BUSINESS CLUSTERS IN THE SOUTH: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL FROM INDONESIAN EVIDENCE

Advocacy of the advantages accruing to business clusters in developing economies has followed that in developed economies. With doubts emerging about the evidence for these in developed economies, it is therefore appropriate to review the experience in the developing world. A model of cluster emergence and growth has guided accounts of developing country clusters. Drawing on experience from Indonesia, doubts are raised about that model's prediction of the emergence of successful joint action in maintaining cluster advantages. Any advantages from clustering are insufficient to face development challenges arising from the globalisation of economic activity. The significance of business clusters in low income economies needs to be reviewed in the light of actual experience and the reappraisal emerging in developed or high income countries.     

Gender Differences in Chronic Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution—A Simulation Study of Working Females and Males

The objective of this study was to identify spatial variability in exposure to outdoor traffic-related air pollution with specific emphasis on comparing exposure estimates for working females and males across a metropolitan area. A spatial exposure simulation model was used to estimate annual average exposure to traffic-related nitrogen dioxide for males and females reporting regular work in census tracts other than that of their residence, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The model produced estimates of annual average exposure in six microenvironments (home indoor, work indoor, other indoor, outdoor, in-vehicle to work, and in-vehicle other) using time-activity patterns and work flow data, for males and females in each of 382 census tracts. This allowed for the identification of spatial variations in exposure estimates for each gender, due to mobility within the study region. Indoor sources of nitrogen dioxide were not included in the simulation. No significant differences in estimated total exposure were found between working females and males in general. Small but observable spatial differences, however, were found between working females and males at the 90th percentile of the exposure distributions associated specifically with the work indoor microenvironment. These were highest in suburban areas (+3 μ g/m³ for females, relative to total exposures in the range of 26 to 37 μ g/m³ annual average hourly nitrogen dioxide). These results identify specific geographic locations in the study area where personal monitoring studies might be warranted and suggest that the inclusion of workplace locations in multivariate modeling could be useful to further understand differences in estimated exposures.     

Field tests of seasat bathymetric detections

Knowledge of the locations and sizes of seamounts is of great importance in applications such as inertial navigation and ocean mining. The quality and density of bathymetry data in the equatorial regions and the southern hemisphere are, unifortunately, highly variable. Our present knowledge of bathymetry, and in particular of seamount locations and characteristics, is based upon ship surveys, which are both time-consuming and expensive. It is likely that a significant number of uncharted seamounts exist throughout the oceans, and remote-sensing techniques may be the most effective means of locating them.     

Refining P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for marine particulate samples: Storage conditions and extraction recovery

Solution ³¹P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has recently been used to characterize phosphorus species within marine particles. However, the effects of sample collection, storage and preparation have not been thoroughly examined. In this study, samples of settling particulates collected from a 1200-m sediment trap located in Monterey Bay, California, were subjected to various storage options (i.e., no storage, refrigeration, freezing, and oven-drying and grinding) prior to extraction for solution ³¹P-NMR spectroscopy. Freezing, refrigerating and drying samples for periods of up to 6 months prior to extraction with 0.25 M NaOH + 0.05 M Na₂EDTA increased the concentration of extracted P by an average of 16% relative to samples extracted without storage. Pre-extraction storage also introduced some minor changes in P speciation, by increasing the percentage of orthophosphate by up to 15% and decreasing the percentage of pyrophosphate by up to 5%, relative to the abundances of these P species in samples extracted without storage. Drying caused the biggest changes in speciation, specifically decreasing more extensively the relative percentage of pyrophosphate compared to other treatments. Nevertheless, observed changes in speciation due to sample storage within a specific sample were small relative to differences observed among samples collected sequentially in the same area, or reported differences among samples collected at different locations. Samples were also analyzed by solid-state ³¹P-NMR spectroscopy before and after extraction, to examine extraction-related changes in P speciation. Comparison of solution with solid-state ³¹P NMR indicates that extraction with NaOH–EDTA removes the majority of organic esters, but only a variable portion of phosphonates (39–67%). In addition, there was preferential extraction of Ca-associated phosphate over Mg-, Fe- and Al-associated phosphate. Solution ³¹P NMR enables much higher resolution of P species within samples, particularly when it is important to speciate orthophosphate monoesters and diesters, or if polyphosphates are present. However, combining solid-state ³¹P NMR with solution ³¹P NMR spectroscopy for marine particles should be conducted when examining inorganic P speciation and the abundance of phosphonates.     

A lightweight vertical rosette for deployment in ice-covered waters

A lightweight modular rosette system has been developed that can be launched and recovered from aircraft in ice-covered waters through a 12 in. diameter hole in the ice. The small diameter is achieved by the modular design, in which a CTD module is attached to the end of a conducting cable and water bottle modules (four 4-L bottles per module) are positioned vertically above it. A novel tripping mechanism based on melting a link of monofilament line is used to close the water bottles at the desired depths. After launching the rosette, the cast proceeds like a normal rosette cast with the traces of temperature, salinity, oxygen and other desired sensors being displayed on a computer screen during the down and up casts and tripping the bottles electronically at the desired depths on the up cast. A Seabird 19+ CTD and Seabird 43 oxygen sensor are mounted in the CTD module and data acquisition and bottle tripping are controlled using a Seabird 33 deck unit and Seabird's SeaSave software run on a laptop computer. Deployment and recovery are done in a heated tent attached to the aircraft to prevent the water from freezing. After recovery the bottle modules are placed in coolers with bags of snow to stabilize the cooler temperature close to 0 °C, which is within ±1.8 °C of the in situ temperature, and the modules are transported back to a base camp for subsampling and sample processing. This system has been used to collect over 250 water samples in the ice-covered Lincoln Sea and the quality of the samples for dissolved gases and other constituents has been excellent.     

Iterative approach to groundwater flow modeling of the Martinsville Alternative Site,under consideration for low-level radioactive waste storage in Clark County,Illinois, U.S.A.

The regulatory requirements for characterization of the Martinsville Alternative Site (MAS) were fulfilled by applying an iterative approach to the groundwater flow modeling of the site and surrounding area. The approach consisted of field data collection and development of an initial conceptual model. The numerical model was then constructed to be consistent with the data and conceptual model. Next, the calibration results were evaluated statistically, and visually by a groundwater modeling review committee, to determine if the model accurately represented groundwater flow at the site. Initial results failed acceptance criteria because the values of numerical model input parameters had to be varied beyond observed data ranges to calibrate the results, and therefore the model was inconsistent with the initial conceptual model. This led to additional field data collection in areas where the numerical model deviated most from field-determined data. The new data provided sufficient information to revise the conceptual model and calibrate the numerical model successfully. Model calibration was followed by validation. Validation of the numerical model provided additional assurance that the model correctly simulated the observed system. No additional data were found to be necessary during validation of the MAS numerical model. The iterative approach proved to be successful for calibrating and validating this groundwater flow model and should be implemented from the onset of characterization planning in other applications.