Challenges of Providing Health Coverage for Children and Parents in a Recession

Provides a 2009 update of states' eligibility rules, enrollment, and renewal procedures, and cost-sharing practices in Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program. Discusses trends in expanding coverage and the implications of budget cuts

Health Coverage for Children and Families in Medicaid and SCHIP: State Efforts Face New Hurdles

Surveys eligibility rules, enrollment and renewal procedures, and cost-sharing practices authorized in July 2006-January 2008 in Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Programs, as well as new hurdles to expanding coverage for low-income families

Determining Income Eligibility in Children's Health Coverage Programs: How States Use Disregards in Children's Medicaid and SCHIP

Outlines how and why states disregard or deduct certain earnings and expenses in determining eligibility for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program to help cover low-income working families. Summarizes a survey of state policies

A Foundation for Health Reform: Findings of a 50 State Survey 2009

Surveys state actions on Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Plans and analyzes advances and setbacks in expanding coverage for low-income children and parents as well as disparities between the two groups. Discusses legislative and economic factors

An Optimal Trade-off between Content Freshness and Refresh Cost

Caching is an effective mechanism for reducing bandwidth usage and alleviating server load. However, the use of caching entails a compromise between content freshness and refresh cost. An excessive refresh allows a high degree of content freshness at a greater cost of system resource. Conversely, a deficient refresh inhibits content freshness but saves the cost of resource usages. To address the freshness-cost problem, we formulate the refresh scheduling problem with a generic cost model and use this cost model to determine an optimal refresh frequency that gives the best tradeoff between refresh cost and content freshness. We prove the existence and uniqueness of an optimal refresh frequency under the assumptions that the arrival of content update is Poisson and the age-related cost monotonically increases with decreasing freshness. In addition, we provide an analytic comparison of system performance under fixed refresh scheduling and random refresh scheduling, showing that with the same average refresh frequency two refresh schedulings are mathematically equivalent in terms of the long-run average cost

Functional characterization of a glutamate/aspartate transporter from the mosquito Aedes aegypti

Glutamate elicits a variety of effects in insects, including inhibitory and excitatory signals at both neuromuscular junctions and brain. Insect glutamatergic neurotransmission has been studied in great depth especially from the standpoint of the receptor-mediated effects, but the molecular mechanisms involved in the termination of the numerous glutamatergic signals have only recently begun to receive attention. In vertebrates, glutamatergic signals are terminated by Na^+/K^+-dependent high-affinity excitatory amino acid transporters (EAAT), which have been cloned and characterized extensively. Cloning and characterization of a few insect homologues have followed, but functional information for these homologues is still limited. Here we report a study conducted on a cloned mosquito EAAT homologue isolated from the vector of the dengue virus, Aedes aegypti. The deduced amino acid sequence of the protein, AeaEAAT, exhibits 40–50% identity with mammalian EAATs, and 45–50% identity to other insect EAATs characterized thus far. It transports l-glutamate as well as l- and d-aspartate with high affinity in the micromolar range, and demonstrates a substrate-elicited anion conductance when heterologously expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes, as found with mammalian homologues. Analysis of the spatial distribution of the protein demonstrates high expression levels in the adult thorax, which is mostly observed in the thoracic ganglia. Together, the work presented here provides a thorough examination of the role played by glutamate transport in Ae. aegypti

Successful Endoscopic Closure of Pyeloduodenal Fistula Using an Over-the-Scope Clip.

A 62-year-old woman underwent a series of urologic procedures for nephrolithiasis and was diagnosed with a pyeloduodenal fistula (PDF) on computed tomography urography. After the placement of a metallic ureteral stent and nephrostomy tube, an esophagogastroduodenoscopy was performed to evaluate for PDF resolution. Two areas of mucosal defects within the anterior duodenal sweep were closed using the over-the-scope clip system and hemostasis clips. We review the literature and discuss the etiologies, presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of PDF. This is the second documented case of endoscopic PDF closure using the over-the-scope clip system and the third case of endoscopically treated PDF

Word Ways Challenges (Part 3)

For an introduction to this series of articles classifying and summarizing unsolved logological problems in Word Ways, see the February 1979 Word Ways

Word Ways Challenges (Part 2)

For an introduction to this series of articles classifying and summarizing unsolved logological problems in Word Ways, see the February 1979 issue

Detection of a z=0.0515, 0.0522 absorption system in the QSO S4 0248+430 due to an intervening galaxy

In some of the few cases where the line of sight to a Quasi-Stellar Object (QSO) passes near a galaxy, the galaxy redshift is almost identical to an absorption redshift in the spectrum of the QSO. Although these relatively low redshift QSO-galaxy pairs may not be typical of the majority of the narrow heavy-element QSO absorption systems, they provide a direct measure of column densities in the outer parts of galaxies and some limits on the relative abundances of the gas. Observations are presented here of the QSO S4 0248+430 and a nearby anonymous galaxy (Kuhr 1977). The 14 second separation of the line of sight to the QSO (z sub e = 1.316) and the z=0.052 spiral galaxy, (a projected separation of 20 kpc ((h sub o = 50, q sub o = 0)), makes this a particularly suitable pair for probing the extent and content of gas in the galaxy. Low resolution (6A full width half maximum), long slit charge coupled device (CCD) spectra show strong CA II H and K lines in absorption at the redshift of the galaxy (Junkkarinen 1987). Higher resolution spectra showing both Ca II H and K and Na I D1 and D2 in absorption and direct images are reported here