The Obamacare Opportunity: Implementing the Affordable Care Act to Improve Health, Reduce Hardship, and Grow the Economy for All Californians

This report describes how California can take advantage of ACA implementation to increase access both to health coverage and to vital safety net and work support programs.In Section I, we describe California's public benefit take up problem. We identify the take up rates of the key safety net and work support programs, barriers to greater participation, and the benefits of increasing participation in such programs.In Section II, we describe how ACA implementation can increase take up rates for health insurance and public benefit programs. States can expand integration infrastructure and operations across a broad range of programs and the federal government will pay most of the costs.In Section III, we set forth various policy options for integrating California's Marketplace with public benefit programs. We describe California's existing integration efforts and present ACA and non-ACA best practices from other states regarding take up strategies.In Section IV, we make recommendations focused on a single goal -- increasing the take up rate of safety net and work support programs to improve health, reduce hardship, and grow the economy for all Californians

Internal Supply-chain Competition In Remanufacturing: Operations Strategies, Performance And Environmental Effects

This paper investigates the competitive and environmental effects of different operations strategies of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and semi-independent remanufacturers, which simultaneously cooperate and compete in different stages of a closed-loop supply chain. In particular, a co-opetitive situation, in which remanufacturing is undertaken only by retailers while the OEMs' role is restricted to recycling is considered. After adopting a resource-based perspective of competition, investigations are accomplished using system dynamics simulation modelling. The results of simulations indicate that, in the long run, OEMs, regardless of the operation strategy they adopt, are unable to (re)capture the market gained by the remanufacturers. However, some of these strategies contribute to the improvement of the environmental performance of the entire supply chain

A retroductive systems-based methodology for socio-technical transitions research

Socio-technical system transitions research describes and categorizes transitions and explains and identifies their driving causes. In the literature, transition research frameworks have received some critique on whether they can facilitate the search for transition causes. As a response, and in order to cater for the complexity and contextuality of multi system transitions, this paper proposes a retroductive systems-based methodology. The methodology relies on qualitative case study development and quantitative simulation modelling. Retroduction along with modelling and simulation can contribute to the shift from researching single system/technology transitions to multi system/technology transitions. Thus the paper offers a step towards coping methodologically with sustainability transitions that often concern multi system interactions. We demonstrate the use of the methodology by adopting the Multi-Level Perspective on transitions to explain the emergence of the functional foods as a niche in the food/nutrition socio-technical system

System interactions in socio-technical transitions: Extending the multi-level perspective

This paper discusses contextual issues in sociotechnical systems and transitions under the Multi Level Perspective (MLP). It emphasises inter system interactions, for which a typology is developed drawing on a review and meta level analysis of published transition case studies. The typology is subsequently associated to the MLP transitions pathways. A novel transition pathway, is derived through this process, namely new system emergence, for systems that emerge from contributions of existing antecedent sociotechnical systems

A Model for Integration and Interlinking of Idea Management Systems

This paper introduces the use of Semantic Web technologies for the Idea Management Systems as a gap closer between heterogeneous software and achieving interoperability. We present a model that proposes how and what kind of rich metadata annotations to apply in the domain of Idea Management Systems. In addition, as a part of our model, we present a Generic Idea and Innovation Management Ontology (GI2MO). The described model is backed by a set of use cases followed by evaluations that prove how Semantic Web can work as tool to create new opportunities and leverage the contemporary Idea Management legacy systems into the next level

Splitting of the Dipole and Spin-Dipole Resonances

Cross sections for the 90,92,94Zr(p,n) reactions were measured at energies of 79.2 and 119.4 MeV. A phenomenological model was developed to describe the variation with bombarding energy of the position of the L=1 peak observed in these and other (p,n) reactions. The model yields the splitting between the giant dipole and giant spin dipole resonances. Values of these splittings are obtained for isotopes of Zr and Sn and for 208Pb.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Realistic shell-model calculations for proton particle-neutron hole nuclei around 132Sn

We have performed shell-model calculations for nuclei with proton particles and neutron holes around 132Sn using a realistic effective interaction derived from the CD-Bonn nucleon-nucleon potential. For the proton-neutron channel this is explicitly done in the particle-hole formalism. The calculated results are compared with the available experimental data, particular attention being focused on the proton particle-neutron hole multiplets. A very good agreement is obtained for all the four nuclei considered, 132Sb, 130Sb, 133Te and 131Sb. We predict many low-energy states which have no experimental counterpart. This may stimulate, and be helpful to, future experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, to be published on Physical Review

A Time of Flight on-Robot Proximity Sensing System for Collaborative Robotics

The sensor system presented in this work demonstrates the results of designing an industrial grade exteroceptive sensing device for proximity sensing for collaborative robots. The intention of this design\u27s application is to develop an on-robot small footprint proximity sensing device to prevent safety protected stops from halting a robot during a manufacturing process. Additionally, this system was design to be modular and fit on an size or shape robotic link expanding the sensor system\u27s use cases vastly. The design was assembled and put through a number of benchmark tests to validate the performance of the time of flight (ToF) sensor system when used in proximity sensing: Single Sensor Characterization, Sensor Overlap Characterization, and Sensor Ranging Under Motion. Through these tests, the ToF sensor ring achieves real time data throughput while minimizing blind spots. Lastly, the sensor system was tested at a maximum throughput load of 32 ToF sensors and maintained a stable throughput of data from all sensors in real time