Ohio Employment and International Economic Policy

This paper analyzes the relationship between international economic policy, in particular the taxation of corporation income, and employment in Ohio. Back-of-the-envelope calculations are used to provide a rough measure of the size of potential employment gains resulting from changes in tax rates and tax treatment.corporate tax rate, deferral, employment

Employment Effects of Reducing Capital Gains Tax Rates in Ohio

Entrepreneurial activity is a key driver of job creation, and entrepreneurs and their financiers are especially sensitive to capital gains taxes. As a result, a cut in the capital gains tax rate should be expected to stimulate job creation to some degree. We measure the magnitude of this effect by examining the treatment of capital gains across the 50 states over roughly the past 40 years. Our results suggest that a complete elimination of the taxation of capital gains realized by Ohio taxpayers would lead to the creation of 40,000 new jobs. Applying this estimate to proposals currently under discussion suggests a somewhat smaller effect.capital gains tax rate, employment

Foreign exchange and the liquidity trap

When short-term interest rates hover near zero, central banks may have difficulty offsetting downward momentum on prices and economic activity through traditional monetary-policy channels, since commercial banks have little incentive to make loans. Economists refer to this situation as a liquidity trap. Do exchange rate targets and foreign exchange operations, as some have suggested, offer a way to escape such a trap?Foreign exchange ; Liquidity (Economics) ; Economic conditions - Japan

In what ways does the workplace influence trainee learning?

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.In a time when skills shortages are in the forefront of Australia’s training agenda this thesis involved a mixed mode study entitled: “In what Ways Does the Workplace influence Trainee Learning?” Over the last ten to fifteen years a significant amount of government funding has been diverted from Australia’s public vocational education provider to encourage the growth of private providers including employer-based providers and community providers. The aim of this agenda included facilitating work-based learning as a legitimate alternative to conventional forms of institutional provision. As a result government funding cuts had a flow on effect for trainees includes a reduction in delivery costs (time) and increased reporting costs both of which impact on teaching and learning. With this trend to delivering training and assessment in the workplace the area that was explored in this thesis is how the workplace influences trainee learning. The thesis arises from the problem that while there are various theories about workplace learning there was a significant gap in the understanding of ‘in what way’ and ‘how’ trainee learning was being influenced by the workplace. The research investigated on-the-job learning in order to understand how ‘the learning’ was being influenced by the practices and culture that exist within the workplace systems and/or under the influence of the supervisor. The research design consisted of a case study approach in conjunction with qualitative (interviews) and a quantitative (semi-structured questionnaire). This thesis was informed by data collected from the following main sources: document searches; a semi-structured cross-section questionnaire (for 70 trainees; 20 teachers/trainers and 10 workplace supervisors) and interviews from three case study worksites, a public RTO; a medium sized security organization and an online group buying organization. The selected traineeships involved learning in the context of Business Services Training Package BSB07 – specifically Certificate III and IV levels in Business Administration and Technology and Customer Contact. The data collected indicated a major disconnect between the requirements as set down by traineeship legislation and current practices. It also highlighted a significant disconnect between the various interpretations and expectations (by key stakeholders) as to what constitute workplace learning for trainees. The thesis makes an important contribution to the telling of the stories of those struggling to undertake training and the barriers and lack of support they experience. It is a modest study of three case studies that provides a lens to expose issues and challenges in the workplace learning for these business sector trainees

Scarring and the Psychosocial Impact on Surgical Patients: A Review of Questionnaires

Scarring and the Psychosocial Impact on Surgical Patients: Integrative Literature Review Abstract Background: Skin scars have the potential to impact patients in a variety of ways which can include impaired psychological, physical, social, and emotional well-being. Beginning in the 1990s, guidelines were created for patient-reported outcomes (PRO) to measure these patient specific concepts of scarring. but guidelines require refinement. Objectives: The primary objective was to examine validated instruments to measure the psychosocial impact of surgical patients in relation to their acquired scar. Methods: An integrative literature review was conducted to analyze results and findings of different validated instruments to measure skin scarring and the concurrent psychosocial impacts for postoperative patients. Results: A total of (n= 11) journals were evaluated all of which used an assessment instrument to evaluate cosmetic outcomes of surgical scars. The most popular assessment used in the literature was the POSAS (n= 7) followed by the MSS (n=3), VAS (n=2), PRISM (n=2), PSAQ (n=2), VSS (n=1) and PSS (n=1). Conclusions: While the current validated tools available cover a wide variety of measurement needed to evaluate postoperative scarring, they continue to show limitations. It is important to further the development of reliable and validated measurements to determine patients’ quality of life and the psychosocial impact of surgical scars. Keywords: surgical scarring, psychosocial impact, satisfaction, patient reported outcome

