Nixon and Health Care Reform

Heather McCreaWhile his legacy was undoubtedly tarnished by the scandal that cost him the Presidency – Watergate – Richard Nixon‘s efforts to reform health care, dating back to his first campaign for the Presidency against John F. Kennedy, had profound effects on almost every subsequent proposal to reform American health care policy. Those who were in positions to enact national policy changes, from members of Congress to Presidents, often used many of the same ideas in each of their proposals, some of them having tenures in the Senate lasting through several decades. When one looks at the roots of these ideas, they can almost always be traced by to Nixonian policy. In this paper, I analyze these links in an attempt to prove that health care reform should be seen as essential part of President Nixon‘s legacy, arguably as much as his actions in Vietnam or other foreign policy. Because a large part of the historical works on Nixon focus primarily on his foreign policy, health care reform is largely associated only with Democratic politicians who came onto the national stage at the same time or even after President Nixon, despite the fact that he was a central figure in shaping American health care policy. The paper I have written focuses primarily around Nixon‘s health care proposals during the 1960s and the early 1970s in their relation to the actual policy enacted later, much of it having been finally put into law just recently with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. I analyze why it took so long for these initiatives to be enacted into law while also exploring what gave Nixon‘s ideas the resiliency that was needed to last long enough to finally be passed through Congress. I also explore why the ideas of a Republican President shaped the liberal agenda in this country for the past forty years

Essays on Technology in Presence of Globalization

Technology has long been known to enable globalization in ways previously not thought possible, with instantaneous communication allowing members of organizations all across the globe to communicate and share information with little to no delay. However, as the effects of globalization have become more prominent, they have in turn helped to shape the very technologies that enable these processes. These three essays analyze three examples of how these two processes – globalization and technological development – impact one another. The first looks at a national policy level, attempting to understand how increased possibilities for inside leakers can force governments to consider asylum requests. The second analyzes the issue at the level of corporations, attempting to understand how and why business leaders choose to hire individuals from other countries. The third and final essay analyzes the issue at the most micro level, studying a potential application that could help analyze linguistic factors that have taken a more prominent role in a more globalized society

Identifying Authorship from Linguistic Text Patterns

Research that deals with linguistic text patterns is challenging because of the unstructured nature of text. This research presents a methodology to compare texts to identify whether two texts are written by the same or different authors. The methodology includes an algorithm to analyze the proximity of text, which is based upon Zipf’s Law [47][48]. The results have implications for text mining with applications to areas such as forensics, natural language processing, and information retrieval

Predictors of New-Onset Atrial Fibrillation in Geriatric Trauma Patients

Geriatric patients (age \u3e65) comprise a growing segment of the trauma population. New-onset atrial fibrillation may occur after injury, complicating clinical management and resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. This study was undertaken to identify clinical and demographic factors associated with new-onset atrial fibrillation among geriatric trauma patients . Methods: In this case control study, eligible participants included admitted trauma patients age 65 and older who developed new-onset atrial fibrillation during the hospitalization. Controls were admitted trauma patients who were matched for age and injury severity score, who did not develop atrial fibrillation. We evaluated the associations between new-onset atrial fibrillation and clinical characteristics, including patient demographics, health behaviors, chronic medical conditions, and course of care. Results: Data were available for 63 cases and 25 controls. Patients who developed atrial fibrillation were more likely to be male, compared to controls (49% versus 24%; odds ratio 3.0[1.0, 8.9]). Other demographic and clinical factors were not associated with new-onset atrial fibrillation, including mechanism of injury, co-morbid medical conditions, drug or alcohol use, surgical procedures, and intravenous fluid administration. Conclusions: Male geriatric trauma patients were at higher risk for developing new-onset atrial fibrillation. Other demographic and clinical factors were not associated with new-onset atrial fibrillation. Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest

Superhelical Duplex Destabilization and the Recombination Position Effect

The susceptibility to recombination of a plasmid inserted into a chromosome varies with its genomic position. This recombination position effect is known to correlate with the average G+C content of the flanking sequences. Here we propose that this effect could be mediated by changes in the susceptibility to superhelical duplex destabilization that would occur. We use standard nonparametric statistical tests, regression analysis and principal component analysis to identify statistically significant differences in the destabilization profiles calculated for the plasmid in different contexts, and correlate the results with their measured recombination rates. We show that the flanking sequences significantly affect the free energy of denaturation at specific sites interior to the plasmid. These changes correlate well with experimentally measured variations of the recombination rates within the plasmid. This correlation of recombination rate with superhelical destabilization properties of the inserted plasmid DNA is stronger than that with average G+C content of the flanking sequences. This model suggests a possible mechanism by which flanking sequence base composition, which is not itself a context-dependent attribute, can affect recombination rates at positions within the plasmid

Drivers of Performance

This chapter uses the annual school census to analyze differences in primary school performances across regions. Our results, obtained from a stochastic frontier analysis, suggest that differences in efficiency explain only part of the observed variation, while resource availability is the most important driver of performance differences. In addition to this, we note that resources are distributed quite unevenly among regions and schools. By distributing more school inputs, or distributing existing inputs more equally to the benefit of underserved schools, performance can be expected to go up

