A darn good hiding or the naughty step? : ideas on child discipline in New Zealand 1890-2008 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University

This thesis examines the history of child discipline in New Zealand since 1890, taking into account both trends in child-rearing advice and the common practices of ordinary parents. It explores the common stereotype that children "these days" are ill-disciplined in comparison with their earlier counterparts, and argues that while physical punishment is used less often than in the past, and usually in a milder form, it is still used more frequently and harshly than would be expected from the results of recent opinion polls. Child discipline has always been about setting a child up to live a happy life. As ideas on how to achieve this goal have changed, so too have the acceptable forms of punishment. During the 1890s-1920s, the difference between good discipline and abuse was simply a matter of frequency, and this idea was shared by both parenting advisors and the general public. Since the 1930s, however, parenting experts were frequently out of step with the parents they were trying to teach, and that their influence on parenting practice was at best delayed, and at worst entirely contradictory to that which they intended. Letters magazine and newspaper articles and contemporary studies on attitudes to discipline are used to show that parenting practice was often very different to that promoted by parenting advisors. Finally, this thesis concludes that a contextualist approach best suits the history of child-rearing advice in New Zealand, while an evolutionist approach is more appropriate in terms of common practice

Gauge Quintessence

We discuss a new model of quintessence in which the quintessence field is identified with the extra-component of a gauge field in a compactified five-dimensional theory. We show that the extremely tiny energy scale $\sim (3\times 10^{-3} eV)^4$ needed to account for the present acceleration of the Universe can be naturally explained in terms of high energy scales such as the scale of Grand Unification.Comment: 3 page

A method of improving contrast in illustrations of coalified fossils

A simple, economic method of enhancing the contrast and, therefore, improving the qual ity of certain palaeontological photographic illustrations is outlined. The technique, which involves the use of polarising filters, in no way alters the negatives or prints. In recommending this technique, it is hoped some of the confusion arising from inadequate illustrations will be removed.F.R.

Price Transmission, Market Power and Returns to Scale

In this paper, we aim to model the vertical relation between retailers and suppliers in the food industry whereby retailers exercise seller power in their relation with consumers and buyer power in their relation with producers. We then evaluate the degree of price transmission, relative to the perfectly competitive benchmark, from the farm to the retail sector assuming a supply shock. With the view to evaluating the impact of market power's interaction with industry technology on the degree of price transmission, we assume industry technology to be characterised by variable input proportions and non-constant returns to scale. Our model predicts that, relative to that which obtains when markets are perfectly competitive and industry technology is characterised by constant returns to scale, the degree of price transmission when market power and industry technology interact cannot be unambiguously determined.price transmission, returns to scale, market power, Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing, L11, Q13,

Buyer power in U.K. food retailing: a 'first-pass' test

Habtu Weldegebriel, University of Warwick Abstract The potential existence of buyer power in U.K. food retailing has attracted the scrutiny of the U.K.'s anti-trust authorities, culminating in the second of two comprehensive regulatory inquiries in recent years. Such inquiries are authoritative but correspondingly time-consuming and costly. Moreover, detection of buyer power has been dogged by the paucity of reliable evidence of its existence. In this paper, we present a simple theoretical model of oligopsony which delivers quasi-reduced form retailer-producer pricing equations with which the null of perfect competition can be tested using readily available market data. Using a cointegrated vector autoregression, we find empirical results that show the null of perfect competition can be rejected in seven of the nine food products investigated. Though not conclusive on the existence of buyer power, the proposed test offers a means via which the behaviour of the retail-producer price spread is consistent with it. At the very least, it can corroborate the concerns of the anti-trust authorities as to whether buyer power is potentially one source of concern

Time transfer between the Goddard Optical Research Facility and the U.S. Naval Observatory using 100 picosecond laser pulses

A horizontal two-way time comparison link in air between the University of Maryland laser ranging and time transfer equipment at the Goddard Optical Research Facility (GORF) 1.2 m telescope and the Time Services Division of the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) was established. Flat mirrors of 25 cm and 30 cm diameter respectively were placed on top of the Washington Cathedral and on a water tower at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Two optical corner reflectors at the USNO reflect the laser pulses back to the GORF. Light pulses of 100 ps duration and an energy of several hundred microjoules are sent at the rate of 10 pulses per second. The detection at the USNO is by means of an RCA C30902E avalanche photodiode and the timing is accomplished by an HP 5370A computing counter and an HP 1000 computer with respect to a 10 pps pulse train from the Master Clock