3D Virtual Learning Spaces

Learning within the construction industry is challenging due to the complexity, size and variety of construction projects. This project aims to tackle these challenges through the use of 3D modeling and VR technologies. The project focuses on the teaching of structural steel framing with an emphasis on the stages/phases of construction. The first steps involved taking structural steel plans and using them to create a 3D model in Revit. The model is broken up into stages from foundation to roof framing to highlight the stages of construction. Once each model stage was finalized, it was imported into a 3D program called Cavrnus that allows for both VR and AR functionality. Each stage of the model was placed into the space with an accompanying PDF of the plans used to create the model. Some details from the plans were also placed in the space in PDF next to where the detail was modeled. Lastly, a welcome board with directions for the space and tips for moving around the space. This space is now ready to host classes where students are able to explore and ask questions about steel framed construction from their computer

Deformation and failure of polymer glasses

This thesis is composed of six papers in the field of deformation and failure of polymer glasses. Prediction of deformation and failure behaviour of polymers has become very important. In the last two decades considerable effort is addressed to the development of 3D constitutive models that were able to capture the visco-elastic and post-yield behaviour of glassy polymers. The compressible Leonov model, as developed in our group, proved to be a suitable model which provides an adequate description of this behaviour, including rate- and temperature-dependent yield, strain softening and strain hardening. However a failure criterion is still lacking. Previous studies indicated that macroscopic deformation behaviour is dominated by the intrinsic post-yield behaviour. Improving the ductility should hence focus on avoiding! r localisation of strain by elimating strain softening and promoting the contribution of the strain hardening. Although it is quite well established that strain hardening originates from the contribution of the entangled polymer network, the high strain hardening modulus compared to the rubber-modulus and its temperature dependence requires further investigation. The physical origin of strain softening is less well known, although it is reported that strain softening can be altered by thermal treatments and can even be eliminated by mechanical rejuvenation. The limited resistance to void nucleation and the build-up of high dilative stresses under certain loading conditions, show that decreasing strain softening and increasing strain hardening are not sufficient to achieve tough deformation behaviour. To circumvent these problems heterogeneity should be introduced in the structure to relieve the build-up of high hydrostatic stresses. For materia! ls like polycarbonate and polyamide this results in a transition from crazing to shear yielding. For polystyrene this is only the case if the thickness of the ligaments within the structure are sufficiently small. The concept of a critical thickness suggests that an absolute length-scale is encountered. An absolute length-scale of the same order of magnitude as is found in mechanical tests, is also reported in polymer physics where a Tg-depression is found in thin polystyrene films. In chapter 2 the influence of the network density on the strain hardening modulus is investigated. An increase in network density of polystyrene, achieved by cross-linking and blending with polyphenylene oxide results in a proportional increase in strain hardening modulus. It is discussed that the maginitude of the strain hardening modulus and its negative temperature dependence might orginate from the time-scale of the stress-induced segmental mobility and tha! t, on this time-scale, the secondary interactions still play a significant role. The transient deformation behaviour of mechanically rejuvenated polstyrene in studied in chapter 3. Although the recovery of yield stress and strain softening is independent of the molecular weight, the time to re-embrittlement proves to increase with increasing molecular weight. This is rationalised by the fact that the tensile strength of the material, and hence the recovered yield stress at which this strength is exceeded in a localised plastic zone, depends on the molecular weight. The post-yield behaviour dominates the macroscopic deformation behaviour of amorphous polymers. In chapter 4 it is shown that polycarbonate with its moderate strain softening and strong strain hardening results is stable neck growth during deformation. By annealing the strain softening increases, leading to more severe localisation of strain and even brittle failure. The deformatio! nmode can be be predicted in a straight-forward manner using a stability analysis. The pronounced strain softening and weak strain hardening of polystyrene lead to extreme localisation of strain and explain that standard polystyrene can never be ductile. Elimination of strain softening by mechanical rejuvenation inhibits localisation of strain and results in (temporary) ductile deformation behaviour. Additional finite element simulations illustrate the route to improve ductility. Since a failure criterion was still lacking in the finite element simulations employing the compressible Leonov model, micro-indentation experiments are used to generate crazes in a reproducible way. By evaluation of the local stress and strain distribution by finite element simulations, a critical hydrostatic stress of 40 MPa was found in polystyrene (provided that this event is preceded by plastic deformation) as a criterion for void nucleation. This criterion prov! ed to be independent of thermal history and strain rate but proved to increase with network density. By means of micro- and nano-indenations on polystyrene the influence of an absolute length-scale, as reported in other areas of polymer science, is investigated. For large indenters and indentation depth the experiments compare well to the length-scale independent finite element simulations, using bulk properties. For the smallest indenter (2.2 ??m) and shallow indentation depth (100 nm) the resistance to indentation is much less than expected from the simulations, indicating that the mechanical properties near a free surface in polystyrene might differ from the bulk properties. Using the criterion for void nucleation, as identified in chapter 5, brittle-to-ductile transitions (BDTs) were predicted by the deformation of a representative volume element (RVE). By increasing the temperature in the RVE, the overall stress level lowers in such a ! way that at 70ÆC the critical level of 40 MPa is not exceeded anymore in the simulations and hence a transition from crazing to shear yielding is achieved in polystyrene. The length-scale which is encountered experimentally and numerically in chapter 6 was incorporated in the RVE by assuming a gradient of increased temperature near free surfaces. At an interparicle distance of less than approximately 15 nm the critical value of 40 MPa is not exceeded anymore and crazing is hence inhibited. Both brittle-to-ductile transition compare well to experimental observations

