Effects of a road system on caribou distribution during calving

In winter 1981 - 82, a 29-km road system was built in a high-use caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti) calving area near Milne Point, Alaska. Aerial surveys of this area were conducted annually during the calving period for 4 years before and 4 years after road construction. Effects of the road system on the distribution of caribou were investigated by comparing survey data obtained during these two periods. The 41 400-ha study area was partitioned into 40 quadrats; after construction (1982 - 85), significantly fewer caribou were observed within quadrats encompassing the present road system than before construction (1978 - 81). The area within 6 km of the road system was stratified into six 1-km intervals, and differences in the distribution of caribou among those strata were examined using linear regression analysis. After construction, the density of maternal females was positively correlated with distance, whereas no such relationship was apparent before construction. Density of nonmaternal adults was unrelated to distance during both periods. The results suggest that a local displacement of maternal caribou has occurred in response to roads and associated human activity

Growth space requirements models for Prosopis africana (Guill & Perr) Taub tree species in Makurdi, Nigeria

All parts of Prosopis africana (Guill & Perr) Taub are used by rural communities in Nigeria, and this exposes it to degradation and a regeneration problems. There is lack of information on inventory on natural forest estates for management and decision-making. This species is facing a regeneration problem and overexploitation. The aim of this study was to developed model that can predict the growth space requirements for P. africana plantation establishment. Growing space was associated with crown size; seven crown and stem diameter relation models were tested on data recorded from P. africana trees in Makurdi-Nigeria; simple random sampling technique was used to collect data. The linear model (crown-stem diameter relation) provided the best model fitted with R2 values of 0.778 with adjusted R2 0.777. For optimum planting, fast growth and high production/yield the tree species would require a planting spacing of 4 x 4 meters; for example, that a dominant free-growing tree of diameter 52.90 cm would required 0.008 hectare of growing space with a stocking of 125 tree per hectare for P. africana. Stand density converges around 0.000016 m2. The baseline information provided by this study could serve as a guide for optimum planting distances and tree stocking in large scale plantations of P. africana species in Nigeria and international, this to avoid extinction of the economic tree

Panel Discussion: Second Annual Corporate Symposium

This Panel Discussion took place as a part of the Second Annual Corporate Symposium, Beyond Collective Bargaining and Employment at Will: Discharging Employees in the 1990s, at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 9, 1989

Seed banks as conservation tool for endangered wild plant species in ecozones of Nigeria

Seed banks have played the largest role in the conservation of endangered wild plant species in the world. The potential role of seed in the regeneration of plant species is threatened by a rapid decline in the longevity and viability of the seeds in their natural habitats. This study addresses the key role of seed banks in the conservation of floristic diversity. The increasing popularity of the seed bank as a tool in the conservation of wild plant species can be attributed to different significance, including; provision of immediate access to plant samples, allowing researchers and conservation biologists to evaluate them for properties such as new sources of medicines, nutrition, and genes. Also, wild plant seeds conserved in seed banks are immune to habitat destruction, diseases, and predators. The stored seeds can be used to reinstate species into existing, suitable habitats where they were once present, or to augment the diversity of small, genetically depleted populations. Conservation efforts, as sources for population reintroduction and restoration, have been cited as an important justification for seed banks. Thus, it is recommended that seed banks with state-of-the-art storage facilities should be established at the national and local levels; and all of such banks should be networked so that materials, knowledge, and expertise on particular wild plant species is available on a global scale.Key words: Conservation, Endangered, Floristic diversity, Plant species, Seeds bank, Storag

The American Experience with Employee Noncompete Clauses: Constraints on Employees Flourish and Do Real Damage in the Land of Economic Liberty

