Health and Labor Force Participation of the Elderly in Taiwan

Estimates are reported of the consequences of health on participation in the labor force of elderly men and women in Taiwan from 1989 to 1996. Three survey indicators of individual health are examined, and two are estimated by instrumental variables (IV), using as instruments parent longevity, birthplace, and childhood conditions. IV estimates of health's effect on participation are in most cases significant and always positive, and about twice the magnitude of the ordinary least squares estimates, and the hypothesis that health is exogenous and measured without error is rejected. Implementation in 1995 of a National Health Insurance (NHI) shifted to the state the growing cost of elderly health care, and reduced the incentive for elderly to work to receive employer-provided health insurance. But this change in health care financing does not appear to have contributed to a reduction in elderly participation rates in 1996.Labor Force Participation, Elderly, Health Status, National Health Insurance, Taiwan

Cs adsorption on Si(001) surface: ab initio study

First-principles calculations using density functional theory based on norm-conserving pseudopotentials have been performed to investigate the Cs adsorption on the Si(001) surface for 0.5 and 1 ML coverages. We found that the saturation coverage corresponds to 1 ML adsorption with two Cs atoms occupying the double layer model sites. While the 0.5 ML covered surface is of metallic nature, we found that 1 ML of Cs adsorption corresponds to saturation coverage and leads to a semiconducting surface. The results for the electronic behavior and surface work function suggest that adsorption of Cs takes place via polarized covalent bonding.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Machine Learning Methods for Attack Detection in the Smart Grid

Attack detection problems in the smart grid are posed as statistical learning problems for different attack scenarios in which the measurements are observed in batch or online settings. In this approach, machine learning algorithms are used to classify measurements as being either secure or attacked. An attack detection framework is provided to exploit any available prior knowledge about the system and surmount constraints arising from the sparse structure of the problem in the proposed approach. Well-known batch and online learning algorithms (supervised and semi-supervised) are employed with decision and feature level fusion to model the attack detection problem. The relationships between statistical and geometric properties of attack vectors employed in the attack scenarios and learning algorithms are analyzed to detect unobservable attacks using statistical learning methods. The proposed algorithms are examined on various IEEE test systems. Experimental analyses show that machine learning algorithms can detect attacks with performances higher than the attack detection algorithms which employ state vector estimation methods in the proposed attack detection framework.Comment: 14 pages, 11 Figure

Synthesis and carbonic anhydrase inhibitory activities of new thienyl-substituted pyrazoline benzenesulfonamides.

A series of new thienyl-substituted pyrazoline benzenesulfonamides were synthesized and their carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) inhibitory activities were tested on the human (h) isoforms hCA I and hCA II. The inhibition constant (Ki) of these sulfonamides were in the range of 232.16-637.70 nM toward the slow cytosolic isozyme hCA I, and in the range of 342.07-455.80 nM toward hCA II. Many of these compounds showed comparable inhibition with the reference sulfonamide acetazolamide, a clinically used drug. As the sulfonamide CA inhibitors (CAIs) show many therapeutic uses, these derivatives represent interesting examples of a novel class of such derivatives