Financial protection in health: updates for Mexico to 2014

Objetive. Document financial protection in health in Mexico up to 2014. Materials and methods. We update the measures of impoverishing and catastrophic health expenditure to 2014, to analyse shifts since the implementation of the System for Social Protection in Health and the Seguro Popular using time series data from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Results. Between 2004 and 2014 there has been a continued improvement in levels of financial protection. Excessive expenditure reached its lowest point: –2.0% in 2012 and 2.1% in 2014. Impoverishing expenditure dropped to 1.3% in 2004, compared to 0.5% in 2014, and catastrophic expenditures from 2.7% to 2.1%. Conclusions. The time series of data on financial protection show a clear pattern of improvement between 2000 and 2014 and level off and low levels in 2012 and 2014. Still, levels continue to be relatively high for households in the poorest quintile, in rural areas and with an elderly person

The ELFIN mission

The Electron Loss and Fields Investigation with a Spatio-Temporal Ambiguity-Resolving option (ELFIN-STAR, or heretoforth simply: ELFIN) mission comprises two identical 3-Unit (3U) CubeSats on a polar (∼93∘ inclination), nearly circular, low-Earth (∼450 km altitude) orbit. Launched on September 15, 2018, ELFIN is expected to have a >2.5 year lifetime. Its primary science objective is to resolve the mechanism of storm-time relativistic electron precipitation, for which electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves are a prime candidate. From its ionospheric vantage point, ELFIN uses its unique pitch-angle-resolving capability to determine whether measured relativistic electron pitch-angle and energy spectra within the loss cone bear the characteristic signatures of scattering by EMIC waves or whether such scattering may be due to other processes. Pairing identical ELFIN satellites with slowly-variable along-track separation allows disambiguation of spatial and temporal evolution of the precipitation over minutes-to-tens-of-minutes timescales, faster than the orbit period of a single low-altitude satellite (Torbit ∼ 90 min). Each satellite carries an energetic particle detector for electrons (EPDE) that measures 50 keV to 5 MeV electrons with Δ E/E 1 MeV. This broad energy range of precipitation indicates that multiple waves are providing scattering concurrently. Many observed events show significant backscattered fluxes, which in the past were hard to resolve by equatorial spacecraft or non-pitch-angle-resolving ionospheric missions. These observations suggest that the ionosphere plays a significant role in modifying magnetospheric electron fluxes and wave-particle interactions. Routine data captures starting in February 2020 and lasting for at least another year, approximately the remainder of the mission lifetime, are expected to provide a very rich dataset to address questions even beyond the primary mission science objective.Published versio

Spatial and temporal emissions variability from upstream and midstream sources in the Eagle Ford Oil and Gas production region

Production of natural gas, natural gas liquids and oil in the US has increased over the last 10 years. The increase is attributed to the development of two complementary technologies: directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing. However, the new energy development also expanded environmental impacts, including methane emissions, which drive radiative forcing of the atmosphere and global warming. Extensive measurements of methane emissions have been conducted over the past five years, and this work synthesizes this new information to create a comprehensive, spatially and temporally resolved inventory of methane and light hydrocarbon emissions from oil and gas production, using the Eagle Ford Shale production region as a case study. The inventory includes emissions of methane, ethane, propane, and butane from 12 emission sources (chemical injection pumps, compression systems, dehydrators, pneumatic controllers, liquid unloading, completion flow backs (pre-production), super-emitter sources, condensate flashing, water flashing, equipment leaks, processing plants, and compression stations). Total estimated methane emission are 64,002 kg/hr (95% CI: 58,380 kg/hr – 71,730 kg/hr), which constitute 1.2% of the methane produced in the region. The main contributors are flashing from condensate tanks, pneumatic controllers and mid-stream sources.Energy and Earth Resource

Análisis de calidad de artículos educativos con diseños experimentales

El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar la calidad estadística de artículos arbitrados (n = 34) con diseños experimentales y enlistar una serie de recomendaciones para incrementar su calidad. Los artículos fueron obtenidos de la Red Iberoamericana de Innovación y Conocimiento Científico (Redib) con los criterios de selección: a) haber llevado a cabo algún diseño experimental en investigación educativa y b) haber usado un análisis paramétrico. Bajo una metodología cuantitativa, exploratoria, estadística descriptiva e inferencial, se evaluó la calidad de los artículos bajo cuatro criterios: poder estadístico, susceptibilidad de réplica, acceso a bases de datos para constatar los resultados y estadísticas sugeridas por la Asociación Americana de Psicología (APA). En los resultados se encontró que la mayoría de los artículos no dieron suficiente información para apoyar sus conclusiones y el reporte de las estadísticas tuvo diferencias estadísticamente significativas y mostró un tamaño de efecto grande. Por lo tanto, se dictaminó una mala calidad. En conclusión, y para mejorar la calidad, se recomienda usar guías para los análisis estadísticos, la réplica de estudios y dar acceso a las bases de datos para que los demás autores puedan observar lo que se hizo

Validación de una escala de conocimiento sobre estudiantes con aptitudes sobresalientes de nivel medio superior

El objetivo del estudio fue mostrar el diseño y validación de una escala creada para valorar el conocimiento sobre las aptitudes sobresalientes de los estudiantes de nivel medio superior. La escala de conocimiento sobre estudiantes con aptitudes sobresalientes contenía tres dimensiones sobre los mitos relacionados con las características sociales, con la imposibilidad de fracaso y a su alto rendimiento en todo. Dicha escala se aplicó a una muestra no probabilística por cuotas a 50 agentes educativos de cuatro instituciones de educación media superior. El proceso de validación de la escala consistió en un análisis factorial exploratorio (AFE) y confirmatorio (AFC), así como la consistencia interna. Se obtuvo un alfa de Cronbach de .68. En el AFE con el método de máxima verosimilitud, con una rotación varimax, se obtuvo un KMO = .581, posteriormente se corroboró el modelo con un análisis factorial confirmatorio (AFC) procurando índices de bondad de ajuste óptimos. Por ello se concluye que llena los criterios mínimos para obtener puntajes válidos y confiables