Income Inequality Comparisons with Dirty Data: The UK and Spain during the 1980s

Inequality comparisons between countries and over time should take into account problems of data imperfection. We examine the contrasting experience of the UK and spain during the 1980s in terms of the distribution of disposable income. We consider whether the apparent divergence of inequality could be attributed to deficiencies in income data including under-reporting.Lorenz dominance, data contamination, cross-country comparisons.

Calm after the storms : income distribution in Chile, 1987-94

This paper uses Vietnam as a case study in rapidly assessing the strengths and weaknesses of an existing system of transfers and safety nets. Data are taken to be weak; in particular, rigorous ex-post evaluations of the components of the existing social security system are not available in time to inform policy choices. So the aim is instead to provide a broad qualitative assessment, also pointing to key issues on which knowledge needs to improve. The paper provides a critical overview of the existing public poverty and safety net programs in Vietnam that aim to help and protect those outside the formal employment sectors, notably those in the rural economy and urban informal sector. It begins with a brief examination of the principal sources of vulnerability for Vietnamese households and what is known about household coping strategies. This is followed by a description of the various transfers and safety nets that are currently available to address low incomes and vulnerability for individuals outside the formal employment system and hence not covered by the government's social security benefits. Naturally, much of the focus is on rural households and individuals.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Inequality,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Governance Indicators,Services&Transfers to Poor

Improving the learning of graduate attributes in the curriculum: A case-study in it management

Government, employers and professional societies want university graduates who are more ready for work. The UTS Work-Ready Project is a curriculum renewal initiative that aims to improve graduates' professional attributes and employability skills. The Project provides online teaching and learning resources to support the integration of Work-Ready Learning Activities (WRLA) into the existing curriculum. The paper provides an overview of the UTS Work-Ready Project and the incorporation of WRLA's into three Information Technology (IT) Management subjects which all included a group assessment item. In each subject, students were surveyed to gain feedback regarding how useful they found a team collaborative decision-making WRLA and whether it helped in their group assessment task. When averaged across the three subjects and the five surveys undertaken 85% of students thought the activity was useful, however there were mixed results in relation to whether the WRLA helped in the group assessment task. Under-graduate students reported the WRLA made no difference to the group assessment task, whereas postgraduates indicated the WRLA did help the team produce their group assessment item. © 2010, Australian Computer Society, Inc

Improving graduate attributes with online teaching resources: A case study in IT management

The paper backgrounds the UTS Work-ready Project which aims to improve graduate professional attributes and employability understandings and skills. The Project makes available online teaching and learning resources to support the integration of Work-Ready Learning Activities (WRLA) into the existing curriculum. The WRLA's are contextualized for each profession's workspace to maximise relevance for both students and academics. The paper presents a case-study of the integration and evaluation of contextualized WRLA's to improve teamwork processes into three subjects in the IT Management curriculum. Students were surveyed to obtain feedback on the usefulness of a team collaborative decision-making WRLA and whether it helped in their undertaking of a group assessment task. The survey results were positive when averaged across the three subjects and the five surveys conducted indicate 85% of students thought the activity was useful. However in relation to whether the WRLA helped in the group assessment task there were mixed results. Undergraduate students reported the WRLA made little difference, whereas post-graduates indicated the WRLA did help the team produce their group assignment. We also present reflections and lessons learnt from the perspective of a Subject Coordinator trying to improve graduate work-readiness within the existing curriculum. © 2009 Alan Sixsmith and Andrew Litchfield

Hydrogen safety Progress report no. 7 1 Jul. - 30 Sep. 1965

Performance characteristics of two console-type hydrogen gas detectors sampling by diffusion and convectio

Hydrogen safety Progress report no. 6, 1 Apr. - 30 Jun. 1965

Hydrogen safety hazards, storage, and handling - Hydrogen plume studies to determine quantity-distance criteria and guidelines for optimum placement of hydrogen detector

Work-ready wiki: Supporting the learning and teaching of professional graduate attributes

The paper presents the background, design and formative evaluation of a wiki of workready learning activities and teaching support resources to improve the learning of professional graduate attributes. The 'Improving graduate work-readiness' project is a University of Technology Sydney curriculum renewal project involving five Faculties. The project aims to improve graduates' professional attributes and employability skills by designing new subjects, new subject modules and integrating short well-designed contextualised work-ready learning activities into existing subjects. The authors inquired of relevant professional societies their understandings of the key professional attributes required of a graduate in the contemporary workplace. These findings informed the design of a matrix of 11 professional attributes and associated sub-attributes and aligned understandings and skills that can be learnt. The work-ready wiki gives access to a matrix of generic work-ready learning activities and 16 matrixes of learning activities contextualised for each professional area of study involved in the project to-date. Workready activities contextualised for each profession maximises student relevance and motivation to learn. Maximising the ease of integration of work-ready activities into existing subjects has guided the design of the wiki-based learning activities. From the wiki practical teaching support resources can be downloaded to enable easier integration of the work-ready learning activities. The beginning of collections of work-ready learning activities can be found at . © 2008 Andrew Litchfield and Skye Nettleton

Bristlebots and other friends. A progression of Epistemic insight workshops using small things to ask big questions

Small, handmade and inexpensive robots can help students across a range of ages unpack and explore big questions around the nature of life, curiosity and creativity. This is an introduction to a series of workshops where students learn how to frame and investigate different types of questions including big questions that bridge science, religion, computing and the wider humanities. The first workshop, aimed at upper KS2 looks at the ideas of what we mean by life and to be alive. The second workshop builds on this and asks, ‘can a robot have a sense of curiosity?’ What would a robot need to have a sense of curiosity, what do we need across a range of subject domains. The third workshop takes this further and helps KS3/4 students to ask questions about what it means to be creative, would a robot make a good friend and our we, ourselves, programmed by the society that we grow up in? The workshops are a part of wider activities delivered across primary, secondary, ITE and outreach activities by the LASAR team accompanied by research informing development of epistemic insight in children and young people and equipping them with curiosity, analytical and critical skills to understand current global problems and answer Big Questions

The rise and fall of Brazilian inequality, 1981-2004

Measured by the Gini coefficient, income inequality in Brazil rose from 0.57 in 1981 to 0.63 in 1989, before falling back to 0.56 in 2004. This latest figure would lower Brazil's world inequality rank from 2nd (in 1989) to 10th (in 2004). Poverty incidence also followed an inverted U-curve over the past quarter century, rising from 0.30 in 1981 to 0.33 in 1993, before falling to 0.22 in 2004. Using standard decomposition techniques, this paper presents a preliminary investigation of the determinants of Brazil's distributional reversal over this period. The rise in inequality in the 1980s appears to have been driven by increases in the educational attainment of the population in a context of convex returns, and by high and accelerating inflation. While the secular decline in inequality, which began in 1993, is associated with declining inflation, it also appears to have been driven by four structural and policy changes which have so far not attracted sufficient attention in the literature, namely sharp declines in the returns to education; pronounced rural-urban convergence; increases in social assistance transfers targeted to the poor; and a possible decline in racial inequality. Although poverty dynamics since the Real Plan of 1994 have been driven primarily by economic growth, the decline in inequality has also made a substantial contribution to poverty reduction.Inequality,Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Rural Poverty Reduction,Achieving Shared Growth