Worker Sorting, Taxes and Health Insurance Coverage

We develop a model in which firms hire heterogeneous workers but must offer all workers insurance benefits under similar terms. In equilibrium, some firms offer free health insurance, some require an employee premium payment and some do not offer insurance. Making the employee contribution pre-tax lowers the cost to workers of a given employee premium and encourages more firms to charge. This increases the offer rate, lowers the take-up rate, increases (decreases) coverage among high (low) demand groups, with an indeterminate overall effect. We test the model using the expansion of section 125 plans between 1987 and 1996. The results are generally supportive.

VLBA 24 and 43 GHz observations of massive binary black hole candidate PKS 1155+251

PKS 1155+251 is a radio-loud quasar source at z=0.203. Observations using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) at ~2, 5, 8 and 15 GHz show that the structure of the radio source is quite complicated on parsec scales and that the outer hot spots are apparently undergoing a significant contraction. Because these results cannot be fully explained based on the compact symmetric object (CSO) scenario with a radio core located between the northern and southern complexes, we made observations with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 24 and 43 GHz to search for compact substructures and alternative interpretations. The results show that the radio core revealed in the previous VLBI observations remains compact with a flat spectrum in our sub-milli-arcsecond--resolution images; the northern lobe emission becomes faint at 24 GHz and is mostly resolving out at 43 GHz; the southern complex is more bright but has been resolved into the brightest southern-end (S1) and jet or tail alike components westwards. Explaining the southern components aligned westward with a standard CSO scenario alone remains a challenge. As for the flatter spectral index of the southern-end component S1 between 24 and 43 GHz in our observations and the significant 15 GHz VLBA flux variability of S1, an alternative scenario is that the southern complex may be powered by a secondary black hole residing at S1. But more sensitive and high-resolution VLBI monitoring is required to discriminate the CSO and the binary black hole scenarios.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted by MNRA

Electroweak Corrections to the Decays of Stop and Gluino

The electroweak corrections at the order of $O(\alpha_{ew}m_{t(b)}^2/m_W^2)$ to the partial widths of the $\tilde{t}_2 \to \tilde{g} + t$ and $\tilde{g} \to \tilde{t}_1 + \bar{t}$ decays (depending on the masses of the particles involved) are investigated within the Supersymmetric Standard Model. The relative corrections can reach the value of 10% in some parameter space, which can be comparable with the corresponding QCD corrections. Therefore, they should be taken into account for the precise experimental measurement at future colliders.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, Physical Review D publication versio

Dynamical Computation on Coefficients of Electroweak Chiral Lagrangian from One-doublet and Topcolor-assisted Technicolor Models

Based on previous studies deriving the chiral Lagrangian for pseudo scalar mesons from the first principle of QCD, we derive the electroweak chiral Lagrangian and build up a formulation for computing its coefficients from one-doublet technicolor model and a schematic topcolor-assisted technicolor model. We find that the coefficients of the electroweak chiral Lagrangian for the topcolor-assisted technicolor model are divided into three parts: direct TC2 interaction part, TC1 and TC2 induced effective Z' particle contribution part, and ordinary quarks contribution part. The first two parts are computed in this paper and we show that the direct TC2 interaction part is the same as that in the one-doublet technicolor model, while effective Z' contributions are at least proportional to the p^2 order parameter \beta_1 in the electroweak chiral Lagrangian and typical features of topcolor-assisted technicolor model are that it only allows positive T and U parameters and the T parameter varies in the range 0\sim 1/(25\alpha), the upper bound of T parameter will decrease as long as Z' mass become large. The S parameter can be either positive or negative depending on whether the Z' mass is large or small. The Z' mass is also bounded above and the upper bound depend on value of T parameter. We obtain the values for all the coefficients of the electroweak chiral Lagrangian up to order of p^4.Comment: 52 pages, 15 figure

A nondiagrammatic calculation of the Rho parameter from heavy fermions

A simple nondiagrammatic evaluation of the nondecoupling effect of heavy fermions on the Veltman's Rho parameter is presented in detail. This calculation is based on the path integral approach, the electroweak chiral Lagrangian formalism, and the Schwinger proper time method.Comment: 11 page

The dynamics of gene expression changes in a mouse model of oral tumorigenesis may help refine prevention and treatment strategies in patients with oral cancer.

