The Influence of Medicare Home Health Payment Incentives: Does Payer Source Matter?

During the late 1990s, an interim payment system (IPS) was instituted to constrain Medicare home health care expenditures. Previous research has largely focused on the implications of the IPS for Medicare patients, but our study broadens the analysis to consider patients with other payer sources. Using the National Home and Hospice Care Survey, we found similar effects of the IPS across payer types. Specifically, the IPS was associated with a decrease in access to care for the sickest patients, less agency assistance with activities of daily living, and shorter length-of-use. However, these changes did not translate into worse discharge outcomes.Medicare, health, incentives

The absent-present researcher: data analysis of pre-recorded parent-driven campaign videos

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of sophisticated, user-friendly and accessible instruments of video data collection (e.g. mobile/cell phones and tablets) which facilitate video-based research and analysis. This paper reports on the opportunities and challenges of undertaking video analysis by reporting on the qualitative video analysis of a subset of 30 purposively selected videos from #notanurse_but, a parent-driven video campaign initiated by WellChild, a UK charity. This paper provides insight into one way of conducting video analysis, appreciating that a variety of approaches exist and that methodological reflections on analytical work with video recordings are limited. The authors critically consider researcher subjectivity; the everydayness of video data; making assumptions; and the incomplete picture provided by video data. Despite notable limitations to the approach of video analysis as a standalone method, the authors conclude that video analysis is capable of eliciting data that may not otherwise be obtained

Europe as a multilevel federation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Spectral statistics for unitary transfer matrices of binary graphs

Quantum graphs have recently been introduced as model systems to study the spectral statistics of linear wave problems with chaotic classical limits. It is proposed here to generalise this approach by considering arbitrary, directed graphs with unitary transfer matrices. An exponentially increasing contribution to the form factor is identified when performing a diagonal summation over periodic orbit degeneracy classes. A special class of graphs, so-called binary graphs, is studied in more detail. For these, the conditions for periodic orbit pairs to be correlated (including correlations due to the unitarity of the transfer matrix) can be given explicitly. Using combinatorial techniques it is possible to perform the summation over correlated periodic orbit pair contributions to the form factor for some low--dimensional cases. Gradual convergence towards random matrix results is observed when increasing the number of vertices of the binary graphs.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

COMPASS: a 2.6m telescope for CMBR polarization studies

COMPASS (COsmic Microwave Polarization at Small Scale) is an experiment devoted to measuring the polarization of the CMBR. Its design and characteristics are presented

The Journey to R4D: An institutional history of an Australian Initiative on Food Security in Africa

Internal Revie

Negative moments of characteristic polynomials of random GOE matrices and singularity-dominated strong fluctuations

We calculate the negative integer moments of the (regularized) characteristic polynomials of N x N random matrices taken from the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) in the limit as $N \to \infty$. The results agree nontrivially with a recent conjecture of Berry & Keating motivated by techniques developed in the theory of singularity-dominated strong fluctuations. This is the first example where nontrivial predictions obtained using these techniques have been proved.Comment: 13 page

Entanglement in Quantum Spin Chains, Symmetry Classes of Random Matrices, and Conformal Field Theory

We compute the entropy of entanglement between the first $N$ spins and the rest of the system in the ground states of a general class of quantum spin-chains. We show that under certain conditions the entropy can be expressed in terms of averages over ensembles of random matrices. These averages can be evaluated, allowing us to prove that at critical points the entropy grows like $\kappa\log_2 N + {\tilde \kappa}$ as $N\to\infty$, where $\kappa$ and ${\tilde \kappa}$ are determined explicitly. In an important class of systems, $\kappa$ is equal to one-third of the central charge of an associated Virasoro algebra. Our expression for $\kappa$ therefore provides an explicit formula for the central charge.Comment: 4 page

Applications and generalizations of Fisher-Hartwig asymptotics

Fisher-Hartwig asymptotics refers to the large $n$ form of a class of Toeplitz determinants with singular generating functions. This class of Toeplitz determinants occurs in the study of the spin-spin correlations for the two-dimensional Ising model, and the ground state density matrix of the impenetrable Bose gas, amongst other problems in mathematical physics. We give a new application of the original Fisher-Hartwig formula to the asymptotic decay of the Ising correlations above $T_c$, while the study of the Bose gas density matrix leads us to generalize the Fisher-Hartwig formula to the asymptotic form of random matrix averages over the classical groups and the Gaussian and Laguerre unitary matrix ensembles. Another viewpoint of our generalizations is that they extend to Hankel determinants the Fisher-Hartwig asymptotic form known for Toeplitz determinants.Comment: 25 page