Influence of Behavioral Models on Multiuser Channel Capacity

In order to characterize the channel capacity of a wavelength channel in a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) system, statistical models are needed for the transmitted signals on the other wavelengths. For example, one could assume that the transmitters for all wavelengths are configured independently of each other, that they use the same signal power, or that they use the same modulation format. In this paper, it is shown that these so-called behavioral models have a profound impact on the single-wavelength achievable information rate. This is demonstrated by establishing, for the first time, upper and lower bounds on the maximum achievable rate under various behavioral models, for a rudimentary WDM channel model

On the symbol error probability of regular polytopes

An exact expression for the symbol error probability of the four-dimensional 24-cell in Gaussian noise is derived. Corresponding expressions for other regular convex polytopes are summarized. Numerically stable versions of these error probabilities are also obtained

Will increased wages increase nurses' working hours in the health care sector?

Many registered nurses (RNs) in Norway work part-time, or in non-health jobs. The nurses’ trade organizations claim that a wage increase will increase the short-term labor supply in health care. This paper is an attempt to identify the effects of job-type specific wage increases through policy simulations on micro data. The individual’s labor supply decision can be considered as a choice from a set of discrete alternatives (job packages). These job packages are characterized by attributes such as hours of work, sector specific wages and other sector specific aspects of the jobs. The unique data set covers all RNs registered in Norway and their families. The spouses’ incomes and age of the children are vital when estimating the labor supply of this profession. For married females the results indicate job type specific wage elasticities for hours of work of 0.17 in hospitals and 0.39 in primary care. The total hours worked in health and non-health jobs are actually predicted to be slightly reduced, but the change is not significantly different from zero. Single females are somewhat more responsive to wage changes than married ones.Registered nurses; discrete choice; non-convex budget sets; labor supply; sector-specific wages

A Discrete Choice Analysis of Norwegian Physicians’ Labor Supply and Sector Choice

What is the effect of increased wages on physician’s working hours and sector choice? This study applies an econometric framework that allows for non-convex budget sets, nonlinear labor supply curves and imperfect markets with institutional constraints. The physicians are assumed to make choices from a finite set of job possibilities, characterized by practice form, hours and wage rates. The individuals may combine their main position with an extra job, opening for a variety of combinations of hours in the respective jobs. I take into account the complicated payment schemes for physicians, taxes and household characteristics when estimating labor supply on Norwegian micro data. The results show a modest response in total hours to a wage increase, but a reallocation of hours in favor of the sector with increased wages.Physicians; discrete choice; labor supply

Compensating differentials for nurses

When entering the job market registered nurses (RNs) face job alternatives with differences in wages and other job attributes. Previous studies of the nursing labor market have shown large earnings differences between similar hospital and non-hospital RNs. Corresponding differences are found in some of the analyses of shift and regular daytime workers. In the first part of this paper I analyze the wage differentials in the Norwegian public health sector, applying a switching regression model. I find no hospital premium for the shift RNs and a slightly negative hospital premium for the daytime RNs, but it is not significant for the hospital job choice. I find a positive shift premium. The wage rate is 19% higher for the shift working hospital RNs and 18% for the sample of primary care workers. The shift premium is only weakly significant for the shift work choice for the sample of hospital RNs, and not for the primary care RNs. I identify some selection effects. In the second part of the paper I focus on the shift compensation only, and present a structural labor supply model with a random utility function. This is done to identify the expected compensating variation necessary for the nurses to remain on the same utility level when they are “forced” from a day job to a shift job. The expected compensating variations are derived by Monte Carlo simulations and presented for different categories of hours. I find that on average the offered combination of higher wages, shorter working hours and increased flexibility overcompensates for the health and social strains related to shift work.Registered nurses; compensating variations; switching regression; random utility models; discrete choice; shift work; labor supply

Performance Metrics for Systems with Soft-Decision FEC and Probabilistic Shaping

High-throughput optical communication systems utilize binary soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) with bit interleaving over the bit channels. The generalized mutual information (GMI) is an achievable information rate (AIR) in such systems and is known to be a good predictor of the bit error rate after SD-FEC decoding (post-FEC BER) for uniform signaling. However, for probabilistically shaped (nonuniform) signaling, we find that the normalized AIR, defined as the AIR divided by the signal entropy, is less correlated with the post-FEC BER. We show that the information quantity based on the distribution of the single bit signal, and its asymmetric loglikelihood ratio, are better predictors of the post-FEC BER. In simulations over the Gaussian channel, we find that the prediction accuracy, quantified as the peak-to-peak deviation of the post-FEC BER within a set of different modulation formats and distributions, can be improved more than 10 times compared with the normalized AIR.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Private health care as a supplement to a public health system with waiting time for treatment

In this article the authors Michael Hoel and Erik Magnus Sæther consider an economy where most of the health care is publicly provided, and where there is waiting time for several types of treatments. Private health care without waiting time is an option for the patients in the public health queue. This article shows the effects of a tax (positive or negative) on private health care, and derives the socially optimal tax/subsidy. Finally, a discussion of how the size of the tax might affect the political support for a high quality public health system is provided.Private health care; public health care; health queues

Public Health Care with Waiting Time: The Role of Supplementary Private Health Care

We consider an economy where most of the health care is publicly provided,and where there is waiting time for several types of treatments. Privatehealth care without waiting time is an option for the patients in the publichealth queue. We show that although patients with low waiting costs willchoose public treatment, they may be better off with waiting time thanwithout. The reason is that waiting time induces patients with high waitingcosts to choose private treatment, thus reducing the cost of public healthcare that everyone pays for. Even if higher quality (i.e. zero waiting time) canbe achieved at no cost, the self-selection induced redistribution may implythat it is socially optimal to provide health care publicly and at an inferiorquality level. We give a detailed discussion of the circumstances in which it isoptimal to have waiting time for public health treatment. Moreover, we studythe interaction between this quality decision and the optimal tax/subsidy onprivate health care.public health care, private health care, waiting time, healthqueues.

Modeling the absorption spectrum of the permanganate ion in vacuum and in aqueous solution

The absorption spectrum of the MnO$_{4}$$^{-}$ ion has been a test-bed for quantum-chemical methods over the last decades. Its correct description requires highly-correlated multiconfigurational methods, which are incompatible with the inclusion of finite-temperature and solvent effects due to their high computational demands. Therefore, implicit solvent models are usually employed. Here we show that implicit solvent models are not sufficiently accurate to model the solvent shift of MnO$_{4}$$^{-}$, and we analyze the origins of their failure. We obtain the correct solvent shift for MnO$_{4}$$^{-}$ in aqueous solution by employing the polarizable embedding (PE) model combined with a range-separated complete active space short-range density functional theory method (CAS-srDFT). Finite-temperature effects are taken into account by averaging over structures obtained from ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. The explicit treatment of finite-temperature and solvent effects facilitates the interpretation of the bands in the low-energy region of the MnO$_{4}$$^{-}$ absorption spectrum, whose assignment has been elusive.Comment: 15 pages, 3 tables, 1 Figur