Retirement Saving in Australia

Australia’s retirement income system has several distinctive features – most notably a policy of government mandated private saving and a means-tested Age Pension – which have gained increasing international attention. This paper provides an overview of the institutional features of the retirement income system in Australia, including details of the development and operation of the policy of forced retirement saving. The role of the different tiers of system in accounting for the income of the current cohort of seniors is examined using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey. The economic position of adjacent, younger cohorts is also considered. The final section canvasses a selection of reform proposals emerging from the public debate over the future of Australia’s retirement income system.retirement income, social security, forced saving

Constructing a measure of industry-specific human capital using Tobin's q theory

In this paper, we develop a measure of industry specific human capital using the Tobin's q theory. The measure is derived from a structural model of heterogeneous knowledge labor, which is homogeneous physical labor embodied with industry specific human capital.

The Re-engagement in Education of Early School Leavers

By OECD standards, the share of the Australian labour force with at least a secondary school qualification is low. One way to rectify this shortfall is to improve rates of re-engagement in education among early school leavers. This paper examines the patterns of re-engagement among early school leavers in the HILDA sample. A key finding is that the early years after leaving school are crucially important, with rates of re-engagement dropping dramatically in the first three years out from school. For those who enter the labour market after school, results suggest that finding work, especially satisfying work, is an important driver for returning to study.Early school leavers, vocational education and training, re-engaging in education

JACK

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A Discursive Perspective on China\u27s Global Politics of Climate Change, 1992–2013

This dissertation investigates China’s recent shift in its climate change policy with a refined discourse approach. Methodologically, by adopting a neo-Gramscian notion of hegemony, a generative definition of discourse and an ontological pluralist position, the study constructs a theoretical framework named “discursive hegemony” that identifies the “social forces” for enabling social change and focuses on the role of discursive mechanisms via which the forces operate and produce effects. The key empirical finding of this study was that it was a co-evolution of conditions that shaped the outcome as China’s climate policy shift. In examining the case, a before-after within-case comparison was designed to analyze the variations in the material, institutional, and ideational conditions, with methods including interviews, conventional narrative/text analysis and descriptive statistics. Specifically, changes in energy use, the structure of decision-making body, and the narratives about sustainable development reflected how the above three types of social force processed in China in the first few years of the 21st century, causing the economic development agenda to absorb the climate issue, and turning the policy frame for the latter from mainly a diplomatic matter to a potential opportunity for better-quality growth. With the discursive operation of the “Science-based development”, China’s energy policy has been a good example of the Chinese understanding of sustainability characterized by economic primacy, ecological viability and social green-engineering. This way of discursive evolution, however, is a double-edged sword that has pushed forward some fast, top-down mitigation measures on the one hand, but has also created and will likely continue creating social and ecological havoc on the other hand. The study makes two major contributions. First and on the empirical level, because China is an international actor that was not expected to cooperate on the climate issue according to major IR theories, this study would add one critical case to the studies on global (environmental) governance and the ideational approach in the IR discipline. Second and on the theory-building level, the model of discursive hegemony can be a causally deeper mode of explanation because it traces the process of co-evolution of social forces

Hybrid nanomaterial and its applications: IR sensing and energy harvesting

In this dissertation, a hybrid nanomaterial, single-wall carbon nanotubes-copper sulfide nanoparticles (SWNTs-CuS NPs), was synthesized and its properties were analyzed. Due to its unique optical and thermal properties, the hybrid nanomaterial exhibited great potential for infrared (IR) sensing and energy harvesting. The hybrid nanomaterial was synthesized with the non-covalent bond technique to functionalize the surface of the SWNTs and bind the CuS nanoparticles on the surface of the SWNTs. For testing and analyzing the hybrid nanomaterial, SWNTs-CuS nanoparticles were formed as a thin film structure using the vacuum filtration method. Two conductive wires were bound on the ends of the thin film to build a thin film device for measurements and analyses. Measurements found that the hybrid nanomaterial had a significantly increased light absorption (up to 80%) compared to the pure SWNTs. Moreover, the hybrid nanomaterial thin film devices exhibited a clear optical and thermal switching effect, which could be further enhanced up to ten times with asymmetric illumination of light and thermal radiation on the thin film devices instead of symmetric illumination. A simple prototype thermoelectric generator enabled by the hybrid nanomaterials was demonstrated, indicating a new route for achieving thermoelectricity. In addition, CuS nanoparticles have great optical absorption especially in the near-infrared region. Therefore, the hybrid nanomaterial thin films also have the potential for IR sensing applications. The first application to be covered in this dissertation is the IR sensing application. IR thin film sensors based on the SWNTs-CuS nanoparticles hybrid nanomaterials were fabricated. The IR response in the photocurrent of the hybrid thin film sensor was significantly enhanced, increasing the photocurrent by 300% when the IR light illuminates the thin film device asymmetrically. The detection limit could be as low as 48mW mm-2. The dramatically enhanced sensitivity and detection limit were due to the temperature difference between the two junctions formed by the nanohybrid thin film and copper-wire electrodes under asymmetric IR illumination, and the difference between the effective Seebeck coefficient of the nanohybrid thin film and that of the Cu wires. The IR sensor embedded in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layers was also fabricated and tested to demonstrate its potential application as a flexible IR sensor. In another application, energy harvesting, a new type of thermoelectric microgenerator enabled with the SWNTs-CuS nanoparticles hybrid nanomaterial, was fabricated. This type of microgenerator did not require any cooling or heat sink element to maintain the temperature difference or gradient in the device. Instead, the integrated nanomaterials in the device enhanced the local temperature and thus produced and maintained an intrinsic temperature difference or gradient across the microgenerator, thereby converting light and heat directly into electricity. In order to enhance the maximum output voltage, the incoming light had to be focused on the thin film region. A tunable lens was fabricated to collect and focus the ambient light on the thin film to enhance the output voltage of the microgenerators. The tunable lens was fabricated with a flexible polymer, PDMS. Therefore, the focal length of the tunable lens can be adjusted by pumping oil into the lens chamber to deform a PDMS membrane, resulting in the changed focus of the lens. In order to enhance the output power, two different arrays of thermoelectric generators in series and in parallel were fabricated. A hybrid nanomaterial thin film was also used to enhance the temperature gradient of the thermoelectric generators. For the devices in series, the generated voltage of all thermoelectric generators was combined together to enhance the output voltage. With the device in parallel, it can be used to combine all of the current of thermoelectric generators together to enhance the output current

Effects of Atypical Neurotoxins on the Developing Fetal Brain

The brain is not only a control center of the body but also a part of the way that the body can communicate with external environments. The spatial and temporal events of brain development are well-defined. These processes are sequentially regulated by intrinsic and external factors, such as gene. Disruption of these steps results in malformation and malfunction of the brain. Neurotoxin may affect our developing nervous system as a kind of endogenous and exogenous factor. For classical neurotoxins, such as heavy metals, snake venom, and bacterial toxins, the underlying toxin-mediated physiological pathways are relatively clear, and their antidotes are usually available. However, for atypical neurotoxins, such as air pollutants, food additives, and manufactural compounds, their effects on the nervous system are ordinarily extended and not easy to detect. In addition, the corresponding mechanism is too complex to define. A single and effective antidote against these atypical neurotoxins is uncommon, so prevention is better than cure with this kind of toxin. This chapter starts with the introduction of endogenous and exogenous neurotoxins, how they affect nervous system and their potential antidotes, followed by the impact of atypical neurotoxins in fetal brain development and their possible preventative or therapeutic methods