Dynamics of Healthcare Reform: Bitter Pills Old and New

The United States is at a crossroads--albeit one it has visited several times before. Although the Supreme Court has ruled upon the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the polarizing controversy surrounding national healthcare that began several generations ago is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. In this latest round of national debates, the issue of healthcare has been framed exclusively as a domestic issue. But history shows that the question of national healthcare in the United States has also been an extremely important issue for international law and international politics. To shed light on the overlooked nexus between the Act, U.S. constitutional law, and international human rights law, this Article examines the debates surrounding healthcare and human rights that occupied the nation\u27s attention over six decades ago. In the late 1940s, the controversy over President Harry Truman\u27s national healthcare plan became known as the nation\u27s Great Debate. But because Truman\u27s plan never actually became law, this episode of U.S. history has largely escaped the attention of legal scholars. This mid-century debate over healthcare reform has had a profound impact on contemporary domestic and international legal institutions. This Article reveals how, beginning in 1948, the debate over healthcare set in motion a series of political precedents, social practices, and legal interpretations that have influenced every subsequent battle over U.S. healthcare. But in particular, this early debate over healthcare was an important factor in the historic decision in 1952 to divide the Covenant on Human Rights into the two treaties we have today--the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Grasping at Origins: Shifting the Conversation in the Historical Study of Human Rights

In recent years, scholars from a range of disciplinary orientations have invested considerable time exploring a very basic question: Where did human rights come from? The answers have not been so basic. There exists an extraordinary range of conflicting historical accounts. The hotly debated question of the moment within this field of study centers on figuring out which version of the history is the correct one. However, given the dramatic distance between the historical accounts, it is very unlikely that the matter will be settled in the near future. This Article argues that it is time to shift the focal point of the debate on the origins of human rights. Instead of asking which narrative is correct and which is wrong, knowledge production within this field of study would be better served by asking: Why are there so many divergent founding stories? This question still permits an inquiry into the history and origins of human rights, but it also requires scholars to be much more mindful about how they and others have been constructing their histories. Asking this question also provides a way to begin to explore a sneaking suspicion that many of the debates over the history of human rights are simply another way of putting forth normative arguments about what human rights ought to be. It is therefore not just the history of human rights that we need to scrutinize. It is time to take stock of all the hidden assumptions, veiled methodologies, and normative underpinnings that in recent years have guided the many competing stories of origin in vastly different directions

Strategies towards robust interpretations of in situ zircon Lu–Hf isotope analyses

The combination of U–Pb and Lu–Hf compositions measured in zircon crystals is a remarkably powerful isotopic couplet that provides measures on both the timing of mineral growth and the radiogenic enrichment of the source from which the zircon grew. The U–Pb age documents the timing of zircon crystallization/recrystallization and Hf isotopes inform on the degree to which the host melt was derived from a radiogenic reservoir (e.g. depleted mantle) versus an unradiogenic reservoir (e.g. ancient continental crust), or some mixture of these sources. The ease of generating large quantities of zircon U–Pb and Lu–Hf data has been in large part facilitated by instrument advances. However, the dramatic increase in time constrained zircon Lu–Hf analyses in the Earth science community has brought to the fore the importance of careful data collection and reduction workflows, onto which robust geological interpretations may be based. In this work, we discuss the fundamentals of Lu–Hf isotopes in zircon, which then allows us to provide a robust, accessible, methodology for the assessment of data quality. Additionally, we discuss some novel techniques for: data visualization — that facilitates better transparency of data interpretation; integration of geographic information — that may reveal spatial trends where temporal trends were only apparent before; and some novel statistical evaluation tools — that may provide more rigorous inter- and intra-sample comparisons

Regge and Okamoto symmetries

We will relate the surprising Regge symmetry of the Racah-Wigner 6j symbols to the surprising Okamoto symmetry of the Painleve VI differential equation. This then presents the opportunity to give a conceptual derivation of the Regge symmetry, as the representation theoretic analogue of the author's previous derivation of the Okamoto symmetry. [The resulting derivation is quite simple, so it would be surprising if it has not been previously observed. Any references would be appreciated!]Comment: 14 page

