Preferences for Government Size and their Effect on Labor-Leisure Decisions

While many economists have theorized and/or empirically demonstrated that labor-leisure decisions are influenced by the rate of taxation, this note introduces a new mechanism in which the collecting of taxes on income may affect such decisions. Although standard models assume that agents have no preference for the size and scope of government activity, recent and past political rhetoric suggests that preferences do exist. We examine how labor-leisure decisions can be affected when taxes are derived from income and agents' utility functions include a preference for government size.

ARE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION FACULTY SALARIES COMPETITIVELY OR MONOPSONISTICALLY DETERMINED?

We examine the determinants of agricultural experiment station faculty salaries and find that productivity pays-as manifest by grantsmanship, publications, and the elicitation of competing offers-with no residual evidence of a negative seniority-salary relationship that could signal university monopsony power. This contrasts with findings in the previous literature on faculty salaries. Moreover, national market salary benchmarks, which may proxy for imperfectly observable productivity, correlate almost one-for-one with individual faculty salaries, with individual deviations from peers' salaries proving essentially random. This evidence is much more consistent with the hypothesis that experiment station faculty salaries are determined in a competitive labor market than with the prevailing wisdom that they are set monopsonistically.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

ARE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION FACULTY SALARIES COMPETITIVELY OR MONOPSONISTICALLY DETERMINED?

Labor and Human Capital, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

The prevalence, mutagenesis and evolution of focal copy number amplifications and extrachromosomal DNA in cancer

Extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) is a circular genomic structural variant in tumour cells that facilitate high levels of oncogene focal copy number amplification through unequal segregation of ecDNA structures during mitosis. This contributes to intra-tumour heterogeneity from which competition and selection can occur, however the mutagenesis, evolution, and clinical implications of focal amplifications and ecDNA in cancer remain largely understudied. This thesis details the prevalence and classification of ecDNA across various tumour subtypes. Through the analysis of a large dataset comprising 15,832 samples from 14,778 patients and 39 tumour types, the study revealed a comprehensive body map of ecDNA frequency and contents. In addition to oncogene-enriched ecDNA-driven focal amplifications we discovered non-oncogene-containing ecDNA, which exhibited enrichment for immunomodulatory genes. These immunomodulatory ecDNA were associated with reduced T cell infiltration. Mutational processes such as deamination clock-like, tobacco smoking, and APOBEC cytidine deaminase activity were linked to the presence of ecDNA, while MMRd and POLD1/POLE deficiency signatures showed negative correlation. Moreover, treatment induced mutations were found to have occurred prior to ecDNA formation. The TRACERx dataset was then utilised to investigate the evolutionary aspects of ecDNA and focal amplifications in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), exploring the nature of focal amplifications and their transcriptional activity using whole exome and RNA sequencing data. Spatial and longitudinal sampling revealed the enrichment of ecDNA during tumour progression including at autopsy. The association between ecDNA presence and disease stage, metastatic disease, and overall survival in multiple tumour types was then quantified, demonstrating that ecDNA presence is associated with poor prognosis and late-stage disease, independent of underlying genomic instability. Finally, case studies reveal novel links between ecDNA and treatment resistance

Realizing Musical Gestures with the Computer: Paradigms and Problems

This article aims to approach the creation of a gestural language in music. The writer discusses aspects of composition, notation, and performance of musical gestures for acoustic instruments

The Violence in Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, Louisiana is rich in culture yet suffers from high levels of crime and poverty. This paper explores whether the crime and economics are linked within the city. The research reviews the poverty and crime of the city through statistical data and interviews. The statistical data was taken from the 17 populated zip codes in the city. The analysis of the data took each zip code and compared their economic rates with their crime rates. The patterns found in the statistical data were then compared to the testimonies given from interviews. Each person interviewed was chosen due to their strong involvement in either alleviating the poverty or crime in the city. The analysis generated new insights into the root problems causing the high levels of crime and violence. The patterns and conclusions revealed that the majority of the economics and crime are linked. However, the research also revealed a city full of structures and systems that could also be responsible for the high levels of crime and poverty. Transformation of the structures is suggested for the alleviation of the crimes and violence in the area

Visualising Lived Experience: Mapping the soundscape of an after-school Minecraft Club

This article demonstrates the power of employing alternative, interpretative analysis techniques in ethnographic work. I argue for the role of sensory interpretation as a valid and necessary method of analytical enquiry, particularly to challenge existing dominant, primarily written discourses that often strive for unrealistic empirical objectivity. In order to make this argument, I demonstrate a combined sonic / visual, interpretative approach to analysis, developed to explore the lived experience of a group of children in an after-school club that took place in and around the world-building videogame Minecraft. Here, inspired by principles of Arts-based Research (ABR) which position art as a means of ‘investigation and knowing’ (Pentassuglia, 2017: 3), I employ interpretative drawing as an analytical move. Underpinned by the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1987: 12) I produce a ‘map’ of soundscape data, as a means of exploring potentially side-lined aspects of lived experience through a process of resemiotisation or transduction (Bezemer and Kress, 2008). Developing this sonic / visual approach in context, a process which had an impact on both the analyst and the analysis, helped to shed new light on the site under investigation. As such, this article builds on other analyses of sound in children’s social and educational experience by proposing that interpretative, visual responses to soundscape data can add value to otherwise purely written, or purely sonic, accounts

SUBDISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC JOURNAL RANKINGS IN ECONOMICS

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,