Trans-boundary pollution and international migration

Adopting the basic Ricardian static trade model, Two-country (Home and Foreign), Two-goods (Agricultural and Industrial) and One-factor (labour) model with environmental resource, we extended Copland and Taylor (1999) in three points. Firstly, we assumed pollution should be trans-boundary. Secondly, we considered the technical difference between two countries. Thirdly, we introduced international migration. We assumed that the only difference between two countries is the pollution protecting technology caused by industrial production. There will occur three different situations depending on the strength of demand on industrial good. Firstly, if industrial good is strongly preferred, the country with low technology (country L) will specialize in production of industrial good and another country (country H) will produce both goods. In this case, if trade is permitted, country L will gain while whether country H will gain or not is ambiguous. Moreover, after free trade, there occurs no international migration. Secondary, if both goods are preferred almost equally, then country H (L) will specialize agricultural (industrial) good. Whether free trade is beneficial or not for each country depends on parameters. After trade, there remains wage gap between two countries and therefore international migration from L to H will occur. Thirdly, if industrial good is weakly preferred, then country L produces both goods while country H produces agricultural good only. In this case free trade will reduce the economic welfare of country L while the effects on country H is ambiguous. After free trade, workers will migrate from L to H if permitted. In the second and third cases, migration expands the production of agricultural good but reduces that of industrial good and it will continue until comparative advantage of each country diminishes. If we consider that one of the two goods is non-tradable, there is no possibility of international trade but if international migration is permitted, workers in country L will migrate to country H, which will not end before all of inhabitants in country L quit their home country.

Legal and Illegal Immigration in an Efficiency Wage Model

In the developed countries like EU and Japan, some young native people dare to enjoy voluntary unemployment. Though they can easily find relatively low-wage job, they prefer to work part-time and look for a chance to to get high-wage job. Moreover the illegal unskilled foreign (legal skilled foreign [or domestic but from different region]) workers are complementary (substitutional) to the natives of that region and their wage is usually low (high). Reflecting this situation, we introduce two types of immigrants in an efficiency wage model (with two different job-sectors) by Shapiro and Stiglitz. The co-existence of these immigrants also permits us to analyze the importance of legality.

Government transparency and expenditure in the rent-seeking industry: the case of Japan for 1998-2004

Since the end of the 1990s, local governments in Japan have enacted Information Disclosure Ordinances, which require the disclosure of official government information. This paper uses Japanese prefecture-level data for the period 1998?2004 to examine how this enactment affected the rate of government construction expenditure. The Dynamic Panel model is used to control for unobserved prefecture-specific effects and endogenous bias. The major finding is that disclosure of government information reduces the rate of government construction expenditure. This implies that information disclosure reduces losses from rent-seeking activity, which is consistent with public choice theory.Information disclosure; Special interest group; Construction expenditure; Rent seeking

Total ozone by lunar Dobson observation at Syowa, Antarctica

The lunar Dobson observation is almost the only way to get the total ozone in or around the polar night season at high latitudes where the total ozone observation by solar Dobson is not available. The total ozone observations by lunar Dobson were carried out at Syowa Station (69 S, 40 E), Antarctica in 1969, and 1982 to 1986, in the months from March to October. The method, the accuracy and the results of the lunar Dobson observation carried out at Syowa Station from 1982 to 1986 are described

Cu Wiring Fabrication by Supercritical Fluid Deposition for MEMS Devices

Process technologies that use supercritical CO2 fluids to fabricate high-aspect-ratio three-dimensional nano- and micro-components are described. Supercritical CO2 is a state of CO2 above the critical point. Supercritical CO2 fluids are used as alternatives to common media (gases and liquids) in MEMS device fabrication to both overcome the drawbacks of these materials and to realize a superior three-dimensional process opportunity. Supercritical fluids behave as both gases and liquids, offer many of the advantages of both, and have zero surface tension. Supercritical fluids are an ideal medium for fabricating very high-aspect-ratio features owing to their superior capability of diffusion transport. As MEMSs have complex and high-aspect-ratio structures, using a supercritical fluid as a process medium in MEMS fabrication provides ideal performance in film coating, plug filling of concave features, and the etching/cleaning of residues. In this chapter, the physicochemical properties of supercritical fluids are first described in terms of MEMS processing, but from a different point of view than that of the common literature on supercritical chemical processing. Next, various applications to thin film processing are described with a focus on interconnect/wiring fabrication of MEMS devices

