Resource Discoveries Research Articles

Discovery of natural resources: A class of general equilibrium models

When is the discovery of natural resources a curse for a country's industrialization and when is it a blessing? A large literature on economic development has collected evidence on both directions. This paper discusses a class of general equilibrium models that deals with natural resource discoveries and evaluates its potential to accommodate both successful and unsuccessful resource-based industrialization experiences, under different model settings. Particularly, it analyzes the importance of disentangling price and quantity effects. It illustrates that in closed model economies (or large open economies), with vertical integration between manufacturing and energy sectors, the long-run effect on the production of manufacturing goods will depend mainly on the equilibrium price of the natural resource good. Moreover, the strength of the vertical integration, even for small open economies, determines the limits to accommodate blessing or curse type of theories.

Exogenous Resource Shocks and Economic Freedom

There is an extensive literature on the presence of valuable natural resources creating a competition for control of central states and resource rents. This mechanism has been argued to be an important underlying factor preventing certain countries from acquiring good institutions and achieving long run economic growth. In this paper, we use a recent data set on the discovery of large, exogenous oil field discoveries as a means of testing whether the presence of large resource rents maligns the freedom of a country’s economic institutions. We find there to be some evidence of contemporaneous effects of these discoveries on the size of government spending, especially transfer payments and subsidies, but this does not show up in our overall measure of economic freedom. These effects also dissipate with time to statistical and economic insignificance, suggesting the discoveries have short run effects on policy but do not impact the underlying institutions at all. At least for this set of exogenous resource discoveries, there is no resource curse for economic freedom.

New occurrence of potential phosphate resource in northeast Jordan

An exploration program aided by field investigation, exploration drilling, detailed sampling, lithological and petrological studies, geochemical investigation, and resource calculation leads to the discovery of a potential phosphate resource in northeast Jordan close to the international border with Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The studied phosphate is of the Middle Eocene age that belongs to the Wadi Shallala Formation. It is equivalent to the phosphate deposits recorded in the lower part of the Umm Wual Formation in the Turayf region of Saudi Arabia and the Eocene Ratga Formation in the Ethna phosphate deposit west of Iraq. The phosphorites in the region are broadly similar in mineralogical composition and geochemical affinities. X-ray diffraction indicates the presence of francolite with variable amounts of calcite and quartz. Most samples consist of phosphate clasts embedded in carbonate and silica matrix and cement. P2O5 content is up to 32.3 % with an average equal to 18.6 %. The impurity is caused by the presence of variable amounts of SiO2 and CaO. The F% and F/P2O5 ratio in studied phosphates is lower compared with that in phosphates from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The geological and geochemical results were integrated for resource estimation. Three high-grade phosphate layers with ≥23 % P2O5 were considered in the calculations. The phosphate resource is classified as an inferred resource. The total volume of the resource is about 649 million tons. The average P2O5 content is 24.57, and the stripping ratio is 1:5.8.

The Institutional and Psychological Foundations of Natural Resource Policies

The pressures of political interests which drive the resource curse are well-understood. But ordinary citizens are usually cast both as the innocent victims of this process, and as the potential solution if only governments could be made more accountable to them. This paper draws upon recent developments in social psychology to discuss the formation of mass opinions on two aspects of resource ownership. One is the spatial assignment of ownership between local and national claims, which has been a significant cause of conflict. The other is the assignment of revenues between current consumption and future investment, which has usually been excessively biased towards the former. I suggest why, in the absence of an active government communications policy to offset them, known psychological biases may interact with resource discoveries to generate mass opinions which contribute to these problems.

