Health Care Benefits for State Workers: What Drives the Differences?

In any given week glance through the nation\u27s leading newspapers and popular magazines and chances are you will find an article on the nation\u27s medically uninsured. In chiding a country that allows 16% of its citizens to suffer the risks associated with that lack of insurance, reference is frequently given to the exemplary coverage provided to federal government employees by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. What of the benefits provided to state government employees? How good is the coverage, and, of particular interest, are there significant variations across states and what factors might contribute to those differences? This study assesses the level of health care benefits afforded to state government employees in all fifty states and considers the potential impact of political ideology, political culture, economic conditions and public employee union membership in influencing variations in those benefits across the states. The state paid portion of a family’s health care premium was adjusted to allow for differences in health care costs across the states resulting in a range of the level of benefits from $318 per month in Mississippi to$1834 per month in New Hampshire. A state’s economic condition, the level of public union membership, and a moralistic political culture were all shown to have a positive association with the level of benefits. Political ideology, defined as the degree of liberalism, was, however, not shown to have a statistical association. Understanding health care benefit differences between states and the factors that drive those differences has the potential of improving lives and the functioning of state governments. Scant information on those differences exist in the current literature; this study has developed a baseline of information and an assessment of driving influences that will, hopefully, stimulate additional approaches and research efforts. Benefits, in general, have been shown in the literature to impact the ability of state governments to attract and maintain employees of merit. Advocates of increased benefits can utilize these study results to place their requests in a broader context

Digital Dilemma 2018: Digital Presentations in Biological Anthropology and Bioarchaeology

In academia, funding for conference attendance is limited, and both students and early-career researchers are therefore only able to attend a limited number of conferences. This means that, typically, researchers need to choose between attending multiple local and, at times, more affordable conferences, or one or two large, expensive, international conferences. Local and less expensive conferences may be research-specific but will have a smaller audience and lower networking potential. In biological anthropology and bioarchaeology, the majority of these larger annual conferences are held in North America and Western Europe where travel and accommodation costs can be very high for those outside of these regions. These costs, in addition to visa restrictions, reduce the diversity of participants at academic conferences, skewing attendance to students and researchers from the host countries. Not only does this disadvantage individuals outside of the typical host-countries, but it also limits the breadth of academic dialogue, with inclusion in academic conferences determined all too often by financial resources rather than academic value. This paper discusses the demographics and lack of diversity at some of these large conferences and the factors that are known to limit international conference travel. It then presents the benefits of digital presentation methods using Digital Dilemma 2018 as a case study for how digital presentation methods can be combined with physical presentations at minimal cost and time. We hope that this will encourage more conferences to offer a digital presentation option in the future

Teaching and assessing systems thinking in engineering

This paper presents research on undergraduate engineering students’ perceptions of their learning about systems thinking

An overview of 3D printing in forensic science: the tangible third-dimension

There has been a rapid development and utilization of three‐dimensional (3D) printing technologies in engineering, health care, and dentistry. Like many technologies in overlapping disciplines, these techniques have proved to be useful and hence incorporated into the forensic sciences. Therefore, this paper describes how the potential of using 3D printing is being recognized within the various sub‐disciplines of forensic science and suggests areas for future applications. For instance, the application can create a permanent record of an object or scene that can be used as demonstrative evidence, preserving the integrity of the actual object or scene. Likewise, 3D printing can help with the visualization of evidential spatial relationships within a scene and increase the understanding of complex terminology within a courtroom. However, while the application of 3D printing to forensic science is beneficial, currently there is limited research demonstrated in the literature and a lack of reporting skewing the visibility of the applications. Therefore, this article highlights the need to create good practice for 3D printing across the forensic science process, the need to develop accurate and admissible 3D printed models while exploring the techniques, accuracy and bias within the courtroom, and calls for the alignment of future research and agendas perhaps in the form of a specialist working group

Targeting autophagy: a novel anticancer strategy with therapeutic implications for imatinib resistance

