Real Wage Trends, 1979 to 2017

[Excerpt] The focus of this report is on wage rates and changes at selected wage percentiles, with some attention given to the potential influence of educational attainment and the occupational distribution of worker groups on wage patterns. Other factors are likely to contribute to wage trends over the 1979 to 2017 period as well, including changes in the supply and demand for workers, labor market institutions, workplace organization and practices, and macroeconomic trends. This report provides an overview of how these broad forces are thought to interact with wage determination, but it does not attempt to measure their contribution to wage patterns over the last four decades. For example, changes over time in the supply and demand for workers with different skill sets (e.g., as driven by technological change and new international trade patterns) is likely to affect wage growth. A declining real minimum wage and decreasing unionization rates may lead to slower wage growth for workers more reliant on these institutions to provide wage protection, whereas changes in pay setting practices in certain high pay occupations, the emergence of superstar earners (e.g., in sports and entertainment), and skill biased technological changes may have improved wage growth for some workers at the top of the wage distribution. Macroeconomic factors, business cycles, and other national economic trends affect the overall demand for workers, with consequences for aggregate wage growth, and may affect employers’ production decisions (e.g., production technology and where to produce) with implications for the distribution of wage income. These factors are briefly discussed at the end of the report

Defect chemistry and characterization Hg(1-x)Cd(x)Te

Iodine doped single crystal samples of mercury cadmium telluride were annealed at temperatures varying from 450 C to 600 C in Hg vapor and quenched to room temperature. Hall effect measurements at 77 K on the crystals cooled to room temperature indicate the samples to be n-type after anneals at high Hg pressures whereas they turn p-type after anneals at low Hg pressures; the electron concentration increases with increase in Hg pressure. The results are explained on the basis that the crystals are saturated with (Hg,Cd)I2, with a fraction of the iodine being present as donor occupying tellurium lattice sites and a fraction being present as acceptors resulting from the iodine on tellurium lattice sites pairing with the doubly ionized native acceptor defects. The solubility of the donor species increases with increase in Hg pressure, whereas that of the acceptor species increases with decrease in Hg pressure. Equilibrium constants for the incorporation of the iodine species as well as the pairing reaction were established

What Does the Gig Economy Mean for Workers?

[Excerpt] Technological advancement and the proliferation of the smartphone have reshaped the commercial landscape, providing consumers new ways to access the retail marketplace. On-demand companies are one such innovation, and underpinning on-demand commerce is the gig economy, the collection of markets that match service providers to consumers of on-demand services on a gig (or job) basis. Flagship on-demand companies such as Uber (driver services) and Handy (home cleaners and household services) have garnered significant media attention both for their market success and recent legal challenges, particularly concerning the classification of gig workers. Broader questions about the pros and cons of the gig economy have emerged as on-demand markets grow and the gig economy expands into new sectors. By some accounts, workers’ willingness to participate in the gig economy provides evidence that gig work is a beneficial arrangement. Indeed, gig jobs may yield benefits relative to traditional employment in terms of the ease of finding employment and greater flexibility to choose jobs and hours. The gig economy may facilitate bridge employment (e.g., temporary employment between career jobs or between full-time work and retirement) or provide opportunities to generate income when circumstances do not accommodate traditional full-time, full-year employment. At the same time, however, the potential lack of labor protections for gig workers and the precarious nature of gig work have been met with some concern. The nationwide reach of gig work and its potential to impact large groups of workers, and their livelihoods, have attracted the attention of some Members of Congress. These Members have raised questions about the size and composition of the gig workforce, the proper classification of gig workers (i.e., as employees or independent contractors), the potential for gig work to create work opportunities for unemployed or underemployed workers, and implications of gig work for worker protections and access to traditional employment-based benefits. In support of these policy considerations, this report provides an overview of the gig economy and identifies legal and policy questions relevant to its workforce

Enhancing Access to Research Materials on East Asia: An Interim Report on the East Asian Libraries Cooperative World Wide Web

