The Efficiency of Collective Bargaining in Public Schools

This paper develops a bargaining model of wage and employment determination for the public sectror. The solution to the model generates structural wage and employment equations that are estimated using data from New York State teacher-school district collective bargaining agreements. An advantage of this approach is that the major collective bargaining models (monopoly union, right to manage, efficient contracting, and inefficient contracting) are nested in the structural equations based on flexible functional forms and these models can be empirically tested as restrictions on estimated model parameters. The empirical results suggest that the allocation of resources generated by collective bargaining in New York State public schools is, by and large, not Pareto efficient. Furthermore, it is possible to estimate separate measures of union bargaining power over wages and employment. Empirically, it appears that union bargaining power over wages is around 0.53, while bargaining power over employment is around 0.71. In addition, the paper demonstrates the importance of controlling for the nature of the collective agreement when measuring the level of public services that flow to a community in the presence of a unionized public sector work force. Nous proposons un modèle de négociations collectives sur les salaires et l'emploi dans le secteur public. La solution de ce modèle implique des équations structurelles de détermination des salaires et d'emploi qui sont estimées à partir de données provenant des conventions colléctives des écoles publiques de l'état de New York. Notre approche a l'avantage d'englober tous les modèles majeurs de la littérature sur les négociations collectives (syndicat monopole, droit à gérer, négociations efficaces et négociations inefficaces) et de relier chaque modèle à une restriction d'égalité sur un ou plusieurs paramètres estimés. Nos résultats suggèrent que l'allocation des ressources spécifiée dans les conventions collectives des enseignants de l'état de New York n'est, en générale, pas efficace. De plus, notre approche nous permet d'estimer le pouvoir de négociationsur les salaires et sur l'emploi séparément. Nous trouvons un pouvoir de négociation sur les salaires de 0.53, et sur l'emploi de 0.71. Finalement, nous démontrons l'importance de contrôler le caractère endogène des salaires lors de l'analyse des flux des services publics dans un marché syndicalisé.Collective Bargaining, Efficient Contracting, Public Sector Union, Education, Négociations collectives, contrats efficaces, syndicat du secteur public, éducation

Superior sperm competitors sire higher-quality young

The evolution of polyandry remains controversial. This is because, unlike males, in many cases multiple mating by females does not increase fecundity and inevitably involves some costs. As a result, a large number of indirect benefit models have been proposed to explain polyandry. One of these, the good sperm hypothesis, posits that high-quality males are better sperm competitors and sire higher-quality offspring. Hence, by mating multiply, females produce offspring of superior quality. Despite being potentially widely applicable across species, this idea has received little attention. In a laboratory experiment with yellow dung flies ( Scathophaga stercoraria ) we found that males that were more successful in sperm competition also had offspring that developed faster. There was no relationship between paternal success in sperm competition and the ability of offspring to survive post-emergence starvation. Since faster development times are likely to be advantageous in this species, our data provide some support for polyandry evolving as a means of producing higher-quality offspring via sperm competition

Conflict on the sex chromosomes: cause, effect, and complexity

Intralocus sexual conflict and intragenomic conflict both affect sex chromosome evolution and can in extreme cases even cause the complete turnover of sex chromosomes. Additionally, established sex chromosomes often become the focus of heightened conflict. This creates a tangled relationship between sex chromosomes and conflict with respect to cause and effect. To further complicate matters, sexual and intragenomic conflict may exacerbate one another and thereby further fuel sex chromosome change. Different magnitudes and foci of conflict offer potential explanations for lineage-specific variation in sex chromosome evolution and answer long-standing questions as to why some sex chromosomes are remarkably stable, whereas others show rapid rates of evolutionary change.J.E.M. is supported by the European Research Council (grant agreement 260233) and a short-term fellowship from the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. D.J.H. is supported by the University of Exeter, and N.W. by the University of Exeter and The Royal Society (Wolfson Award)

Penis evolution across species: divergence and diversity

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this recordThe penis is an incredibly diverse and rapidly evolving structure, such that even in closely related species that otherwise differ very little in their morphology, penis form can be highly differentiated. Penises are also much more complex than their fundamental function — sperm transfer — would seem to require. The rapid divergent evolution of male structures is typically the signature of traits under sexual selection and the current evidence suggests the penis is no different in this regard. Despite the general agreement that sexual selection is the main driver of penis evolution, many questions about penis evolution remain unresolved. Furthermore, the penis might be an ideal characteristic on which to focus in the drive to link phenotype with genotype