Autophagy is an ancient, intracellular degradative system which plays important roles in regulating protein homeostasis and which is essential for survival when cells are faced with metabolic stress. Increasing evidence suggests that autophagy also functions as a tumor suppressor mechanism that harnesses the growth and/or survival of cells as they transition towards a rapidly dividing malignant state. However, the impact of autophagy on cancer progression and on the efficacy of cancer therapeutics is controversial. In particular, although the induction of autophagy has been reported after treatment with a number of therapeutic agents, including imatinib, this response has variously been suggested to either impair or contribute to the effects of anticancer agents. More recent studies support the notion that autophagy compromises the efficacy of anticancer agents, where agents such as chloroquine (CQ) that impair autophagy augment the anticancer activity of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors and alkylating agents. Inhibition of autophagy is a particularly attractive strategy for the treatment of imatinib-refractory chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) since a combination of CQ with the HDAC inhibitor suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) compromises the survival of even BCR-ABL-T315I+ imatinib-resistant CML. Additional studies are clearly needed to establish the clinical utility of autophagy inhibitors and to identify patients most likely to benefit from this novel therapeutic approach

Blow Hole Cave: An Unroofed Cave on San Salvador Island, the Bahamas, and its Importance for Detection of Paleokarst Caves on Fossil Carbonate Platforms

Prispevek obravnava podobnosti v razvoju krasa kvartarne karbonatne platforme na otoku San Salvador in devonske karbonatne platforme na platoju Krásná na Moravskem. Za obe območji so značilne jame, katerih nastanek lahko razložimo s "flank margin" modelom in so nastale v območju sladkovodnih leč med obdobji relativno visoke morske gladine, v času relativno stabilne halokline, kar potrjujejo različne študije jamskih zapolnitev. V obeh primerih so jamske sedimentne zapolnitve genetsko primerljive - obalni in eolski sedimenti ter breče.The comparative study of a Quaternary carbonate platform (San Salvador Island, the Bahamas) and a Devonian Carbonate Platform (Krásná Elevation, Moravia) indicates a great similarity in karst evolution. Caves on both sites are interpreted as flank margin caves associated with a freshwater lens and halocline stabilised during sea-level highstands. The sedimentary fill of both caves is genetically comparable - beach and aeolian sediments with bodies of breccias

The Ebola crisis and people with disabilities' access to healthcare and government services in Liberia

BACKGROUND: There has been little research on the impact of the 2014-2015 West African Ebola crisis on people with disabilities. This paper outlines the way in which the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in Liberia in 2015 highlighted existing inequalities and exclusion of people with disabilities and their households. METHODS: The results presented here are part of a larger ESRC/DFID-funded mixed methods research project in Liberia (2014-2017) which included a quantitative household survey undertaken in five counties, complemented by qualitative focus group discussions and interviews with people with disabilities and other key stakeholders. Uniquely, this research gathered information about people with disabilities' experience of the EVD outbreak, as well as additional socioeconomic and inclusion data, that compared their experience with non-disabled community members. RESULTS: Reflections by people with disabilities themselves show knowledge, preparation, and responses to the EVD epidemic was often markedly different among people with disabilities due to limited resources, lack of inclusion by many mainstream public health and medical interventions and pre-existing discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion. Interviews with other key stakeholder revealed a lack of awareness of disability issues or sufficient training to include this population systematically in both Ebola response activities and general health services. Key findings include the need to understand and mitigate direct and indirect health consequences of unequal responses to the epidemic, as well as the limited capacity of healthcare and social services to respond to people with disabilities. CONCLUSION: There are lessons to be learned from Ebola outbreak around inclusion of people with disabilities, relevant to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Now is the time to undertake measures to ensure that people with disabilities do not continue to be marginalised and excluded during global public health emergencies

Digital Dilemma 2018

In October 2018 a one-day conference was held at the UCL Institute of Archaeology focussing on the ‘Digital Dilemma’ in biological archaeology —specifically human remains research where the use of digitisation methods have increased exponentially over the last decade while comparatively little discussion of the ethical and legal considerations of these data has taken place. Papers presented at Digital Dilemma 2018 explored the use of digital data in human remains research, discussing both the benefits provided by these data, areas of ethical or methodological concern and suggestions for future research. This paper and the following conference proceedings will discuss this research demonstrating the importance that this Digital Dilemma in archaeology continues to be discussed and considered in future research

Geology of New Providence Island, Bahamas: A Field Trip Guide

See other Smith authored Field Trip Guides of Gerace Research Centre

Geology of Cat Island, Bahamas: A Field Trip Guide

See other Smith authored Field Trip Guides of Gerace Research Centre