How Do People With Disabilities Cope While Waiting for Disability Insurance Benefits?

Disability Insurance waiting time varies from a few months to several years. We estimate the causal effect of longer waiting times on the use of five financial coping strategies. We find that SNAP benefits are the most responsive to longer waiting times. Moreover, while spousal employment is not responsive to longer wait times, spousal employment leads to longer waiting times, presumably because these applicants are more able to appeal. Together, these results suggest that coping strategies are used to both help applicants during the wait time and to extend the waiting time and increase their probability of success

The Main Belt Comets and ice in the Solar System

We review the evidence for buried ice in the asteroid belt; specifically the questions around the so-called Main Belt Comets (MBCs). We summarise the evidence for water throughout the Solar System, and describe the various methods for detecting it, including remote sensing from ultraviolet to radio wavelengths. We review progress in the first decade of study of MBCs, including observations, modelling of ice survival, and discussion on their origins. We then look at which methods will likely be most effective for further progress, including the key challenge of direct detection of (escaping) water in these bodies

A broadband thermal emission spectrum of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-18b

Close-in giant exoplanets with temperatures greater than 2,000 K (''ultra-hot Jupiters'') have been the subject of extensive efforts to determine their atmospheric properties using thermal emission measurements from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. However, previous studies have yielded inconsistent results because the small sizes of the spectral features and the limited information content of the data resulted in high sensitivity to the varying assumptions made in the treatment of instrument systematics and the atmospheric retrieval analysis. Here we present a dayside thermal emission spectrum of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-18b obtained with the NIRISS instrument on JWST. The data span 0.85 to 2.85 $\mu$m in wavelength at an average resolving power of 400 and exhibit minimal systematics. The spectrum shows three water emission features (at $>$6$\sigma$ confidence) and evidence for optical opacity, possibly due to H$^-$, TiO, and VO (combined significance of 3.8$\sigma$). Models that fit the data require a thermal inversion, molecular dissociation as predicted by chemical equilibrium, a solar heavy element abundance (''metallicity'', M/H = 1.03$_{-0.51}^{+1.11}$ $\times$ solar), and a carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio less than unity. The data also yield a dayside brightness temperature map, which shows a peak in temperature near the sub-stellar point that decreases steeply and symmetrically with longitude toward the terminators.Comment: JWST ERS bright star observations. Uploaded to inform JWST Cycle 2 proposals. Manuscript under review. 50 pages, 14 figures, 2 table

Integration of a vaccine checklist to promote discussion between patients and providers and to increase rate of vaccination

A vaccine checklist created by Center for Disease Control (CDC) was utilized as a tool to increase rate of vaccination in the George Washington Medical Faculty Associates medicine clinic from July 2018 to July 2019. This quality improvement project applied Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) framework to iteratively integrate the checklist into clinical practice. A questionnaire, which used to assess resident\u27s vaccination practice and knowledge, showed that patients rarely initiate discussion regarding vaccination and only few medical residents remember the complex vaccine schedule. Different ways of distributing the vaccine checklist were explored; ultimately, the checklists, along with the patient intake forms, were given to the patients by the medical assistants. The integration of the vaccine checklist went smoothly with minimal interruption to workflow and 75% of the checklists were filled out by the patients. The vaccine checklist was mostly well received by the patients; it was considered educational and not overwhelming. In the last PDSA cycle, 1 patient out of 8 initiated discussion regarding vaccination with their providers during a focus visit. Incorporating the vaccine checklist with the patient intake form during every visit may act as a catalyst in increasing number of times discussion occurs. Given the complex vaccine schedule, the checklist can also be used an additional resource to help remind providers the appropriate vaccines recommendations. Future projects can incorporate the vaccine checklist into patient intake form and measure number of vaccination administered after utilization of the checklist to assess change in rate of vaccination