How prepared is prepared enough?

Decisions about disaster preparedness are rarely informed by cost‐benefit analyses. This paper presents an economic model to address the thorny question, ‘how prepared is prepared enough?’ Difficulties related to the use of cost‐benefit analysis in the field of disaster management concern the tension between the large number of high‐probability events that can be handled by a single emergency response unit and the small number of low‐probability events that must be handled by a large number of them. A further special feature of disaster management concerns the opportunity for cooperation between different emergency response units. To account for these issues, we introduce a portfolio approach. Our analysis shows that it would be useful to define disaster preparedness not in terms of capacities, but in terms of the frequency with which response capacity is expected to fall short.     

Development finance in the 1990s for Latin American resource exporting countries

As a result of the debt crisis, per capita income in Latin America in 1990 was 10% below its 1981 level. Many resource exporting countries in the region have undertaken wide and deep reforms in order, among other reasons, to attract and retain long-term capital to fuel growth prospects. One newly proposed long-term instrument for development finance and risk management is the commodity bond. Given the sovereign risk component, the costly premiums that must be paid to insure it and more efficient alternative instruments for both issuers and investors, commodity bonds are unlikely to generate the required long-term capital needed to enhance growth prospects. With the continuing globalization of the goods, factors and currency markets, long-term capital can be attracted and maintained in both developed and developing countries by an attractive investment environment characterized by a competitive microeconomy, a stable macroeconomy, strong global linkages, and a serious programme to improve physical and social infrastructure.     

Eucalyptus ESTs related to genes for oxidative stress

Oxidative stress generating active oxygen species has been proved to be one of the underlying agents causing tissue injury after the exposure of Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.) plants to a wide variety of stress conditions. The objective of this study was to perform data mining to identify favorable genes and alleles associated with the enzyme systems superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidases, and glutathione S-transferase that are related to tolerance for environmental stresses and damage caused by pests, diseases, herbicides, and by weeds themselves. This was undertaken by using the eucalyptus expressed-sequence database (https//forests.esalq.usp.br). The alignment results between amino acid and nucleotide sequences indicated that the studied enzymes were adequately represented in the ESTs database of the FORESTs project.     

Chile's resource sectors

Chilean economic reforms, introduced in the 1970s and early 1980s, discarded decades of state intervention in the economy, but were accompanied by considerable economic pain and social stress from domestic and international sources. In the 1990s, Chile, supported by a competitive micro-economy, a stable macro-economy, strong linkages with the world economy and the return to democratic government, is exploiting its world-class resource sectors to propel economic growth in order to address social problems. However, the prospects for raising living standards in Chile and other resource-exporting developing countries are critically dependent on a favourable external environment.