Assessing the Financial Health of Medicaid Managed Care Plans and the Quality of Patient Care They Provide

Examines the administrative and medical expenses, quality of care, and financial stability of publicly traded health plans contracted to manage the care of Medicaid beneficiaries by plan characteristics and compared with non-publicly traded plans

Electron loss rates from the outer radiation belt caused by the filling of the outer plasmasphere: The calm before the storm

Measurements from seven spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit are analyzed to determine the decay rate of the number density of the outer electron radiation belt prior to the onset of high-speed-stream-driven geomagnetic storms. Superposed-data analysis is used with a collection of 124 storms. When there is a calm before the storm, the electron number density decays exponentially before the storm with a 3.4-day e-folding time: beginning about 4 days before storm onset, the density decreases from ∼4 × 10−4 cm−3 to ∼1 × 10−4 cm−3. When there is not a calm before the storm, the number density decay is very small. The decay in the number density of radiation belt electrons is believed to be caused by pitch angle scattering of electrons into the atmospheric loss cone as the outer plasmasphere fills during the calms. This is confirmed by separately measuring the density decay rate for times when the outer plasmasphere is present or absent. While the radiation belt electron density decreases, the temperature of the electron radiation belt holds approximately constant, indicating that the electron precipitation occurs equally at all energies. Along with the number density decay, the pressure of the outer electron radiation belt decays, and the specific entropy increases. From the measured decay rates, the electron flux to the atmosphere is calculated, and that flux is 3 orders of magnitude less than thermal fluxes in the magnetosphere, indicating that the radiation belt pitch angle scattering is 3 orders weaker than strong diffusion. Energy fluxes into the atmosphere are calculated and found to be insufficient to produce visible airglow

Management factors affecting the use of pasture by table chickens in extensive production systems

Whether chickens will make proper use of pasture is a problem experienced by producers of free-range and organic chickens. The aims of this project are to identify husbandry techniques and aspects of system design that encourage good pasture use. Two studies have been conducted comprising a winter and a summer flock. The aim of the winter flock was to examine the effect of outdoor artificial shelter on pasture usage. This was done for female Ross 308 birds grown to day 56, and ISA 657 birds grown to day 81. In summer, ISA 657 birds were grown to day 81. Treatments were either standard or enriched brooding, with pasture only or enriched pasture. Standard brooding was in a controlled environment house until day 42. Enriched brooding was in naturally ventilated houses in which birds had sight of pasture from an early age and access from day 21. Enriched pasture included artificial shelter, with straw bales and a conifer “wigwam” used to provide natural shelter. Chickens may be encouraged to go outdoors by brooding in a less “controlled” environment than that used for intensive broilers, and by allowing access to pasture when young. However, mortality was higher. Conifer wigwams may offer a means for more even use of pasture and better distribution of droppings

One-body reduced density-matrix functional theory in finite basis sets at elevated temperatures

In this review we provide a rigorous and self-contained presentation of one-body reduced density-matrix (1RDM) functional theory. We do so for the case of a finite basis set, where density-functional theory (DFT) implicitly becomes a 1RDM functional theory. To avoid non-uniqueness issues we consider the case of fermionic and bosonic systems at elevated temperature and variable particle number, i.e, a grand-canonical ensemble. For the fermionic case the Fock space is finite-dimensional due to the Pauli principle and we can provide a rigorous 1RDM functional theory relatively straightforwardly. For the bosonic case, where arbitrarily many particles can occupy a single state, the Fock space is infinite-dimensional and mathematical subtleties (not every hermitian Hamiltonian is self-adjoint, expectation values can become infinite, and not every self-adjoint Hamiltonian has a Gibbs state) make it necessary to impose restrictions on the allowed Hamiltonians and external non-local potentials. For simple conditions on the interaction of the bosons a rigorous 1RDM functional theory can be established, where we exploit the fact that due to the finite one-particle space all 1RDMs are finite-dimensional. We also discuss the problems arising from 1RDM functional theory as well as DFT formulated for an infinite-dimensional one-particle space.Comment: 55 pages, 7 figure

George M. Leader, 1918-2013

George M. Leader (1918-2013), a native of York, Pennsylvania, rose from the anonymous status of chicken farmer\u27s son and Gettysburg College undergraduate to become, first a State Senator, and then the 36th governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A steadfast liberal in a traditionally conservative state, Leader spent his brief time in the governor\u27s office (1955-1959) fighting uphill battles and blazing courageous trails. He overhauled the state\u27s corrupt patronage system; streamlined and humanized its mental health apparatus; and, when a black family moved into the white enclave of Levittown, took a brave stand in favor of integration. After politics, Leader became a pioneer in the area of assisted living, with a chain of Lutheran nursing homes in central Pennsylvania. He multiplied his philanthropies, endowing a nursing center, funding education and reintegration programs for prisoners, and providing supplies and expertise to impoverished Ghana. By the time of his death, George M. Leader had lived as vigorous, productive, and - to use a word he might have appreciated - useful a life as any Pennsylvanian of his time. On three occasions in 2006 and 2007, Gettysburg College history professors Michael J. Birkner and Charles H. Glatfelter engaged the former governor in interviews about his life and times. Leader talked expansively and candidly about his wins and losses, his prides and regrets; the excitement and bitterness of politics, the satisfactions of philanthropy, and the sustenance of family. These interviews, ranging over nearly a century of political and state history, tell the story of one of Pennsylvania\u27s most remarkable sons.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1077/thumbnail.jp

Metaphor, Objects, and Commodities

This article is a contribution to a symposium that focuses on the ideas of Margaret Jane Radin as a point of departure, and particularly on her analyses of propertization and commodification. While Radin focuses on the harms associated with commodification of the person, relying on Hegel's idea of alienation, we argue that objectification, and in particular objectification of various features of the digital environment, may have important system benefits. We present an extended critique of Radin's analysis, basing the critique in part on Gadamer's argument that meaning and application are interrelated and that meaning changes with application. Central to this interplay is the speculative form of analysis that seeks to fix meaning, contrasted with metaphorical thought that seeks to undermine some fixed meanings and create new meanings through interpretation. The result is that speculative and metaphorical forms are conjoined in an interactive process through which new adaptations emerge. Taking this critique an additional step, we use examples from contemporary intellectual property law discourse to demonstrate how an interactive approach, grounded in metaphor, can yield important insights

Topological Quantum Computation

The theory of quantum computation can be constructed from the abstract study of anyonic systems. In mathematical terms, these are unitary topological modular functors. They underlie the Jones polynomial and arise in Witten-Chern-Simons theory. The braiding and fusion of anyonic excitations in quantum Hall electron liquids and 2D-magnets are modeled by modular functors, opening a new possibility for the realization of quantum computers. The chief advantage of anyonic computation would be physical error correction: An error rate scaling like e^{-\a\l}, where \l is a length scale, and $\alpha$ is some positive constant. In contrast, the \qpresumptive" qubit-model of quantum computation, which repairs errors combinatorically, requires a fantastically low initial error rate (about $10^{-4}$) before computation can be stabilized