Surface sediment samples from several fore-arc basins west and southwest of the Indonesian Archipelago, analyzed by planktonic foraminifera, stable oxygen and carbon isotopic signals and opal and CaCO3 contents in bulk sediment

A total of 69 surface sediment samples from several fore-arc basins located west and southwest of the Indonesian Archipelago was analyzed with respect to the faunal composition of planktonic foraminifera, the stable oxygen and carbon isotopic signal of a surface-dwelling (Globigerinoides ruber) and a thermocline-dwelling (Neogloboquadrina dutertrei) species, and the opal and CaCO3 contents in bulk sediment. Our results show that the distribution pattern of opal in surface sediments corresponds well to the upwelling-induced chlorophyll concentration in the upper water column and thus, represents a reliable proxy for marine productivity in the coastal upwelling area off S and SW Indonesia. Present-day oceanography and marine productivity are also reflected in the tropical to subtropical and upwelling assemblages of planktonic foraminifera in the surface sediments, which in part differ from previous studies in this region probably due to different coring methods and dissolution effects. The average stable oxygen isotopic values (d18O) of G. ruber in surface sediments vary between 2.9 per mill and 3.2 per mill from basin to basin and correspond to the oceanographic settings during the SE monsoon (July-October) off west Sumatra, whereas off southern Indonesia, they reflect the NW monsoon (December-March) or annual average conditions. The d18O values of N. dutertrei show a stronger interbasinal variation between 1.6 per mill and 2.2 per mill and correspond to the upper thermocline hydrology in July-October. In addition, the difference between the shell carbon isotopic values (d13C) of G. ruber and N. dutertrei (Delta d13C) appears to be an appropriate productivity recorder only in the non-upwelling areas off west Sumatra. Consequently, joint interpretation of the isotopic values of these species is distinctive for different fore-arc basins W and SW of Indonesia and should be considered in paleoceanographic studies.

Manganese nodules mesozoic deep-sea deposits off some Indonesian Islands

Concretions of manganese have been discovered by the geological expedition to the islands of the Timor group in 1910-1912 in triassic and jurassic deep-sea deposits, on the Island of Timor, and also well developed in similar jurassic deposits on the island of Rotti, and previously, in 1894, the author noticed them in abysmal deposits of the pre-cretaceous probably jurassic Danau formation, occurring in West and East Borneo. On the island of Rotti nodules of manganese were found in several localities in siliceous limestones, marls, siliceous and calcareous clayshales along with concretions and nodules of chert of jurassic age, full of tests of radiolaria.

Is the Indonesian President strong or weak?

This paper analyzes the newly institutionalized political system in democratizing Indonesia, with particular reference to the presidential system. Consensus has not yet been reached among scholars on whether the Indonesian president is strong or weak. This paper tries to answer this question by analyzing the legislative and partisan powers of the Indonesian president. It must be acknowledged, however, that these two functions do not on their own explain the strengths and weaknesses of the president. This paper suggests that in order to fully understand the presidential system in Indonesia, we need to take into account not just the president's legislative and partisan powers, but also the legislative process and the characteristics of coalition government.

Market discipline by depositors : impact of deposit insurance on the Indonesian banking sector

This paper investigates market discipline by depositors in the Indonesian banking sector. Does depositor discipline fulfill its role in Indonesia? Does deposit insurance affect depositor behavior thereby imposing discipline on banks? These questions are empirically examined using panel data on Indonesian commercial banks from 1998 to 2009. In Indonesia deposit insurance was introduced in 2005. Depositor discipline is examined by two measures: change in the amount of deposits and interest rate. The empirical results show that depositors pay attention to bank soundness and riskiness and select banks based on the bank's condition with particular attention paid to equity ratio. It is found that depositors impose discipline on banks, but it varies according to regulatory and economic circumstances.

Impact of foreign capital entry in the Indonesian banking sector

After the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98, the Indonesian banking sector experienced significant changes. Ownership structure of banking sector is substantially-changed. Currently, ownership of major commercial banks is dominated by foreign capital through acquisition. This paper examines whether foreign ownership changes a bank’s lending behavior and performance. Foreign banks tend to lend mainly to large firms; this paper examines whether the credit to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is affected by foreign capital entry into the Indonesian banking sector. Empirical results show that banks owned by foreign capital tend to decrease SME credit.

