Loans, logins and lasting the course: Academic library use and student retention

Activities and services that improve student engagement and retention in the higher education sector are important not only to individual student’s success but also to university planning and funding. This paper reports on a quantitative study that was carried out to explore whether use of the library by new university students is associated with continued enrolment. Students’ socioeconomic background and age were also examined in relation to library use. Limited to commencing students in March 2010 at Curtin University, the study drew on demographic data from the University’s enrolment system and instances of library use from the Library’s management system. Results of the statistical analyses indicate that library use is associated with retention, and importantly, library use in the early weeks of a student’s first semester is associated with retention. ‘Mature aged’ (21 years and over) students displayed different library use patterns than their younger colleagues and there was some variation in library use between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Findings from this study suggest that academic libraries can contribute to the retention of students and that carefully targeted programs and services may improve library use by some groups of students

Measuring total factor productivity on Irish dairy farms: a Fisher index approach using farm-level data

peer reviewedThis paper presents a Fisher index measure of the total factor productivity (TFP) performance of Irish dairy farms over the period 2006–2016 using the Teagasc National Farm Survey (NFS) data. The removal of milk quotas in 2015 has led to an increase of over 30% in dairy cow numbers since 2010, and although suckler cow numbers have dropped slightly, the total number of cows in Ireland reached an all-time high of 2.5 million head in 2016. This large increase adds to the environmental pressures attributed to agricultural output and puts the focus firmly on how efficiently the additional agricultural output associated with higher cow numbers is produced. The primary purpose of this paper is to identify a standardised measure of the TFP performance of Irish dairy farms that can be routinely updated using Teagasc NFS data. We found that relative to 2010 the TFP of Irish dairy farms has increased by almost 18%; however, in one production year 2015, when milk quota was removed, the TFP measure increased by 7% and TFP continued to grow by 2.5% in the production year 2016. It would seem therefore that the removal of the European dairy quota system has resulted in a windfall gain for Irish dairy farmers but that productivity gains are continuing. Future data will be required to investigate the longer-term TFP performance of Irish dairy farms in the post-milk quota era

Is the library a ‘Welcoming space’? A survey addressing the experiences of diverse students in an urban academic library.

This article presents a case study of an urban academic library's attempt to identify factors that influence the perceptions of students of color concerning the library as a welcoming space. The goal of this study is to determine if there are qualitative divergent factors along racial lines concerning how students use this library. The research is grounded in the theory of symbolic interactionism and Critical Race Theory. The authors then used these theories to focus on three themes that emerged reflecting racial differences among library users. This project adds to the limited scholarly research concerning the influence of the library on the experiences and the retention and success rates of students of color. (Contains 30 notes.)https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ80334

Chunking as a rational solution to the speed-accuracy trade-off in a serial reaction time task

When exposed to perceptual sequences, we are able to gradually identify patterns within and form a compact internal description of the sequence. One proposal of how disparate sequential items can become one is people’s ability to form chunks. We study chunking under the regime of serial reaction time tasks. We propose a rational model of chunking that progressively rearranges and modifies its representation to arrive at one that is beneficial to participants’ utility under task demands. Our model predicts that participants should, on average, learn longer chunks when optimizing for speed than optimizing for accuracy. We tested this prediction experimentally by instructing and rewarding one group of participants to act as fast as possible, while the other group was instructed to act as accurately as possible. From several independent sources of evidence, we confirmed our model’s predictions that participants in the fast condition chunked more than participants in the accurate condition. These results shed new light on the benefits of chunking and pave the way for future studies on structural and representation learning domains

The moderation effects of political Instability and terrorism on tourism development: a cross-country panel analysis

Looking at the current political turmoil across the globe, this study aims to analyze the effects of interaction between political instability and terrorism on tourism development using panel data from 139 countries for the period 1999–2009. The study measures the extent to which a country’s political conflicts and terrorism can negatively impact its tourism industry. The results reveal that the effect of political instability on tourism is far more severe than the effects of one-off terrorist attacks. Surprisingly, the findings suggest that terrorist attacks increase tourism demand for those low- to moderate-political-risk countries. However, countries that experience high levels of political risk witness significant reductions in their tourism businesses. In addition, political volatility and terrorism together can cause serious damage to the tourism industry

Profit, Productivity, Price and Quality Performance Changes in the English and Welsh Water and Sewerage Companies

The purpose of this paper is the evaluation of various profit drivers such as price changes, productivity changes and quality levels on the financial performance of the Water and Sewerage Companies (WaSCs) over time in the case when the number of observations is limited. We thereby follow Maziotis, Saal and Thanassoulis (2012) approach and extend it by measuring the impact of exogenous factors such as drinking water and sewerage treatment quality on profitability, productivity and price performance measures. The results suggest that while quality improvements have significantly contributed to the productivity performance of the WaSCs, they have also contributed negatively to their price performance. Overall, after 2000 steady reductions in average price performance, gains in productivity and stable economic profitability were apparent. This trend indicates Ofwat's policy on passing productivity benefits to consumers, and sustaining stable profitability than it was in earlier regulatory periods. This technique is of great interest for both regulators and regulated companies to better identify the sources of profit variation and aid them in evaluating both the effectiveness of a regulatory price cap scheme and the performance of the regulated companies, when the sample size is extremely limited

An Economic Justification for the EKS Multilateral Index

A justification for the use of the EKS multilateral index can be given from the economic approach to index numbers. Copyright 2003 by the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.