The Generational Digital Divide: Understanding Adult Learners’ Self-Efficacy in Online Education

Higher education is seeing a substantial rise in both the number of adult learners who are returning to college as well as the number of online and blended courses being offered by institutions. Adult learners are returning to higher education and frequently finding themselves in an e-learning environment, which may not have existed during their first stint in college. Online and blended classes often require students to complete technology tasks that they may not be confident performing. This thesis uses descriptive statistics to determine which tasks commonly used in online courses adult learners are least confident performing, giving institutions more accurate data that can be used to create tutorials and orientation materials. This could improve adult learners’ confidence with the technology used in an e-learning environment. Additionally, this thesis utilizes a two-way ANOVA to analyze and compare adult learners’ confidence levels with technology tasks used in online courses to the confidence levels of traditionally aged students. The findings of this study showed that adult learners were most confident performing the most common basic computing and learning management system (LMS) tasks such as formatting documents, transferring files and turning in assignments using the LMS. The analysis of variance found that adult learners had significant gains in confidence with the technology commonly found in online and blended instruction after taking an online or blended course

Option prices, exchange market intervention, and the higher moment expectations channel: a user’s guide

A vast literature on the effects of sterilized intervention by the monetary authorities in the foreign exchange markets concludes that intervention systematically moves the spot exchange rate only if it is publicly announced, coordinated across countries, and consistent with the underlying stance of fiscal and monetary policy. Over the past fifteen years, researchers have also attempted to determine if intervention has any effects on the dispersion and directionality of market views concerning the future exchange rate. These studies usually focus on the variance around the expected future exchange rate—the second moment. In this paper we demonstrate how to use over-the-counter option prices to recover the risk-neutral probability density function (PDF) for the future exchange rate. Using the yen/dollar exchange rate as an example, we calculate measures of dispersion and directionality, such as variance and skewness, from estimated PDFs to test whether intervention by the Japanese Ministry of Finance had any impact on the higher moments of the exchange rate. We find little or no systematic effect, consistent with the findings of the literature on the spot rate as Japanese intervention during the period 1996-2004 was not publicly announced, rarely coordinated across countries and, in hindsight, probably inconsistent with the underlying stance of monetary policy.Options (Finance) ; Foreign exchange administration