Why Do People Lack Health Insurance?

Currently, 46 million people or nearly one in five nonelderly adults and children lack health insurance in the United States, an increase of 6 million since 2000. The recent rise in uninsurance has been attributed to a number of factors, including rising health care costs, the economic downturn, an erosion of employer-based insurance, and public program cutbacks. Developing effective strategies for reducing uninsurance requires understanding why people lack insurance coverage. This brief looks at the reasons people report being uninsured overall and by key population subgroups (defined by age, race/ethnicity, health status, and family and employment characteristics). We also examine how those reasons have changed over time

Recent advances in distance education for physics students

Distance education has arisen in the past 30 years or so as a way of providing education to students who otherwise do not have access to local tertiary education facilities. This includes students who live in remote areas, students posted overseas, students who lack mobility, and even students who work during the day where suitable evening classes are not available. Deakin University has been teaching first-year engineering physics to both on-campus and off-campus students since 1996. The unit is part of a bachelor of engineering course accredited by Engineers Australia. This presentation outlines the advances made in delivering education in physics to a wide variety of students in distance mode. Course materials have developed from written study guides to fully on-line teaching materials, complete with streaming video presentation of lecture and tutorial material. Tutorials are delivered to off-campus students by web-conferencing. A very recent development is delivering on-line practical classes the same way. Challenges and how they were overcome will be discussed, along how modern educational technologies are employed

Crash Analysis and Energy Absorption Characteristics of S-shaped Longitudinal Members

This paper presents finite element simulations of the crash behavior and the energy absorption characteristics of thin S-shaped longitudinal members with variable cross-sections made of different materials to investigate the design of optimized energy-absorbing members. Numerical studies are carried out by simulation via the explicit finite element code LS-DYNA [1] to determine the desired variables for the design of energy-absorbing members. The specific energy absorption (SEA), the weight of the members and the peak force responses during the frontal impact are the main measurements of the S-shaped members' performance. Several types of inner stiffening members are also investigated to determine the influence of the additional stiffness on the crash behavior

Endogenizing Growth via a Lag for Apprenticing

We take up a growth model with both skilled and unskilled labor, and a steady migration of some unskilled workers, who undertake apprenticing, to the skilled group of workers. Apprenticing involves a period of observing and thus labor output foregone. The time-out for observing represents a cost to the economy and this results in the rate of balanced growth being endogenous. We examine the balanced growth path and report on the stability of our dynamic system.skilled and unskilled labor, apprenticing, balanced growth, endogenous growth

Role for TGF-beta superfamily signaling in telencephalic GABAergic neuron development.

Signaling mechanisms mediated by the Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily regulate a variety of developmental processes. Here we show that components of both bone morphogenetic protein/growth differentiation factor and TGF-beta/activin/Nodal branches of TGF-beta superfamily signaling are expressed in the developing subpallium. Furthermore, Smad proteins, transcriptional effectors of TGF-beta signaling, are co-expressed and physically interact in the basal ganglia with Dlx homeodomain transcription factors, which are critical regulators of the differentiation, migration and survival of telencephalic GABAergic neurons. We also show that Dlx and Smad proteins localize to promoters/enhancers of a number of common telencephalic genes in vivo and that Smad proteins co-activate transcription with Dlx family members, except with certain mutated human DLX proteins identified in autistic individuals. In agreement with these observations, expression of dominant-negative Smads in the developing basal ganglia phenocopies the cell migration defects observed in Dlx1/2-deficient mice. Together, these results suggest that TGF-beta superfamily signaling plays a role in telencephalic GABAergic neuron development through functional interactions with Dlx transcription factors. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11689-009-9035-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users