The Contributions from Firm Entry, Exit and Continuation to Labour Productivity Growth in New Zealand

This paper evaluates the contributions from firm entry, exit and continuation to labour productivity growth in New Zealand over the period 1995 to 2003. Decomposition techniques developed by Griliches and Regev (1995) and by Foster, Haltiwanger and Krizan (1998) are employed. Results suggest significant heterogeneity across both industries and firms. Most entering firms’ initial level of labour productivity is below the industry average but grows rapidly thereafter. Continuing firms generally add to industry labour productivity growth. On average exiting firms experience stagnant or declining labour productivity in the years leading up to their death, and when they eventually die most have below average labour productivity compared to their industry. This pattern persists even at a highly disaggregated industry level and indicates that firm turnover has positively contributed to labour productivity growth in New Zealand.Firm Performance; Entry; Exit; Turnover; Mobility; Labour Productivity; New Zealand

Automated Image Analysis of Offshore Infrastructure Marine Biofouling

Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/6/1/2/s1 Acknowledgments: This project was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) project No.: NE/N019865/1. The authors would like to thank Melanie Netherway and Don Orr, from our project partner (company requested to remain anonymous) for the provision of survey footage and for supporting the project. In addition, many thanks to Oscar Beijbom, University California Berkley for providing guidance and support to the project. Additional thanks to Calum Reay, Bibby Offshore; George Gair, Subsea 7; and Alan Buchan, Wood Group Kenny for help with footage collection and for allowing us to host workshops with them and their teams, their feedback and insights were very much appreciated.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Wind-Tunnel Investigation of Rectangular Air-Duct Entrances in the Leading Edge of an NACA 23018 Wing, Special Report

A preliminary investigation of a number of duct entrances of rectangular shape installed in the leading edge of a wing was conducted in the NACA 20-foot tunnel to determine the external drag, the available pressure, the critical Mach numbers, and the effect on the maximum lift. The results showed that the most satisfactory entrances, which had practically no effect on the wing characteristics, had their lips approximately in the vertical plane of the leading edge of the wing. This requirement necessitated extending the lips outside the wing contour for all except the small entrances. Full dynamic pressure was found to be available over a fairly wide range of angle of attack. The critical Mach number for a small entrance was calculated to be as high as that for the plain wing but was slightly lower for the larger entrances tested

Recent dissolved-oxygen measurements in the Gulf of Mexico deep waters

In 1963 it was suggested that rather large gradients in dissolved oxygen exist in the Gulf of Mexico below a sill depth of between 1500 m and 1900 m. However, measurements made on three cruises during 1966 and 1967 indicate that there is no clearly discernable horizontal variation in dissolved oxygen in these waters...

EXPERIENCES OF PROFESSIONALS PROVIDING COMMUNITY CARE FOR DISABLED PEOPLE IN NAGASAKI AND SOUTHAMPTON

Objective: To report on the factors affecting the resolution of problems experienced by community care professionals and to refine a checklist of methodological issues for future cross-cultural comparative studies. Design: A preliminary comparative study between Japan and the UK. Subjects: 630 subjects in Nagasaki, Japan and 109 subjects in Southampton, UK who were physically disabled, aged over 40 years, living at home and currently using at least 1 of the community disability care services. Methods: Community care professionals from a range of professions were asked about the backgrounds, physical disabilities and needs of their disabled subjects, and the difficulties experienced in providing them with care and rehabilitation services. Results: The proportion of subjects for whom difficulties were experienced in providing services increased with increasing severity of disability in Southampton. By contrast, this trend was less pronounced in Nagasaki where difficulties were reported in approximately 95% of all cases. However, it proved much more difficult to enlist collaboration for this survey in Southampton than in Nagasaki and this led to selection bias in the Southampton sample. The professionals in Nagasaki were hampered by a lack of medical information about their subjects and by a lack of available resources for relieving family members from some of their burden of care. The nature and impact of multidisciplinary team meetings appeared to differ in the 2 countries. Conclusion: It is suggested that the provision of medical information and advice to staff working in community care is a factor of fundamental importance in enabling them to define objectives and to help identify disabled people\u27s care and rehabilitation needs. The means by which such information and advice is shared appeared to differ in the 2 countries. Attenuated resources for community care and poor linkage between care organizations impair the ability of professional staff to resolve problems once they have been identified. It is suggested that each country could learn something from the other in improving the efficiency and impact of multidisciplinary community-based teams. In order to avoid the methodological difficulties in study design and implementation that we experienced, a 7-point checklist has been constructed to assist others who may be planning further cross-cultural studies in this field

