Estimating a collective household model with survey data on financial satisfaction

We estimate a collective household model with survey data on financial satisfaction from the European Community Household Panel. Our estimates suggest that cohabitating individuals enjoy returns to scale in consumption that are towards the larger end of the range of estimates reported in the literature. They also suggest that the share of household income provided by the female partner is a significant determinant of her share of household consumption in most countries of the countries we study.Consumption, returns to scale, collective household models

Energy localisation and frequency analysis in the locust ear

Animal ears are exquisitely adapted to capture sound energy and perform signal analysis. Studying the ear of the locust, we show how frequency signal analysis can be performed solely by using the structural features of the tympanum. Incident sound waves generate mechanical vibrational waves that travel across the tympanum. These waves shoal in a tsunami like fashion, resulting in energy localisation that focuses vibrations onto the mechanosensory neurons in a frequency dependent manner. Using finite element analysis, we demonstrate that two mechanical properties of the locust tympanum, distributed thickness and tension, are necessary and sufficient to generate frequency-dependent energy localisation. <br/

Estimating a Collective Household Model with Survey Data on Financial Satisfaction

We estimate a collective household model with survey data on financial satisfaction from the European Community Household Panel. Our estimates suggest that cohabitating individuals enjoy returns to scale in consumption that are towards the larger end of the range of estimates reported in the literature. They also suggest that the share of household income provided by the female partner is a significant determinant of her share of household consumption in most of the countries we study.consumption, returns to scale, collective household models

The Effect of an Employer Health Insurance Mandate on Health Insurance Coverage and the Demand for Labor: Evidence from Hawaii

Over the past few decades, policy makers have considered employer mandates as a strategy for stemming the tide of declining health insurance coverage. In this paper we examine the long term effects of the only employer health insurance mandate that has ever been enforced in the United States, Hawaii's Prepaid Health Care Act, using a standard supply-demand framework and Current Population Survey data covering the years 1979 to 2005. During this period, the coverage gap between Hawaii and other states increased, as did real health insurance costs, implying a rising burden of the mandate on Hawaii's employers. We use a variant of the traditional permutation (placebo) test across all states to examine the magnitude and statistical properties of these growing coverage differences and their impacts on labor market outcomes, conditional on an extensive set of covariates. As expected, the coverage gap is larger for workers who tend to have low rates of coverage in the voluntary market (primarily those with lower skills). We also find that relative wages fell in Hawaii over time, but the estimates are statistically insignificant. By contrast, a parallel analysis of workers employed fewer than 20 hours per week indicates that the law significantly increased employers' reliance on such workers in order to reduce the burden of the mandate. We find no evidence suggesting that the law reduced employment probabilities.health insurance, employment, hours, wages

Associations between Specialist Tactical Response Police Unit Selection Success and Urban Rush, along with 2.4 km and 10 km Loaded Carriage Events

Officers serving in specialist tactical response police teams are highly trained personnel who are required to carry heavy loads and perform explosive tasks. The aim of this study was to determine whether performance on a loaded explosive occupational task (urban rush) or distance-based load carriage tasks (2.4 km or 10 km) were indicative of officer success on a specialist selection course (SSC). Eighteen male police officers (mean age = 32.11 &plusmn; 5.04 years) participated in the SSC over five consecutive days. Data were categorized into Group 1 (successful applicants, n = 11) and Group 2 (unsuccessful applicants, n = 7). Independent sample t-tests were performed to determine differences between groups, along with point-biserial correlations to investigate associations between anthropometric and event performance data and course completion success. Alpha levels were set at p = 0.05 a priori. Height (p = 0.025), body weight (p = 0.007), and 2.4 km loaded performance (p = 0.013) were significantly different between groups, where being shorter (rpb(16) = &minus;0.526, p &lt; 0.05), lighter (rpb(16) = &minus;0.615, p &lt; 0.01), and faster (rpb(16) = &minus;0.572, p &lt; 0.05) were associated with course success. While a loaded 2.4 km event is associated with success, a ceiling effect for an explosive anaerobic task and a longer 10 km task may exist, whereby increases in performance are not associated with selection success

A win-win for legume mixtures

The inter-relationship between food production and biodiversity is now well established. The ecosystem services provided by the organisms within the environment include, for example, nutrient cycling, pest regulation and pollination, to name but a few. However, perhaps the greatest challenge now facing agricultural production is to find ways of enhancing these ecosystem services, while at the same time increasing food production – particularly in light of food security issues. A range of farm and landscape management options include ‘setting aside’ land for wildlife. However, some proponents argue that such land should be used for food production. While the debate continues, there is no doubt that a large body of scientific evidence from the last three decades highlights the wildlife benefits of organic farming. This article will describe how the Legume LINK project has identified a win-win system for biodiversity conservation and increased productivity through legume-base fertility building. Although this project has focused on organic farming systems, it is of direct relevance to non-organic production, particularly with the increasing interest in legumes across the industry

Gamma-ray spectrometry in the field: Radioactive heat production in the Central Slovakian Volcanic Zone

We report 62 sets of measurements from central-southern Slovakia, obtained using a modern portable gamma-ray spectrometer, which reveal the radioactive heat production in intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks of the Late Cenozoic Central Slovakian Volcanic Zone. Sites in granodiorite of the Štiavnica pluton are thus shown to have heat production in the range ~ 2.2–4.9 μW m− 3, this variability being primarily a reflection of variations in content of the trace element uranium. Sites in dioritic parts of this pluton have a lower, but overlapping, range of values, ~ 2.1–4.4 μW m− 3. Sites that have been interpreted in adjoining minor dioritic intrusions of similar age have heat production in the range ~ 1.4–3.3 μW m− 3. The main Štiavnica pluton has zoned composition, with potassium and uranium content and radioactive heat production typically increasing inward from its margins, reflecting variations observed in other granodioritic plutons elsewhere. It is indeed possible that the adjoining dioritic rocks, hitherto assigned to other minor intrusions of similar age, located around the periphery of the Štiavnica pluton, in reality provide further evidence for zonation of the same pluton. The vicinity of this pluton is associated with surface heat flow ~ 40 mW m− 2 above the regional background. On the basis of our heat production measurements, we thus infer that the pluton has a substantial vertical extent, our preferred estimate for the scale depth for its downward decrease in radioactive heat production being ~ 8 km. Nonetheless, this pluton lacks any significant negative Bouguer gravity anomaly. We attribute this to the effect of the surrounding volcanic caldera, filled with relatively low-density lavas, ‘masking’ the pluton's own gravity anomaly. We envisage that emplacement occurred when the pluton was much hotter, and thus of lower density, than at present, its continued uplift, evident from the local geomorphology, being the isostatic consequence of localized erosion. The heat production in this intrusion evidently plays a significant role, hitherto unrecognized, in the regional geothermics