Housing Assistance Payment: Potential impacts on financial incentives to work. ESRI WP610, January 2019

Since March 2017, a new income-related housing support for those with a long-term housing need called Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) has been available throughout the state. This paper examines the potential impact on financial work incentives of transferring long-run Rent Supplement recipients onto HAP with tenants’ rental contributions assessed through a national Differential Rents scheme, initially proposed by the Housing Agency but yet to be implemented. While such a system would strengthen the financial incentive for most long-term Rent Supplement claimants to be in full-time paid work, a small minority would continue to face quite weak incentives. This is driven by the receipt of multiple means-tested benefits – in particular, jobseekers allowance and one-parent family payment – which results in some low-income individuals facing very high effective marginal tax rates from relatively low levels of earnings

Ancestral physical stress and later immune gene family expansions shaped bivalve mollusc evolution

Bivalve molluscs comprise 20,000 species occupying a wide diversity of marine habitats. As filter feeders and detritivores they act as ecosystem engineers clarifying water, creating reefs, and protecting coastlines. The global decline of natural oyster reefs has led to increased restoration efforts in recent years. Bivalves also play an important role in global food security contributing to >20% of worldwide aquaculture production. Despite this importance, relatively little is known about bivalve evolutionary adaptation strategies. Difficulties previously associated with highly heterozygous and repetitive regions of bivalve genomes have been overcome by long-read sequencing, enabling the generation of accurate bivalve assemblies. With these resources we have analyzed the genomes of 32 species representing each molluscan class, including 15 bivalve species, to identify gene families that have undergone expansion during bivalve evolution. Gene family expansions across bivalve genomes occur at the point of evolutionary pressures. We uncovered two key factors that shape bivalve evolutionary history: expansion of bivalvia into environmental niches with high stress followed by later exposure to specific pathogenic pressures. The conserved expansion of protein recycling gene families we found across bivalvia is mirrored by adaptations to a sedentary lifestyle seen in plants. These results reflect the ability of bivalves to tolerate high levels of environmental stress and constant exposure to pathogens as filter feeders. The increasing availability of accurate genome assemblies will provide greater resolution to these analyses allowing further points of evolutionary pressure to become clear in other understudied taxa and potentially different populations of a single species

Presenting Physical Things Digitally: New Collecting Practices

The motivations for collecting and the idiosyncrasies of physical and digital collections have been long studied. However, how they are presented in the digital space is an unresolved challenge. To help better understand this problem from a design perspective, we built Thinga.Me. Thinga.Me is a system which allows users to capture photographs of physical objects and then cut them out, place them into digital collections, and share them. By segmenting the object from the background the interface creates the illusion of a physical item, giving a sense of carrying your stuff with you in your pocket. Following two years of development, iteration and feedback, we discuss uses of the app and the implications it can have for changing the way we reflect on physical things in our lives. In particular, we focus on how digital collection are presented and displayed in a realistic way as a way of providing more meaning and helping shape users’ identities. Demonstrating the importance of visual design choices, our results lead to considerations on how to most appropriately display physical objects in the virtual world, whilst avoiding the uncanniness some might experience when interacting with skeuomorphic collections

Presenting Physical Things Digitally: New Collecting Practices

The motivations for collecting and the idiosyncrasies of physical and digital collections have been long studied. However, how they are presented in the digital space is an unresolved challenge. To help better understand this problem from a design perspective, we built Thinga.Me. Thinga.Me is a system which allows users to capture photographs of physical objects and then cut them out, place them into digital collections, and share them. By segmenting the object from the background the interface creates the illusion of a physical item, giving a sense of carrying your stuff with you in your pocket. Following two years of development, iteration and feedback, we discuss uses of the app and the implications it can have for changing the way we reflect on physical things in our lives. In particular, we focus on how digital collection are presented and displayed in a realistic way as a way of providing more meaning and helping shape users’ identities. Demonstrating the importance of visual design choices, our results lead to considerations on how to most appropriately display physical objects in the virtual world, whilst avoiding the uncanniness some might experience when interacting with skeuomorphic collections

BUDGET PERSPECTIVES 2018, PAPER 1. SUPPORTING FAMILY INCOMES: GETTING THE BALANCE RIGHT

Policymakers in Ireland and internationally are faced with trade-offs in the design of income supports for families in and out of work. Policymakers have a strong interest in three key parameters: the level of income support for those without earnings, the rate at which such support is withdrawn through benefit reductions and/or taxes, and the aggregate cost to the Exchequer of income support. However, economic reality dictates that only two of the three parameters can be chosen by policy – the third is then automatically determined. In this paper, we first set out a framework in which these trade-offs can be understood, identifying two distinct forms of work incentive – the incentive to be in paid work, and the incentive to progress (i.e. the incentive to earn more). We then explore how, faced with these trade-offs, the choices made as regards the broad design of family income supports have varied across three countries (US, UK and Ireland) and over time. Finally, informed by this international experience, we consider a number of potential reforms to Ireland’s system of income support for working families. We suggest that the most fruitful direction for policy at present is to focus on the implementation of real-time reporting of payroll information. This will be of value both in diagnosing potential take-up problems related to the Family Income Supplement scheme, and in creating the infrastructure to support new and more efficient forms of in-work benefit

