The vulnerability of the low-skilled

The low-skilled are a critical category for analyses of labour market marginalization. Class analysis has tended to depict low-skilled employees as sharing a broadly similar position with respect to both employment and labour market conditions. Their employment relationship is defined by a specific type of contract – the labour contract – characterized by precarious pay, low asset specificity and high job insecurity. This contrasts with employees who benefit from a service relationship which is designed to bind employees to the organization on a longer term basis. Recent neo-institutional theories however have emphasized the diversity of employment conditions between advanced capitalist societies, depending in particular on the nature of their production, employment and welfare regimes. An important issue is whether such divergences apply only to more skilled categories of the workforce (and hence lead to accentuated polarization) or also affect the employment conditions of the low-skilled. Are the low-skilled significantly more integrated into the labour market in some countries than in others and hence less vulnerable in times of economic restructuring? The paper will examine this by comparing a number of EU-15 countries that have been regarded as reflecting contrasting institutional regimes. It will focus in particular on the position of the low-skilled with respect to pay, training and job security

Spending flexibility and safe withdrawal rates

Shortfall risk retirement income analyses offer little insight into how much risk is optimal, and how risk tolerance affects retirement income decisions. This study models retirement income risk in a manner consistent with risk tolerance in portfolio selection in order to estimate optimal asset allocations and withdrawal rates for retirees with different risk attitudes. We find that the 4 percent retirement withdrawal rate strategy may only be appropriate for risk averse clients with moderate guaranteed income sources. The ability to accept greater shortfall probabilities means that risk tolerant investors will prefer a higher withdrawal rate and a riskier retirement portfolio. A risk tolerant client may prefer a withdrawal rate of between 5 and 7 percent with a guaranteed income of $20,000. The optimal retirement portfolio allocation to stock increases by between 10 and 30 percentage points and the optimal withdrawal rate increases by between 1 and 2 percentage points for clients with a guaranteed income of$60,000 instead of $20,000.retirement planning; utility maximization; retirement spending goals; safe withdrawal rates

A Comparative Analysis of Operation Bluestone: A Specialist Rape Investigation Unit - Summary Report

The file attached to this record is the author's final version.This summary report sets out the findings of an evaluation into the performance of a specialist rape investigation unit and a non-specialist comparator

Epacris limbata sp. nov., a localised heath from eastern Tasmania

A description is given of Epacris limbata sp. nov., a new species of heath known from three locations on Tasmania's eastern coast. Notes on taxonomic affinities and habitat of the species are presented

Utility Versus Creativity in Biomedical Musification

Sonification techniques provide a well-documented methodology for auditory display of data, which can be particularly useful when combined with other display types for the presentation and analysis of complex data streams (including multidimensional data arrays). Creativity in sonification often becomes a function of the chosen mapping scheme, whereby deliberate specification of data mapping to auditory events provides opportunities to creative expression. Thus, such techniques can be used as part of the music creation process, if mapping strategies are carefully designed with specific musical outcomes in mind. Increasingly this particular type of sonification is therefore referred to as musification. However, the creative decision making process involved in designing these mapping strategies can by its nature compromise the presentation of the data in terms of accuracy, and perhaps in terms of overall utility. This article reviews an example of this work with both creative and utilitarian ends, and considers techniques for the evaluation of the success versus the utility that musification of complex biological or biomedical data might achieve, whilst maintaining the necessary integrity of the source data

Voices from Drug Court: Partnering to Bring Historically Excluded Communities into the Archives

While many archivists have evolved their professional scope to bring diversity into their collections, we posit that much can still be done. One area for growth is greater work by archival professionals to partner with communities to help them tell and preserve their own stories, incorporating a community’s own perspective and goals. This article discusses the community-based project between the Cache Valley Utah Drug Court and Utah State University Library’s Special Collections & Archives. The project was conceived and co-managed by Andrew Dupree (name used with permission), a participant and now graduate of the Cache Valley Drug Court. Perhaps the only project of its kind as of this writing, this effort gives voice to a historically excluded community in archival records. This article examines the importance of ensuring that archivists include the voices of a diverse community in their collections by actively partnering to facilitate community participation in framing and building these collections. This approach will make archival collections more diverse, socially just, and inclusive, especially with historically excluded communities

Optimal indicators of socioeconomic status for health research

Objectives: This paper examines the relationship between various measures of SES and mortality for a representative sample of individuals. ; Methods: Data are from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Sample includes 3,734 individuals aged 45 and above who participated in the 1984 interview. Mortality was tracked between 1984 and 1994 and is related to SES indicators using Cox event-history regression models. ; Results: Wealth has the strongest associations with subsequent mortality, and these associations differ little by age and sex. Other economic measures, especially family-size-adjusted household income, have significant associations with mortality, particularly for nonelderly women. ; Conclusions: By and large, the economic components of SES have associations with mortality that are at least as strong as, and often stronger than, more conventional components (e.g., completed schooling, occupation).Income distribution

Capturing Voices in the Heat of the Moment: Election Reflections 2016

At Utah State University Libraries, we have a tradition of community-driven oral history efforts aimed at bringing the voices of the underserved and underheard communities into our Special Collections & Archives for preservation and presentation. This effort is called Northern Utah Speaks