Stretching the Safety Net to Serve Undocumented Immigrants: Community Responses to Health Needs

Examines the ability of communities to provide health care for both legal and undocumented immigrant patients. Looks at community diversity, political climate, and advocacy groups. Based on site visits to twelve nationally representative communities

Safety Net hospital Emergency Departments: Creating Safety Valves for Non-urgent Care

Outlines how safety-net hospitals are addressing the rise in emergency department visits for non-urgent care, such as re-directing patients to outpatient clinics or community health centers and adding primary care capacity. Discusses policy implications

A Regional and Industry Analysis of the Complexity of the Regulatory Environment Affecting Agricultural Producers in California

This paper provides results from a producers survey that enquired about the complexity of the regulatory environment in California. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between the complexity of the regulatory environment, agricultural industries in California, and different regions in California. This objective is achieved by taking information gathered from a producers survey and applying an ordered logit econometric model using complexity of the regulatory environment as the dependent variable. A secondary objective of this study is to develop a motivation why the complexity of the regulatory environment is important issue to consider. To achieve this goal, the perception of the complexity of the regulatory environment will be examined with potential management options that producers can take including increasing and decreasing their size of operation, leaving agricultural production, and moving out of the state.Agricultural and Food Policy,

An Estimation of the Regulatory Cost on California Agricultural Producers

This paper develops an estimation of the cost of regulations on California agricultural producers which can be used as a baseline for comparing regulatory environments. The estimated regulatory cost in relationship to operating costs for producers is between $2.19 billion to$2.21 billion. The range on percentage of income allocated to regulatory cost is between 5.24% and 9.19%.Environmental Economics and Policy,

The Interplanetary Network Supplement to the BeppoSAX Gamma-Ray Burst Catalogs

Between 1996 July and 2002 April, one or more spacecraft of the interplanetary network detected 787 cosmic gamma-ray bursts that were also detected by the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor and/or Wide-Field X-Ray Camera experiments aboard the BeppoSAX spacecraft. During this period, the network consisted of up to six spacecraft, and using triangulation, the localizations of 475 bursts were obtained. We present the localization data for these events.Comment: 89 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie

Public Health Workforce Shortages Imperil Nation's Health

Examines from a community-based perspective the scope of the shortages in the public health workforce; contributing factors such as inadequate funding, salaries, and benefits; and strategies for training, recruiting, and retaining public health workers

Gamma Ray Burst Host Galaxies Have `Normal' Luminosities

The galactic environment of Gamma Ray Bursts can provide good evidence about the nature of the progenitor system, with two old arguments implying that the burst host galaxies are significantly subluminous. New data and new analysis have now reversed this picture: (A) Even though the first two known host galaxies are indeed greatly subluminous, the next eight hosts have absolute magnitudes typical for a population of field galaxies. A detailed analysis of the 16 known hosts (ten with red shifts) shows them to be consistent with a Schechter luminosity function with $R^{*} = -21.8 \pm 1.0$ as expected for normal galaxies. (B) Bright bursts from the Interplanetary Network are typically 18 times brighter than the faint bursts with red shifts, however the bright bursts do not have galaxies inside their error boxes to limits deeper than expected based on the luminosities for the two samples being identical. A new solution to this dilemma is that a broad burst luminosity function along with a burst number density varying as the star formation rate will require the average luminosity of the bright sample ($>$$6 \times 10^{58} ph \cdot s^{-1}$ or $>$$1.7 \times 10^{52} \cdot erg \cdot s^{-1}$) to be much greater than the average luminosity of the faint sample ($\sim 10^{58} ph \cdot s^{-1}$ or $\sim 3 \times 10^{51} erg \cdot s^{-1}$). This places the bright bursts at distances for which host galaxies with a normal luminosity will not violate the observed limits. In conclusion, all current evidence points to GRB host galaxies being normal in luminosity.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, Submitted to ApJLet

Gendering NATO: Analysing the Construction and Implementation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's Gender Perspective

This thesis examines the way in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is engaging with and attempting to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), a topic largely absent from international relations literature. Specifically, it offers an interrogation and theorisation of the development and implementation of NATO’s ‘gender perspective’ from official documentation and from a series of elite interviews with individuals working within the international, military structures of the alliance. Drawing upon a composite methodology, framed by feminist theory, that centralises narrative and discourse, the thesis explores subjective understandings of gender and security. The research reveals that UNSCR 1325 and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, is (re)interpreted by NATO in very specific ways that both reflect and challenge pre-existing gendered norms and power hierarchies within the Alliance. The experiences of military personnel working for NATO show how these individuals locate themselves within - and negotiate - these gendered norms and structures to develop a relevant, palatable and ‘successful’ gender perspective. The findings of this thesis therefore expose complex and contradictory constructions of (militarised) femininities and masculinities within NATO and the tensions that emerge when an international military alliance actively engages with the topic of gender. In doing so this research makes a unique contribution to understandings of gender mainstreaming initiatives within international security organisations; in addition the research makes a novel contribution to the broader literature regarding feminist security studies, gender, war and militarism

Study for evaluation of incineration and microwave treatment of human fecal matter for spacecraft operation

Incineration and microwave treatment of human fecal matter to determine concentration ranges and identities of liquid, gaseous, and solid product