COBRA Subsidies: A Compelling Narrative of Policy Impact on the Unemployed, Uninsured

This paper analyzes a 2009 U.S. policy which provided short term federal subsidies for COBRA health insurance premiums. COBRA allows the recently unemployed to continue purchasing health insurance through their employment-based insurance plan for a short time period after they become unemployed. Early analysis found low take-up rates for COBRA insurance due to the exceedingly high cost of full health insurance premiums, especially for those who have just lost a steady employment income. A short term 65 percent federal subsidy for COBRA insurance was implemented as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. Subsidy policy proposed to increase take-up rates of COBRA and to keep national insurance rates from dropping during a time of rising unemployment. This paper finds a 3.09 percentage point increase in insurance rates for the unemployed when subsidies became available in 2009. It also finds that the gains made in 2009 were lost by 2010, suggesting that subsidies may have provided temporary relief but did not represent a long-term solution for many of the unemployed. Demographic analysis within the unemployed population determines that educated, middle to upper income earning men saw the greatest increases in insurance rates during this time. My analysis affirms previous research finding that COBRA eligibility requirements do not allow the majority of the low income, uninsured to receive federal assistance for health insurance through this policy. I also provide a positive analysis for the impact of direct-purchasing federal subsidies on insurance rates

HVAC SYSTEM REMOTE MONITORING AND DIAGNOSIS

A monitoring system for an HVAC system of a building includes a monitoring server located remotely from the building. The monitoring server receives, from a device installed at the building, (i) time-domain current data based on a measured aggregate current supplied to a plurality of components of the HVAC system, and (ii) data based on frequency-domain current data of the measured aggregate current. Based on the received data, the monitoring server accesses (i) whether a failure has occurred in a first com ponent of the plurality of components and (ii) generates a preliminary advisory in response to determining that the failure has occurred. The monitoring server compares the preliminary advisory to a threshold value based on data stored from prior advisories. If the preliminary advisory is on a first side of the threshold value, the monitoring server provides the preliminary advisory as a first advisory to a technician for review

Kolmogorov Similarity Hypotheses for Scalar Fields: Sampling Intermittent Turbulent Mixing in the Ocean and Galaxy

Kolmogorov's three universal similarity hypotheses are extrapolated to describe scalar fields like temperature mixed by turbulence. By the analogous Kolmogorov third hypothesis for scalars, temperature dissipation rates chi averaged over lengths r > L_K should be lognormally distributed with intermittency factors I that increase with increasing turbulence energy length scales L_O as I_chi-r = m_T ln(L_O/r). Tests of Kolmogorovian velocity and scalar universal similarity hypotheses for very large ranges of turbulence length and time scales are provided by data from the ocean and the Galactic interstellar medium. The universal constant for turbulent mixing intermittency m_T is estimated from oceanic data to be 0.44+-0.01, which is remarkably close to estimates for Kolmogorov's turbulence intermittency constant m_u of 0.45+-0.05 from Galactic as well as atmospheric data. Extreme intermittency complicates the oceanic sampling problem, and may lead to quantitative and qualitative undersampling errors in estimates of mean oceanic dissipation rates and fluxes. Intermittency of turbulence and mixing in the interstellar medium may be a factor in the formation of stars.Comment: 23 pages original of Proc. Roy. Soc. article, 8 figures; in "Turbulence and Stochastic Processes: Kolmogorov's ideas 50 years on", London The Royal Society, 1991, J.C.R. Hunt, O.M. Phillips, D. Williams Eds., pages 1-240, vol. 434 (no. 1890) Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A, PDF fil

Analysis of Herpes Simplex Virus-Specific T Cells in the Murine Female Genital Tract Following Genital Infection with Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2

AbstractA murine model of genital infection with a thymidine kinase-deficient (tk-) strain of herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) was utilized to examine the development of the local T cell response in the genital mucosa and draining genital lymph nodes (gLN). HSV-specific cytokine-secreting T cells were detected in the gLN 4 days postintravaginal inoculation but not in the urogenital tract or spleen until 5 days postinoculation, suggesting the cellular immune response originates in the gLN. More CD4+ than CD8+ gLN T cells were detected by flow cytometric analysis following primary vaginal inoculation and the majority of HSV-specific gLN T cells detected by ELISPOT were CD4+ and Th1-like based on secretion of IFNγ and not IL-4 or IL-5. A similar population of HSV-specific memory T cells persisted in the genital tract 2 months following HSV-2 tk- genital inoculation. These data suggest that the urogenital cellular immune response elicited in mice following genital inoculation with HSV-2 tk- is predominantly CD4+ and Th1-like, resembling that observed in humans. The results of this study are important for the rational design of vaccines capable of inducing protective immunity in the genital tract

