UA Research Summary No. 18

Health-care spending for Alaskans reached about $7.5 billion in 2010. For comparison, that’s close to half the wellhead value of all the oil produced in Alaska that year. It’s also roughly equal to half the wages Alaskans collected in 2010. The state’s health-care spending has been rising fast, tripling since 1990 and jumping 402010—and at current trends it could double by 2020, reaching more than$14 billion. Here we report on who’s paying the bills, what we’re buying, what’s contributing to the growth, and other aspects of health-care spending. We conclude with a discussion of how Alaska could get better value for its health-care dollars

Human Resources Strategy: The Era of Our Ways

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss some of the main features and trends in human resources (HR) strategy. Inasmuch as people are among the most important resources available to firms, one could argue that HR strategy should be central to any debate about how firms achieve competitive advantage. But this “people are our most important asset” argument is actually fairly hollow in light of the evidence. Far too many articles on HR start with this premise, but the reality is that organizations have historically not rested their fortunes on human resources. The HR function remains among the least influential in most organizations, and competitive strategies have not typically been based on the skills, capabilities, and behaviors of employees. In fact, as Snell, Youndt and Wright (1996:62) noted, in the past executives have typically tried to “take human resources out of the strategy equation--i.e., by substituting capital for labor where possible, and by designing hierarchical organizations that separate those who think from those who actually do the work.

Creating a Linked Data-Friendly Metadata Application Profile for Archival Description

We provide an overview of efforts to apply and extend Schema.org for archives and archival description. The authors see the application of Schema.org and extensions as a low barrier means to publish easily consumable linked data about archival resources, institutions that hold them, and contextual entities such as people and organizations responsible for their creation.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; full poster available from http://dcevents.dublincore.org/IntConf/dc-2017/paper/view/50

Deviations from early--time quasilinear behaviour for the quantum kicked rotor near the classical limit

We present experimental measurements of the mean energy for the atom optics kicked rotor after just two kicks. The energy is found to deviate from the quasi--linear value for small kicking periods. The observed deviation is explained by recent theoretical results which include the effect of a non--uniform initial momentum distribution, previously applied only to systems using much colder atoms than ours

THE 1995 THROUGH 1998 PRICING PERFORMANCE OF MARKET ADVISORY SERVICES FOR WHEAT

The purpose of this research report is to present an evaluation of advisory service pricing performance from 1995 through 1998 for wheat. The average net advisory price across all 24 wheat programs in 1995 is $3.79 per bushel,$0.18 above the market benchmark price. The range in 1995 is $3.01 to$4.71 per bushel. The average net advisory service price for 23 wheat programs in 1996 is $3.82 per bushel,$0.13 below the market benchmark. The range in 1996 is $2.74 to$4.94 per bushel. The average net advisory price for all 20 wheat programs in 1997 is $2.64 per bushel,$0.58 below the market benchmark. The range in 1997 is $1.34 to$3.90 per bushel. Finally, the average net advisory price across all 21 services in 1998 is $2.36 per bushel,$0.54 below the market benchmark. The range in 1998 is $1.34 to$3.33 per bushel.Marketing,

Why are the Disability Rolls Skyrocketing? The Contribution of Population Characteristics, Economic Conditions, and Program Generosity

This chapter, which addresses three categories of explanation—the characteristics of individuals insured by the Disability Insurance (DI) program, the state of the economy, and the generosity of program benefits—argues that the growth in DI rolls is likely to continue and perhaps accelerate going forward. The data indicate that the recessions of 1991 and 2001 can explain 24 percent of the growth in DI receipt among men and 12 percent of the growth among women. Changes in health during the past two decades have slowed rather than added to the growth of the DI rolls. DI awards for certain conditions were much more affected by the liberalized medical eligibility criteria than others. The aging of the Baby Boom population will result in significant increases in DI receipt during the next fifteen years. The incentive to apply for DI will increase with the rising value of health insurance through Medicare

Modeling Virus Transport and Removal during Storage and Recovery in Heterogeneous Aquifers

A quantitative understanding of virus removal during aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) in physically and geochemically heterogeneous aquifers is needed to accurately assess human health risks from viral infections. A two-dimensional axisymmetric numerical model incorporating processes of virus attachment, detachment, and inactivation in aqueous and solid phases was developed to systematically evaluate the virus removal performance of ASR schemes. Physical heterogeneity was considered as either layered or randomly distributed hydraulic conductivities (with selected variance and horizontal correlation length). Geochemical heterogeneity in the aquifer was accounted for using Colloid Filtration Theory to predict the spatial distribution of attachment rate coefficient. Simulation results demonstrate that the combined effects of aquifer physical heterogeneity and spatial variability of attachment rate resulted in higher virus concentrations in the recovered water at the ASR well (i.e. reduced virus removal). While the sticking efficiency of viruses to aquifer sediments was found to significantly influence virus concentration in the recovered water, the solid phase inactivation under realistic field conditions combined with the duration of storage phase had a predominant influence on the overall virus removal. The relative importance of physical heterogeneity increased under physicochemical conditions that reduced virus removal (e.g. lower value of sticking efficiency or solid phase inactivation rate). This study provides valuable insight on site selection of ASR projects and an approach to optimize ASR operational parameters (e.g. storage time) for virus removal and to minimize costs associated with post-recovery treatment