Bunge’s Mathematical Structuralism Is Not a Fiction

In this paper, I explore Bunge’s fictionism in philosophy of mathematics. After an overview of Bunge’s views, in particular his mathematical structuralism, I argue that the comparison between mathematical objects and fictions ultimately fails. I then sketch a different ontology for mathematics, based on Thomasson’s metaphysical work. I conclude that mathematics deserves its own ontology, and that, in the end, much work remains to be done to clarify the various forms of dependence that are involved in mathematical knowledge, in particular its dependence on mental/brain states and material objects

Employer-Based Insurance: Coverage and Cost

Explores the variation in cost by employers and enrollees, types of employers that offer coverage, access to coverage by workers, and how costs would change, especially for small businesses, if new policies required coverage for all full-time workers

Working Men in Uniform: The Early Twentieth-century Toronto Police

This article examines the composition and sociability of the early XXth century Toronto police force. Clear patterns emerge from the analysis of variables such as ethnicity. birthplace, previous occupations, salary, housing and family. The author concludes that members of the police force occupied an ambiguous class position. While the rank and file (recruited from the transient working class) sought bourgeois respectability, they did not become safely ensconced in the middle class. The Toronto police culture retained a certain roughness resulting from class origins, educational levels, work activities and leisure pursuits. Dans cet article l’auteur étudie la composition sociale et la sociabilité des policiers torontois au début du XXe siècle. L’analyse de variables comme l’origine ethnique, le lieu de naissance, l’emploi occupé antérieurement, le salaire, le logement et la famille, a permis de dégager des caractéristiques précises. L’auteur en conclue que, malgré leur position socialement ambiguë, les policiers n’étaient pas exclus de leurs communautés et reflétaient les valeurs et les aspirations de leur classe

A Descriptive Profile of Dance Curriculum in Physical Education Teacher Education Programs

Dance as a content area has received little attention within physical education teacher education (PETE) research. To date, there has been only one study, conducted in 1992, that examined dance courses within PETE programs. In order for PETE faculty to make informed programmatic decisions about the role of dance education within PETE and P-12 physical education, the findings of this study must be updated. The primary purpose of this mixed methods study is to gather current descriptive information about dance courses in PETE programs. A secondary purpose of this study is to uncover both personnel and institutional elements that act as either facilitators or inhibitors of dance instruction within PETE programs. Data collected via an online questionnaire (n = 580, 17.9% return rate) revealed that a quarter of respondents (25.8%, n = 23) neither offered nor required dance courses in their PETE program and 67.4% (n = 60) of institutions required at least one course that contained dance content in their program. The top five dance content areas taught are rhythmic activities (88.9%), line dance (70.4%), folk/world dance (61.1%), creative dance (61.1%), and square dance (48.1%). Data also revealed that PE major students gained pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) from writing lesson plans (89.5%), student learning outcomes and assessments (71.1%), learning the history of dance and/or dance appreciation (39.5%) as well as theories of dance education (29.0%). Over half of dance courses (51.1%) are taught by a member of the Professoriate or the Department Chair and the mean tenure of dance course instructors is 9.2 years. Last, the questionnaire revealed that the strongest facilitator of dance instruction was instructor expertise (27.9%) and the strongest inhibitor of dance instruction was lack of curricular space (15.1%) which was corroborated by the interview data. Furthermore the interview data, which was coded using Descriptive Coding coupled with Phenomenological and Thematic Analysis, found that interviewee’s highly valued dance as both a lifelong physical activity and as an essential component to a P-12 PE program