Office of Regulatory Affairs Strategies for Building an Integrated National Laboratory Network for Food and Feed

An interconnected network of accredited federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial laboratories is critical to ensuring the safety of the U.S. food supply and the development of the Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS). In 2004, as part of a national policy to defend the U.S. food supply against terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies, the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) was created to integrate the nation’s multilevel (i.e., federal, state, local, tribal, territorial) food-testing laboratories to detect, identify, respond to, and recover from a bioterrorism act affecting the safety of the food supply, or a public health emergency/outbreak involving the food supply. Since 2004, federal agencies have invested an estimated $200 million in FERN. The majority of this investment has been in the FERN cooperative agreements with FDA and USDA-FSIS investing$95.8 million and $69 million, respectively. FDA has promoted the accreditation of state laboratories through cooperative agreement funding, investing more than$50 million to fund these grants. On November 11, 2014, the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) requested that the FDA Science Board establish a subcommittee to evaluate current investments in: (1) the FERN cooperative agreement funding program (CAP), and (2) funding for state laboratories to achieve International Organization for Standardization (ISO) accreditation. The goal was to ascertain how ORA can advance and establish an effective integrated laboratory network among ORA, FDA Center, and state public health and food- and feed-testing laboratories. In response to this request, the Science Board created the ORA FERN Cooperative Agreement Evaluation Subcommittee on July 1, 2015. This report summarizes the results of the Subcommittee’s review

Fatigue Indices and Perceived Exertion Highlight Ergometer Specificity for Repeated Sprint Ability Testing

This study aimed to compare the time course of measures of performance, fatigue, and perceived exertion during repeated-sprint ability (RSA) testing performed on a non-motorized treadmill (NMT) and cycling ergometer (CE). Fourteen physically active participants performed two 10 ×6 s−1 RSA tests with a 1:4 work-to-rest ratio (24 s recovery) on NMT and CE. Measures of performance [peak and mean power output (PPO and MPO), cadence, and the time to reach PPO (TTP)] and of fatigue (fatigue index and decrement score) and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were collected during each session. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. Participants completed the RSA test at a MPO of 1,041 ± 141 W on CE and 431 ± 48 W on NMT, achieving PPO of 2,310 ± 339 W on CE and 1,763 ± 289 W on NMT. Participants' weight was significantly correlated with PPO and MPO on CE (p < 0.001) and with MPO on NMT (p < 0.001). PPO on CE and NMT was significantly correlated only for absolute measures of power (p < 0.01). Cadence was higher and decreased throughout the RSA on NMT compared to CE, where it decreased only at the seventh bout. TTP was significantly shorter and more affected by fatigue on NMT than on CE. Fatigue indices were significantly greater on NMT compared to CE, with significant correlations between the decrement score and absolute and relative PPO on CE and NMT, between the fatigue index and absolute and relative PPO only on NMT, and no significant correlations with MPO. During RSA, RPE increased more on NMT compared to CE from bouts 3 to 7. During recovery, RPE was consistently higher on NMT at 1, 3, and 5 min post exercise compared to CE. These findings indicate that RSA performed on NMT induces greater fatigue and physiological load than CE, which originated in the lower resistive torque typically used on NMT compared to CE, resulting in a front loaded power output profile from the greater acceleration and cadence. From these results, we discuss that despite providing highly correlated measures of power output, NMT and CE should not be used interchangeably to assess RSA as they elicit markedly different responses. We also discuss these results from the fundamental differences in active muscle mass and power application patterns between running and cycling, which could form the basis of future studies