The East Asian Libraries Cooperative World Wide Web (http:/pears.lib.ahio-statc.edu/) uses the World Wide Web to help researchers overcome geographical barriers which hinder access to resources, both print and electronic. This project, which is directed at the Ohio State University, has received funding from the Japan - United States Friendship Commission, the U.S. Department of Education Title II-A (Library Technology and Cooperation Program) and other sources. In addition to Ohio State, universities participating in the two major grant-funded projects which make up this effort include: UC-Berkeley, Columbia, Duke, Illinois. Indiana, Iowa, MIT, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, However, already the number of participants has grown to include librarians and scholars at other institutions. The presentation describes the origins of the project, its evolution, and its future plans. Particular emphasis is given to discussing the challenges that activities such us construction of a distributed database and development or proactive services for remote users pose for librarians, as well us the various strategies that are being used in this project to address them

Infrastructural Support for Developers of Electronic Resources for Asian Studies

Universities, institutes, and other organizations establish infrastructures, including libraries, in order to support research, teaching, and service activities. Academic societies sponsor conferences, issue publications, and provide other pieces of the infrastructural puzzle on behalf of entire academic fields and disciplines as well as for sub-specialties within larger fields. Reviewing the history of organizations one can identify the origin and evolution of such support structures. For example, the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) is an organization that was founded by librarians and exists to support their work. CEAL's many activities, such as an annual meeting, committees, regular compilations of statistics, publication of a journal and a directory, sponsorship of an email list and a web site, and so on, constitute an infrastructure to support East Asian library collections and the librarians who work in them. Each activity addresses a need. The organization responds with an ongoing commitment to support the activity primarily by providing a structure for organizing the work of volunteers. Traditional infrastructures can be tangible objects, including: buildings, libraries, computing centers, museums, networks, laboratories, computers and peripheral equipment. In addition serial publications such as journals, newsletters and directories can be considered as parts of the infrastructure. Finally, meetings, conferences, administrative structures and support staffing are often essential. What infrastructure needs do developers of electronic resources for Asian studies have? In particular, what infrastructures best support large, distributed, collaborative, digital projects? In what way are those infrastructures similar to the buildings and libraries of institutions or the committees and journals of academic organizations? Are there any special challenges in establishing infrastructures to support electronic resource development? This paper discusses infrastructures that contributed to bringing three collaborative/cooperative projects in which I have been involved to fruition: 1. Japanese Journals Information Web http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu 2. Kinema Club http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/Markus/Weldome.html 3. AsianDOC Electronic Newsletter http://asiandoc.lib.ohio-state.ed

Framing Knowledge: Global Youth Culture as Knowledge Society (Research in Progress)

Widespread distribution of Japanese comics (manga) is part of a global youth culture that can be viewed as a knowledge society. The paper presents research in progress about how knowledge is being "framed" by young people through established forms or structures, through discipline associated with active learning and participation, and through thoughtful reflection and discussion with peers. Historical and qualitative methodologies are emphasized

The colour-magnitude relations of ClJ1226.9+3332, a massive cluster of galaxies at z=0.89

(Abridged) The colour-magnitude relations of one of the most massive, high redshift clusters of galaxies known have been studied. Photometry has been measured in the V, R, I, z, F606W, F814W, J and K bands to a depth of K*+2.5 and spectroscopy confirms 27 K band selected cluster members. The V-K colours are equivalent to a rest-frame colour of ~2700A-J, and provide a very sensitive measure of star-formation activity. HST ACS imaging has been used to morphologically classify the galaxies. The cluster has a low early-type fraction compared to nearby clusters, with only 33% of the cluster members having types E or S0. The early-type member galaxies form a clear red-sequence in all colours. The scatter and slope of the relations show no evolution compared to the equivalent Coma cluster relations, suggesting the stellar populations are already very old. The normalisation of the relations has been compared to models based on synthetic stellar populations, and are most consistent with stellar populations forming at z>3. Some late-type galaxies were found to lie on the red-sequence, suggesting that they have very similar stellar populations to the early-types. These results present a picture of a cluster in which the early-type galaxies are all old, but in which there must be future morphological transformation of galaxies to match the early-type fraction of nearby clusters. In order to preserve the tight colour-magnitude relation of early-types seen in nearby clusters, the late-type galaxies must transform their colours, through the cessation of star-formation, before the morphological transformation occurs. Such evolution is observed in the late-types lying on the colour-magnitude relation.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 14 pages, 5 figure