Welfare policy: The administrative frontier

The process of national welfare reform has been overtaken by local reform as states implement experimental programs under federal waivers. Most of these initiatives attempt to enforce work or otherwise control the lives of the dependent in return for support. Research, which traditionally stressed the social and economic aspects of welfare or poverty, must be reoriented to address the administrative issues raised by the emerging paternalism. A combination of field interviewing and analyses of reporting data can track implementation and connect program operations to outcomes. Such research assesses program performance less surely than experimental trials do but is more useful to operators and more relevant to current program goals. The frontiers of welfare research, like welfare policy, are institutional.

Are welfare employment programs effective?

Employment programs meant to place welfare adults in work or training became an important part of Aid to Families with Dependent Children starting in the 1980s. These programs are effective if one means that they have positive impacts in evaluations, less so if one expects them to make a large and visible change in the welfare problem. In programs evaluated by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, impacts on employment, earnings, and dependency are small in absolute terms but somewhat larger as a percentage of the control group mean. Impacts are understated in some studies because randomization occurred only after enrollment in the work program or because control group members had access to equivalent services. Results are also depressed by the failure of many experimentals to participate in the tested program. Programs raise the activity of experimentals in work-related activities much more than they raise earnings or employment. Effects on dependency are understated because evaluations do not capture deterrence effects. The sharp decline in AFDC in Wisconsin in recent years suggests the power of work requirements to drive the rolls down.

Random simplicial complexes in the medial regime

We describe topology of random simplicial complexes in the lower and upper models in the medial regime, i.e. under the assumption that the probability parameters $p_\sigma$ approach neither $0$ nor $1$. We show that nontrivial Betti numbers of typical lower and upper random simplicial complexes in the medial regime lie in a narrow range of dimensions. For instance, an upper random simplicial complex $Y$ on $n$ vertices in the medial regime with high probability has non-vanishing Betti numbers $b_{j}(Y)$ only for $k+c <n-j<k+\log_2 k +c'$ where $k=\log_2 \ln n$ and $c, c'$ are constants. A lower random simplicial complex on $n$ vertices in the medial regime is with high probability $(k+a)$-connected and its dimension $d$ satisfies $d\sim k+\log_2 k+ a'$ where $a, \, a'$ are constants. The paper develops a new technique, based on Alexander duality, which relates the lower and upper models.Comment: 23 pages. v2 contains an updated abstrac

Merged infrared catalogue

A compilation of equatorial coordinates, spectral types, magnitudes, and fluxes from five catalogues of infrared observations is presented. This first edition of the Merged Infrared Catalogue contains 11,201 oservations from the Two-Micron Sky Survey, Observations of Infrared Radiation from Cool Stars, the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory four Color Infrared Sky Survey and its Supplemental Catalog, and from Catalog of 10 micron Celestial Objects (HALL). This compilation is a by-product of a computerized infrared data base under development at Goddard Space Flight Center; the objective is to maintain a complete and current record of all infrared observations from 1 micron m to 1000 micron m of nonsolar system objects. These observations are being placed into a standardized system

Statecraft: The Politics of Welfare Reform in Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s reform of family welfare is the most radical and, arguably, the most successful in the nation. This is not due to anything special about the welfare problem or public opinion in the state but rather to special features of the state’s politics and government. Reform is radical, but at the same time it has been largely bipartisan, with most Democrats joining with Governor Tommy Thompson and other Republicans in seeking to transform the system. Bipartisanship, in turn, reflects the unusual moderation of Republicans in approaching reform and the unusual willingness of Democrats to criticize the old system. Outside groups—such as black leaders, welfare advocates, and academics, who elsewhere block reform—have been moderate or ineffective in their protests, while business has been unusually supportive. Two background conditions have helped shape this political environment—Wisconsin’s cohesive society and its masterful government, the product of its Progressive past. In Wisconsin, in contrast to other urban states, both the will to reform welfare and the capacity to do so are strong.

Locality and topology in the molecular Aharonov-Bohm effect

It is shown that the molecular Aharonov-Bohm effect is neither nonlocal nor topological in the sense of the standard magnetic Aharonov-Bohm effect. It is further argued that there is a close relationship between the molecular Aharonov-Bohm effect and the Aharonov-Casher effect for an electrically neutral spin$-{1/2}$ particle encircling a line of charge.Comment: 3 pages, no figure

The Rado simplicial complex

In this paper we study a remarkable simplicial complex X on countably many vertexes. X is universal in the sense that any count- able simplicial complex is an induced subcomplex of X. Additionally, X is homogeneous, i.e. any two isomorphic finite induced subcomplexes are related by an automorphism of X. We prove that X is the unique simplicial complex which is both universal and homogeneous. The 1- skeleton of X is the well-known Rado graph. We show that a random simplicial complex on countably many vertexes is isomorphic to X with probability 1. We prove that the geometric realisation of X is homeo- morphic to an infinite dimensional simplex. We observe several curious properties of X, for example we show that X is robust, i.e. removing any finite set of simplexes leaves a simplicial complex isomorphic to X. The robustness of X leads to the hope that suitable finite approximations of X can serve as models for very resilient networks in real life applications. In a forthcoming paper [8] we study finite approximations to the Rado complex, they can potentially be useful in real life applications due to their structural stability

The prevalence of medical reasons for non-participation in the Scottish breast and bowel cancer screening programmes

Objective: Increasing uptake of cancer screening is a priority for health systems internationally, however, some patients may not attend because they are undergoing active treatment for the cancer of interest or have other medical reasons that mean participation would be inappropriate. This study aims to quantify the proportion of non-participants who have a medical reason for not attending cancer screening.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Methods: Medical reasons for not participating in breast and bowel screening were defined a priori on the basis of a literature review and expert opinion. The notes of 700 patients at two GP practices in Scotland were reviewed, to ascertain the prevalence of medical reasons amongst non-participants. Simple proportions and confidence intervals were calculated.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Results: 17.4% of breast and 2.3% of bowel screening non-participants had a medical reason to not participate. The two most common reasons were previous breast cancer follow up (8.86%) and recent mammogram (6.57%).&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Conclusion: These patients may not benefit from screening while also being distressed by receiving an invitation. This issue also makes accurate monitoring and target-setting for improving uptake difficult. Further work is needed to estimate robustly the extent to which medical reasons account for screening non-participation in a larger population.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt

Galilean Lee Model of the Delta Function Potential

The scattering cross section associated with a two dimensional delta function has recently been the object of considerable study. It is shown here that this problem can be put into a field theoretical framework by the construction of an appropriate Galilean covariant theory. The Lee model with a standard Yukawa interaction is shown to provide such a realization. The usual results for delta function scattering are then obtained in the case that a stable particle exists in the scattering channel provided that a certain limit is taken in the relevant parameter space. In the more general case in which no such limit is taken finite corrections to the cross section are obtained which (unlike the pure delta function case) depend on the coupling constant of the model.Comment: 7 pages, latex, no figure