Monitoring and Assessing the Use of External Quality Review Organizations to Improve Services for Young Children: A Toolkit for State Medicaid Agencies

Assesses the extent to which states use external quality review organizations in studying the quality of preventive and developmental services for young children enrolled in Medicaid, and provides guidance on determining their scope of work

GONG p-mode parameters through two solar cycles

We investigate the parameters of global solar p-mode oscillations, namely damping width $\Gamma$, amplitude $A$, mean squared velocity $\langle v^2\rangle$, energy $E$, and energy supply rate $\mathrm{d}E/\mathrm{d} t$, derived from two solar cycles' worth (1996 - 2018) of Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) time series for harmonic degrees $l=0 - 150$. We correct for the effect of fill factor, apparent solar radius, and spurious jumps in the mode amplitudes. We find that the amplitude of the activity related changes of $\Gamma$ and $A$ depends on both frequency and harmonic degree of the modes, with the largest variations of $\Gamma$ for modes with $2400\,\mu\text{Hz}\le \nu \le 3300\,\mu\text{Hz}$ and $31\le l \le 60$ with a min-to-max variation of $26.6\pm0.3\%$ and of $A$ for modes with $2400\,\mu\text{Hz}\le\nu\le 3300\,\mu\text{Hz}$ and $61\le l \le 100$ with a min-to-max variation of $27.4\pm0.4\%$. The level of correlation between the solar radio flux $F_{10.7}$ and mode parameters also depends on mode frequency and harmonic degree. As a function of mode frequency, the mode amplitudes are found to follow an asymmetric Voigt profile with $\nu_{\text{max}}=3073.59\pm0.18\,\mu\text{Hz}$. From the mode parameters, we calculate physical mode quantities and average them over specific mode frequency ranges. This way, we find that the mean squared velocities $\langle v^2\rangle$ and energies $E$ of p modes are anti-correlated with the level of activity, varying by $14.7\pm0.3\%$ and $18.4\pm0.3\%$, respectively, and that the mode energy supply rates show no significant correlation with activity. With this study we expand previously published results on the temporal variation of solar p-mode parameters. Our results will be helpful to future studies of the excitation and damping of p modes, i.e., the interplay between convection, magnetic field, and resonant acoustic oscillations.Comment: Accepted for publication in Solar Physics. 33 pages, 16 figures, 5 table

Language competencies, policies and practices in multinational corporations: A comprehensive review and comparison of Anglophone, Asian, Continental European and Nordic MNCs

The importance of language differences in multinational companies (MNCs) can hardly be overlooked. This paper therefore provides the first large-scale quantitative overview of language competencies, policies and practices in MNCs. It is based on data from more than 800 subsidiaries, located in thirteen different countries with headquarters in more than 25 different countries, which were aggregated into four distinct home country clusters. This comprehensive study allows us to differentiate prior conceptual or case-based findings according to home, host and corporate languages and to develop managerial implications which vary according to the different country clusters

Die interpersonelle Umverteilung in der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung – Status Quo und Perspektiven der Ausgestaltung

Pay-as-you-go, child-related pension, quantity and quality of children

State eligibility rules under separate state SCHIP programs--implications for children\u27s access to health care

This Policy Brief is the fourth in a series of reports1 issued by the George Washington University Center for Health Services Research and Policy that examine the design of separately-administered State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP) that is, programs that operate directly under the authority of the federal SCHIP statute rather than expansions of state Medicaid programs.2 These Policy Briefs also consider the implications of states’ design choices for children’s access to health care

The role of recombinant epidermal growth factor and serotonin in the stimulation of tumor growth in a SCCHN xenograft model

One challenge of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) chemotherapy is a small percentage of tumor cells that arrest in the G0 phase of the cell cycle and are thus not affected by chemotherapy. This could be one reason for tumor recurrence at a later date. The recruitment of these G0-arresting cells into the active cell cycle and thus, proliferation, may increase the efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents. The aim of this study was to investigate whether stimulation with recombinant epidermal growth factor (EGF) or serotonin leads to an increased tumor cell proliferation in xenografts. Detroit 562 cells were injected into NMRI-Foxn1nu mice. Treatment was performed with 15 µg murine or human EGF, or 200 µg serotonin. The control mice were treated with Lactated Ringer's solution (5 mice/group). Tumor size was measured on days 4, 8 and 12 after tumor cell injection. The EGF stimulated mice showed a significantly higher tumor growth compared to the serotonin-stimulated mice and the untreated controls. In the present study, we show that it is possible to stimulate tumor cells in xenografts by EGF and thus, enhance cell proliferation, resulting in a higher tumor growth compared to the untreated control group. In our future investigations, we plan to include a higher number of mice, an adjustment of the EGF dosage and cell subanalysis, considering the heterogeneity of SCCHN tumors

Inequality in Educational Development from 1900 to 2015

The industrial revolution marked a turning point in mankind as it not only initiated an economic turn from predominantly agricultural to industrialized societies but also shaped the need for an education revolution. This was the period when most industrialized societies implemented compulsory schooling systems and created the opportunity for universal access to basic education and later medium and higher education levels. However, this did not occur at the same speed everywhere, generating divergence between countries, and subsocieties within countries, whether it was at the level of residence, gender, generation, or class. Based on a dataset developed at the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital reconstructing levels of education in 5-year steps by age (5-year age groups) and sex for a large number of countries in the world, we look at the education transition from 1900 to 2015 to uncover different patterns and pathways of educational improvements that might explain the differences in the level of human capital today