Assessing the Value of Clean Air in a Developing Country: A Hedonic Price Analysis of the Jakarta Housing Market, Indonesia

This paper is motivated by the common argument that clean air is a luxury good and has much less or even no value in a less developed country. It applies a hedonic property value analysis, a method commonly used to infer the value of clean air in developed countries, using a combination of data on house values and their characteristics from the Indonesian Family Life Survey, and data of the ambient level of six different pollutants in Jakarta, Indonesia. The result suggests that air quality may affect property value in Jakarta, indicating a preference toward environmental amenities. Moreover, this study is one of the first hedonic studies that may potentially give comparable estimates of the value of clean air in developing countries.Hedonic Prices, Air Pollution, Indonesia

Is the Log Export Ban Effective? Revisiting the Issue through the Case of Indonesia

The effectiveness of a log export ban policy in achieving the twin goals of conservation and economic development has been vigorously debated by many researchers and policymakers for the last two decades or so. Despite the abundance of work focusing on this issue that demonstrates the perversity of this policy, many countries around the world still implement it. This paper will, first, review the economic and political arguments on the pros and cons of this policy. Second, it will review the Indonesian experience in implementing the policy in the 1980s and 2000s. Third, using a CGE model, this paper will predict the anticipated impact of implementing the log export ban policy on the national economy and on household incomes for various socio-economic groups.log export ban policy, conservation and economic development, national economy, household incomes, CGE

Searching for Equitable Energy Pricing Reform for Indonesia

In 2005, the Indonesian government implemented a massive fuel price increase. While the benefits of the reform on efficiency grounds have been widely acknowledged, there is still debate about whether the reform was equitable.., That question is answered in this paper using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model with disaggregated households that allows for a rich and accurate distributional story. Analysis of various counter-factual scenarios analysis of the reform is carried out. It suggests that the reform could have been progressive if it increased only vehicle fuel prices. However, it tends to increase inequality especially in urban area when the price of domestic fuel (kerosene) is also increased. Proper and effective compensation is important in mitigating the distributional cost or poverty impact of the reform. A uniform cash transfer to poor households that disregards poor households’ heterogeneity tends to over-compensate the rural poor but under-compensate the urban poor.FUel pricing reform, Distribution, CGE, Indonesia

In vivo performance of antibiotic embedded electrospun PCL membranes for prevention of abdominal adhesions

The aim of this study was to prepare nonwoven materials from poly(-caprolactone) (PCL) and their antibiotic containing forms by electrospinning, so as to prevent postsurgery induced abdominal adhesions in rats. -Caprolactone was first polymerized by ring-opening polymerization, and then it was processed into matrices composed of nanofibers by electrospinning. A model antibiotic (Biteral®) was embedded within a group of PCL membranes. In the rat model, defects on the abdominal walls in the peritoneum were made to induce adhesion. The plain or antibiotic embedded PCL membranes were implanted on the right side of the abdominal wall. No membrane implantation was made on the left side of the abdominal wall that served as control. Macroscopical and histological evaluations showed that using these barriers reduces the extent, type, and tenacity of adhesion. The antibiotic embedded membranes significantly eliminated postsurgery abdominal adhesions, and also improved healing

Emerging role of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 in the mechanism of action and resistance to anticancer therapies

Nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (NRF2), a transcription factor, is a master regulator of an array of genes related to oxidative and electrophilic stress that promote and maintain redox homeostasis. NRF2 function is well studied in in vitro, animal and general physiology models. However, emerging data has uncovered novel functionality of this transcription factor in human diseases such as cancer, autism, anxiety disorders and diabetes. A key finding in these emerging roles has been its constitutive upregulation in multiple cancers promoting pro-survival phenotypes. The survivability pathways in these studies were mostly explained by classical NRF2 activation involving KEAP-1 relief and transcriptional induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) neutralizing and cytoprotective drug-metabolizing enzymes (phase I, II, III and 0). Further, NRF2 status and activation is associated with lowered cancer therapeutic efficacy and the eventual emergence of therapeutic resistance. Interestingly, we and others have provided further evidence of direct NRF2 regulation of anticancer drug targets like receptor tyrosine kinases and DNA damage and repair proteins and kinases with implications for therapy outcome. This novel finding demonstrates a renewed role of NRF2 as a key modulatory factor informing anticancer therapeutic outcomes, which extends beyond its described classical role as a ROS regulator. This review will provide a knowledge base for these emerging roles of NRF2 in anticancer therapies involving feedback and feed forward models and will consolidate and present such findings in a systematic manner. This places NRF2 as a key determinant of action, effectiveness and resistance to anticancer therapy

Enhanced grain surface effect on magnetic properties of nanometric La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 manganite : Evidence of surface spin freezing of manganite nanoparticles

We have investigated the effect of nanometric grain size on magnetic properties of single phase, nanocrystalline, granular La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (LCMO) sample. We have considered core-shell structure of our LCMO nanoparticles, which can explain its magnetic properties. From the temperature dependence of field cooled (FC) and zero-field cooled (ZFC) dc magnetization (DCM), the magnetic properties could be distinguished into two regimes: a relatively high temperature regime T > 40 K where the broad maximum of ZFC curve (at T = Tmax) is associated with the blocking of core particle moments, whereas the sharp maximum (at T = TS) is related to the freezing of surface (shell) spins. The unusual shape of M (H) loop at T = 1.5 K, temperature dependent feature of coercive field and remanent magnetization give a strong support of surface spin freezing that are occurring at lower temperature regime (T < 40 K) in this LCMO nanoparticles. Additionally, waiting time (tw) dependence of ZFC relaxation measurements at T = 50 K show weak dependence of relaxation rate [S(t)] on tw and dM/dln(t) following a logarithmic variation on time. Both of these features strongly support the high temperature regime to be associated with the blocking of core moments. At T = 20 K, ZFC relaxation measurements indicates the existence of two different types of relaxation processes in the sample with S(t) attaining a maximum at the elapsed time very close to the wait time tw = 1000 sec, which is an unequivocal sign of glassy behavior. This age-dependent effect convincingly establish the surface spin freezing of our LCMO nanoparticles associated with a background of superparamagnetic (SPM) phase of core moments.Comment: 41 pages, 10 figure