A Case Ill Suited for Judgment: Constructing 'A Sovereign Access to the Sea' in the Atacama Desert

In 2015, the International Court of Justice ruled that Bolivia’s claim against Chile could proceed to the merit stage, setting up this Article’s discussion of perhaps the most intractable border dispute in South American history – Bolivia’s attempt to reclaim from Chile a ‘sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean’. This Article investigates the international law and deeply commingled regional history pertaining to the Atacama Desert region, the hyperarid yet resource-rich region through which Bolivia seeks to secure its long-lost access to the sea. Investigating the factual circumstances (effectivites), the post-colonial international legal principle of uti possidetis, territorial temptations arising from resource discoveries, and the duty to negotiate based on a pactum de contrahendo, a pactum de negotiando, or unilateral declarations, this Article concludes this case is less suited for adjudicative settlement than resolution by the principal three parties involved in the region – Bolivia, Chile, and Peru – primarily because the parties have, over the course of this protracted dispute, constructed intersubjective modalities for a shared sovereignty arrangement facilitated by sub-regional economic growth relations. A regional reconstruction of sovereignty in the northern Atacama region presents the better prospect for resolution than is possible through the limited outcomes presented by formal third party dispute settlement.

Hierarchy-aware skip graph for sensing resource discoveries on large-scale sensor overlay networks

The rapid development of sensor networks has made it possible to build a large-scale sensor overlay network by integrating separated sensor networks all over the world. In our previous research, we proposed to realize sensor overlay networks by connecting their gateways with skip graph (SG) overlay, which is distributed and self-organized, and supports retrieving sensing resources using their properties. Although this method has proven to be effective in some scenarios, the lack of proximity awareness of an SG makes it difficult to build large-scale sensor overlay systems efficiently. In this paper, we present the hierarchy-aware extension of SG (HSG), which uses a hierarchy-aware neighbor selection mechanism that integrates the hierarchy of the physical Internet into overlay construction and routing to improve latency and traffic locality. To construct an HSG efficiently under various network environments, we develop a hierarchy-aware sampling mechanism for nodes to identify better neighbors than SG. To verify and validate the feasibility of HSG as a building block of large-scale sensor overlay networks, we carried out extensive simulations in near practical scenarios, which were obtained by analyzing an Internet measurement dataset. We showed that HSG could improve the routing latency and locality significantly with little overhead.

Exploring triacylglycerol biosynthetic pathway in developing seeds of Chia (Salvia hispanica L.): a transcriptomic approach.

Chia (Salvia hispanica L.), a member of the mint family (Lamiaceae), is a rediscovered crop with great importance in health and nutrition and is also the highest known terrestrial plant source of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acid, alpha linolenic acid (ALA). At present, there is no public genomic information or database available for this crop, hindering research on its genetic improvement through genomics-assisted breeding programs. The first comprehensive analysis of the global transcriptome profile of developing Salvia hispanica L. seeds, with special reference to lipid biosynthesis is presented in this study. RNA from five different stages of seed development was extracted and sequenced separately using the Illumina GAIIx platform. De novo assembly of processed reads in the pooled transcriptome using Trinity yielded 76,014 transcripts. The total transcript length was 66,944,462 bases (66.9 Mb), with an average length of approximately 880 bases. In the molecular functions category of Gene Ontology (GO) terms, ATP binding and nucleotide binding were found to be the most abundant and in the biological processes category, the metabolic process and the regulation of transcription-DNA-dependent and oxidation-reduction process were abundant. From the EuKaryotic Orthologous Groups of proteins (KOG) classification, the major category was “Metabolism” (31.97%), of which the most prominent class was ‘carbohydrate metabolism and transport’ (5.81% of total KOG classifications) followed by ‘secondary metabolite biosynthesis transport and catabolism’ (5.34%) and ‘lipid metabolism’ (4.57%). A majority of the candidate genes involved in lipid biosynthesis and oil accumulation were identified. Furthermore, 5596 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were identified. The transcriptome data was further validated through confirmative PCR and qRT-PCR for select lipid genes. Our study provides insight into the complex transcriptome and will contribute to further genome-wide research and understanding of chia. The identified novel UniGenes will facilitate gene discovery and creation of genomic resource for this crop.

The resource curse exorcised: Evidence from a panel of countries

This paper evaluates the impact of major natural resource discoveries since 1950 on GDP per capita. Using panel fixed-effects estimation and resource discoveries in countries that were not previously resource-rich as a plausibly exogenous source of variation, I find a positive effect on GDP per capita levels following resource exploitation that persists in the long term. Results vary significantly between OECD and non-OECD treatment countries, with effects concentrated within the non-OECD group. I further test GDP effects with synthetic control analysis on each individual treated country, yielding results consistent with the average effects found with the fixed-effects model.