Photovoltaic characterisation of GaAsBi/GaAs multiple quantum well devices

A series of strained GaAsBi/GaAs multiple quantum well diodes are characterised to assess the potential of GaAsBi for photovoltaic applications. The devices are compared with strained and strain-balanced InGaAs based devices. The dark currents of the GaAsBi based devices are around 20 times higher than those of the InGaAs based devices. The GaAsBi devices that have undergone significant strain relaxation have dark currents that are a further 10–20 times higher. Quantum efficiency measurements show the GaAsBi devices have a lower energy absorption edge and stronger absorption than the strained InGaAs devices. These measurements also indicate incomplete carrier extraction from the GaAsBi based devices at short circuit, despite the devices having a relatively low background doping. This is attributed to hole trapping within the quantum wells, due to the large valence band offset of GaAsBi

Daily carbohydrate accumulation in eight tall fescue cultivars

Eight cultivars of tall fescue (Loliumarundinaceum Schreb., S.J. Darbyshire = Festuca arundinacea Schreb.), Barcel, Kenhy, Kentucky-31, Missouri-96, Mozark, Stargrazer, C-1 (an experimental selection), and HiMag, were sampled at 2-h intervals during daylight on four cutting dates. Cultivars varied in concentrations of carbohydrate fractions but accumulation rates were not different. Daily mean total non-structural carbohydrate (TNC) concentrations for cutting dates in May, July, August and September declined from 239 to 231, 143 and 120 g TNC kg?1 adjusted dry weight (ADW) respectively. Concentrations of fructans were highest in July but sucrose, glucose and starch concentrations were highest in May. Sucrose was the largest contributor proportionately to TNC daily means across accessions in May (0·33), August (0·30) and September (0·38). Glucose composed an equivalent proportion of TNC in the August harvest. Starch concentration was highest in May at 53 g kg?1 ADW and lowest in August at 23 g kg?1 ADW. The TNC concentration increased by 22·4 (May), 16·8 (July), 21·0 (August) and 30·8 g kg?1 ADW (September) from dawn to dusk. Forage samples taken to estimate preference by ruminants or for TNC analyses should be cut and preserved within 1 h to control the diurnal variation of TNC proportionately within 0·05. Tall fescue should generally be cut between noon and sunset for TNC concentrations to be greater than the daily mean

The Gompertz-Pareto Income Distribution

This work analyzes the Gompertz-Pareto distribution (GPD) of personal income, formed by the combination of the Gompertz curve, representing the overwhelming majority of the economically less favorable part of the population of a country, and the Pareto power law, which describes its tiny richest part. Equations for the Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient and the percentage share of the Gompertzian part relative to the total income are all written in this distribution. We show that only three parameters, determined by linear data fitting, are required for its complete characterization. Consistency checks are carried out using income data of Brazil from 1981 to 2007 and they lead to the conclusion that the GPD is consistent and provides a coherent and simple analytical tool to describe personal income distribution data.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX. Accepted for publication in "Physica A

Verbal working memory and functional large-scale networks in schizophrenia

The aim of this study was to test whether bilinear and nonlinear effective connectivity (EC) measures of working memory fMRI data can differentiate between patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls (HC). We applied bilinear and nonlinear Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) for the analysis of verbal working memory in 16 SZ and 21 HC. The connection strengths with nonlinear modulation between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra (VTA/SN) were evaluated. We used Bayesian Model Selection at the group and family levels to compare the optimal bilinear and nonlinear models. Bayesian Model Averaging was used to assess the connection strengths with nonlinear modulation. The DCM analyses revealed that SZ and HC used different bilinear networks despite comparable behavioral performance. In addition, the connection strengths with nonlinear modulation between the DLPFC and the VTA/SN area showed differences between SZ and HC. The adoption of different functional networks in SZ and HC indicated neurobiological alterations underlying working memory performance, including different connection strengths with nonlinear modulation between the DLPFC and the VTA/SN area. These novel findings may increase our understanding of connectivity in working memory in schizophrenia