Chronic Healthcare Spending Disease: A Macro Diagnosis and Prognosis

The amount Canadians spend on healthcare is set to rise rapidly over the next two decades and Canadians need to face up to tough choices to deal with this “spending disease.” The study examines the trajectory of total healthcare spending – public and private – in Canada and the policy choices Canadians must make in response. The authors estimate the extent to which healthcare spending is going to absorb a greater fraction of income than Canadians have experienced to date under two scenarios: a baseline scenario drawn from historical experience, and an optimistic scenario, which assumes an unprecedented improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system and large improvement in potential economic growth. Canadians must choose some combination of: 1) a sharp reduction in public services, other than health care; 2) increased taxes to finance the public share of healthcare spending; 3) increased individual spending on healthcare services currently insured by provinces, through some form of co-payment or through delisting of services that are currently publicly financed; 4) or a degradation of publicly insured healthcare standards – longer queues, and services of poorer quality.The Health Papers, healthcare spending, Canada

Alien Registration- Dion, Joseph A. (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/29685/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Dion, Beatrice A. (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/29676/thumbnail.jp

THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEX ABDOMINAL SPOT PATTERNS IN THREE DROSOPHILA SPECIES

Complex color patterns like the spots on leopards and butterfly wings beg the question – how did these traits evolve? To understand the evolution of novel morphologies, we need to study the differences in morphogenesis between closely related species. Here, I examine and compare the development of complex abdominal spot patterns among three species of Drosophila closely related in evolutionary time. Through in situ hybridization, I have characterized the expression patterns of three pigmentation genes among the fruit fly species. Additionally, I have built upon previous work in our lab regarding the regulation of pigmentation by beginning to develop an assay to examine interactions between DNA and protein during pupal development. These data have progressed our knowledge of animal pattern development and will facilitate further study of how novel morphologies emerge in nature

Relationship between fish size and otolith length for 63 species of fishes from the Eastern North Pacific Ocean

Otoliths commonly are used to determine the taxon, age, and size of fishes. This information is useful for population management, predator-prey studies, and archaeological research. The relationship between the length of a fish and the length of its otoliths remains unknown for many species of marine fishes in the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the relationships between fish length and fish weight, and between otolith length and fish length, were developed for 63 species of fishes caught in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. We also summarized similar relationships for 46 eastern North Pacific fish species reported in the literature. The relationship between fish length and otolith length was linear, and most of the variability was explained by a simple least-squares regression (r 2 > 0.700 for 45 of 63 species). The relationship between otolith length and fish length was not significantly different between left and right otoliths for all but one fish species. Images of otoliths from 77 taxa are included to assist in the identification of species. (PDF file contains 38 pages.

Optimal molecular alignment and orientation through rotational ladder climbing

We study the control by electromagnetic fields of molecular alignment and orientation, in a linear, rigid rotor model. With the help of a monotonically convergent algorithm, we find that the optimal field is in the microwave part of the spectrum and acts by resonantly exciting the rotation of the molecule progressively from the ground state, i.e., by rotational ladder climbing. This mechanism is present not only when maximizing orientation or alignment, but also when using prescribed target states that simultaneously optimize the efficiency of orientation/alignment and its duration. The extension of the optimization method to consider a finite rotational temperature is also presented.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure

A nonadiabatic semi-classical method for dynamics of atoms in optical lattices

We develop a semi-classical method to simulate the motion of atoms in a dissipative optical lattice. Our method treats the internal states of the atom quantum mechanically, including all nonadiabatic couplings, while position and momentum are treated as classical variables. We test our method in the one-dimensional case. Excellent agreement with fully quantum mechanical simulations is found. Our results are much more accurate than those of earlier semi-classical methods based on the adiabatic approximation.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to European Physical Journal

Influence of the lattice topography on a three-dimensional, controllable Brownian motor

We study the influence of the lattice topography and the coupling between motion in different directions, for a three-dimensional Brownian motor based on cold atoms in a double optical lattice. Due to controllable relative spatial phases between the lattices, our Brownian motor can induce drifts in arbitrary directions. Since the lattices couple the different directions, the relation between the phase shifts and the directionality of the induced drift is non trivial. Here is therefore this relation investigated experimentally by systematically varying the relative spatial phase in two dimensions, while monitoring the vertically induced drift and the temperature. A relative spatial phase range of 2pi x 2pi is covered. We show that a drift, controllable both in speed and direction, can be achieved, by varying the phase both parallel and perpendicular to the direction of the measured induced drift. The experimental results are qualitatively reproduced by numerical simulations of a simplified, classical model of the system