3,894 research outputs found
Labour Market Under-Utilisation of Recent Higher Education Graduates: New Australian Panel Evidence
Recent research into the Australian labour market has reported that a substantial proportion of the tertiary-educated labour force is under-utilised relative to their level of education, echoing findings from an expanding international literature. This paper uses recent panel data from the 2010 Beyond Graduation Survey to analyse the incidence of labour force under-utilisation amongst recent Australian graduates and its effect on their wages, with an under-utilised graduate defined as a one who is in a job for which a sub-degree qualification would suffice. We find that 26% of graduates were under-utilised immediately after course completion and 15% were under-utilised three years later, although this varied considerably between subgroups. Recent graduates were much more likely to remain under-utilised than become under-utilised later in their careers. Being under-utilised appears to affect the earnings of different graduate age groups in different ways. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, we find that younger graduates tend to earn the same mean wages regardless of whether or not they are under-utilised, while older under-utilised bachelor degree graduates are at a significant wage disadvantage relative to their peers. This is suggestive of a graduate skills surplus and, by extension, inefficient public and individual investment in human capital.graduate labour market, human capital, panel data
Complex training: The effect of exercise selection and training status on postactivation potentiation in rugby league players
This study compared the postactivation potentiation (PAP) response of the hex bar deadlift (HBD) and back squat (BS) exercises. The PAP response between different levels of athletes was also compared. Ten professional and 10 amateur rugby league players performed 2 experimental sessions. Participants performed a countermovement jump (CMJ) before and 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 minutes after a conditioning activity (CA) that contained 1 set of 3 repetitions at 93% 1 repetition maximum of either HBD or BS. A force platform determined peak power output (PPO), force at PPO, velocity at PPO, and jump height of each CMJ. Surface electromyography (EMG) of the vastus lasteralis, rectus femoris, tibialis anterior, and gastrocnemius medialis of each participant's dominant leg was recorded during each CMJ. A further 10 participants performed a control trial without a CA. The HBD expressed PAP between 2 and 6 minutes post-CA, whereas the BS did not. The HBD exhibited a significantly (p †0.05) greater PAP response than the BS for PPO. There were no significant (p > 0.05) differences between stronger and weaker players. There were no significant (p > 0.05) changes in the EMG variables. These results suggest that HBD is a suitable CA for eliciting PAP in stronger and weaker athletes. Strength and conditioning coaches should consider the CA and time frame between the CA and the plyometric exercise for optimal PAP responses
Observing and Verifying the Quantum Trajectory of a Mechanical Resonator
Continuous weak measurement allows localizing open quantum systems in state
space, and tracing out their quantum trajectory as they evolve in time.
Efficient quantum measurement schemes have previously enabled recording quantum
trajectories of microwave photon and qubit states. We apply these concepts to a
macroscopic mechanical resonator, and follow the quantum trajectory of its
motional state conditioned on a continuous optical measurement record. Starting
with a thermal mixture, we eventually obtain coherent states of 78%
purity--comparable to a displaced thermal state of occupation 0.14. We
introduce a retrodictive measurement protocol to directly verify state purity
along the trajectory, and furthermore observe state collapse and decoherence.
This opens the door to measurement-based creation of advanced quantum states,
and potential tests of gravitational decoherence models.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure
Kinetics and thermodynamics of reversible polymerization in closed systems
Motivated by a recent work on the metabolism of carbohydrates in bacteria, we
study the kinetics and thermodynamics of two classic models for reversible
polymerization, one preserving the total polymer concentration and the other
one not. The chemical kinetics is described by rate equations following the
mass-action law. We consider a closed system and nonequilibrium initial
conditions and show that the system dynamically evolves towards equilibrium
where detailed balance is satisfied. The entropy production during this process
can be expressed as the time derivative of a Lyapunov function. When the
solvent is not included in the description and the dynamics conserves the total
concentration of polymer, the Lyapunov function can be expressed as a
Kullback-Leibler divergence between the nonequilibrium and the equilibrium
polymer length distribution. The same result holds true when the solvent is
explicitly included in the description and the solution is assumed dilute,
whether or not the total polymer concentration is conserved. Furthermore, in
this case a consistent nonequilibrium thermodynamic formulation can be
established and the out-of-equilibrium thermodynamic enthalpy, entropy and free
energy can be identified. Such a framework is useful in complementing standard
kinetics studies with the dynamical evolution of thermodynamic quantities
during polymerization
Beware of the Small-World neuroscientist!
The SW has undeniably been one of the most popular network descriptors in the
neuroscience literature. Two main reasons for its lasting popularity are its
apparent ease of computation and the intuitions it is thought to provide on how
networked systems operate. Over the last few years, some pitfalls of the SW
construct and, more generally, of network summary measures, have widely been
acknowledged
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