This study examines the productivity and resilience of agroecosystems in the Korean Peninsula. Having learned valuable lessons from a Chapman University project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture which concentrated on the semi-arid region of southwestern United States, our joint Korea—Chapman University team has applied similar methodologies to the Korean Peninsula, which is ...

In this paper we examine the evidence for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimate that the costs of global climate change will be on the order of 1.5-2.0% of world gross domestic product (GDP). Although this estimate is widely and authoritatively repeated, it rests on a handful of preliminary studies, chiefly of the United States and performed by a select group of economis...

Prompted partly by the legislation of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, public sector agencies are gradually adopting a more value-oriented approach for making IT investments. In order to comprehend this relatively new phenomenon in the public sector, we propose a conceptual framework that points out the types of value that matter in government IT investment decisions and explains what factors gen...

There is a notable lack of scientific consensus on whether electric and magnetic fields (EMF) constitute a health risk in need of systematic control. Even those who see EMF as a public problem, share few assumptions about the type of problem it represents, whether serious risks to health are involved, or about the collective action it warrants. In the absence of conclusive scientific evidence, ...

Severe epidemics caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza viruses have recently killed hundreds of people while causing chaos and panic in many countries. These epidemics have distinct characteristics that make their politics significant and interesting, although both health policy analysts and political scientists have neglected the phenomenon. In this article, I ...

Mass gatherings (MGs) occur for many different reasons including religious, social, cultural, political and sporting events. There are two types of spontaneous and organized MGs. The first one takes place when a population displaces due to natural disasters or conflicts, whereas the second one is seen in a preplanned program. Mass gatherings are associated with health risks of infectious diseas...

A progressive erosion of the democratic space appears as one of the emerging challenges in global health today. Such delimitation of the political interplay has a particularly evident impact on the unique public interest function of the World Health Organization (WHO). This paper aims to identify some obstacles for a truly democratic functioning of the UN specialized agency for health. The deve...

This paper analyses the interactions between land use, institutions and culture in the context of climatic extremes in Vietnam. Although there has been a long history of examining the evolutionary nature of markets and institutions within an institutional economics framework, developing the institutional economic approach to include society environment interactions allows examination of process...

In recent months, fi nancial markets have become more anxious about several key developments in Europe. First, there are increased worries that political change in Greece could lead it to renegotiate the terms of its bailout agreement, and in a worst case scenario, exit the euro area. The latter outcome could revive the eurozone fi nancial crisis, as markets would bet on who is next. Second, th...

From its initial development by Carlo Forlanini at the end of the nineteenth century until the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s, artificial pneumothorax was one of the most widely used treatments for pulmonary tuberculosis. However, there were strongly held reservations about this therapy because of its risks and side effects. In the Soviet Union under Stalin, such uncertainties became instru...