Rare or threatened vascular plant species of Wollemi National Park, central eastern New South Wales

Wollemi National Park (c. 32o 20’– 33o 30’S, 150o– 151oE), approximately 100 km north-west of Sydney, conserves over 500 000 ha of the Triassic sandstone environments of the Central Coast and Tablelands of New South Wales, and occupies approximately 25% of the Sydney Basin biogeographical region. 94 taxa of conservation significance have been recorded and Wollemi is recognised as an important reservoir of rare and uncommon plant taxa, conserving more than 20% of all listed threatened species for the Central Coast, Central Tablelands and Central Western Slopes botanical divisions. For a land area occupying only 0.05% of these divisions, Wollemi is of paramount importance in regional conservation. Surveys within Wollemi National Park over the last decade have recorded several new populations of significant vascular plant species, including some sizeable range extensions. This paper summarises the current status of all rare or threatened taxa, describes habitat and associated species for many of these and proposes IUCN (2001) codes for all, as well as suggesting revisions to current conservation risk codes for some species. For Wollemi National Park 37 species are currently listed as Endangered (15 species) or Vulnerable (22 species) under the New South Wales Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. An additional 50 species are currently listed as nationally rare under the Briggs and Leigh (1996) classification, or have been suggested as such by various workers. Seven species are awaiting further taxonomic investigation, including Eucalyptus sp. ‘Howes Swamp Creek’ (Doherty 26), known from a single location within the park, and Pultenaea sp. (Olinda) from Dunns Swamp – both these species remain undescribed, but are listed as endangered species. After applying IUCN criteria to the 94 taxa, 2 are considered Critically Endangered; 11 are considered Endangered; 23 are considered Vulnerable; 3 are considered Near Threatened; 19 are considered Data Deficient; and 36 are considered of Least Concern. It is likely that additional highly restricted plant taxa await discovery in remote locations

Bell's theorem as a signature of nonlocality: a classical counterexample

For a system composed of two particles Bell's theorem asserts that averages of physical quantities determined from local variables must conform to a family of inequalities. In this work we show that a classical model containing a local probabilistic interaction in the measurement process can lead to a violation of the Bell inequalities. We first introduce two-particle phase-space distributions in classical mechanics constructed to be the analogs of quantum mechanical angular momentum eigenstates. These distributions are then employed in four schemes characterized by different types of detectors measuring the angular momenta. When the model includes an interaction between the detector and the measured particle leading to ensemble dependencies, the relevant Bell inequalities are violated if total angular momentum is required to be conserved. The violation is explained by identifying assumptions made in the derivation of Bell's theorem that are not fulfilled by the model. These assumptions will be argued to be too restrictive to see in the violation of the Bell inequalities a faithful signature of nonlocality.Comment: Extended manuscript. Significant change

The impact of minimum wages in Mexico and Colombia

There are diverging views about how minimum wages affect labor markets in developing countries. Advocates of minimum wages hold that they redistribute resources in a welfare-enhancing way, and can thus reduce poverty, improve productivity, and foster growth. Opponents, on the other hand, contend that minimum wage interventions result in a misallocation of labor and lead to depressed wages in the very sectors - the rural and informal urban sectors - where most of the poor are found, with the effect of wasting resources and reducing the growth rate. Data from Colombia and Mexico for the 1980s provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of minimum wages. In Mexico in the 1980s, the minimum wage fell in real terms roughly 45 percent. By 1990, Mexico's minimum wage was about 13 percent of the average unskilled manufacturing wage. During the same period, the minimum wage in Colombia increased at nearly the same rate, reaching roughly 53 percent of the average unskilled wage. The author charts how the mandated minimum wage affected the demand for skilled and unskilled labor in both countries during that decade. Findings are as follows. In Mexico, minimum wages have had virtually no effect on wages or employment in the formal sector. The main reason: the minimum wage is not an effective wage for most firms or workers. In the informal sector, in turn, there is considerable noncompliance with the mandated minimum wage, especially among part-time and female workers. As a result, significant numbers of workers are paid at or below minimum wages. In Colombia, minimum wages have a much stronger impact on wages, judging from their proximity to the average wage and both cross-section and time series estimates. The estimates imply that the elasticity of low-paid unskilled employment with respect to minimum wages is in the range of 2 to 12 percent.Wages, Compensation&Benefits,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Wages, Compensation&Benefits,Child Labor,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management