2,456 research outputs found
Juries and Justice: Are Malpractice and Other Personal Injuries Created Equal?
A study analyzed the civil jury system and the difference in personal injury awards between automobile and deep-pocket defendants, especially in medical malpractice cases. Six conclusions were reached, including the finding that juries sometimes respond emotionally and award some objectively similar cases higher damages than others
Quantum lithography by coherent control of classical light pulses
The smallest spot in optical lithography and microscopy is generally limited
by diffraction. Quantum lithography, which utilizes interference between groups
of N entangled photons, was recently proposed to beat the diffraction limit by
a factor N. Here we propose a simple method to obtain N photons interference
with classical pulses that excite a narrow multiphoton transition, thus
shifting the "quantum weight" from the electromagnetic field to the
lithographic material. We show how a practical complete lithographic scheme can
be developed and demonstrate the underlying principles experimentally by
two-photon interference in atomic Rubidium, to obtain focal spots that beat the
diffraction limit by a factor of 2.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Opt. Expres
Self-Consistent Field Theory of Brushes of Neutral Water-Soluble Polymers
The Self-Consistent Field theory of brushes of neutral water-soluble polymers
described by two-state models is formulated in terms of the effective Flory
interaction parameter that depends on both temperature, T
and the monomer volume fraction, . The concentration profiles,
distribution of free ends and compression force profiles are obtained in the
presence and in the absence of a vertical phase separation. A vertical phase
separation within the layer leads to a distinctive compression force profile
and a minimum in the plot of the moments of the concentration profile vs. the
grafting density. The analysis is applied explicitly to the Karalstrom model.
The relevance to brushes of Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)(PNIPAM) is discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical Physic
End-stage Renal Disease and Economic Incentives: The International Study of Health Care Organization and Financing
End-stage renal disease (ESRD), or kidney failure, is a debilitating, costly, and increasingly common medical condition. Little is known about how different financing approaches affect ESRD outcomes and delivery of care. This paper presents results from a comparative review of 12 countries with alternative models of incentives and benefits, collected under the International Study of Health Care Organization and Financing, a substudy within the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study. Variation in spending per ESRD patient is relatively small and is correlated with overall per capita health care spending. Between-country variations in spending are reduced using an input price parity index constructed for this study. Remaining differences in costs and outcomes do not seem strongly linked to differences in incentives embedded in national programs.
Parallel solution of high-order numerical schemes for solving incompressible flows
A new parallel numerical scheme for solving incompressible steady-state flows is presented. The algorithm uses a finite-difference approach to solving the Navier-Stokes equations. The algorithms are scalable and expandable. They may be used with only two processors or with as many processors as are available. The code is general and expandable. Any size grid may be used. Four processors of the NASA LeRC Hypercluster were used to solve for steady-state flow in a driven square cavity. The Hypercluster was configured in a distributed-memory, hypercube-like architecture. By using a 50-by-50 finite-difference solution grid, an efficiency of 74 percent (a speedup of 2.96) was obtained
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