Review of Richard Healey, Gauging What's Real.

Review of Richard Healey's 2008 book. To appear in MIND

An approach to a field drainage problem by laboratory examination of selected properties of undisturbed soil cores : thesis presented at Massey University of Manawatu in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Agricutural Science

For many years, soil drainage investigators, from a practical view point, have had to content themselves with expert appraisal of certain direct and indirect soil and environmental characteristics in order to ascertain the cause of a particular drainage problem. In a great many instances, observations of vegetative composition, topography and general soil type, aided by aerial photography and local experience, give completely adequate information. Normally, derivation of conclusions from such observations is based on well established principles, and the recognition of general broad classes of the cause of mal-drainage conditions. Such classes may be grouped as; (I) where infiltration capacity of a soil is inadequate to deal with the amount of water supplied to the surface, because of topography, abnormal rainfall, or through inherent inability of the soil to transmit water internally, (II) where the groundwater table rises to a height detrimental to vegetative survival and/or soil structure, or where its presence hinders the function of a free draining subsoil, end (III) where a similar situation exists, due to a perched or elevated ground-water table. The allocation of a particular drainage problem to one or more of these broad classes is not usually difficult, but identification of causal processes within classes presents quite another problem. Often, drainage investigators have been content to evolve general treatments for each class, and, as a basic rule, such procedures have, more often than not, proved reasonably effective. However, with the increasing intensification of pastoral and agricultural farming, the fundamental causes of individual mal-drainage conditions must be positively identified and rectified within the broadly classified groups

What We're In For: Projected Economic Impact of the Next Recession

Recent historical experience argues that the labor-market effects of the next recession will last far longer than the formal recession itself. This report uses the experience of the last three recessions to predict labor market outcomes of a recession in 2008

Aspects of the biology of the Australasian harrier (Circus aeruginosus approximans Peale 1848) : a thesis presented for the degree of Master of Science by thesis only in Zoology at Massey University

The study is based on 18 months intensive field-work during which 212 Australasian harriers were trapped, retrapped, measured, sexed, aged, individually marked and observed. Fortnightly observations of the individually marked population were made over a further seven months. The Australasian harrier and European marsh harrier are considered to be conspecific. Evidence is presented showing that there is no valid reason for considering Circus aeruginosus of the Pacific Islands to be a different subspecies from C. aeruginosus of Australia and New Zealand. During the breeding season ten territories in the 12 km 2 study area averaged 31 ha, nest sites averaged 910 m apart, pairs' overlapping home ranges averaged 9 km. 2 and favourite hunting areas 3 km, 2. A high population density of one bird per 50 ha was calculated. A low fledging success rate of 1.8 young per successful pair and 1.1 young per nest site, and two cases of polygyny were recorded during two breeding seasons. Territorial and courtship behaviour, nest parameters and the parental division of labour is described. Seasonal movements and the dispersion of all age and sex classes from the study area at the end of the breeding season are described. Most (66.7%) individually marked adults returned after the autumn dispersal phase and established winter home ranges averaging 9 km. 2 . The home range of an adult female in open farmland was calculated to be 14 km 2 using radio-telemetry techniques. A non-breeding season population density of one bird per 80 ha was calculated. Communal roosting, which occurred throughout the year, is discussed. Four hundred and seventy food items were identified in the diet from pellets, prey remains, stomach contents and field observations. In descending order of numerical importance in the diet were mammals (46.4%), introduced passerines (29.0%), insects (7.6%), game birds (6.7%), birds' eggs (4.8%) and aquatic prey (4.6%). Australasian harriers ate significantly greater numbers of live prey than carrion annually. Adults took significantly greater numbers of agile food items than juveniles. Females ate significantly more large (>200 g) and fewer agile food items than did males. Seven search techniques and five attack techniques, including some buteonine techniques, are identified and described in the Australasian harriers' wide range of hunting techniques. Ninety five attacks on prey are recorded and 15.8% of these were successful. Adults were significantly more successful hunters than juveniles. Co-operative hunting, hunting in the daily cycle, feeding behaviour at carrion, interspecific competition for carrion, interspecific disruption of hunting and prey escape tactics are described. From a computer analysis of hunting behaviour data it is concluded that adult males are more manoeuverable and less conspicuous than adult females and juveniles because they flew significantly lower and faster. Adult males also hunted, to a significantly greater degree, those habitats where there were greater numbers of agile prey. The hunting inexperience of juveniles was quantified. The Australasian harrier is moderately sexually dimorphic. Current hypotheses proposed to explain the degree of sexual dimorphism in raptors and why the females of most raptor species are larger than males are critically reviewed

Is the U.S. Unemployment Rate Today Already as High as It Was in 1982?

In 1982, the United States experienced the highest annual unemployment rate since the Great Depression -- 9.7 percent. In principle, that rate is directly comparable to the 8.1 percent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February 2009, and suggests that current unemployment is still not as bad as it was in 1982.The official unemployment rate, however, masks two important differences between the unemployment rate in 1982 and today. The first difference is demographic. In 1982, the US population was substantially younger than it is today. Even in an otherwise identical economy, we would expect a younger population to have a higher unemployment rate than an older population would. The second difference is statistical. The main government survey used to measure the unemployment rate -- the Current Population Survey (CPS) reaches a smaller share of the population today than it did in 1982, and is especially likely to miss people who are not employed. As a result, the official unemployment rate understates the unemployment rate relative to 1982

$1 Trillion Wage Deficit

The strong rise in the U.S. stock market since the spring and the return to positive economic growth in the third quarter of this year have created a consensus among economists that the Great Recession is very likely over. Unfortunately, the end of the official recession will have little visible impact on U.S. labor markets until almost 2012. Within that time, this paper estimates that U.S. workers will have lost over $1 trillion in wages and salaries,$150 billion more than the 10-year costs of proposed health care reform legislation

On Spacetime Functionalism

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two complications for this approach. First, our spacetime concept seems to have the structure of a cluster concept, which means that Knox's inertial criteria for spacetime cannot succeed with complete generality. Second, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the spacetime concept, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate