804 research outputs found
Maori/Non-Maori Income Gaps: Do Differences in Worker Mobility Play a Role?
We estimate a model of net migration between Regional Councils for three age cohorts to test whether or not there are significant Maori/non-Maori differences. We find little evidence of a statistically significant link between worker mobility and labor market conditions. Only in the case of the youngest individuals (20-24 years of age) do we find a significant wage response, and this wage response does not differ significantly between Maori and non-Maori. Unemployment is no case found to be significantly related to migration. We conclude from this that differences in worker mobility and attendant differences in the propensity to take advantage of spatially dispersed economic opportunities has limited potential for explaining Maori/non-Maori income differentials.Labor and Human Capital, J61, R11,
RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSACTIONS COSTS, AND MARKETED SURPLUS IN KENYA
We develop a conceptual framework for quantifying fixed transactions costs facing semisubsistence households. Using household survey data from a sample of 324 Kenyan maize farmers, we generate estimates of household supply and demand schedules, as well as the price bands that they face. Our econometric results indicate that on average the ad valorem tax equivalent of the fixed transactions costs facing the households in our sample is 28%. Additional analysis indicates that both remoteness and infrastructure quality have significant impacts on the size of the transactions costs facing farm households. To the best of our knowledge, ours are the first empirical estimates of the magnitude of transactions costs.Marketing,
Phonon spectral function for an interacting electron-phonon system
Using exact diagonalzation techniques, we study a model of interacting
electrons and phonons. The spectral width of the phonons is found to be reduced
as the Coulomb interaction U is increased. For a system with two modes per
site, we find a transfer of coupling strength from the upper to the lower mode.
This transfer is reduced as U is increased. These results give a qualitative
explanation of differences between Raman and photoemission estimates of the
electron-phonon coupling constants for A3C60 (A= K, Rb).Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 2 eps figur
The impact of swimming speed on respiratory muscle fatigue during front crawl swimming: a role for critical velocity?
Frog in the Pan: Continuous Information and Momentum
We test a frog-in-the-pan (FIP) hypothesis that predicts investors are inattentive to information arriving continuously in small amounts. Intuitively, we hypothesize that a series of frequent gradual changes attracts less attention than infrequent dramatic changes. Consistent with the FIP hypothesis, we find that continuous information induces strong persistent return continuation that does not reverse in the long run. Momentum decreases monotonically from 5.94% for stocks with continuous information during their formation period to –2.07% for stocks with discrete information but similar cumulative formation-period returns. Higher media coverage coincides with discrete information and mitigates the stronger momentum following continuous information
BuFF: Burst Feature Finder for Light-Constrained 3D Reconstruction
Robots operating at night using conventional vision cameras face significant
challenges in reconstruction due to noise-limited images. Previous work has
demonstrated that burst-imaging techniques can be used to partially overcome
this issue. In this paper, we develop a novel feature detector that operates
directly on image bursts that enhances vision-based reconstruction under
extremely low-light conditions. Our approach finds keypoints with well-defined
scale and apparent motion within each burst by jointly searching in a
multi-scale and multi-motion space. Because we describe these features at a
stage where the images have higher signal-to-noise ratio, the detected features
are more accurate than the state-of-the-art on conventional noisy images and
burst-merged images and exhibit high precision, recall, and matching
performance. We show improved feature performance and camera pose estimates and
demonstrate improved structure-from-motion performance using our feature
detector in challenging light-constrained scenes. Our feature finder provides a
significant step towards robots operating in low-light scenarios and
applications including night-time operations.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, for associated project page, see
https://roboticimaging.org/Projects/BuFF
Investment in a Smaller World: The Implications of Air Travel for Investors and Firms
A large literature reports that proximity influences investment. We extend the measurement of proximity beyond distance and report that air travel reduces local investment bias. This result is confirmed using the initiation of connecting flights through recently opened air hubs because investment at destinations served by these connecting flights increases after, not before, their initiation. Air travel also broadens the investor base of firms and lowers their cost of equity by approximately 1%. Overall, air travel improves the diversification of investor portfolios and lowers the cost of equity for firms
Factory Flow Benchmarking Report
The Lean Aircraft Initiative benchmarked representative part fabrications and some
assembly operations within its member companies of the defense aircraft industry. This
paper reports the results of this benchmarking effort. Comparisons are made using an
efficiency metric called flow efficiency. Flow efficiency is defined as the ratio of the
fabrication time to the cycle time. In addition, this report explores the major
components of the cycle time: fabrication time, lot process delay, storage delay, and
transportation delay. The report concludes that the major portion of the cycle time in
this industry is storage delay and points out the opportunity to improve cycle time
drastically by reducing the amount of storage delay being experienced in the fabrication
of products
Effect of tibolone on breast cancer cell proliferation in postmenopausal ER+ patients: Results from STEM trial
Purpose: Tibolone is a selective tissue estrogenic activity regulator, approved for the treatment of vasomotor symptoms in postmenopausal women. We have done an exploratory, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled pilot trial to investigate the tissue-specific effects of 2.5 mg tibolone on breast cancer in postmenopausal women, in particular on tissue proliferation (STEM, Study of Tibolone Effects on Mamma carcinoma tissue).
Experimental Design: Postmenopausal women with initially stage I/II, estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) primary breast cancer, were randomly assigned to 14 days of placebo or 2.5 mg/d tibolone. Core biopsies of the primary tumor were obtained before and after treatment. Ki-67 and apoptosis index were analyzed in baseline and corresponding posttreatment specimen.
Results: Of 102 enrolled patients, 95 had evaluable data. Baseline characteristics were comparable between both treatment groups. Breast cancer cases are mainly invasive (99%), stage I or II (42% and 50% respectively), and ER+ (99%). Median intratumoral Ki-67 expression at baseline was 13.0%, in the tibolone group and 17.8% in the placebo group, and decreased to 12.0% after 14 days of tibolone while increasing to 19.0% in the placebo group. This change from baseline was not significantly different between tibolone and placebo (Wilcoxon test; P = 0.17). A significant difference was observed between the treatment groups when the median change from baseline apoptosis index was compared between the treatment groups (tibolone, 0.0%; placebo, +0.3%; Wilcoxon test; P = 0.031). The incidence of adverse effects was comparable.
Conclusions: In ER+ breast tumors, 2.5 mg/d tibolone given for 14 days has no significant effect on tumor cell proliferation
Manipulation of the Spatial Grazing Behaviour of Livestock in Extensive Grassland Systems
Spatial behaviour of livestock is a critical factor in grassland management. Recent and ongoing research suggests that new approaches can be used to manipulate where cattle graze. The combination of strategic supplement placement and low-stress herding can be used to target cattle grazing and potentially may be useful for managing fine fuels. A phenotype to genotype association study of cattle spatial behavior suggests that use of rugged terrain and areas far from water is inherited. Although more research is needed, selection for animals specifically adapted for mountainous terrain or extensive paddocks may be an alternative for managing grasslands in the near future
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