203 research outputs found
Critical composition of public values: On the enactment and disarticulation of what counts in health-care markets.
Markets and Public Values in Healthcare
Abstract:
Discussions on the role of markets in healthcare easily lead to political and unfruitful polarized positions.
Actors arguing in favour of markets as a solution for the quality/cost conundrum entrench themselves against others pointing out the risk of markets for the delivery and
governance of healthcare. These binary options of more or less marketization preclude a more empirical analysis of how markets, as multiple arrangements, are constructed and what their consequences are for public values like affordability and quality. To empirically explore the relation between markets and public values in healthcare, in this paper we analyze the
construction of a market for hospital care in the Netherlands, based on a system of diagnoserelated groups (DBCs), and the development of a market for long term care based on care-load packages (ZZPs). In these cases we address the intended result of care markets according to various policy actors, the visible and invisible work done by various actors to make markets work
and the values enacted in market practices. We show that where policy aims within these markets focus on providing choice and increasing diversity of care institutions, the instruments of DBCs and ZZPs rather produce isomorphism and homogenization. Furthermore, the strong influence of financial instruments in shaping healthcare markets assume that cost and quality
can both be strengthened while it in fact has a profound influence on how public values like quality get defined in practice. These translations between values pursued and outcomes produced indicate that conceptualizing the role of the state as defining public values that markets (have to) implement is problematic, as this removes crucial normative work in the shaping of our welfare states to the realm of the technical operationalization of markets. An alternative relation between state, market and society can be conceived once we accept that such values are shaped in practice and that the relationship between policy aims and policy consequences can never be fully captured through a logic of implementation. This then calls for an experimental role of the state: a state that sees market developments as experimental devices in which the aim is a good composition of public values. We propose this experimentation could for example focus on market developments that do not ascribe a privileged status to financial
devices and price-mechanism, such as a market for the DBC A-segment, in which prices are not freely negotiable. Such experiment
ECOLOGICAL COSTS AND BENEFITS CORRELATED WITH TRYPSIN PROTEASE INHIBITOR PRODUCTION IN NICOTIANA ATTENUATA
Broadband Meter-Wavelength Observations of Ionospheric Scintillation
Intensity scintillations of cosmic radio sources are used to study
astrophysical plasmas like the ionosphere, the solar wind, and the interstellar
medium. Normally these observations are relatively narrow band. With Low
Frequency Array (LOFAR) technology at the Kilpisj\"arvi Atmospheric Imaging
Receiver Array (KAIRA) station in northern Finland we have observed
scintillations over a 3 octave bandwidth. ``Parabolic arcs'', which were
discovered in interstellar scintillations of pulsars, can provide precise
estimates of the distance and velocity of the scattering plasma. Here we report
the first observations of such arcs in the ionosphere and the first broad-band
observations of arcs anywhere, raising hopes that study of the phenomenon may
similarly improve the analysis of ionospheric scintillations. These
observations were made of the strong natural radio source Cygnus-A and covered
the entire 30-250\,MHz band of KAIRA. Well-defined parabolic arcs were seen
early in the observations, before transit, and disappeared after transit
although scintillations continued to be obvious during the entire observation.
We show that this can be attributed to the structure of Cygnus-A. Initial
results from modeling these scintillation arcs are consistent with simultaneous
ionospheric soundings taken with other instruments, and indicate that
scattering is most likely to be associated more with the topside ionosphere
than the F-region peak altitude. Further modeling and possible extension to
interferometric observations, using international LOFAR stations, are
discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 17 figure
Skin Conductance Response to the Pain of Others Predicts Later Costly Helping
People show autonomic responses when they empathize with the suffering of another person. However, little is known about how these autonomic changes are related to prosocial behavior. We measured skin conductance responses (SCRs) and affect ratings in participants while either receiving painful stimulation themselves, or observing pain being inflicted on another person. In a later session, they could prevent the infliction of pain in the other by choosing to endure pain themselves. Our results show that the strength of empathy-related vicarious skin conductance responses predicts later costly helping. Moreover, the higher the match between SCR magnitudes during the observation of pain in others and SCR magnitude during self pain, the more likely a person is to engage in costly helping. We conclude that prosocial motivation is fostered by the strength of the vicarious autonomic response as well as its match with first-hand autonomic experience
Optimized Trigger for Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic-Ray and Neutrino Observations with the Low Frequency Radio Array
When an ultra-high energy neutrino or cosmic ray strikes the Lunar surface a
radio-frequency pulse is emitted. We plan to use the LOFAR radio telescope to
detect these pulses. In this work we propose an efficient trigger
implementation for LOFAR optimized for the observation of short radio pulses.Comment: Submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research
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Increased Terpenoid Accumulation in Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) Foliage is a General Wound Response
The subepidermal pigment glands of cotton accumulate a variety of terpenoid products, including monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, and terpenoid aldehydes that can act as feeding deterrents against a number of insect herbivore species. We compared the effect of herbivory by Spodoptera littoralis caterpillars, mechanical damage by a fabric pattern wheel, and the application of jasmonic acid on levels of the major representatives of the three structural classes of terpenoids in the leaf foliage of 4-week-old Gossypium hirsutum plants. Terpenoid levels increased successively from control to mechanical damage, herbivory, and jasmonic acid treatments, with E-β-ocimene and heliocide H1 and H4 showing the highest increases, up to 15-fold. Herbivory or mechanical damage to older leaves led to terpenoid increases in younger leaves. Leaf-by-leaf analysis of terpenes and gland density revealed that higher levels of terpenoids were achieved by two mechanisms: (1) increased filling of existing glands with terpenoids and (2) the production of additional glands, which were found to be dependent on damage intensity. As the relative response of individual terpenoids did not differ substantially among herbivore, mechanical damage, and jasmonic acid treatments, the induction of terpenoids in cotton foliage appears to represent a non-specific wound response mediated by jasmonic acid
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