Where Do the Sick Go? Health Insurance and Employment in Small and Large Firms

Small firms that offer health insurance to their employees may face variable premiums if the firm hires an employee with high-expected health costs. To avoid expensive premium variability, a small firm may attempt to maintain a workforce with low-expected health costs. In addition, workers with high-expected health costs may prefer employment in larger firms with health insurance rather than in smaller firms. This results in employment distortions. We examine the magnitude of these employment distortions in hiring, employment, and separations, using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey from 1996 to 2001. Furthermore, we examine the effect of state small group health insurance reforms that restrict insurers’ ability to deny coverage and restrict premium variability on employment distortions in small firms relative to large firms. We find that workers with high-expected health cost are less likely to be new hires in small firms that offer health insurance, and are less likely to be employed in insured small firms. However, we find no evidence that state small group health insurance reforms have reduced the extent of these distortions. Estimating the magnitude of employment distortions in insured small firms is essential in refining reforms to the small group health insurance market. The difficulties that small firms face in obtaining and maintaining health insurance for their employees have been widely documented (Brown, Hamilton and Medoff, 1990; McLaughlin,1992; Fronstin and Helman, 2000). Only 45% of firms with fewer than 50 employees offer health insurance compared to 97% of firms with 50 or more employees (AHRQ, 2002). This low proportion has been attributed, in part, to the high administrative cost of health insurance for small firms, the low demand for insurance among workers in these firms, and the unwillingness of insurers to take on small firm risks (McLaughlin, 1992, Fronstin and Helman, 2000, Monheit and Vistnes, 1999). In recent decades, small firms that provide health insurance to their employees were in a precarious position. Their premiums were calculated yearly, based on the expected value of their health care utilization. Hence, a single high cost employee could lead to a substantial surcharge on the premiums for the firm (Zellers, McLaughlin, and Frick, 1992). In a survey of small employers that did not offer health insurance, 75 percent claimed that an important reason for not offering insurance was high premium variability (Morrisey, Jensen and Morlock, 1994). Concerns about these problems fueled the passage of numerous state small group health insurance reforms in the 1990s that implemented premium rating reforms and restrictions on pre-existing condition exclusions. While a few states have implemented premium rating reform that has severely restricted small group insurers’ ability to use health status to set premiums, in most states, these reforms have been moderate. Assuming that firms are unable to perfectly tailor individual wages to individual health insurance costs, unexpectedly high premiums may impose a large burden on small firms. Paying high premiums, possibly financed by borrowing at high interest rates, may increase the risk of bankruptcy. If small firms choose not to pay high premiums, and instead drop insurance coverage, they renege on the implicit compensation contract with workers. Employers may opt to raise employee contributions to cover higher costs but large increases may lead to healthier employees dropping coverage. Faced with this predicament, small firms may choose to prevent expensive premium variability by maintaining a work force that has a low-expected utilization of health care services. Thus, the link between employment and health insurance in small firms may result in a welfare loss if it prevents individuals with high-expected health costs from being employed in small firm jobs in which they may have high match specific productivity. Employers may obtain information about employees’ medical conditions in several ways. Before the passage of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), half of all employers conducted pre-employment medical examinations (U.S. Congress, 1988). Most small group employers required the completion of a family health questionnaire for insurance coverage (Zellers et al., 1992, Cutler 1994). While ADA now restricts employer inquiries on employee health, it does not apply to firms with under 15 employees. In addition, employer compliance with the ADA may be hindered because its stipulations about pre-employment health inquiries are vague. Medical inquires are allowed if they pertain to the applicant’s ability to perform the job. In addition, medical information is explicitly allowed in the use of medical underwriting for insurance (Epstein, 1996). The media continues to report cases where employers easily obtain employee medical records (Rubin, 1998), or employees have been laid-off because of high health costs (O’Connor, 1996), or employee premiums have been adjusted to reflect the employee’s claims experience (Kolata, 1992). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) includes a nondiscrimination provision that bars a group health plan or issuer from discriminating in eligibility or contributions on the basis of a health status-related factor. However, HIPAA allows medical underwriting and allows insurers to rate groups of employees based on health status as long as the premium rate for all employees is blended. This stipulation prevents employers from requiring higher cost employees to contribute a higher premium share, but does not shield employers from bearing the costs for a sick worker. Economists have typically believed that health insurance is an attribute of “good jobs” and workers do not choose jobs based on whether or not the job provides health insurance. In fact, this precept is behind the notion that employment is a mechanism for minimizing adverse selection in the market for health insurance (see, for example, Gruber and Levitt, 2000). However, a number of recent studies have suggested that worker demand for health insurance may play an important role in employment decisions. Workers with high-expected family costs may prefer jobs that offer health insurance, and conversely, workers with low preferences for health insurance may sort into jobs that lack health insurance. (Monheit and Vistnes, 1999, Monheit and Vistnes, 2006, Royalty and Abraham, 2005, Bundorf and Pauly, 2004). In this paper, we use the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) from 1996 to 2001 to examine the magnitude of employment distortions for workers with high-expected health costs. Since health insurance and employment are linked, health insurance may be an important determinant of employment outcomes. High-expected health costs may reduce the probability that workers are employed in firms where they have the highest match specific productivity. We estimate the magnitude of distortions in hiring, employment, and separations. Furthermore, we examine the effect of state small group health insurance reforms that restrict insurers’ ability to deny coverage and restrict premium variability on employment distortions in small firms relative to large firms. Estimating the magnitude of employment distortions in insured small firms and understanding the effect of small group regulation on these distortions is essential in deciding optimal public policy towards the small group health insurance market.

