz and 60MHz antennas, has been recently approved by NASA. The success of these experiments strongly relies on the accurate prediction of the radar performance and on the optimal processing and interpretation of radar echoes that, in turn, depend on the dielectric properties of the materials composing the icy satellite crusts. In the present review we report a complete range of potential ice types that may occur on these icy satellites to understand how they may affect the results of the proposed missions. First, we discuss the experimental results on pure and doped water ice in the framework of the Jaccard theory, highlighting the critical aspects in terms of a lack of standard laboratory procedures and inconsistency in data interpretation. We then describe the dielectric behavior of extraterrestrial ice analogs like hydrates and icy mixtures, carbon dioxide ice and ammonia ice. Building on this review, we have selected the most suitable data to compute dielectric attenuation, velocity, vertical resolution, and reflection coefficients for such icy moon environments, with the final goal being to estimate the potential capabilities of the radar missions as a function of the frequency and temperature ranges of interest for the subsurface sounders. We present the different subsurface scenarios and associated radar signal attenuation models that have been proposed so far to simulate the structure of the crust of Europa and discuss the physical and geological nature of various dielectric targets potentially detectable with RIME. Finally, we briefly highlight several unresolved issues that should be addressed, in near future, to improve our capability to produce realistic electromagnetic models of icy moon crusts. The present review is of interest for the geophysical exploration of all solar system bodies, including the Earth, where ice can be present at the surface or at relatively shallow depths. Key Points Not all terrestrial water ices are representative of solar system ices Dielectric measurements of extraterrestrial ice analogs are challenging Ice types on Jovian icy satellites will influence radar penetration dept

Reproducibility of fluorescent expression from engineered biological constructs in E. coli

We present results of the first large-scale interlaboratory study carried out in synthetic biology, as part of the 2014 and 2015 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competitions. Participants at 88 institutions around the world measured fluorescence from three engineered constitutive constructs in E. coli. Few participants were able to measure absolute fluorescence, so data was analyzed in terms of ratios. Precision was strongly related to fluorescent strength, ranging from 1.54-fold standard deviation for the ratio between strong promoters to 5.75-fold for the ratio between the strongest and weakest promoter, and while host strain did not affect expression ratios, choice of instrument did. This result shows that high quantitative precision and reproducibility of results is possible, while at the same time indicating areas needing improved laboratory practices.Peer reviewe