Wolbachia infection can bias estimates of intralocus sexual conflict

This is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Males and females share most of their genome and develop many of the same traits. However, each sex frequently has different optimal values for these shared traits, creating intralocus sexual conflict. This conflict has been observed in wild and laboratory populations of insects and affects important evolutionary processes such as sexual selection, the maintenance of genetic variation, and possibly even speciation. Given the broad impacts of intralocus conflict, accurately detecting and measuring it is important. A common way to detect intralocus sexual conflict is to calculate the intersexual genetic correlation for fitness, with negative values suggesting conflict. Here, we highlight a potential confounder of this measure—cytoplasmic incompatibility caused by the intracellular parasite Wolbachia. Infection with Wolbachia can generate negative intersexual genetic correlations for fitness in insects, suggestive of intralocus sexual conflict. This is because cytoplasmic incompatibility reduces the fitness of uninfected females mated to infected males, while uninfected males will not suffer reductions in fitness if they mate with infected females and may even be fitter than infected males. This can lead to strong negative intersexual genetic correlations for fitness, mimicking intralocus conflict. We illustrate this issue using simulations and then present Drosophila simulans data that show how reproductive incompatibilities caused by Wolbachia infection can generate signals of intralocus sexual conflict. Given that Wolbachia infection in insect populations is pervasive, but populations usually contain both infected and uninfected individuals providing scope for cytoplasmic incompatibility, this is an important consideration for sexual conflict research but one which, to date, has been largely underappreciated.Royal SocietyLeverhulme TrustNatural Environment Research CouncilNarodowe Centrum Nauk

Sexual selection drives the evolution of male wing interference patterns.

This is the author accepted manuscriptThe seemingly transparent wings of many insects have recently been found to display unexpected structural coloration. These structural colours (wing interference patterns: WIPs) may be involved in species recognition and mate choice, yet little is known about the evolutionary processes that shape them. Furthermore, to date investigations of WIPs have not fully considered how they are actually perceived by the viewers' colour vision. Here, we use multispectral digital imaging and a model of Drosophila vision to compare WIPs of male and female Drosophila simulans from replicate populations forced to evolve with or without sexual selection for 68 generations. We show that WIPs modelled in Drosophila vision evolve in response to sexual selection and provide evidence that WIPs correlate with male sexual attractiveness. These findings add a new element to the otherwise well-described Drosophila courtship display and confirm that wing colours evolve through sexual selection.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)Leverhulme Trus

Holding up mirrors: reflections on academic literacy development across course curricula

The aim of the HEPPP funded project presented here is to embed support for the development of academic literacies (Lea & Street 1998) by developing inclusive curricula in courses with a high percentage of students from low socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds (Devlin et al. 2012). Reflection is central in both the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (BECE) and the Bachelor of Social Work, and the student profiles in these two courses mirror each other, but the approach taken differs. Many BECE students enter university through a TAFE pathway, some have low or no school exit scores and may have faced significant educational disadvantage in the past (Whitington et al. 2009). The BECE team responded to the invitation to use the Harper (2011) framework for academic literacy mapping by revising it and making it their own. Similarly, a large proportion of social work students are mature aged and first in their family to attend university with many entering via the TAFE sector (Goldingay et al. 2011). This earlier study found differences between staff and student perceptions of the academic skills needed for success, so resources developed through the project drew on the student voice and student perceptions to invite new students into disciplinary practices. This presentation will illustrate the approaches taken by Language and Learning Advisers (LLAs) working collaboratively with these two academic teams to help academic staff reflect on, scaffold and support the development of the academic literacies relevant to their discipline and provide more relevant feedback (Jolly 2001)

Negative phenotypic and genetic associations between copulation duration and longevity in male seed beetles

Reproduction can be costly and is predicted to trade-off against other characters. However, while these trade-offs are well documented for females, there has been less focus on aspects of male reproduction. Furthermore, those studies that have looked at males typically only investigate phenotypic associations, with the underlying genetics often ignored. Here, we report on phenotypic and genetic trade-offs in male reproductive effort in the seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus. We find that the duration of a male's first copulation is negatively associated with subsequent male survival, phenotypically and genetically. Our results are consistent with life-history theory and suggest that like females, males trade-off reproductive effort against longevity

UV-induced ligand exchange in MHC class I protein crystals

High-throughput structure determination of protein−ligand complexes is central in drug development and structural proteomics. To facilitate such high-throughput structure determination we designed an induced replacement strategy. Crystals of a protein complex bound to a photosensitive ligand are exposed to UV light, inducing the departure of the bound ligand, allowing a new ligand to soak in. We exemplify the approach for a class of protein complexes that is especially recalcitrant to high-throughput strategies: the MHC class I proteins. We developed a UV-sensitive, “conditional”, peptide ligand whose UV-induced cleavage in the crystals leads to the exchange of the low-affinity lytic fragments for full-length peptides introduced in the crystallant solution. This “in crystallo” exchange is monitored by the loss of seleno-methionine anomalous diffraction signal of the conditional peptide compared to the signal of labeled MHC β2m subunit. This method has the potential to facilitate high-throughput crystallography in various protein families