Achieving ultra-high platinum utilization via optimization of PEM fuel cell cathode catalyst layer microstructure

Inefficient usage of expensive platinum catalyst has plagued the design of PEM fuel cells and contributed to the limited production and use of fuel cell systems. Here, it is shown that hierarchical optimization can increase platinum utilization 30-fold over existing catalyst layer designs while maintaining power densities over 0.35 W/cm2. The cathode catalyst layer microstructure is optimized with respect to platinum utilization (measured as kilowatts of electricity produced per gram of platinum). A one-dimensional agglomerate model that accounts for liquid water saturation is used in this study. The cathode catalyst layer microstructure is optimized by manipulating the platinum loading (m Pt), platinum-to-carbon ratio (Pt|C), and catalyst layer void fraction View the MathML source(εVcl). The resulting catalyst layer microstructure features ultra-low platinum loadings of roughly 0.01 mg/cm2

Determination of the Thermal Resistance of Pipe Insulation Material from Thermal Conductivity of Flat Insulation Products

New European product standards now include a mandatory requirement for manufacturers to declare the temperature-dependent thermal conductivity for each insulation used in building equipments and industrial installations. For pipe insulation systems, the measurement is usually performed by a standard pipe test method, in which the value on a large temperature range is integrated to reduce temperature range and improve temperature measurement control. The alternative proposed in this article consists in determining the thermal conductivity of a pipe insulation system from the results measured on a flat slab specimen. The protocol used in this study consists in collecting the thermal conductivity data and then in fitting the curve with a polynomial regression, using a leastsquare method. The comparison between the pipe insulation specimen and the flat slab product is then done at a specified temperature using the extrapoled polynomial. The methodology is illustrated with a mineral wool over a large range of temperature

Mechanical properties and microstructure of In-Ceram, a ceramic-glass composite for dental crowns

The mechanical properties and microstructure of In-Ceram have been investigated. In-Ceram is an alumina-glass composite used for the core of dental crowns produced by infiltrating a glass through a porous alumina skeleton framework. A key property of dental cores besides aesthetic is mechanical strength. The factors affecting strength and microstructure of In-Ceram are discussed in comparison with conventional dental core porcelain. The mean strength of In-Ceram has been found to exceed 600 MPa (ballon- ring tests), but the variance of the measurements is high, demonstrating the importance of the precise preparation of the composite. The influence of aqueous and acidic environment on strength was also studied. The results indicate that In-Ceram, although sensitive to acetic and aqueous environments, combines a level of strength and toughness which should result in an improved clinical performance. EDX-analysis and dilatometry showed that the composition and thermal expansion of the composite phases, glass phase and alumina particles, contribute to the fracture resistance and strength of the composite

Farm lighting systems

Cover title.Includes bibliographical references