Diversifying Piano Literature: East Asian Music for Piano Study and Performance in the United States

This research paper describes the extent piano music by East Asian composers has been incorporated in piano teaching at the college level in the United States. Included are the results of a survey of piano teachers at National Association of Schools of Music-accredited collegiate institutions; a discussion of the need for diversification of piano literature given the demographics of piano students in the United States; and several strategies to incorporate piano music by East Asian composers. The paper also includes a list of composers and resources available for obtaining piano works by East Asian composers

Room-Temperature Formation of Intermixing Layer for Adhesion Improvement of Cu/Glass Stacks

Reliable and high-precision Cu/glass stacks are particularly desirable for microelectromechanical systems and packaging technologies. One solution for improving the adhesion strength of Cu/glass stacks is to form adhesion layers between the Cu films and the glass substrate. Many studies have shown that a strong adhesion layer is formed at the interface by high-temperature annealing when a Cu alloy is used instead of pure Cu. It is important to reduce the temperature and process time in order to reduce the thermal budget and fabrication cost. Therefore, the room-temperature process for fabrication of Cu/glass stack is desirable. In this chapter, typical advanced low-temperature processes including room-temperature process are introduced

The Finite Deformation of a Hollow Sphere subjected to Internal or External Pressure

This paper is concerned with the deformation of a hollow sphere, within the theory of finite elastostatics for a particular homogeneous isotropic commpressible material, the so-called Blatz-Ko material. The body is subjected to uniform pressure, either internal or external. In the case of internal pressure, it is found that there is a maximum pressure beyond which there does not exist a solution. Under that pressure there exist two sets of solutions. In the case of external pressure, the location of the maximum value of the compressive hoop stress departs from the inner surface. There exists, howeverc a supremum of the location. If the hollow sphere is thinner than the supremum, the maximum value of the compressive hoop stress occurs at the outer surface

Dynamics of Spontaneous Magnetization Reversal in Exchange Biased Heterostructures

The dependence of thermally induced spontaneous magnetization reversal on time-dependent cooling protocols was studied. Slower cooling and longer waiting close to the N\`{e}el temperature of the antiferromagnet ($T_N$) enhances the magnetization reversal. Cycling the temperature around $T_N$ leads to a thermal training effect under which the reversal magnitude increases with each cycle. These results suggest that spontaneous magnetization reversal is energetically favored, contrary to our present understanding of positive exchange bias

Lysine and Arginine Reduce the Effects of Cerebral Ischemic Insults and Inhibit Glutamate-Induced Neuronal Activity in Rats

Intravenous administration of arginine was shown to be protective against cerebral ischemic insults via nitric oxide production and possibly via additional mechanisms. The present study aimed at evaluating the neuroprotective effects of oral administration of lysine (a basic amino acid), arginine, and their combination on ischemic insults (cerebral edema and infarction) and hemispheric brain swelling induced by transient middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion in rats. Magnetic resonance imaging and 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining were performed 2 days after ischemia induction. In control animals, the major edematous areas were observed in the cerebral cortex and striatum. The volumes associated with cortical edema were significantly reduced by lysine (2.0 g/kg), arginine (0.6 g/kg), or their combined administration (0.6 g/kg each). Protective effects of these amino acids on infarction were comparable to the inhibitory effects on edema formation. Interestingly, these amino acids, even at low dose (0.6 g/kg), were effective to reduce hemispheric brain swelling. Additionally, the effects of in vivo microiontophoretic (juxtaneuronal) applications of these amino acids on glutamate-evoked neuronal activity in the ventromedial hypothalamus were investigated in awake rats. Glutamate-induced neuronal activity was robustly inhibited by microiontophoretic applications of lysine or arginine onto neuronal membranes. Taken together, our results demonstrate the neuroprotective effects of oral ingestion of lysine and arginine against ischemic insults (cerebral edema and infarction), especially in the cerebral cortex, and suggest that suppression of glutamate-induced neuronal activity might be the primary mechanism associated with these neuroprotective effects