Medicaid's Role in the Health Benefits Exchange: A Road Map for States

Examines issues for integrating Medicaid into the administration, operation, and coverage continuum of insurance exchanges. Discusses eligibility, enrollment, and outreach; contracting, standards, and requirements; benefits design; and infrastructure

CDM: Current status and possibilities for reform

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has seen a spectacular rise of activity since mid-2005 that has led to more than 400 project submissions with a combined estimated emission reduction volume of 570 million t CO2 eq. until the end of the commitment period. Several technologies have been mobilised in a large scale that had not been predicted to play any significant role. However, many observers continue to criticize the CDM Executive Board's handling of the project cycle and the lack of development benefits of CDM projects. Therefore, calls for CDM reform have gained strength. An analysis of the CDM project portfolio shows that Least Developed Countries and Africa have so far been sidelined. However, more small-scale projects have been submitted than expected from theoretical analyses of project cycle transaction cost, maybe due to high CER price expectations and a high share of unilateral projects. While developing country companies have been able to capture almost half of the CDM consultancy market, they have not made an inroad into validation and verification. The concentration of host countries has increased. Development benefits of CDM projects are often limited, especially of the large projects destroying industrial gases. The rejection rate of proposed methodologies remains stubbornly high but consolidation of methodologies simplifies document submissions. The time lag from submission of project documentation to registration has recently been falling. Additionality testing is a key element that also supports the development target of the CDM. --CDM,sustainable development,baselines,additionality,reform

Open-access mega-journals: The publisher perspective (Part 1: motivations)

This paper is the first of two Learned Publishing articles in which we report the results of a series of interviews with senior publishers and editors exploring open access megajournals (OAMJs). Megajournals (of which PLoS One is the best known example) represent a relatively new approach to scholarly communication and can be characterized as large, broadscope, open access journals that take an innovative approach to peer review, basing acceptance decisions solely on the technical or scientific soundness of the article. This model is often said to support the broader goals of the open science movement. Based on in-depth interviews with 31 publishers and editors representing 16 different organizations (10 of which publish a megajournal), this paper reports how the term ‘megajournal’ is understood and publishers’ rationale and motivations for launching (or not launching) an OAMJ. We find that while there is general agreement on the common characteristics of megajournals, there is not yet a consensus on their relative importance. We also find seven motivating factors that were said to drive the launch of an OAMJ and link each of these factors to potential societal and business benefits. These results suggest that the often polarized debate surrounding OAMJs is a consequence of the extent to which observers perceive publishers to be motivated by these societal or business benefits

Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals: Synthesis of Consultations

The Partnerships for SDGs online platform was launched as a beta/draft version in the lead-up to the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit for the adoptation of the post-2015 development agenda. The platform, managed by the Division for Sustainable Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DSD/DESA) and initially developed in response to a mandate set out by the Rio+20 Conference (paragraph 283, Future We Want), is currently being improved to better respond to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in order to function as a tool to inform all stakeholders on initiatives carried out by multi-stakeholder partnerships in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and for linking progress of those initiatives to various follow-up mechanisms of the 2030 Agenda, in particular to the High-level Politician Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF)

Open access megajournals: The publisher perspective (Part 1: Motivations)

This paper is the first of two Learned Publishing articles in which we report the results of a series of interviews with senior publishers and editors exploring open access megajournals (OAMJs). Megajournals (of which PLoS One is the best known example) represent a relatively new approach to scholarly communication and can be characterized as large, broad-scope, open access journals that take an innovative approach to peer review, basing acceptance decisions solely on the technical or scientific soundness of the article. This model is often said to support the broader goals of the open science movement. Based on in-depth interviews with 31 publishers and editors representing 16 different organizations (10 of which publish a megajournal), this paper reports how the term ‘megajournal’ is understood and publishers’ rationale and motivations for launching (or not launching) an OAMJ. We find that while there is general agreement on the common characteristics of megajournals, there is not yet a consensus on their relative importance. We also find seven motivating factors that were said to drive the launch of an OAMJ and link each of these factors to potential societal and business benefits. These results suggest that the often polarized debate surrounding OAMJs is a consequence of the extent to which observers perceive publishers to be motivated by these societal or business benefits

From GHGs Abatement Potential To Viable CDM Projects - The Cases of Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam

This study evaluates the CDM potential in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam by focusing not only on the absolute GHG abatement value of these countries. Rather, the potential of CDM inflows into the three countries will be identified through assessing the comparative CDM endowment on the basis of an holistic analysis of each country, thereby highlight the relative positions of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam in the global CDM market. The three main factors determining the competitiveness of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in the global CDM market will be examined, namely "Potential supply size - countries' facts", "Country business climate" and "Country CDM institutions and CDM project experience". The study shows the overall competitiveness level of each studied country as well as discusses which activities a country shall take to maximise the opportunities to convert theoretical mitigation options into real CDM investments. In Vietnam, for instance, the highest challenge now is to make CDM ideas economically feasible. This study shows that it is questionable that a boom of CDM investment inflows into Vietnam or - in more quantitative word - a dozen of CDM projects will be registered before 2012. In Cambodia, the probability to get a couple of CDM projects running in the first commitment period is not high although the country is quite ahead in establishing their CDM institutions in comparison with other LDCs. One of the solutions to get through the narrow window is to gain attention from multilateral carbon funds, like the Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) and Bio Carbon Fund (BioCF). In the case of Lao PDR, this study demonstrates that the entry into the CDM is likely to be extremely high competitive for them given their poor CDM endowment and the "lag behind" activities of the government in constituting its own CDM structure. Thus, Laos needs to make a greater effort to develop its capacity to provide a basic sufficient framework to make the country as of one CDM-LDC destination in the international donors' eyes.Environmental Economics and Policy,

E-Health Snapshot: Harnessing Technology to Improve Medicaid and SCHIP Enrollment and Retention Practices

Reviews promising practices in current healthcare technology and provides concrete ideas for leaders at the state and federal levels and in the philanthropic and corporate communities who want to use technology tools effectively

IMPROVED METHODOLOGY FOR THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF UNIVERSITY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Since the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, US universities have been given a tacit mandate to manage their intellectual assets in a commercializable way. However, university technology transfer offices have struggled to facilitate innovators and promote economic development because of asymmetric information and processes. After an analysis of premier university technology transfer offices (TTO), an improved methodology, which increases productivity of technology transfer, has been developed. The proposed methodology addresses many of the low level issues facing the commercialization and licensing process. Embedding TTO members with research institutes or colleges, assisting in funding procurement and marketing of research to external firms using innovative media are methods that can minimize technology transfer inefficiency. It is the conclusion of this thesis that improved technology transfer helps promote the overall mission of a university, which is diffusing knowledge for the public benefit