Income Contingent Loans for Paid Parental Leave

In early 2008 the federal government instructed the Productivity Commission (PC) to enquire into the social and economic policy issue of paid parental leave (PPL). In their draft report, the PC (2008) has called for a taxpayer funded scheme of 18 weeks duration, despite Australian governments having so far resisted the introduction of a broad grants-based system. A case for government subsidy of PPL can be made on the basis that the social benefits exceed the advantages accruing directly to families. However, as there are also indisputable private benefits accruing to the parents taking leave, there is a case for private contributions. We identify a market failure in that commercial banks will not provide funds in the absence of collateral due to repayment uncertainty during parental leave, a situation quite similar to the market failure inherent with respect to the financing of tuition for higher education (Gans, 2008). To address this financing impasse, we consider how an income contingent loan (ICL) could be used as an optional supplement to a taxpayer funded PPL scheme. Moral hazard and adverse selection are critical policy issues and these are addressed in the scheme design by: restricting loan duration and size; restricting eligibility to parents with workforce attachment; reducing minimum repayment thresholds to below those of HECS; imposing a loan surcharge, and; making the debt an obligation of both parents. We explain and present simulations of debt, repayment and subsidies for different households. The results show that an optional top-up ICL would not require major contributions from taxpayers, yet would introduce flexibility and choice, and provide consumption-smoothing and lifetime income distribution advantages over possible alternatives.paid parental leave; income contingent loans; public policy; industrial relations

Disordered eating in male athletes: A meta-analysis

We examined the propensity for male athletes to exhibit symptoms of disordered eating. Using meta-analytic techniques, we examined overall effect size, individual effect sizes for specific sport types, standard of athletic competition and diagnostic tools from 31 studies. When all studies were considered as a homogeneous group, male athletes did not have symptoms of disordered eating that were significantly different from non-athletic controls. However, significant moderator effects emerged for sport type and measurement: (a) wrestling reported a greater incidence of disordered eating; and (b) studies that reported data from the Eating Attitudes Test yielded a significantly greater incidence of disordered eating in male athletes compared to non-athletes. Although some sports seem to present a higher risk of disordered eating compared to others, the effects are weak and heterogeneous. We make suggestions for the development of the research area, which has been severely hampered by the diagnostic tools that have been available for the study of men

The bias of the submillimetre galaxy population: SMGs are poor tracers of the most massive structures in the z ~ 2 Universe

It is often claimed that overdensities of (or even individual bright) submillimetre-selected galaxies (SMGs) trace the assembly of the most-massive dark matter structures in the Universe. We test this claim by performing a counts-in-cells analysis of mock SMG catalogues derived from the Bolshoi cosmological simulation to investigate how well SMG associations trace the underlying dark matter structure. We find that SMGs exhibit a relatively complex bias: some regions of high SMG overdensity are underdense in terms of dark matter mass, and some regions of high dark matter overdensity contain no SMGs. Because of their rarity, Poisson noise causes scatter in the SMG overdensity at fixed dark matter overdensity. Consequently, rich associations of less-luminous, more-abundant galaxies (i.e. Lyman-break galaxy analogues) trace the highest dark matter overdensities much better than SMGs. Even on average, SMG associations are relatively poor tracers of the most significant dark matter overdensities because of 'downsizing': at z < ~2.5, the most-massive galaxies that reside in the highest dark matter overdensities have already had their star formation quenched and are thus no longer SMGs. At a given redshift, of the 10 per cent most-massive overdensities, only ~25 per cent contain at least one SMG, and less than a few per cent contain more than one SMG.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in MNRAS; minor revisions from previous version, conclusions unchange

Bringing the feelings back : returning emotions to criminal justice practice

This article argues that probation policy needs to take much greater account of the important role of emotion in probation and other criminal justice practice. Drawing on the findings of three separate pieces of research, we argue that emotions play a critical role in practice despite their absence from policy in recent years. Emotions, we argue, are important in terms of developing effective practice. Moreover, there are several consequences of using emotion in practice and relevant organisations need to recognise this and provide sufficient support for staff in dealing with such consequences. This, we argue, would allow for practitioners to be both emotionally literate whilst also enabling practice which encourages offenders to take responsibility for their actions. In sum, it will lead to an intuitively intelligent system of justic