A better understanding of the dynamics of molecular changes occurring during the early stages of oral tumorigenesis may help refine prevention and treatment strategies. We generated genome-wide expression profiles of microdissected normal mucosa, hyperplasia, dysplasia and tumors derived from the 4-NQO mouse model of oral tumorigenesis. Genes differentially expressed between tumor and normal mucosa defined the "tumor gene set" (TGS), including 4 non-overlapping gene subsets that characterize the dynamics of gene expression changes through different stages of disease progression. The majority of gene expression changes occurred early or progressively. The relevance of these mouse gene sets to human disease was tested in multiple datasets including the TCGA and the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer project. The TGS was able to discriminate oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) from normal oral mucosa in 3 independent datasets. The OSCC samples enriched in the mouse TGS displayed high frequency of CASP8 mutations, 11q13.3 amplifications and low frequency of PIK3CA mutations. Early changes observed in the 4-NQO model were associated with a trend toward a shorter oral cancer-free survival in patients with oral preneoplasia that was not seen in multivariate analysis. Progressive changes observed in the 4-NQO model were associated with an increased sensitivity to 4 different MEK inhibitors in a panel of 51 squamous cell carcinoma cell lines of the areodigestive tract. In conclusion, the dynamics of molecular changes in the 4-NQO model reveal that MEK inhibition may be relevant to prevention and treatment of a specific molecularly-defined subgroup of OSCC

Existence of random gradient states

We consider two versions of random gradient models. In model A the interface feels a bulk term of random fields while in model B the disorder enters through the potential acting on the gradients. It is well known that for gradient models without disorder there are no Gibbs measures in infinite-volume in dimension d=2, while there are "gradient Gibbs measures" describing an infinite-volume distribution for the gradients of the field, as was shown by Funaki and Spohn. Van Enter and K\"{u}lske proved that adding a disorder term as in model A prohibits the existence of such gradient Gibbs measures for general interaction potentials in $d=2$. In the present paper we prove the existence of shift-covariant gradient Gibbs measures with a given tilt $u\in \mathbb{R}^d$ for model A when $d\geq3$ and the disorder has mean zero, and for model B when $d\geq1$. When the disorder has nonzero mean in model A, there are no shift-covariant gradient Gibbs measures for $d\ge3$. We also prove similar results of existence/nonexistence of the surface tension for the two models and give the characteristic properties of the respective surface tensions.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AAP808 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The Clinical Signifcance of Expression of ERCC1 and PKCalpha in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Background and objective Excision repair cross-complementing 1 (Excision-Repair Cross-Complementing 1, ERCC1), an important member of the DNA repair gene family, plays a key role in nucleotide excision repair and apoptosis of tumor cells. Protein kinase C-α (Protein kinase C, PKCα), an isozyme in protein kinase C family, is an important signaling molecule in signal transduction pathways of tumors, which has been implicated in malignant transformation and proliferation. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical significance of ERCC1 and PKCα in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods The expression of ERCC1 and PKCα were examined by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in the specimens of 51 cases of NSCLC patients tissue and 21 cases of paracancerous tissue. The relationship between detected data and patients′ clinical parameters was analyzed by SPSS 13.0 software. Results The positive expression rate of ERCC1 and PKCα in NSCLC tissues was significantly higher than paracancerous tissues (Ρ<0.05). Expression of ERCC1 was closely related to clinical stage and N stage. The positive rate of ERCC1 was higher in III+IV or N1+N2 stage patients compared with I+II or N0 stage (Ρ=0.011, P=0.015). We also found that 5-year survival of negative group of ERCC1 was remarkably higher than that of positive group by χ2 test (Ρ<0.05). Expression of ERCC1 was positively correlative to PKCα by Spearman′s correlation analysis (r=0.425, P=0.002) in NSCLC. Conclusion The results suggest ERCC1 and PKCα might be correlated with the development of NSCLC. ERCC1 might be related to prognosis of NSCLC. There might be existed a mechanism of coordination or regulation between ERCC1 and PKCα