Camouflage and Ballooning in Health Insurance: Evidence from Abortion

This paper provides a microeconomic basis for simultaneously explaining two phenomena related to health insurance: camouflage and ballooning. We use abortions in Switzerland as an illustrative example. First, a significant share of abortions is camouflaged by contrived medical coding, and second, there is evidence of ballooning in that jurisdictions with strict enforcement of abortion regulation tend to export the problem to more liberal ones. The analysis differs from the existing literature in that we explicitly model the search effort of an individual seeking a health service, i.e., an abortion or camouflage. Using data provided by a major social health insurer, theoretical predictions are confirmed to a considerable degree. In particular, women who derive a particularly high benefit from an abortion (and even more so, from its camouflage) are less discouraged by strict enforcement than others

A Personalised Approach to Identifying Important Determinants of Well-being

Purpose: To develop effective and personalized interventions, it is essential to identify the most critical processes or psycho- logical drivers that impact an individual’s well-being. Some processes may be universally beneficial to well-being across many contexts and people, while others may only be beneficial to certain individuals in specific contexts. Method: We conducted three intensive daily diary studies, each with more than 50 within-person measurement occasions, across three data sets (n1 = 44; n2 = 37; n3 = 141). We aimed to investigate individual differences in the strength of within- person associations between three distinct process measures and a variety of outcomes. We utilized a unique idiographic algorithm, known as i-ARIMAX (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average), to determine the strength of the relationship (Beta) between each process and outcome within individuals (“i”). All of the computed betas were then subjected to meta- analyses, with individuals treated as the “study”. Results: The results revealed that the process-outcome links varied significantly between individuals, surpassing the homo- geneity typically seen in meta-analyses of studies. Although several processes showed group-level effects, no process was found to be universally beneficial when considered individually. For instance, processes involving social behavior, like being assertive, did not demonstrate any group-level links to loneliness but still had significant individual-level effects that varied from positive to negative. Discussion: Using i-ARIMAX might help reduce the number of candidate variables for complex within-person analyses. Additionally, the size and pattern of i-ARIMAX betas could prove useful in guiding personalized interventions

Geyserite in Hot-Spring Siliceous Sinter: Window on Earth’s Hottest Terrestrial (Paleo)environment and its Extreme Life

International audienceSiliceous hot-spring deposits, or sinters, typically form in active, terrestrial (on land), volcanic terrains where magmatically heated waters circulating through the shallow crust emerge at the Earth's surface as silica-charged geothermal fluids. Geyserites are sinters affiliated with the highest temperature (~ 75–100 °C), natural geothermal fluid emissions, comprising localized, lithologically distinctive, hydrothermal silica precipitates that develop around geysers, spouters and spring-vents. They demarcate the position of hot-fluid upflow zones useful for geothermal energy and epithermal mineral prospecting. Near-vent areas also are “extreme environment” settings for the growth of microbial biofilms at near-boiling temperatures. Microbial biosignatures (e.g., characteristic silicified microbial textures, carbon isotopes, genetic material, lipid biomarkers) may be extracted from modern geyserite. However, because of strong taphonomic filtering and subsequent diagenesis, fossils in geyserite are very rare in the pre-Quaternary sinter record which, in and of itself, is patchy in time and space back to about 400 Ma. Only a few old examples are known, such as geyserite reported from the Devonian Drummond Basin (Australia), Devonian Rhynie cherts (Scotland), and a new example described herein from the spectacularly well-preserved, Late Jurassic (150 Ma), Yellowstone-style geothermal landscapes of Patagonia, Argentina. There, geyserite is associated with fossil vent-mounds and silicified hydrothermal breccias of the Claudia sinter, which is geologically related to the world-class Cerro Vanguardia gold/silver deposit of the Deseado Massif, a part of the Chon Aike siliceous large igneous province. Tubular, filament-like micro-inclusions from Claudia were studied using integrated petrographic and laser micro-Raman analysis, the results of which suggest a biological origin. The putative fossils are enclosed within nodular geyserite, a texture typical of subaerial near-vent conditions. Overall, this worldwide review of geyserite confirms its significance as a mineralizing geological archive reflecting the nature of Earth's highest temperature, habitable terrestrial sedimentary environment. Hot-spring depositional settings also may serve as analogs for early Earth paleoenvironments because of their elevated temperature of formation, rapid mineralization by silica, and morphologically comparable carbonaceous material sourced from prokaryotes adapted to life at high temperatures

Robust and persistent reactivation of SIV and HIV by N-803 and depletion of CD8+ cells

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) persists indefinitely in individuals with HIV who receive antiretroviral therapy (ART) owing to a reservoir of latently infected cells that contain replication-competent virus1–4. Here, to better understand the mechanisms responsible for latency persistence and reversal, we used the interleukin-15 superagonist N-803 in conjunction with the depletion of CD8+ lymphocytes in ART-treated macaques infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). Although N-803 alone did not reactivate virus production, its administration after the depletion of CD8+ lymphocytes in conjunction with ART treatment induced robust and persistent reactivation of the virus in vivo. We found viraemia of more than 60 copies per ml in all macaques (n = 14; 100%) and in 41 out of a total of 56 samples (73.2%) that were collected each week after N-803 administration. Notably, concordant results were obtained in ART-treated HIV-infected humanized mice. In addition, we observed that co-culture with CD8+ T cells blocked the in vitro latency-reversing effect of N-803 on primary human CD4+ T cells that were latently infected with HIV. These results advance our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for latency reversal and lentivirus reactivation during ART-suppressed infection

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

EMDR Treatment of Workplace Trauma: A Case Series

Violence and aggression in the workplace is an increasing international concern. No studies have yet determined the most efficacious psychotherapeutic strategies to alleviate the consequences of workplace violence, and none have identified interventions that might fortify workers who are repeatedly exposed to danger. This case series describes the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) treatment of seven bank employees and one transportation worker who suffered repeated acute traumatization. The Impact of Events Scale, the Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome 10-Questions Inventory, and the Beck Depression Inventory were used to measure changes in symptom severity. Results showed that EMDR effectively reduced symptoms and may provide a possible protective buffer in situations of ongoing workplace violence

What is This? Downloaded from

Reprints and permission