Mars geologic mapping program: Review and highlights

The Mars Geologic Mapping (MGM) Program was introduced by NASA in 1987 as a new initiative in the Planetary Geology and Geophysics (PGG) Program. The overall purpose of the program is to support research on topical science problems that address specific questions. Among the objectives of the project are: (1) to produce highly detailed geologic maps that will greatly increase the knowledge of the materials and processes that have contributed to the evolutionary history of Mars; (2) to define areas of special interest for possible future investigation by planned missions (Mars Observer, Mars Sample Return); and (3) to maintain the interest of the planetary community in the development of new concepts and the re-evaluation of Martian geology as new data in usable form become available. Some interesting highlights of the geologic mapping indicate that multiple flood episodes occurred at different times during the Hesperian Period in both Kasei and Maja Valles. Studies of small channels in the Memnonia, Mangala, and Tharsis regions show that fluvial events appear to have occurred during the Amazonian Period at equatorial latitudes. Flood waters occurred during the Amazonian Period at equatorial latitudes. Flood waters from Mangala Valles may have seeped into surficial materials with the subsequent development of numerous sapping channels and debris flows; this suggests that the ancient highland terrain consists of relatively unconsolidated materials. Multiple layers were observed for the first time in the ridged plains lava flows covering large areas of Lunae Planum; some wrinkle ridges in this area are associated with grabens and collapse volcanic units at Hadriaca and Tyrrhena Paterae indicates that the units may have been emplaced by gravity-driven pyroclastic flows. Unlike the north polar layered deposits, those in the south polar region show no angular unconformities or evidence of faulting and folding. Water ice in the south polar layered deposits may be protected from solar heating and sublimation by a weathering rind or lag deposit on the surface

Revising financial sector policy in transitional socialist economies : will universal banks prove viable?

Focusing on efforts under way in most transitional socialist economies, the author questions whether the banks emerging in the new policy framework will prove viable or be supervisable. He offers a model of financial sector structure designed to foster the development of a sound banking system. In describing the environment in which financial policy is being revised, the author notes that the extraordinary challenges policymakers face might influence the shape of policy. He is concerned that policies to promote a sound banking system might be overlooked or sacrificed. Fundamental policy objectives, says the author, are those important to long-term economic well-being. These include establishing and maintaining the integrity of the payments system and the safety of depositors'savings, and ensuring that money markets function. Transitional objectives, on the other hand, relate primarily to the immediate task of privatizing and restructuring enterprises. Policymakers must balance inherent conflicts between the two kinds of objectives while promoting the achievement of both. Many transitional socialist economies, he observes, adopt a policy framework that envisions universal banking. The author assesses the consequences of the immediate emergence of financial conglomerates, or universal-type banks, and questions whether - in the face of limited managerial and institutional capability, limited capability for supervising financial markets, and extraordinary financial market risks - financial conglomerates simultaneously pursuing conflicting fundamental and transitional objectives will prove viable. The author advocates delaying the emergence of financial conglomerates until skills are developed and market turmoil subsides. In the transitional period, regulatory policy would assign to banks primary responsibility for achieving fundamental objectives, and would encourage nonbank financial institutions to pursue transitional objectives. Policy should promote financial soundness in the banking system, to control the potential costs to government of achieving its fundamental objectives.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banking Law,Economic Theory&Research

The regulation and supervision of domestic financial conglomerates

Financial conglomerates are groups of financial institutions related by ownership or control. Specific regulatory and supervisory issues arise when financial services -- such as commercial and retail banking, securities underwriting and trading, investment management, and insurance underwriting -- are provided by a financial conglomerate structure. The author provides a handbook for authorities responsible for financial conglomerate regulation and supervision, identifying key issues, spelling out regulatory and supervisory alternatives, and describing both preferred solutions and alternatives. He makes reference to the regulatory framework adopted in the European Economic Community. Among the main tools available to the authorities are prudential regulations, accounting consolidation, and consolidated supervision. Prudential regulation for financial conglomerates preferably would be applied on a uniform and fully consolidated basis. Alternatively, existing regulations applicable to different financial sectors can be modified, in particular to mitigate the potential that intragroup transactions overstate capital or earnings. Accounting consolidation of the financial entities in a group is a prerequisite for consolidated prudential regulation and improves the transparency of the group's financial position. The authorities should use consolidated supervision to ensure that the risks from all group entities are identified and assessed.Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,National Governance,Environmental Economics&Policies