Does trade liberalization boost quality upgrading? : evidence from Indonesian plant-product-level data

In this study, we examine the effects of tariff reduction on firms' quality upgrading by employing an Indonesian plant-product-level panel dataset matched with a plant-level dataset. We explore the effects of lower output and input tariffs separately, by focusing on the apparel industry. By estimating the Berry-type demand function, we derive product-quality indicators based on the Khandelwal (Review of Economic Studies, 2010) methodology, which enables us to isolate quality upgrading from changes in prices. Our findings are as follows. First, a reduction in output tariffs does not affect product quality upgrading. Second, a reduction in input tariffs boosts quality upgrading in general. In particular, this impact is greater for import firms, which is consistent with the fact that the source of the boost is the import of high-quality foreign inputs.

Essentials in Ontology Engineering: Methodologies, Languages, and Tools

In the beginning of the 90s, ontology development was similar to an art: ontology developers did not have clear guidelines on how to build ontologies but only some design criteria to be followed. Work on principles, methods and methodologies, together with supporting technologies and languages, made ontology development become an engineering discipline, the so-called Ontology Engineering. Ontology Engineering refers to the set of activities that concern the ontology development process and the ontology life cycle, the methods and methodologies for building ontologies, and the tool suites and languages that support them. Thanks to the work done in the Ontology Engineering field, the development of ontologies within and between teams has increased and improved, as well as the possibility of reusing ontologies in other developments and in final applications. Currently, ontologies are widely used in (a) Knowledge Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, (b) applications related to knowledge management, natural language processing, e-commerce, intelligent information integration, information retrieval, database design and integration, bio-informatics, education, and (c) the Semantic Web, the Semantic Grid, and the Linked Data initiative. In this paper, we provide an overview of Ontology Engineering, mentioning the most outstanding and used methodologies, languages, and tools for building ontologies. In addition, we include some words on how all these elements can be used in the Linked Data initiative.

Independence in CLP Languages

Studying independence of goals has proven very useful in the context of logic programming. In particular, it has provided a formal basis for powerful automatic parallelization tools, since independence ensures that two goals may be evaluated in parallel while preserving correctness and eciency. We extend the concept of independence to constraint logic programs (CLP) and prove that it also ensures the correctness and eciency of the parallel evaluation of independent goals. Independence for CLP languages is more complex than for logic programming as search space preservation is necessary but no longer sucient for ensuring correctness and eciency. Two additional issues arise. The rst is that the cost of constraint solving may depend upon the order constraints are encountered. The second is the need to handle dynamic scheduling. We clarify these issues by proposing various types of search independence and constraint solver independence, and show how they can be combined to allow dierent optimizations, from parallelism to intelligent backtracking. Sucient conditions for independence which can be evaluated \a priori" at run-time are also proposed. Our study also yields new insights into independence in logic programming languages. In particular, we show that search space preservation is not only a sucient but also a necessary condition for ensuring correctness and eciency of parallel execution.

Modular extensions for modular (Logic) languages

We address the problem of developing mechanisms for easily implementing modular extensions to modular (logic) languages. By(language) extensions we refer to different groups of syntactic definitions and translation rules that extend a language. Our use of the concept of modularity in this context is twofold. We would like these extensions to be modular, in the sense above, i.e., we should be able to develop different extensions mostly separately. At the same time, the sources and targets for the extensions are modular languages, i.e., such extensions may take as input sepárate pieces of code and also produce sepárate pieces of code. Dealing with this double requirement involves interesting challenges to ensure that modularity is not broken: first, combinations of extensions (as if they were a single extensión) must be given a precise meaning. Also, the sepárate translation of múltiple sources (as if they were a single source) must be feasible. We present a detailed description of a code expansion-based framework that proposes novel solutions for these problems. We argüe that the approach, while implemented for Ciao, can be adapted for other Prolog-based systems and languages.