Do Economic and Political Institutions Mitigate the Risk of Natural Resource Conflicts?

Despite repeated attempts to model conflict as contests over rent, few researchers have found a persuasive identification strategy to test these models. However, Lei and Michaels (2014) find that exogenous discoveries of “giant” oil fields are in fact associated with increased likelihood of violent conflict. Surprisingly, they do not find any evidence that political decision rules mitigate the effect of natural resource discoveries on the instance of conflict. This paper re-estimates Lei and Michaels’ model to test if their result is dependent on the institutional environment that prevailed at the time of the oil discovery. Results indicate that for conflicts over control of territory, strong economic and political institutions reduce the likelihood of conflict in the wake of the discovery of oil. This empirical finding is consistent with basic theoretical models of violent conflict.

Lipid production in Chlorella protothecoides (1000.2)

Depleting fossil fuel supply has prompted increased demand for the discovery of an alternative energy resource. Our study seeks to identify the genes that control lipid production, as well as, the regulation of these genes in Chlorella Protothecoides. To define gene expression profiles in lipid producing algae, Next Generation Sequencing was performed on total RNA extracted from algae grown in growth conditions (nitrogen sufficient) verses algae grown in lipid producing conditions (nitrogen deficient). Lipid production in nitrogen deficient was confirmed using Bodipy 505/515 staining, analyzed by flow cytometry. Next Generation Sequencing data yielded distinct algal gene expression profiles for both lipid producing and growth conditions. Blast analysis of differentially regulated mRNA sequences revealed several known genes likely to be involved in lipid production and 8 yet to be identified genes. Candidate genes were further analyzed by TaqMan to determine relative expression levels. We have established expression profiles of 10 of these candidate genes, which can be used as markers to identify different environmental condition which optimize lipid production.

How Should Donors Respond to Resource Windfalls in Poor Countries? From Aid to Insurance

Natural resources are being discovered in more countries, both rich and poor. Many of the new and aspiring resource exporters are low-income countries that are still receiving substantial levels of foreign aid. Resource discoveries open up enormous opportunities, but also expose producing countries to huge trade and fiscal shocks from volatile commodity markets if their exports are highly concentrated. A large literature on theresource curseshows that these are damaging unless countries manage to cushion the effects through countercyclical policy. It also shows that the countries least likely to do so successfully are those with weaker institutions, and these are most likely to remain as clients of the aid system. This paper considers the question of how donors should respond to their clients'potential windfalls. It discusses several ways in which the focus and nature of foreign aid programs will need to change, including the level of financial assistance. The paper develops some ideas on how a donor like the International Development Association might structure its program of financial transfers to mitigate volatility. The paper outlines ways in which the International Development Association could use hedging instruments to vary disbursements while still working within a framework of country allocations that are not contingent on oil prices. Simulations suggest that the International Development Association could be structured to provide a larger degree of insurance if it is calibrated to hedge against large declines in resource prices. These suggestions are intended to complement other mechanisms, including self-insurance using Sovereign Wealth Funds (where possible) and the facilities of the International Monetary Fund.