Spectral identification of minerals using imaging spectrometry data: Evaluating the effects of signal to noise and spectral resolution using the tricorder algorithm

The rapid development of sophisticated imaging spectrometers and resulting flood of imaging spectrometry data has prompted a rapid parallel development of spectral-information extraction technology. Even though these extraction techniques have evolved along different lines (band-shape fitting, endmember unmixing, near-infrared analysis, neural-network fitting, and expert systems to name a few), all are limited by the spectrometer's signal to noise (S/N) and spectral resolution in producing useful information. This study grew from a need to quantitatively determine what effects these parameters have on our ability to differentiate between mineral absorption features using a band-shape fitting algorithm. We chose to evaluate the AVIRIS, HYDICE, MIVIS, GERIS, VIMS, NIMS, and ASTER instruments because they collect data over wide S/N and spectral-resolution ranges. The study evaluates the performance of the Tricorder algorithm, in differentiating between mineral spectra in the 0.4-2.5 micrometer spectral region. The strength of the Tricorder algorithm is in its ability to produce an easily understood comparison of band shape that can concentrate on small relevant portions of the spectra, giving it an advantage over most unmixing schemes, and in that it need not spend large amounts of time reoptimizing each time a new mineral component is added to its reference library, as is the case with neural-network schemes. We believe the flexibility of the Tricorder algorithm is unparalleled among spectral-extraction techniques and that the results from this study, although dealing with minerals, will have direct applications to spectral identification in other disciplines

Early childhood educator training: The value of educating educators on movement, play and physical literacy development - A three country case study.

A child's early movement and active play experiences influence their attitudes towards physical activity throughout their childhood and into adulthood (Blair, 1992). Yet, it has been suggested that early childhood educators (ECEs) may not recognize the importance of, or give enough attention to, movement skills and physical development opportunities for young children (Clark, 2014; Whitehead, 2010). The education, or lack thereof, that ECEs receive could be an important factor. International comparisons of overall ECE preparation and training have demonstrated that some countries' ECEs are more highly educated than others (Howells and Sääkslahti, 2019). Using a case study approach, this paper conducts an analysis and comparison of three countries to examine the value and role of physical activity/movement education for ECEs to enable them to support physical literacy development in early childhood educational settings. In addition, lessons learned from creating such educational opportunities in the context of their various locations (Manitoba in Canada, Kent in England, and Escambia County, FL in U.S.A.) are discussed. A purposeful sample was used as these countries have relatively low levels of educational requirements for ECEs, yet children start attending early years’ education from the earliest life points (Howells & Sääkslahti, 2019)

Discovery of a Radio-loud/Radio-quiet Binary Quasar

We report the discovery of a small separation quasar pair (z=0.586, O=18.4, 19.2, sep. = 2.3 arcsec) associated with the radio source FIRST J164311.3+315618 (S_1400 = 120 mJy). The spectrum of the brighter quasar (A) has a much stronger narrow emission-line spectrum than the other (B), and also stronger Balmer lines relative to the continuum. The continuum ratio of the spectra is flat in the blue at about 2.1, but falls to 1.5 at longer wavelengths. A K' image shows two unresolved sources with a flux ratio of 1.3. The different colors appear to result from the contribution of the host galaxy of B, which is evident from Ca II and high-order Balmer absorption lines indicative of a substantial young stellar population. New 3.6 cm VLA observations show that the compact radio source is coincident with quasar A (B is only marginally detected). We rule out the lensing hypothesis because the optical flux ratio is A/B = 1.2 to 2, while the radio flux ratio is A/B > 40, and conclude that this system is a binary. Moreover, the radio-loud quasar is a compact steep spectrum source. FIRST J164311.3+315618A, B is the lowest redshift and smallest separation binary quasar yet identified.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Astrophysical Journal Letter