A pre-registered, multi-lab non-replication of the Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE)

The Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) is a well-known demonstration of the role of motor activity in the comprehension of language. Participants are asked to make sensibility judgments on sentences by producing movements toward the body or away from the body. The ACE is the finding that movements are faster when the direction of the movement (e.g., toward) matches the direction of the action in the to-be-judged sentence (e.g., Art gave you the pen describes action toward you). We report on a pre-registered, multi-lab replication of one version of the ACE. The results show that none of the 18 labs involved in the study observed a reliable ACE, and that the meta-analytic estimate of the size of the ACE was essentially zero.Fil: Morey, Richard. Cardiff University; Reino UnidoFil: Kaschak, Michael. Florida State University; Estados UnidosFil: Díez Álamo, Antonio. Universidad de Salamanca; España. Arizona State University; Estados UnidosFil: Glenberg, Arthur. Arizona State University; Estados Unidos. Universidad de Salamanca; EspañaFil: Zwaan, Rolf A.. Erasmus University Rotterdam; Países BajosFil: Lakens, Daniël. Eindhoven University of Technology; Países BajosFil: Ibáñez, Santiago Agustín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. University of San Francisco; Estados Unidos. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; Chile. Trinity College Dublin; IrlandaFil: García, Adolfo Martín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. University of San Francisco; Estados Unidos. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Educación Elemental y Especial; Argentina. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; ChileFil: Gianelli, Claudia. Universitat Potsdam; Alemania. Scuola Universitaria Superiore; ItaliaFil: Jones, John L.. Florida State University; Estados UnidosFil: Madden, Julie. University of Tennessee; Estados UnidosFil: Alifano Ferrero, Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Bergen, Benjamin. University of California at San Diego; Estados UnidosFil: Bloxsom, Nicholas G.. Ashland University; Estados UnidosFil: Bub, Daniel N.. University of Victoria; CanadáFil: Cai, Zhenguang G.. The Chinese University; Hong KongFil: Chartier, Christopher R.. Ashland University; Estados UnidosFil: Chatterjee, Anjan. University of Pennsylvania; Estados UnidosFil: Conwell, Erin. North Dakota State University; Estados UnidosFil: Wagner Cook, Susan. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Davis, Joshua D.. University of California at San Diego; Estados UnidosFil: Evers, Ellen R. K.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados UnidosFil: Girard, Sandrine. University of Carnegie Mellon; Estados UnidosFil: Harter, Derek. Texas A&m University Commerce; Estados UnidosFil: Hartung, Franziska. University of Pennsylvania; Estados UnidosFil: Herrera, Eduar. Universidad ICESI; ColombiaFil: Huettig, Falk. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics; Países BajosFil: Humphries, Stacey. University of Pennsylvania; Estados UnidosFil: Juanchich, Marie. University of Essex; Reino UnidoFil: Kühne, Katharina. Universitat Potsdam; AlemaniaFil: Lu, Shulan. Texas A&m University Commerce; Estados UnidosFil: Lynes, Tom. University of East Anglia; Reino UnidoFil: Masson, Michael E. J.. University of Victoria; CanadáFil: Ostarek, Markus. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics; Países BajosFil: Pessers, Sebastiaan. Katholikie Universiteit Leuven; BélgicaFil: Reglin, Rebecca. Universitat Potsdam; AlemaniaFil: Steegen, Sara. Katholikie Universiteit Leuven; BélgicaFil: Thiessen, Erik D.. University of Carnegie Mellon; Estados UnidosFil: Thomas, Laura E.. North Dakota State University; Estados UnidosFil: Trott, Sean. University of California at San Diego; Estados UnidosFil: Vandekerckhove, Joachim. University of California at Irvine; Estados UnidosFil: Vanpaeme, Wolf. Katholikie Universiteit Leuven; BélgicaFil: Vlachou, Maria. Katholikie Universiteit Leuven; BélgicaFil: Williams, Kristina. Texas A&m University Commerce; Estados UnidosFil: Ziv Crispel, Noam. BehavioralSight; Estados Unido

The changing landscape of disaster volunteering: opportunities, responses and gaps in Australia

There is a growing expectation that volunteers will have a greater role in disaster management in the future compared to the past. This is driven largely by a growing focus on building resilience to disasters. At the same time, the wider landscape of volunteering is fundamentally changing in the twenty-first century. This paper considers implications of this changing landscape for the resilience agenda in disaster management, with a focus on Australia. It first reviews major forces and trends impacting on disaster volunteering, highlighting four key developments: the growth of more diverse and episodic volunteering styles, the impact of new communications technology, greater private sector involvement and growing government expectations of and intervention in the voluntary sector. It then examines opportunities in this changing landscape for the Australian emergency management sector across five key strategic areas and provides examples of Australian responses to these opportunities to date. The five areas of focus are: developing more flexible volunteering strategies, harnessing spontaneous volunteering, building capacity to engage digital (and digitally enabled) volunteers, tapping into the growth of employee and skills-based volunteering and co-producing community-based disaster risk reduction. Although there have been considerable steps taken in Australia in some of these areas, overall there is still a long way to go before the sector can take full advantage of emerging opportunities. The paper thus concludes by identifying important research and practice gaps in this area