Ethnic parity in labour market outcomes for benefit claimants

A significant gap exists in the UK between the employment rate for Ethnic Minorities and that for Whites. From a policy perspective, it is important to know whether this gap is due to differences in the characteristics of White and Ethnic Minority groups (which reduce the employability of Ethnic Minority groups relative to Whites) or whether it results from some form of discriminatory behaviour in the labour market. In this paper, we use administrative data to estimate ethnic differences in employment and benefit receipt amongst individuals who began claiming a Jobcentre Plus benefit in 2003. In contrast to much of the previous UK literature, we use a number of different quantitative techniques to estimate this gap, and show that in a lot of cases the estimates obtained are very sensitive to the techniques used. We argue that for the questions we are interested in and the data we have, propensity score matching methods are the most robust approach to estimating ethnic parity. We compare this preferred approach with estimates derived using alternative approaches commonly used in the literature (generally regression-based techniques) to determine the extent to which more straightforward methods are able to replicate those produced by matching. In many cases, it turns out not to be possible to calculate satisfactory quantitative estimates even with matching techniques: the characteristics of Whites and Ethnic Minorities are simply too different before the Jobcentre Plus intervention to reliably estimate the parameters of interest. Moreover, for a number of the groups, results seem to be very sensitive to the methodology used. This calls into question previous results based on simple regression techniques, which are likely to hide the fact that observationally different ethnic groups are de facto being compared on the basis of parametric extrapolations. Two groups for which it was possible to calculate reasonably reliable results are incapacity benefit (IB) and income support (IS). For these groups we find that large and significant raw penalties almost always disappear once we appropriately control for pre-inflow background and labour market characteristics. There is also a good degree of consistency across methodologies

Psychosocial impact of involvement in the special olympics

Existing evidence suggests that people with intellectual disabilities are vulnerable to low self-esteem leading to additional psychosocial issues such as social exclusion and stress. Previous research into the involvement of Special Olympics (SO) of people with intellectual disabilities has indicted positive psychosocial outcomes. Involvement in sport is known generally to have psychological and social benefits. This study aimed to compare the psychosocial impact of involvement in sport through the SO to no or limited sports involvement, for a sample of people with intellectual disabilities. A cross sectional design was employed comparing three groups, SO, Mencap Sports, and Mencap No Sports on the variables: Self-esteem, quality of life, stress levels and social networks. One hundred and one participants were recruited either through the SO or Mencap. Data were collected through the completion of validated questionnaires by one to one interviews with the participants. Analysis revealed that self-esteem, quality of life, and stress were all significantly associated with SO involvement. Logistic regression analysis was used to explore whether scores on these variables were able to predict group membership. Self-esteem was found to be a significant predictor of group membership, those in the SO having the highest self-esteem. The findings provide further evidence of a positive association between sport involvement and increased psychological wellbeing, especially for those involved in the SO. The implications of these findings for practice and future research into the relationship between sport and psychological wellbeing within the learning disabled population are considered

Introduction: The nexus of multimodality, multimodal literacy, and English language teaching in research and practice in higher education settings

The aims of this Special Issue are to (1) advance the current state of research-based knowledge about how multimodal and multimedia resources can be leveraged to enhance multimodal communication practices in English language teaching in higher education, and (2) to provide a platform for original research-based practical applications that incorporate innovative multisemiotic resources and techniques, thereby offering new perspectives on the benefits of the multimodal approach when teaching English for both general and specific purposes at the university level. In the following section, we discuss the role of multimodal literacy in the context of enhancing language proficiency as the underlying objective of English language practitioners

A Theoretical Framework for Local Search Techniques

In the paper we describe a theoretical framework to model local search as the computation of a fixed point of functions. There are only few studies of theoretical frameworks for local search, this work allows one to simulate standard strategies used for local search and to easily design new strategies in a uniform framework. The use of this framework is illustrated through the description of Tabu search and random walk methods for solving different instances of Sudoku problem

The Effect Of Pitting Corrosion On The Position Of Aircraft Structural Failures

Corrosion has been shown over the last decade to significantly reduce the structural integrity of aircraft as they age. Previous work at DSTO has shown that pitting and exfoliation corrosion are particularly deleterious to aircraft structural integrity. In addition to reducing fatigue endurance, pitting also increases the surface area of the component over which fatigue failures can occur. This paper reports the results of a Monte-Carlo model of this phenomenon, which has been labelled 'corrosion criticality'. This model concentrates on the effect of the pit spatial density and position on the endurance of a fatigue coupon designed to mimic a simple aircraft component. The study's results show that pitting increases the area of the coupon over which failures can occur

West Antarctic ice sheet and CO2 greenhouse effect: a threat of disaster

DIB's contribution to this work is from the DOMINOS project, a component of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC). Support for DIB was provided by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC: Grant NE/S006605/1). ITGC Contribution No. ITGC:025.Over 40 years ago, the glaciologist John Mercer warned that parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were at risk of collapse due to the CO2 greenhouse effect. Mercer recognised the unique vulnerability of ice sheets resting on beds far below sea level (marine-based ice sheets), where an initial warming signal can initiate irreversible retreat. In this paper, we review recent work on evidence for ice sheet collapse in warmer periods of the recent geological past, the current behaviour of the ice sheet, and computer models used to predict future ice-sheet response to global warming. Much of this work points in the same direction: warming climates can indeed trigger collapse of marine-based portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and retreat in response to recent warming has brought parts of the ice sheet to the threshold of instability. Further retreat appears to be inevitable, but the rate of collapse depends critically on future emissions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Direct numerical simulations of statistically steady, homogeneous, isotropic fluid turbulence with polymer additives

We carry out a direct numerical simulation (DNS) study that reveals the effects of polymers on statistically steady, forced, homogeneous, isotropic fluid turbulence. We find clear manifestations of dissipation-reduction phenomena: On the addition of polymers to the turbulent fluid, we obtain a reduction in the energy dissipation rate, a significant modification of the fluid energy spectrum, especially in the deep-dissipation range, a suppression of small-scale intermittency, and a decrease in small-scale vorticity filaments. We also compare our results with recent experiments and earlier DNS studies of decaying fluid turbulence with polymer additives.Comment: consistent with the published versio

Chandra imaging of the X-ray core of Abell 1795

We report the discovery of a 40 arcsec long X-ray filament in the core of the cluster of galaxies A1795. The feature coincides with an Halpha+NII filament found by Cowie et al in the early 1980s and resolved into at least 2 U-band filaments by McNamara et al in the mid 1990s. The (emission-weighted) temperature of the X-ray emitting gas along the filament is 2.5-3 keV, as revealed by X-ray colour ratios. The deprojected temperature will be less. A detailed temperature map of the core of the cluster presented. The cD galaxy at the head of the filament is probably moving through or oscillating in the cluster core. The radiative cooling time of the X-ray emitting gas in the filament is about 3x10^8 yr which is similar to the age of the filament obtained from its length and velocity. This suggests that the filament is produced by cooling of the gas from the intracluster medium. The filament, much of which is well separated from the body of the cD galaxy and its radio source, is potentially of great importance in helping to understand the energy and ionization source of the optical nebulosity common in cooling flows.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted by MNRAS, high resolution version available at http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/papers/a1795_chandra.pd