Sometime : I\u27ll Hear Your Sweet Voice Calling

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5425/thumbnail.jp

The Heart of the Matter: The Function and Relational Effects of Humor for Cardiovascular Patients

This study examined the possibility that cardiovascular patient health is enhanced by the intentional communication of humor and associated increases in relationship satisfaction. In an effort to study the relationship between these variables it was predicted that relationship satisfaction mediates the effects between humor functions and health. Questionnaire data was collected from members of two national support groups for patients of cardiovascular disease. Findings support humor functions distinguished in previous studies and support the hypothesis that relationship satisfaction mediates health. Specifically, distancing humor negatively predicted relationship satisfaction and health. These findings offer new insight into the variability of humor effects

Interview with Lee Lockwood by Brien Williams

Biographical NoteLee Enfield Lockwood was born February 17, 1946, in Cumberland, Maryland, to Sarah and Sam Enfield. She grew up in Houston, Texas, attending a local public elementary school and a private high school. She was graduated from Duke University in 1968 with a major in political science. She moved to Washington, DC, and was hired onto Senator Muskie’s staff. She worked for Muskie from 1969 to 1978, first sorting and reading the mail and eventually handling speech writing and legislation. She worked for Senator Mitchell when he was majority leader, handling correspondence in his Senate office from 1989-1993. SummaryInterview includes discussion of: family and educational background; Muskie’s Senate office; Muskie’s 1972 presidential bid and working in the “boiler room” of that campaign; differences between Muskie and Mitchell related to the office environment; the process of handling the senators’ mail; Senator Mitchell’s relationship with his staff; the qualities that make a successful Senate staffer; what Mitchell will be remembered for; and the difference between academic discussion of politics and the interpersonal relationships that make it work

Geographic Variation in Health Care: The Role of Private Markets

health care, public sector, Medicare, insurance

Evaluation of sample collection and storage protocols for surface eDNA surveys of an invasive terrestrial insect

Environmental DNA surveys have revolutionized monitoring of rare or cryptic species and species inhabiting areas where conventional sampling is difficult or dangerous. Recent advancements within terrestrial environments include the capture of eDNA deposited by animals on surfaces such as tree bark and foliage, hereafter “surface eDNA.” Notably, a technique which uses commercial paint rollers to aggregate surface eDNA has been deployed with success to detect the presence of forest insect pests providing a potentially powerful new management tool. However, before widespread adoption is feasible, the efficiency and logistics of roller sample collection and study design, especially relative to realistic survey conditions, must be evaluated. We compared the performance of two DNA preservation treatments—cold and ethanol—on their ability to reduce the loss of captured eDNA on rollers over time. Additionally, we evaluated how the detection probability of our target species, the spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), varied with sampling effort (time spent rolling per sample) and the initial quantity of eDNA present. Finally, we evaluated how the number of trees sampled per roller influenced the final concentrations of lanternfly eDNA remaining on the roller. We found storing rollers with ethanol or cold temperatures resulted in 3–10-fold greater concentrations of experimentally controlled eDNA relative to no treatment after 24 h. Detection probability declined as the amount of lanternfly eDNA decreased, but did not change in response to sampling effort over sample time (10–80 s/tree). Finally, recovered lanternfly eDNA decreased as more trees were sampled by a single roller—a 91% reduction after 7 trees—potentially due to captured DNA being transferred back from the roller onto the bark. Our results provide improved guidance for deploying roller surface eDNA methods for spotted lanternfly surveys, and for invasive insect pest surveillance and monitoring programs generally

ACRIM-gap and total solar irradiance revisited: Is there a secular trend between 1986 and 1996?

A gap in the total solar irradiance (TSI) measurements between ACRIM-1 and ACRIM-2 led to the ongoing debate on the presence or not of a secular trend between the minima preceding cycles 22 (in 1986) and 23 (1996). It was recently proposed to use the SATIRE model of solar irradiance variations to bridge this gap. When doing this, it is important to use the appropriate SATIRE-based reconstruction, which we do here, employing a reconstruction based on magnetograms. The accuracy of this model on months to years timescales is significantly higher than that of a model developed for long-term reconstructions used by the ACRIM team for such an analysis. The constructed `mixed' ACRIM - SATIRE composite shows no increase in the TSI from 1986 to 1996, in contrast to the ACRIM TSI composite.Comment: 4 figure

Observer performance in Computed Tomography head reporting

Aim: To audit the reporting results of a cohort of radiographers (n=6) completing an accredited academic programme in clinical reporting of Computed Tomography (CT) head examinations. Methods: An audit of retrospective academic image case banks and prospective random clinical workload case banks. Both the academic test banks and clinical workload banks included a wide range of normal and abnormal cases of different levels of difficulty and pathology. Abnormalities included: haemorrhage, fractures, lesions, infarctions, degeneration, and normal variants from a variety of referral sources. True positive and negative, as well as false positive and negative fractions were used to mark the reports, which were analysed for accuracy against a reference standard. Further interobserver variability was assessed using Cohens Kappa, one-way analysis of variance and Tukey for multiple comparisons and significance testing at 95% confidence intervals. Results: The mean accuracy score for all radiographers (n=6) and reports (n=3,008) was 90.7% (95%CI 88.3%-93.0%). Mean sensitivity and specificity rate was 86.9% (95%CI 85.8%-88.2%), and 94% (95%CI 89.6%-98.3%) respectively. The most common errors were associated with herniation, lacunar infarctions and subtle fractures (false negatives) and involutional changes, subtle infarctions, and ventricular dilation (false positives). Conclusions: The results suggest appropriately trained radiographers can successfully undertake to report CT head examinations to a high standard. The adoption of both academic and clinical workload image banks that reflect disease examples and the prevalence that may logically be encountered in practice offers the potential for an accurate measure of performance of radiographer’s abilities

Costs and Benefits of In-Kind Transfers: The Case of Medicaid Home Care Benefits

Many large government programs provide benefits in kind as opposed to in cash. Providing benefits in kind potentially distorts decisions and leads to a deadweight loss if recipients value the benefits less than a cost-equivalent cash transfer. Yet providing benefits in kind may have some offsetting benefits, especially in terms of improving the targeting of benefits to desired beneficiaries. We complete what is to our knowledge one of the first empirical studies of the costs and benefits of providing transfers in kind as opposed to in cash. We focus on the case of the US Medicaid program's provision of in kind home health care benefits. Three state Medicaid programs completed randomized experiments that converted the usual in-kind benefits into cash benefits for a randomly-selected subset of benefit recipients. We use the results of these experiments together with a variety of other evidence to estimate the costs and benefits of providing Medicaid home care benefits in kind. We find that in the case of Medicaid home care benefits, both the costs and benefits of providing transfers in kind as opposed to in cash are large. This suggests that alternative targeting mechanisms, if available, have the potential to significantly increase efficiency relative to traditional Medicaid policy.Social Security Administrationhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/102269/1/wp294.pd