Is Improving Access to University Enough? Socio‐Economic Gaps in the Earnings of English Graduates

Much research and policy attention has been on socio‐economic gaps in participation at university, but less attention has been paid to socio‐economic gaps in graduates’ earnings. This paper addresses this shortfall using tax and student loan administrative data to investigate the variation in earnings of English graduates by socio‐economic background. We find that graduates from higher income families (with median income of around 77,000) have average earnings which are 20% higher than those from lower income families (with median income of around £26,000). Once we condition on institution and subject choices, this premium roughly halves, to around 10%. The premium grows with age and is larger for men, in particular for men at the most selective universities. We estimate the extent to which different institutions and subjects appear to deliver good earnings for relatively less well off students, highlighting the strong performance of medicine, economics, law, business, engineering, technology and computer science, as well as the prominent London‐based universities.     

Private protection and public policing

This paper looks at situations in which public and private protection are complementary, that is, when private protection must be coordinated with public protection to be effective. For example, home alarms deter theft by being connected to a local police station: if the police do not respond to a home alarm, the home alarm on its own is virtually useless in halting a crime in action. We make a distinction between gross and net complementarity and substitution, where the latter takes into account the effect on the crime rate. We show that when public and private protection are complements, the optimal provision of public protection trades off the manipulation effect of encouraging private protection with the compensatory effect of providing protection to households that do not privately invest. We discuss the implications of our results for policy and empirical research in this area.     

Genomics and proteomics: the next generation of health care

Biotechnology research will dramatically impact health care, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, in the coming decade. Health outcomes may be improved in a cost-effective manner through the ability to selectively prescribe medications; safer, more effective treatment may reduce long-term health care costs. As genetic testing becomes the standard of care, new challenges will surface around how genetic information will be used or misused, and how and where health care dollars are spent.     

Cost effectiveness of a medical vigilance system to reduce patient falls

Patient falls are a serious problem in hospitals, resulting in substantial morbidity, mortality, length of stay, and costs. The results of a small trial of a patient vigilance system in a post-neurosurgery unit of a large acute care hospital are reported. The system includes two components: (a) passive sensor array placed under the patient in a hospital bed, and (b) a bedside unit that connects to the nurse call system already in place at the hospital. This trial demonstrated the overall effectiveness of the vigilance system in reducing the rate of patient falls. The cost-effectiveness analysis found that use of this system was associated with somewhat higher measured costs. It is likely that the system was cost-saving, due to unmeasured costs.     

Change,Change or Be Exchanged: The Discourse of Participation and the Manufacture of Identity*

abstract Promoting participation is an accepted and expected component of managerial activity, reflecting current management ideology and practice. This paper explores how one particular group of supervisors, within the same UK manufacturing organization, experience and make sense of participation practices and the role of identity in that process. Our findings show that whilst supervisors may utilize the managerial discourse in formal settings they also draw upon three alternative responses. Thus contrary to much of the literature they do not represent a homogenous or univocal grouping. Our study highlights the importance of the competing bases of identity formation that supervisors draw from, and the complexity and contradiction inherent in both the managerial discourse and in supervisors' responses to it.     

Combustion hazards of silane and its chlorides

This paper addresses the unusual combustion hazards of silane and its chlorides, comprising the homologous chlorosilane series SiH_nCl_4-n. The literature on silane is briefly reviewed and new experimental data presented showing the effects of sudden releases into free air. New data are presented for ignition sensitivities and deflagration rates of chlorosilane mixtures with air. Specific hazardous reactions of this group of materials are described and contrasted with those of the analogous alkanes. Mechanisms for flame acceleration and transition to detonation are discussed.     

Thermal stability and deflagration of ethylene oxide

Some initiating causes of ethylene oxide decomposition are examined. Experimental data are presented for thermal decomposition limits, autoignition temperature and minimum ignition energy. It is shown that flame propagation through liquid filled lines may occur via decomposition of a vapor pocket. Insulation fires are discussed in terms of a series of exothermic reactions initiated by low tempertaure formation of polyethylene glycols. Some case histories are reviewed.