Diversification, Dutch Disease, and Economic Growth: Options for Uganda

Natural resource discoveries, even when fairly modest in terms of the revenues they are expected to generate, can have significant macroeconomic effects and implications for the conduct of fiscal and monetary policy. In this respect, Uganda is no different from other oil-rich countries. In five main ways, all of which suggest the need for economic diversification as an efficient risk management strategy, the Dutch disease manifests itself through (i) An appreciation of the local currency in real terms, undermining the profitability of other export industries, and of local industries competing with imports by encouraging imports. (ii) The increased volatility of the real exchange rate induced by oscillating oil prices in world markets, which reduces investment and economic growth over time. (iii) Wage increases in the resource-intensive sector that spill over to the non-resource-based sector, further hampering employment and investment in the non-resource-based sector. (iv) Socially counterproductive rent seeking (and even plundering) in the absence of effective legal and institutional mechanisms that would ensure resource rents accrue to the rightful owners with minimal leakages, and are managed for the benefit of all. (v) Crowding out, by which natural capital (if not well managed) tends to undermine other types of capital essential to economic development, including human and social capital. The need for diversification can be viewed in terms of channeling the revenues generated by resource rents into the generation of human capital through education and training, and social capital through institution building conducive to good governance and transparency, aiming, inter alia, to keep rent seeking at bay. Economic diversification for the purpose of containing the preponderance of the resource-intensive industry at the expense of other industries, and political diversification through democracy aimed at encouraging pluralism and high-quality leadership both convey parallel principal benefits to the economy and society in terms of efficiency and fairness.

Identification and characterization of microRNAs involved in growth of blunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala) by Solexa sequencing

BackgroundBlunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala) is an economically important fish species in the Chinese freshwater polyculture system for its delicacy and high economic value. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in regulation of almost all biological processes in eukaryotes. Although previous studies have identified thousands of miRNAs from many species, little information is known for miRNAs of M. amblycephala. To investigate functions of miRNAs associated with growth of M. amblycephala, we adopted the Solexa sequencing technology to sequence two small RNA libraries prepared from four growth related tissues (brain, pituitary, liver and muscle) of M. amblycephala using individuals with relatively high and low growth rates.ResultsIn this study, we have identified 347 conserved miRNAs (belonging to 123 families) and 22 novel miRNAs in M. amblycephala. Moreover, we observed sequence variants and seed edits of the miRNAs. Of the 5,166 single nucleotide substitutions observed in two libraries, the most abundant were G-to-U (15.9%), followed by U-to-C (12.1%), G-to-A (11.2%), and A to G (11.2%). Subsequently, we compared the expression patterns of miRNAs in the two libraries (big-size group with high growth rate versus small-size group with low growth rate). Results indicated that 27 miRNAs displayed significant differential expressions between the two libraries (p < 0.05). Of these, 16 were significantly up-regulated and 11 were significantly down-regulated in the big-size group compared to the small-size group. Furthermore, stem-loop RT-PCR was applied to validate and profile the expression of the differentially expressed miRNAs in ten tissues, and the result revealed that the conserved miRNAs expressed at higher levels than the novel miRNAs, especially in brain, liver and muscle. Also, targets prediction of differentially expressed miRNAs and KEGG pathway analysis suggested that differentially expressed miRNAs are involved in growth and metabolism, signal transduction, cell cycle, neural development and functions.ConclusionsThe present study provides the first large-scale characterization of miRNAs in M. amblycephala and miRNA profile related to different growth performances. The discovery of miRNA resource from this study is expected to contribute to a better understanding of the miRNAs roles playing in regulating the growth biological processes and the study of miRNA function and phenotype-associated miRNA identification in fish.

Military Expenditures and Natural Resources: Evidence from Rentier States in the Middle East and North Africa

It has been argued that the discovery of a new natural resource greatly increases the risk of conflict. This research aims to study the effect of natural resources on military spending, using the data from rentier states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries from 1987 to 2012. In considering the ‘resource curse,’ the types of natural resources matter. Our empirical results demonstrate that the ‘resource curse’ arising from the abundance of certain natural resources, particularly oil and forest resources, leads to increases in military spending. In contrast, the rent from coal and natural gas has a negative impact on military spending, while the rent from minerals has no impact on military spending, controlling for GDP growth and per capita income.