Design Against Crime: a research and curriculum development project

Design Against Crime is part of an education initiative spanning schools, universities and professional practice. The project is based at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) and the University of Salford. SHU is responsible for the school and higher education components. The project is funded by the Design Council and the Home Office. This paper concerns the research for, and the development of, curriculum materials, for use by design and technology teachers teaching the 11–16 age phase. The project had an open brief to develop materials which would focus pupils’ attention on combating crime through design and technology activities and project work. The research team’s starting point was David Hargreaves’ (Chief Executive of QCA) observation that ‘ design and technology is moving from the periphery of the school curriculum to its heart’.1 To facilitate this, the team developed a strategy to embody the current education initiatives of numeracy, literacy and ICT into the Design Against Crime project. However, the main purpose was to add value to design and technology teaching and practice by focusing attention on how design and technology could make a significant contribution to the emergence of National Curriculum citizenship. It was clear from the outset that the project’s aims would be in relation to the values that young people should be encouraged to adopt, and the notion that this could be achieved by engaging them in evaluating and considering the extent and the affects of criminal activity. Design Against Crime was not to be about catching or punishing offenders. To date the research has focused on the following: • Current, exemplar design and technology activities which, with appropriately focused further development, could provide a vehicle for Design Against Crime project work. Development has involved prototyping enhanced projects and considering and implementing new ways of presenting design and technology learning experiences to pupils. • Analytical and synthesis tasks which could be used by pupils to support their design and technology activity whilst enabling them to gain an insight into specific aspects of crime and the way that crime affects society as a whole as well as individuals, including themselves. This has been met by research into implementing of numeracy, literacy and the use of ICT. The objective being to develop strategies which will embed this good practice into the identified design and technology projects, thus adding value. • Searching available research data, principally through the Home Office data and publications, for statistics and information which could be used productively to add value to educational activities. This has become an indepth research and analysis of data, particularly crime issues, which are pertinent to the targeted 11–16 age phase. The searches revealed many interesting and useful sources of information which have subsequently been adapted for use in schools. This work has resulted in a series of pupil workbooks which provide enhanced design and technology activities and encourage pupils to take the following steps: 1. analyse and comment upon pertinent crime statistics 2. carry out structured design and technology projects which have an aspect of combating crime as a context 3. within that context reflect upon and evaluate the effects of criminal activity. Design Against Crime teaching and learning materials are currently being trialed, in schools, by teachers and the paper concludes with a commentary on their views of the project. 1 Speech at the London Institute of Education – ‘Towards Education for Innovation’ (2000

Celestial sources for random number generation

In this paper, we present an alternative method of gathering seed data for random number generation (RNG) in cryptographic applications. Our proposed method utilises the inherent randomness of signal data from celestial sources in radio astronomy to provide seeds for RNG. The data sets were collected from two separate celestial sources, and run through the SHA-256 algorithm to deskew the data and produce random numbers with a uniform distribution. The resulting data sets pass all tests in the NIST Statistical Test Suite for random data, with a mean of 98.9% of the 512 total bitstreams from the two sources passing all tests in the NIST suite, as well as further testing in R. These results are on par with the control set generated using Java’s SecureRandom function. An explanation of the sources, the data processing and detailed results of each of the tests are presented

Eyespray Vaccination: Infectivity and Development of Immunity to Eimeria acervulina and Eimeria tenella

The infectivity of a coccidiosis vaccine and its ability to immunize chickens against two species of Eimeria was examined. The vaccine was administered to newly-hatched chicks by spraying directly onto the eye. The method resulted in a high proportion of chicks infected with E. acervulina and E. tenella. Vaccinated birds reared in cages in the absence of reinfection did not develop immunity to either species by 4 wk of age, but birds reared in floor pens developed immunity to both E. acervulina and E. tenella

Good Practice When Working with English as an Additional Language Speakers: A Guide for Restorative Justice Practitioners Working Across Cultural Difference

This project aims to widen access to Restorative Justice for people with English as an Additional Language (EAL). During this project (initially for one year, with a possibility of extension to three years), Why me? are working with the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research and Victim Support, as well as regional Restorative Justice services and equality and community organisations. To summarise the research and collaborative community work we have done over the course of this project, we have created a Good Practice Guide to support Restorative Justice practitioners to work effectively with people who speak English as an Additional Language