Self-Employed Contractors in Australia: Incidence and Characteristics

This paper presents an analysis of self-employed contracting in Australia. The analysis covers all self-employed contractors, including dependent and independent contractors. The paper finds that self- employed contractors have become more common in Australia over the past 20 years. In August 1998, 10 per cent of employed persons, or 844 000 individuals, worked as self-employed contractors.contractors - contracting - self-employed - labour force - forms of employment - dependent contractors - independent contractors

Fixed-term employees in Australia: incidence and characteristics

This paper presents an analysis of fixed-term employment in Australia or 3.3 per cent of employed persons in 2000. It finds that fixed-term employees are largely concentrated in Education (30 per cent of fixed- term employees in August 1998), Health and community services (18 per cent) and in the occupational category of Professionals (44 per cent). Just over 50 per cent worked in the public sector. Fixed-term employees are slightly more likely to be female and younger than ongoing employees.employees - fixed-term employment - ongoing employees

On kissing numbers and spherical codes in high dimensions

We prove a lower bound of $\Omega (d^{3/2} \cdot (2/\sqrt{3})^d)$ on the kissing number in dimension $d$. This improves the classical lower bound of Chabauty, Shannon, and Wyner by a linear factor in the dimension. We obtain a similar linear factor improvement to the best known lower bound on the maximal size of a spherical code of acute angle $\theta$ in high dimensions

On the hard sphere model and sphere packings in high dimensions

We prove a lower bound on the entropy of sphere packings of $\mathbb R^d$ of density $\Theta(d \cdot 2^{-d})$. The entropy measures how plentiful such packings are, and our result is significantly stronger than the trivial lower bound that can be obtained from the mere existence of a dense packing. Our method also provides a new, statistical-physics-based proof of the $\Omega(d \cdot 2^{-d})$ lower bound on the maximum sphere packing density by showing that the expected packing density of a random configuration from the hard sphere model is at least $(1+o_d(1)) \log(2/\sqrt{3}) d \cdot 2^{-d}$ when the ratio of the fugacity parameter to the volume covered by a single sphere is at least $3^{-d/2}$. Such a bound on the sphere packing density was first achieved by Rogers, with subsequent improvements to the leading constant by Davenport and Rogers, Ball, Vance, and Venkatesh

Extremes of the internal energy of the Potts model on cubic graphs

We prove tight upper and lower bounds on the internal energy per particle (expected number of monochromatic edges per vertex) in the anti-ferromagnetic Potts model on cubic graphs at every temperature and for all $q \ge 2$. This immediately implies corresponding tight bounds on the anti-ferromagnetic Potts partition function. Taking the zero-temperature limit gives new results in extremal combinatorics: the number of $q$-colorings of a $3$-regular graph, for any $q \ge 2$, is maximized by a union of $K_{3,3}$'s. This proves the $d=3$ case of a conjecture of Galvin and Tetali

Mapping Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) in a Semi-Arid Mountainous Watershed Using Variables From Hyperspectral, Lidar and Traditional Datasets

Quantifying soil organic carbon (SOC) in complex terrain is challenging due to its high spatial variability. Generally, limited discrete observations of SOC data are used to develop spatially distributed maps of SOC by developing quantitative relationships between SOC and available spatially distributed variables. In many ecosystems, remotely sensed information on aboveground vegetation can be used to predict belowground carbon stocks. In this research, we developed maps of SOC across a semi-arid watershed based on discrete field observations and modeling using a suite of variables inclusive of hyperspectral and lidar datasets; these observations provide insights into the controls on soil carbon in this environment. The Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (RCEW), in SW Idaho, has a strong elevation gradient that controls precipitation and vegetation. Soil samples were collected to 30 cm depth using a nested sampling approach, across the watershed (samples, 279 data points, in 28 plots, discretized with depth, total n=1344) and analyzed for SOC content. Point SOC data was combined with a suite of predictor variables from traditional, lidar and hyperspectral datasets to calibrate Random Forest and Stepwise Multiple Linear Regression models that predict SOC distribution across RCEW. In this study, SOC generally increased along the precipitation-elevation gradient corresponding with an increase in the diversity and abundance of vegetation. We found that variable soil bulk densities and areas of high rock content strongly influenced mass/unit area SOC values. Interestingly, rock content was also negatively correlated with percent SOC. Local variability of SOC in this study was high with the variability at the plot scale about 1/3 of that observed at the watershed scale. Our research suggests that vegetation indices calculated from spectral data are the best predictors of SOC storage in this system. Roughly 60% of the variance in SOC data is explained using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index while two hyperspectral vegetation indices, Modified Red Edge Simple Ratio and Modified Red Edge Normalized Difference Vegetation Index explain over 70%. The addition of Lidar variables modestly improved SOC prediction, explaining 75% of variability in SOC

Pitch and Revelation

Pitch and Revelation is the first book-length study of the poetry, prose, and dramatic literature of the African American poet Jay Wright (1934–). The authors premise their reading on joy as foundational philosophical concept. In this, they follow Spinoza, who understood joy as that affect necessary for the construction of intellectual love of God, leading into the infinite univocity of everything. Similarly, with Wright, joy leads to a visceral sense of what the authors call the great weave of the world. This weave is akin to the notion of entanglement made popular by physicists and contemporary scholars of Science Studies, such as Karen Barad, which speaks of the always ongoing, mutually constitutive connections of all matter and intellectual processes. By exhibiting and detailing the joy of reading Wright, Pitch and Revelation intends to help others chart their own paths into the intellectual, musical, and rhythmical territories of Wright’s world so as to more fully experience joy in the world generally. Although the exhibitions of meaning making presented are instructive, but they do not follow the “do as I do” or “do as I say” model of instructional texts. Instead,they invite the reader to “do along with us” as the authors make meaning from selections across Wright’s erudite, dense, rhythmically fascinating, endlessly lyrical, highly structured, and seemingly hermetic body of work

Views From The Top of the 'Quiet Revolution'

In February 2005, Minister Amanda Vanstone addressed the National Press Club on the new arrangements in Indigenous affairs. She identified these new arrangements as a 'quiet revolution in Indigenous affairs'. Within the context of the new arrangements, the Australian Public Service is undergoing some major changes in the way in which it seeks to develop and implement policy in relation to Indigenous affairs. In her address to the National Press Club, the Minister said 'Back here in Canberra, the mainstream agencies are not only charged with, but fully engaged in providing better outcomes for Indigenous Australians. It's not the old mainstreaming where separate departments may have fallen into a silo mentality. Through the Secretaries Group, which meets monthly, some of our best public servants are turning their minds to the issue.' Between October 2005 and January 2006, Bill Gray and Will Sanders interviewed the members of the Secretaries Group on Indigenous Affairs, including the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Peter Shergold, and canvassed with them their personal views as to the way in which the new arrangements were being implemented and the impact such arrangements were having on their own portfolio responsibilities. Issues such as the operations of the Secretaries Group, the Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs, mainstreaming, the whole-of-government approach, Shared Responsibility Agreements, the role of the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination (OIPC), Indigenous Coordination Centres (ICCs), COAG trial sites, flexible funding of Indigenous programs and accountability were discussed