12 research outputs found
Life After Roe: Supporting Women and Families Facing Unexpected Pregnancies
Key PointsIn the post–Roe v. Wade world, state governments will revise laws and regulations about abortion access. All states, whether their elected officials favor abortion access or decide to restrict access to the procedure, should review laws and programs affecting women facing unexpected pregnancy.For many women, unexpected pregnancy is accompanied by financial hardship, health issues, substance use disorders, housing needs, and other challenges. To help these women, states should review benefit and service strategies to help ensure women have the support they need for healthy pregnancies and babies, whether they live in states that allow abortion or ones that seek to restrict it.The federal government can help by implementing a balanced, pro-family tax credit; increasing appropriations for existing maternal and child health safety-net programs; and creating a new maternity choice voucher program to provide immediate, supplemental support to women facing unexpected pregnancies
Antineutrino Detectors Remain Impractical for Nuclear Explosion Monitoring
Fission explosions produce large numbers of antineutrinos. It is occasionally
asked whether this distinctive, unshieldable emission could help reveal
clandestine nuclear weapon explosions. The practical challenge encountered is
that detectors large enough for this application are cost prohibitive, likely
on the multi-billion-dollar scale. In this paper, we review several
hypothetical use cases for antineutrino detectors as supplements to the
seismic, infrasound, hydroacoustic, and airborne radionuclide sensors of the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization's International Monitoring
System. In each case, if an anti-neutrino detector could be constructed that
would compete with existing capabilities, we conclude that the cost would
considerably outstrip the value it might add to the existing monitoring
network, compared to the significantly lower costs for the same or superior
capability.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure
Current status and grand challenges for small wind turbine technology
While modern wind turbines have become by far the largest rotating machines on Earth with further upscaling planned for the future, a renewed interest in small wind turbines (SWTs) is fostering energy transition and smart grid development. Small machines have traditionally not received the same level of aerodynamic refinement as their larger counterparts, resulting in lower efficiency, lower capacity factors, and therefore a higher cost of energy. In an effort to reduce this gap, research programs are developing worldwide. With this background, the scope of the present study is 2-fold. In the first part of this paper, an overview of the current status of the technology is presented in terms of technical maturity, diffusion, and cost. The second part of the study proposes five grand challenges that are thought to be key to fostering the development of small wind turbine technology in the near future, i.e. (1) improving energy conversion of modern SWTs through better design and control, especially in the case of turbulent wind; (2) better predicting long-term turbine performance with limited resource measurements and proving reliability; (3) improving the economic viability of small wind energy; (4) facilitating the contribution of SWTs to the energy demand and electrical system integration; (5) fostering engagement, social acceptance, and deployment for global distributed wind markets. To tackle these challenges, a series of unknowns and gaps are first identified and discussed. Based on them, improvement areas are suggested, for which 10 key enabling actions are finally proposed
Impact of ionizing radiation on superconducting qubit coherence
The practical viability of any qubit technology stands on long coherence
times and high-fidelity operations, with the superconducting qubit modality
being a leading example. However, superconducting qubit coherence is impacted
by broken Cooper pairs, referred to as quasiparticles, with a density that is
empirically observed to be orders of magnitude greater than the value predicted
for thermal equilibrium by the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of
superconductivity. Previous work has shown that infrared photons significantly
increase the quasiparticle density, yet even in the best isolated systems, it
still remains higher than expected, suggesting that another generation
mechanism exists. In this Letter, we provide evidence that ionizing radiation
from environmental radioactive materials and cosmic rays contributes to this
observed difference, leading to an elevated quasiparticle density that would
ultimately limit superconducting qubits of the type measured here to coherence
times in the millisecond regime. We further demonstrate that introducing
radiation shielding reduces the flux of ionizing radiation and positively
correlates with increased coherence time. Albeit a small effect for today's
qubits, reducing or otherwise mitigating the impact of ionizing radiation will
be critical for realizing fault-tolerant superconducting quantum computers.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure
Current status and grand challenges for small wind turbine technology
While modern wind turbines have become by far the largest rotating machines on Earth with further upscaling planned for the future, a renewed interest in small wind turbines (SWTs) is fostering energy transition and smart grid development. Small machines have traditionally not received the same level of aerodynamic refinement as their larger counterparts, resulting in lower efficiency, lower capacity factors, and therefore a higher cost of energy. In an effort to reduce this gap, research programs are developing worldwide. With this background, the scope of the present study is 2-fold. In the first part of this paper, an overview of the current status of the technology is presented in terms of technical maturity, diffusion, and cost. The second part of the study proposes five grand challenges that are thought to be key to fostering the development of small wind turbine technology in the near future, i.e. (1) improving energy conversion of modern SWTs through better design and control, especially in the case of turbulent wind; (2) better predicting long-term turbine performance with limited resource measurements and proving reliability; (3) improving the economic viability of small wind energy; (4) facilitating the contribution of SWTs to the energy demand and electrical system integration; (5) fostering engagement, social acceptance, and deployment for global distributed wind markets. To tackle these challenges, a series of unknowns and gaps are first identified and discussed. Based on them, improvement areas are suggested, for which 10 key enabling actions are finally proposed
Participation in universal prevention programmes
We analyze family decisions to participate in community-based universal substance-abuse prevention programs through the framework of expected utility theory. Family functioning, which has been shown to be a good indicator of child risk for substance abuse, provides a useful reference point for family decision making. Our results show that well-functioning families (with children at low risk for substance use) should have the lowest incentive to participate, but that high-risk families may also opt out of prevention programs. For programs that are most effective for high-risk youth, this could be a problem. Using data from the Strengthening Families Program and the Washington Healthy Youth Survey, we empirically test the implications of our model and find that at least for one measure of family functioning those families with children most likely to be at risk for substance use are opting out of the program