Tectonic setting of Martian volcanoes and deep-seated intrusives

More than 50 volcanoes have been mapped on Mars, and recent geologic studies indicate structural evidence of deep seated intrusive bodies. Most volcanoes in the Tharsis region are volcanotectonic features; they have been associated with large scale tectonic and volcanic processes. They occur along complex systems of faults and grabens having a dominant northwest to southwest trend closely coincident with a great circle, which extends along 90 deg of arc from Tempe Patera to probable volcanic mountains near lat. 40 deg S, long. 150 deg. Deep seated intrusive bodies are also concentrated in the Tharsis region and are recognized mostly where faults have been deflected around their cores. The Elysium Mons-Amphitrites Patera volcanic alignment is subparallel to that of Tharsis but is longer, extending through about 120 deg of arc; it transects the dichotomy boundary and is radial to the Hellas basin. Volcanoes in the Tharsis region have the widest age range of all volcanoes on Mars, as determined by the size-frequency distribution of their craters having diameters of 2, 5, and 16 km

Eruptive history of the Elysium Volcanic Province of Mars

New geologic mapping of the Elysium volcanic province at 1:2,000,000 scale and crater counts provide a basis for describing its overall eruptive history. Four stages are listed and described in order of their relative age. They are also distinguished by eruption style and location. Stage 1: Central volcanism at Hecates and Albor Tholi. Stage 2: Shield and complex volcanism at Elysium Mons and Elysium Fossae. Stage 3: Rille volcanism at Elysium Fossae and Utopia Planitia. Stage 4: Flood lava and pyroclastic eruptions at Hecates Tholus and Elysium Mons. Tectonic and channeling activity in the Elysium region is intimately associated with volcanism. Recent work indicates that isostatic uplift of Tharsis, loading by Elysium Mons, and flexural uplift of the Elysium rise produced the stresses responsible for the fracturing and wrinkle-ridge formation in the region. Coeval faulting and channel formation almost certainly occurred in the pertinent areas in Stages 2 to 4. Older faults east of the lava flows and channels on Hecates Tholus may be coeval with Stage 1

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market For Ideas: Evidence From Patent Grant Delays

This paper considers the impact of the intellectual property (IP) system on the timing of cooperation/licensing by start-up technology entrepreneurs. If the market for technology licenses is efficient, the timing of licensing is independent of whether IP has already been granted. In contrast, the need to disclosure complementary (yet unprotected) knowledge, asymmetric information, or search costs may retard efficient technology transfer. In these cases, reductions in uncertainty surrounding the scope and extent of IP rights may facilitate trade in the market for ideas. We employ a dataset combining information about cooperative licensing and the timing of patent allowances (the administrative event when patent rights are clarified). While pre-allowance licensing does occur, the hazard rate for achieving a cooperative licensing agreement significantly increases after patent allowance. Moreover, the impact of the patent system depends on the strategic and institutional environment in which firms operate. Patent allowance seems to play a particularly important role for technologies with longer technology lifecycles or that lack alternative mechanisms such as copyright, reputation, or brokers. The findings suggest that imperfections in the market for ideas may be important, and that formal IP rights may facilitate gains from technological trade.

Exploring Organizational Communication (Micro) History Through Network Connections

In light of the 100th anniversary of the National Communication Association, the following essay offers an initial look at the communication subdiscipline of organizational communication and its development over the past seven-plus decades. As part of this review, we advocate the use of network methods as a microhistory analytic tool to explore the vast number of connections, both between people and research interests, generated as the discipline developed from its humble beginnings. This work represents a small sample of the greater Organizational Communication Genealogy Project. This larger effort seeks to create a detailed review of the discipline as it explores the relationships between advisors and advisees, the development of dissertation and current research topics, the collaborative network of coauthorship, and the contributions of individual scholars through the analysis of interview data, narratives, and historical documents

When Does Start-Up Innovation Spur the Gale of Creative Destruction?

This paper is motivated by the substantial differences in start-up commercialization strategies observed across different high-technology sectors. Specifically, we evaluate the conditions under which start-up innovators earn their returns on innovation through product market competition with more established firms (such as in many areas of the electronics industry) as opposed to cooperation with these incumbents (either through licensing, strategic alliances or outright acquisition as observed in the pharmaceutical industry). While the former strategy challenges incumbent market power, the latter strategy tends to reinforce current market structure. Though the benefits of cooperation include forestalling the costs of competition in the product market and avoiding duplicative investment in sunk assets, imperfections in the market for ideas' may lead to competitive behavior in the product market. Specifically, if the transaction costs of bargaining are high or incumbents are likely to expropriate ideas from start-up innovators, then product market competition is more likely. We test these ideas using a novel dataset of the commercialization strategies of over 100 start-up innovators. Our principal robust findings are that the probability of cooperation is increasing in the innovator's control over intellectual property rights, association with venture capitalists (which reduce their transactional bargaining costs), and in the relative cost of control of specialized complementary assets. Our conclusion is that the propensity for pro-competitive benefits from start-up innovators reflects an earlier market failure, in the market for ideas.'