Dynamics of Managing Electronic Resources: Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS) Initiatives

Even after two decades of digital presence in libraries and proliferation of electronic resources (e-resources) in terms of production, acquisition and usage the management of e-resources remains a cumbersome process. The process involved in the management of e-resources has often overwhelmed the library personnel. The life cycle of e-resources, especially in the academic institutions begin with the discovery and identification of the resource and moves on to the trial access, selecting the specific resource from the gamut of other resources followed by acquisition of the specific resource into the library realm and then felicitating access to the users and then the follow-up of studying the usage of the resource for further continuation of those resources. In between these processes there is the cumbersome chore of going through the licensing agreements and keeping the records correct. All these processes are time consuming and involve a lot of work. These relentless arrays of work have made librarians to look for systems which can save their time and energy and provide efficient management of e-resources. This paper looks at the origin of the ERMS (E-resource Management Systems) and the available ERMS in the library digital landscape. http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/djlit.33.4885

Eloise Milam Melody Maids Rose Room Museum

There is a fascinating backstory to the discovery of this little-known resource of musical knowledge about women in America's music history. One thing has always impressed me, and that is that tiny...

Why Australia prospered: the shifting sources of economic growth

This book is the first comprehensive account of how Australia attained the world's highest living standards within a few decades of European settlement, and how the nation has sustained an enviable level of income to the present. Beginning with the Aboriginal economy at the end of the eighteenth century, Ian McLean argues that Australia's remarkable prosperity across nearly two centuries was reached and maintained by several shifting factors. These included imperial policies, favorable demographic characteristics, natural resource abundance, institutional adaptability and innovation, and growth-enhancing policy responses to major economic shocks, such as war, depression, and resource discoveries. Natural resource abundance in Australia played a prominent role in some periods and faded during others, but overall, and contrary to the conventional view of economists, it was a blessing rather than a curse. McLean shows that Australia's location was not a hindrance when the international economy was centered in the North Atlantic, and became a positive influence following Asia's modernization. Participation in the world trading system, when it flourished, brought significant benefits, and during the interwar period when it did not, Australia's protection of domestic manufacturing did not significantly stall growth. McLean also considers how the country's notorious origins as a convict settlement positively influenced early productivity levels, and how British imperial policies enhanced prosperity during the colonial period. He looks at Australia's recent resource-based prosperity in historical perspective, and reveals striking elements of continuity that have underpinned the evolution of the country's economy since the nineteenth century.

Commodity prices and growth: An empirical investigation

Whereas empirical evidence on the effect of higher commodity prices on the long-run growth of commodity exporters is ambiguous, time series analyses using vector autoregressive (VAR) models have found that commodity booms raise income in the short run. In this paper we adopt panel error correction methodology to analyze global data for 1963 to 2008 to disentangle the short and long run effects of international commodity prices on output per capita. Our results show that commodity booms have unconditional positive short-term effects on output, but non-agricultural booms in countries with poor governance have adverse long-term effects which dominate the short-run gains. Our findings have important implications for non-agricultural commodity exporters with poor governance, especially in light of the recent wave of resource discoveries in low-income countries.

Childhood under siege: how big business targets children

This book is a shocking venture behind the scenes of the widespread manipulation of children by profit-seeking corporations – and of society’s failure to protect them.Childhood Under Siege reveals big business’s discovery of a new resource to be mined for profit – our children. A journey through a world of unabashed exploitation, clued-out parents, and governments that look the other way, it tells the chilling and at times darkly humorous story of business’s plans to turn kids into obsessive and narcissistic mini-consumers, media addicts, cheap and pliable workers, and chemical industry guinea pigs. Not to mention pharmaceutical pill poppers – psychotropic drug consumption by children has increased fivefold since 1980.It’s a winner-takes-all battle for children’s hearts, minds and bodies as corporations pump billions into rendering parents and governments powerless to protect children from their calculated commercial assault and its disturbing toll on their health and well-being.

Research on a Resource Discovery Mechanism in Cloud Computing Environment Based on Analysis of Scientific Materials

Cloud computing technology is an efficient way to resolve the resource sharing and cooperative work in distributed environments. The resource discovery mechanism is a key problem in Cloud computing. In order to implement the quick discovery of service resource and the balanced distribution of resource on the Cloud computing system, a resource discovery mechanism in Cloud computing environment has been designed and implemented. Firstly, a Formula based on each node's loading has been proposed. Secondly, a comprehensive service distribution method has been designed in consideration about each node’s performance and current loading distribution. Finally, the result of the experiment indicates that the discovery mechanism can improve the efficiency of the resource and the utilization ratio of the service resource.