Data-Driven Reporting and Processing of Digital Archives with Brunnhilde

[Excerpt] Archivists are now several decades in to appraising, arranging, describing, preserving, and providing access to digital archives and have developed and adopted a number of tools to aid in specific tasks along the way. This article discusses Brunnhilde, a new tool developed to address one of the first steps in working with born-digital materials: characterizing the overall contents of directories or disks to enable smart evidence-based decision-making in the appraisal, arrangement, and description processes

Editorial: The St Mary’s Hospital, Isle of Wight, UK – Juba Teaching Hospital, Southern Sudan Link

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The Economic Crisis, Public Sector Pay, and the Income Distribution

An important aspect of the impact of the economic crisis is how pay in the public sector responds – in the face not only of the evolution of pay in the private sector, but also extreme pressure on public spending (of which pay is a very large proportion) as fiscal deficits soar. What are the effects on the income distribution of cutting public sector pay rates or alternative strategies to reduce the public sector pay bill, and how does these vary depending on the evolution of pay in the private sector? This paper investigates these issues using data and a tax-benefit simulation for Ireland, a country which faces a particularly severe fiscal crisis and where innovative measures have already been implemented to claw back pay from public sector workers in the guise of a "pensions levy", followed most recently by a significant cut in nominal pay rates. The SWITCH tax-benefit model first allows the distributional effects of these measures, which achieved a substantial reduction in the net public sector pay bill, to be teased out. The overall impact on the income distribution, set against alternative scenarios for pay in the private sector, is assessed. This provides empirical evidence relevant to policy choices in relation to a key aspect of household income over which governments have direct influence, while at the same time illustrating methodologically how a tax-benefit model can serve as the base for such investigation.public sector pay, income distribution, fiscal crisis

Inequality and the Crisis: The Distributional Impact of Tax Increases and Welfare and Public Sector Pay Cuts

The economic crisis impacts directly on the distribution of income via unemployment and private sector wages, but the way policy responds in seeking to control soaring fiscal deficits is also central to its distributional consequences. Having sketched out the background in terms of inequality trends during Ireland’s boom and the channels through which the recession affects different parts of the income distribution, this paper investigates the distributional impact of the government’s policy response with respect to direct tax, social welfare and public sector pay using the SWITCH tax-benefit model. This provides empirical evidence relevant to future policy choices as efforts to reduce the fiscal deficit continue.

Capillary properties of model pores

Liquid menisci in small pores exhibit a curved surface across which there is a significant pressure difference. The capillary properties of such surfaces are important in many areas of science and technology. Pores of uniform section can be broadly classified according to whether the perimeter is smooth (as in cylindrical tubes) or angular (as in triangular tubes). A meniscus that is entirely bounded by the pore walls has a curvature that is inversely proportional to the tubes' hydraulic radius. A meniscus in an angular tube, however, has liquid wedges in the corners and this reduces the effective area of the pore. In the past it has been difficult to calculate the curvatures, of this class of menisci. Some recent studies have shown that a relatively straightforward, but hitherto neglected, method originated by Mayer & Stowe (1965) and Princen (1969a) can be applied to analyse wedging menisci. However, the method has lacked a comprehensive experimental verification. This investigation follows on from the previously limited studies. A standardised method for the application of the analysis is described, the results from which are compared to observations made using modified experimental procedures. The behaviour of the capillary surfaces formed in several model pores are analysed with the method. The model systems studied are rectangular ducts, the pores formed by a rod in an angled corner, by two contacting rods and a plate and the space between a rod and a plate. For the latter two shapes the analysis is extended to include systems of mixed wettability which have a particular bearing on enhanced oil recovery operations. Experiments in which curvatures are inferred from observations of capillary rise, are performed using two comparative techniques. An involved procedure confurns predictions of meniscus curvature to within 0.3%. Use of a more straightforward, though less accurate, technique enables variations of curvature with tube shape or contact angle(s) to be conveniently studied. Results obtained are excellent and confmn the theory within the determined experimental errors. In addition the analysis has been extended to predict more complex meniscus behaviour. The tubular space formed by three rods and a plate gives rise to a whole family of meniscus shapes. With certain geometries a capillary surface regards the tube as a pore doublet where the behaviour in one neighbouring pore depends on that in the other. The capillary properties of this model system shed light on the behaviour of adjacent pores in a porous medium undergoing drainage (ordesorption). Experiments show excellent agreement with predictions of meniscus shapes, curvatures and, most interestingly, points of spontaneous transition from one meniscus shape to another. The system also has a potential future application because one panicular arrangement of rods produces a meniscus with a curvature virtually independent of the geometry. This makes it suitable for producing a standard meniscus of known curvature

THE GENDER IMPACT OF IRISH BUDGETARY POLICY. ESRI SURVEY AND STATISTICAL REPORT SERIES, October 2018

In this report, we make use of the analytical approach previously developed by the ESRI (Keane et al., 2014). We then provide an up-to-date picture of the overall gender impacts of budgetary policy from the start of the recession (2008) to 2018. This period is split into an austerity period, running from 2008 to 2012, and a recovery period, running from 2012 to 2018. This allows us to identify how the gender impact of Irish tax-benefit policy has evolved from austerity to recovery. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we embed this analytical capacity within SWITCH, the ESRI’s tax-benefit model. This ensures that, in future, gender impact assessment of budgets can be routinely undertaken by government departments3 and by ESRI researchers. This can be done both in the development of options prior to the budget, to help gender-proof policy reforms, and in the assessment of the impact of policies actually chosen in the budget. The project, therefore, not only helps to answer questions about the impact of past policy but will also serve to ensure that the need for gender impact assessment of tax and welfare policies – as identified, inter alia, in the Programme for Government (2016) – can be met more readily in future

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