Agreements not to compete are generally an anathema to free market advocates. Independent profit maximization is one of the fundamental assumptions of the neoclassical economic model and necessary to its conclusion that markets yield results that are Paraeto efficient. Consistent with this theory, and practical experience, agreements among competitors, or potential competitors, to divide a market, or fix price or quantity are per se violations under our antitrust laws.Despite this fact, even some ardent free market advocates have argued on behalf of the enforcement of covenants not to compete in the employment relationship. The traditional economic argument in favor of enforcing non-competes assumes that labor markets are competitive and workers freely enter into such agreements in return for higher wages associated with work in research on behalf of the employer and/or access to employer developed trade secrets and customer contacts. This arrangement is desirable to the employer because it helps protect his or her investment in research, trade secrets, and customer contacts, against appropriation if the employee were to leave to work for a competitor. It is argued that society also benefits from such arrangements because the increase to production from the employer’s investment in research and customer contacts would more than make up for societal losses due to the constraints on the employee’s labor mobility.However, economic theory also embraces a more sinister view of such agreements. Given their constraints on labor mobility, there is a natural concern that employers might use non-competes to limit labor market competition and perhaps product market competition. Recent discussions of labor market monopsony power have cited the potential role of non-competes in extending employer power by creating “market friction” that prevents employees from selling their labor to the highest valued use. Under this view, the covenant not only allows the employer to pay the employee less than a competitive wage, but also raises the recruiting costs of the employer’s competitors, allowing the employer to charge higher prices. Concern about covenants not to compete is particularly acute when they are imposed on employees after acceptance of an offer of employment, clearly challenging the assumption that they are freely accepted in return for higher wages. In such cases a covenant not to compete can serve as an intertemporal conduit of monopsony power, translating the employee’s short-term disadvantage in the lack of an alternative offer into long-term employer monopsony power. Viewed in this light, a covenant not to compete is a socially costly restraint on the employee’s freedom to apply his or her labor to the highest valued use and receive a competitive wage.Which of these two economic views of employee covenants not to compete is true, and under what circumstances, is an empirical question. The answer to this question can be very useful in helping us determine whether such agreements should be enforceable, and, if so, under what circumstances. This is a question of growing importance as the use of covenants not to compete has grown in our economy. Once largely confined to the instances incident to the sale of a business or involving highly compensated managers, professionals or research staff, the use of covenants not to compete has spread across the American economy until by the most recent count they cover 20% of American employees including many low-skill positions without access to sensitive information such as a hair stylist, yoga instructor, lawn sprayer, temporary warehouseman, sandwich-maker, dog-walker and even volunteer camp counselor and unpaid intern. Moreover, it seems that few of these covenants not to compete are the result of bargained for exchange and many are imposed by the employer after the job has been accepted and without additional compensation. The sheer number of these agreements and the potentially deleterious impact they might have on peoples’ careers, our labor market and our economy have brought this question to a head and provided impetus for possible remedial legislation at both the state and federal levels. Fortunately, there are a number of very good empirical studies that examine the number and circumstance of such agreements and the impact of these agreements on the workers, firms and our economy.In this article, we examine the American experience with employee covenants not to compete. We discuss first their treatment under the common law and statutes codifying the common law. Next, we review the recent empirical literature and discuss its findings with respect to the current state of the phenomenon of covenants not to compete in the American workforce and their impact on the affected workers, firms and the economy as a whole. Based on this empirical work we conclude that covenants not to compete are over-used in the American economy having a deleterious effect on employee wages and mobility and the vibrancy of our economy, with no comparable increase in employer investment in research or training. Thus, we find that, for the vast majority of employees, the negative economic view of covenants not to compete is more accurate and such agreements are used to extend employer control over the employees and in some cases extend employer monopsony power. Employers also lose out due to covenants not to compete because they have become an obstacle to hiring qualified staff. Finally, we discuss efforts at the state and federal level to regulate the use of non-competes to ameliorate the abuse and problems of these restrictions. We examine these legislative efforts and evaluate them in light of the recent empirical work on the problems caused by non-competes

Set-Codes with Small Intersections and Small Discrepancies

We are concerned with the problem of designing large families of subsets over a common labeled ground set that have small pairwise intersections and the property that the maximum discrepancy of the label values within each of the sets is less than or equal to one. Our results, based on transversal designs, factorizations of packings and Latin rectangles, show that by jointly constructing the sets and labeling scheme, one can achieve optimal family sizes for many parameter choices. Probabilistic arguments akin to those used for pseudorandom generators lead to significantly suboptimal results when compared to the proposed combinatorial methods. The design problem considered is motivated by applications in molecular data storage and theoretical computer science

AMATEUR BOXER BIOMECHANICS AND PUNCH FORCE

The current study investigates the correlation between punch biomechanics and punch force in amateur male boxers (n=39). A Hybrid III 50th percentile male dummy was used to gather punch force values. TrackEye Motion Analysis (TEMA) was used to measure the velocity of each boxer’s punch. Lower body force values were determined using the Functional Assessment of Biomechanics (FAB) system. Two types of punches, hooks and straights, were analyzed. It was determined that punch forces correlated more strongly to hand velocity than to lower body forces. Punch force correlated to hand velocity with R2 values of 0.380 and 0.391 for hook and straight punches, respectively (