Starting Salary Differences Between Women and Men: Organization-Level Findings and an Analysis of Current Policy Options

This study examined the starting salaries paid by over 250 employers to 2,800 university graduates. Of the overall female-male salary difference of $4,396, the majority, or$3,175 (72%), occurred between employers; $1,221 (28$1,221 (28%) of the female-male pay difference. Although adjustment for qualifications such as degree level, grade point average, and college major reduced the pay difference between women and men, our findings indicate that, on average, the same employer pays graduating women 3.5% to 5.8% less than graduating men with similar qualifications

Race as a Dimension in Children\u27s TV Advertising: The Need for More Research

Most of the current research in the area of television advertising to children deal entirely with white populations. This exclusion of black subjects exists in spite of an abundance of research in education, sociology and psychology which suggests differences in the socialization of black and white children. The present article reviews major studies of television and children and black versus white child development. The authors conclude with several suggestions for further research

New Directions in Compensation Research: Synergies, Risk, and Survival

We describe and use two theoretical frameworks, the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory, as lenses for examining three promising areas of compensation research. First, we examine the nature of the relationship between pay and effectiveness. Does pay typically have a main effect or, instead, does the relationship depend on other human resource activities and organization characteristics? If the latter is true, then there are synergies between pay and these other factors and thus, conclusions drawn from main effects models may be misleading. Second, we discuss a relatively neglected issue in pay research, the concept of risk as it applies to investments in pay programs. Although firms and researchers tend to focus on expected returns from compensation interventions, analysis of the risk, or variability, associated with these returns may be essential for effective decision-making. Finally ,pay program survival, which has been virtually ignored in systematic pay research, is investigated. Survival appears to have important consequences for estimating pay plan risk and returns, and is also integral to the discussion of pay synergies. Based upon our two theoretical frameworks, we suggest specific research directions for pay program synergies, risk, and survival

Electron Spin Relaxation under Drift in GaAs

Based on a Monte Carlo method, we investigate the influence of transport conditions on the electron spin relaxation in GaAs. The decay of initial electron spin polarization is calculated as a function of distance under the presence of moderate drift fields and/or non-zero injection energies. For relatively low fields (a couple of kV/cm), a substantial amount of spin polarization is preserved for several microns at 300 K. However, it is also found that the spin relaxation rate increases rapidly with the drift field, scaling as the square of the electron wavevector in the direction of the field. When the electrons are injected with a high energy, a pronounced decrease is observed in the spin relaxation length due to an initial increase in the spin precession frequency. Hence, high-field or high-energy transport conditions may not be desirable for spin-based devices.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, one table. Scheduled for publication in the May 26, 2003 issue of Applied Physics Letters (039321APL

Pipeline Geopolitics: Subaquatic Materials and the Tactical Point

This paper starts from the proposition that studies of geopolitics need to address the political significance of spaces above and below the apparently twodimensional or flat surface of the land and sea. However, we depart from the view that such spaces should be defined by their verticality or conceived as three-dimensional volumes. Instead, the argument stresses the importance of attending to the relations between physical and biological things, and the ways in which the proximity of things is both mediated and supplemented by legal, and scientific and political practice. The empirical focus of the paper is a specific geopolitical puzzle. How did a short section of the route of a transnational gas pipeline, the 3500km Southern Gas Corridor, come to be a site or ‘tactical point’ at which the construction of the pipeline could be disrupted? Our contention is that any analysis of this political question must address not only the contested relations between states, corporations and civil society, but also the potential tension and interference between the horizontal networked geopolitics of pipelines and their subaquatic and subterranean construction. The subaquatic turns out not to be volume but a space of situated encounters between disparate materials

Surface Polar Phonon Dominated Electron Transport in Graphene

The effects of surface polar phonons on electronic transport properties of monolayer graphene are studied by using a Monte Carlo simulation. Specifically, the low-field electron mobility and saturation velocity are examined for different substrates (SiC, SiO2, and HfO2) in comparison to the intrinsic case. While the results show that the low-field mobility can be substantially reduced by the introduction of surface polar phonon scattering, corresponding degradation of the saturation velocity is not observed for all three substrates at room temperature. It is also found that surface polar phonons can influence graphene electrical resistivity even at low temperature, leading potentially to inaccurate estimation of the acoustic phonon deformation potential constant

Valuing Avoided Soil Erosion by Considering Private and Public Net Benefits

The population in New Zealand is expected to increase to over five million by the mid 2020’s from the current level of 4.3 million (Statistics New Zealand, 2009). An increasing demand for primary produce as a result may put pressure on marginal land to be farmed. Understanding the economic value of avoided erosion in New Zealand is therefore an important factor in policy making to optimise the soil related activities in the economy. Establishing a methodology for estimating the economic value of avoided soil erosion is the first step in assessing the problem. This study uses the future forest scenarios developed by Scion to identify potential afforestation areas and thereby compare the current erosion/sedimentation status under current land-use (non woody vegetation) with potential future afforestation. The study aims to quantify the incremental public and private net benefits from the change in scenario. The notion has come under different headings in the literature, such as on-site and off-site erosion effects or sediment and soil erosion effects, all of which recognize the importance of separation of effects to avoid double-counting. The separation into public and private benefits and costs in this case, while avoiding double-counting, will also help identify appropriate policy instruments to avoid soil erosion damage using the private and public net benefit framework (Pannell, 2008).Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Fabrication of antenna-coupled KID array for Cosmic Microwave Background detection

Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs) have become an attractive alternative to traditional bolometers in the sub-mm and mm observing community due to their innate frequency multiplexing capabilities and simple lithographic processes. These advantages make KIDs a viable option for the $O(500,000)$ detectors needed for the upcoming Cosmic Microwave Background - Stage 4 (CMB-S4) experiment. We have fabricated antenna-coupled MKID array in the 150GHz band optimized for CMB detection. Our design uses a twin slot antenna coupled to inverted microstrip made from a superconducting Nb/Al bilayer and SiN$_x$, which is then coupled to an Al KID grown on high resistivity Si. We present the fabrication process and measurements of SiN$_x$ microstrip resonators.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Journal of Low Temperature Physic