Market Structure and International Trade: Business Groups in East Asia

In this paper we study the effect of market structure on the trade performance of South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. We center our analysis on Korea and Taiwan, countries which have very different market structures: Korea has many large, vertically-integrated business groups known as chaebol, whereas business groups in Taiwan are smaller and horizontally-integrated in the production of intermediate inputs. The exports of these countries to the United States are compared using indexes of product variety and 'product mix', which are constructed at the 5-digit industry level. It is found that Taiwan tends to export a greater variety of products to the U.S. than Korea, and this holds across nearly all industries. In addition, Taiwan exports relatively more high-priced intermediate inputs, whereas Korea exports relatively more high-priced final goods. We argue that these results confirm the importance of market structure as a determinant of trade patterns.

An Exact Solution for the Dispersive Alfven Switch-on Shock

An exact solution for the dispersive Alfven switch-on shock is found in the case of weak nonlinearity, weak dispersion, and weak damping. Two singular and apparently nonphysical solutions are found as well. The switch-on shock solution is shown to reduce, in the appropriate limits, to two documented special cases of the shock: one case being a description of the planar shock without dispersion and the other being an asymptotic description of the circularly polarized wave standing upstream from the shock in the dispersive case. The solution developed here provides the complete shock structure for either case. This exact solution may serve as a convenient basis for an analytical study of the stability of dispersive switch-on shocks

Assimilation and emerging health disparities among new generations of U.S. children

This article shows that the prevalence of four common child health conditions increases across generations (from first-generation immigrant children to second-generation U.S.-born children of immigrants to third-and-higher-generation children) within each of four major U.S. racial/ethnic groups. In the third-plus generation, black and Hispanic children have higher rates of nearly all conditions. Health care, socioeconomic status, parents’ health, social support, and neighborhood conditions influence child health and help explain third-and-higher-generation racial/ethnic disparities. However, these factors do not explain the generational pattern. The generational pattern may reflect cohort changes, selective ethnic attrition, unhealthy assimilation, or changing responses to survey questions among immigrant groups.assimilation, child health, disparities, immigration, race/ethnicity

Arctic–CHAMP: A program to study Arctic hydrology and its role in global change

The Arctic constitutes a unique and important environment that is central to the dynamics and evolution of the Earth system. The Arctic water cycle, which controls countless physical, chemical, and biotic processes, is also unique and important. These processes, in turn, regulate the climate, habitat, and natural resources that are of great importance to both native and industrial societies. Comprehensive understanding of water cycling across the Arctic and its linkage to global biogeophysical dynamics is a scientific as well as strategic policy imperative

Arctic–CHAMP: A program to study Arctic hydrology and its role in global change

The Arctic constitutes a unique and important environment that is central to the dynamics and evolution of the Earth system. The Arctic water cycle, which controls countless physical, chemical, and biotic processes, is also unique and important. These processes, in turn, regulate the climate, habitat, and natural resources that are of great importance to both native and industrial societies. Comprehensive understanding of water cycling across the Arctic and its linkage to global biogeophysical dynamics is a scientific as well as strategic policy imperative

Evaluation of Plant- waxes to Estimate Forage Intake in Grazing Cattle

Although key to the efficiency of a cattle operation, feed intake is challenging to evaluate in a grazing setting. However, even within forage- based systems, plant- wax markers may be used to predict dietary choices and feed intake. Plant- waxes are a complex mixture of lipids found on the surface of plants. When sufficiently unique among plants, the composition of diets can be determined from the pattern of these compounds in the forages ingested. These markers were used to delineate the parts of the corn plant and, separately, 8 western rangeland grasses and legumes. Using plant waxes, the components of the corn plant were clearly distinguished. Th is technique therefore could be useful in a monoculture, such as a corn residue field, to determine the plant parts predominating in the diet. Delineating plants in a complex sward was more difficult, particularly among like species. Th e use of more markers may help to more explicitly distinguish plants within diverse pastures, such as western rangelands

Analyses of Special Hazards and Flooding Problems in Tropical Island Environments

Data and results summarized in this paper show that development of urban projects and design of flood control works in tropical island catchments must consider clear water flooding as well as special hazards such as landslides, flow bulking, high sediment concentrations, mud and debris flows and flow avulsions. The needs for and methods to estimate peak flows, event volumes and the potential extent and depths of flooding during severe storm events in urbanizing tropical environments are described

Pavement Thickness Evaluation by GPR Survey in Idaho

In 1995 and 1996, the Idaho Transportation Department (lTD) conducted a series of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys as a nondestructive testing (NDT) method to evaluate the thickness of asphalt and Portland cement concrete (AC/PCC) pavements in Idaho. GPR surveys employed both air-coupled and combination air and ground coupled systems with their associated equipment and software. A total of 30 miles of AC/PCC pavements were evaluated by GPR surveys. The results obtained were correlated with the site-specific ground-truth data from borings. Knowledge of pavement layer thickness is needed to predict pavement performance, establish load carrying capacities and develop maintenance and rehabilitation priorities. In addition, for new construction, it is important to ensure that the thickness of materials being placed by the contractor is acceptably close to specification. Core sampling and test pits are destructive to the pavement system, expensive, time consuming and intrusive to traffic. The objective of the lTD study was to evaluate, compare and assess the ability of these two GPR systems to accurately measure the thickness of multiple pavement layers, and document the data nondestructively. This paper reviews the findings of these surveys and provides statistically based data for both AC and PCC pavements. The overall study has shown that reasonably accurate, dependable determination of pavement thickness can be achieved by using GPR survey for conditions encountered in Idaho