BUDGET PERSPECTIVES 2018, PAPER 2. INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN IRELAND: THROUGH RECESSION, TOWARDS RECOVERY. June 2017

This paper provides an overview of how Ireland’s income distribution evolved over the Great Recession and the early years of the recovery. Three distinct perspectives are used to give a rounded view. First, the standard approach in the literature on income distribution, focusing on ‘snapshots’ of the income distribution at the beginning and end of the recession. These results suggest that the Gini coefficient was increased slightly between 2008 and 2013, but fell back to the 2008 level by 2015. During the crisis (2008-2013) income fell by more than average at the bottom of the distribution and less than average for the top income deciles. Second, detailed investigation of how household incomes changed from year to year finds that the sharp falls for the bottom income decile during this period arose mainly from falls in income for those who were initially in a higher income decile but experienced substantial losses in income. Third we find that the automatic stabilisation impact of Ireland’s tax-transfer system at the start of the recession played a strong role in limiting the increase in inequality over the period. Discretionary policy changes in direct tax and welfare played a supporting role in this regard

Chromosome level reference genome for European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis L.)

International audienc

DISTRIBUTIONAL IMPACT OF TAX AND WELFARE POLICIES: BUDGET 2018. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, WINTER 2017.

This article examines the impact of the tax and welfare changes introduced in Budget 2018 on the distribution of income across households. The analysis uses SWITCH, the ESRI tax-benefit model, which is based on data gathered by the CSO for almost 8,000 households in its nationally representative Survey of Income and Living Conditions for 2013 and 2014, calibrated to represent the 2018 population. The impact of policy is measured against a distributionally neutral benchmark – a budget which would index the money value of tax credits and welfare payment rates in line with expected growth in wages of about 3.1 per cent. Key findings include the fact that the overall impact of policy was to reduce incomes somewhat below the levels which would have obtained if tax and welfare parameters were simply indexed in line with wage growth. The average loss across all households is close to 0.4 per cent. At low income levels, these reductions, relative to a wage-indexed policy, were in the region of 0.6 per cent; at high income levels, the reductions were in the region of 0.2 per cent. Analysis at family unit level reveals losses of close to 0.4 per cent, compared to a neutral benchmark, for most family types. Losses are slightly lower (less than 0.2 per cent) for single employees without children, and for double earner couples without children. Somewhat greater losses (0.6 per cent) are identified for retired couples, and a family type category which includes those who are outside the labour force – mainly in education, ill or disabled

Genetic improvement technologies to support the sustainable growth of UK aquaculture

While the UK is the fourth largest aquaculture producer in Europe by volume, it is the second largest by value with an annual first sale value of around £1 billion. Over 90% of this value is from Atlantic salmon farmed in Scotland, but other finfish and shellfish aquaculture species are important to several UK regions. In this review, we describe the state of the art in UK aquaculture breeding and stock supply, and how innovation in genetics technologies can help achieve the Scottish Government’s ambitious target of doubling its aquaculture industry by 2030. Particular attention is given to the four most important UK aquaculture species: Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, blue mussel and Pacific oyster, and we contrast the highly variable level of selective breeding and genomics technologies used in these sectors. A major factor in the success of Atlantic salmon farming has been large‐scale investment in modern breeding programmes, including family selection programmes and genomic selection. This has proven cost‐effective at scale, leading to improved production efficiency and reduction of some infectious diseases. We discuss the feasibility of applying similar technologies to the UK shellfish sectors, to ensure consistent and robust spat supply and begin trait selection. Furthermore, we discuss species‐specific application of modern breeding technologies in a global context, and the future potential of genomics and genome editing technologies to improve commercially desirable traits. Increased adoption of modern breeding technologies will assist UK aquaculture industries to meet the challenges for sustainable expansion, and remain competitive in a global market

X-48B Flight Research Progress Overview

Program Objectives; I. Assess stability & control characteristics of a BWB class vehicle in free-flight conditions: a) Assess dynamic interaction of control surfaces; b) Assess control requirements to accommodate asymmetric thrust; c) Assess stability and controllability about each axis at a range of flight conditions II. Assess flight control algorithms designed to provide desired flight characteristics: a) Assess control surface allocation and blending; b) Assess edge of envelope protection schemes; c) Assess takeoff and landing characteristics; d) Test experimental control laws and control design methods. III. Evaluate prediction and test methods for BWB class vehicles: a) Correlate flight measurements with ground-based predictions and measurements