Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2010

So, in this Arkansas Education Report (AER) we aim to highlight excellent performance and give our congratulations. To that end, we are happy to highlight many high performing schools around the state in our now-annual AER entitled the Outstanding Educational Performance Awards

Empirical Assessment of the Impact of Low-Cost Generic Programs on Adherence-Based Quality Measures

In the United States, federally-funded health plans are mandated to measure the quality of care. Adherence-based medication quality metrics depend on completeness of administrative claims data for accurate measurement. Low-cost generic programs (LCGPs) cause medications fills to be missing from claims data as medications are not adjudicated through a patient’s insurance. This study sought to assess the magnitude of the impact of LCGPs on these quality measures. Data from the 2012–2013 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) were used. Medication fills for select medication classes were classified as LCGP fills and individuals were classified as never, sometimes, and always users of LCGPs. Individuals were classified based on insurance type (private, Medicare, Medicaid, dual-eligible). The proportion of days covered (PDC) was calculated for each medication class and the proportion of users with PDC ≥ 0.80 was reported as an observed metric for what would be calculated based on claims data and a true metric which included missing medication fills due to LCGPs. True measures of adherence were higher than the observed measures. The effect’s magnitude was highest for private insurance and for medication classes utilized more often through LCGPs. Thus, medication-based quality measures may be underestimated due to LCGPs

The Prevalence and Predictors of Low-Cost Generic Program Use in a Nationally Representative Uninsured Population

The uninsured population has much to gain from affordable sources of prescription medications. No prior studies have assessed the prevalence and predictors of low-cost generic drug programs (LCGP) use in the uninsured population in the United States. A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) during 2007–2012 including individuals aged 18 and older who were uninsured for the entire 2-year period they were in MEPS. The proportions of LCGP fills and users was tracked each year and logistic regression was used to assess significant factors associated with LCGP use. A total of 8.3 million uninsured individuals were represented by the sample and 39.9% of these used an LCGP. Differences between users and non-users included higher age, gender, year of participation, and number of medications filled. The proportion of fills and users via LCGPs increased over the 2007–2012 study period. Healthcare providers, especially pharmacists, should make uninsured patients aware of this source of affordable medications

Functional evolution of the feeding system in rodents

The masticatory musculature of rodents has evolved to enable both gnawing at the incisors and chewing at the molars. In particular, the masseter muscle is highly specialised, having extended anteriorly to originate from the rostrum. All living rodents have achieved this masseteric expansion in one of three ways, known as the sciuromorph, hystricomorph and myomorph conditions. Here, we used finite element analysis (FEA) to investigate the biomechanical implications of these three morphologies, in a squirrel, guinea pig and rat. In particular, we wished to determine whether each of the three morphologies is better adapted for either gnawing or chewing. Results show that squirrels are more efficient at muscle-bite force transmission during incisor gnawing than guinea pigs, and that guinea pigs are more efficient at molar chewing than squirrels. This matches the known diet of nuts and seeds that squirrels gnaw, and of grasses that guinea pigs grind down with their molars. Surprisingly, results also indicate that rats are more efficient as well as more versatile feeders than both the squirrel and guinea pig. There seems to be no compromise in biting efficiency to accommodate the wider range of foodstuffs and the more general feeding behaviour adopted by rats. Our results show that the morphology of the skull and masticatory muscles have allowed squirrels to specialise as gnawers and guinea pigs as chewers, but that rats are high-performance generalists, which helps explain their overwhelming success as a group

Research and Development of the eXtendable Solar Array System

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97139/1/AIAA2012-143.pd

The Moderating Effect of Family-Ownership on Firm Performance: An Examination of Entrepreneurial Orientation and Social Capital

Within the small business literature, a number of recent studies have examined the importance of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and the development of social capital (SC) as each contributes to a firm's performance. While it is generally accepted in previous studies that each of these constructs positively affects firm performance, relatively less attention has been paid to potential moderating factors that can affect these relationships. The purpose of our research is to address one such moderator, family ownership. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the moderating effect of family ownership on the relationships among entrepreneurial orientation, social capital, and firm performance, our results show that the effects of EO and SC vary depending upon whether the firm is family-owned or non-family owned. Implications of these findings and future research directions are provided

Characterisation of a mural cell network in the murine pituitary gland

The anterior and intermediate lobes of the pituitary are composed of endocrine cells, as well as vasculature and supporting cells, such as folliculostellate cells. Folliculostellate cells form a network with several postulated roles in the pituitary, including production of paracrine signalling molecules and cytokines, coordination of endocrine cell hormone release, phagocytosis, and structural support. Folliculostellate cells in rats are characterised by expression of S100B protein, and in humans by glial fibrillary acid protein. However, there is evidence for another network of supporting cells in the anterior pituitary that has properties of mural cells, such as vascular smooth muscle cells and pericytes. The present study aims to characterise the distribution of cells that express the mural cell marker platelet derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRβ) in the mouse pituitary and establish whether these cells are folliculostellate. By immunohistochemical localisation, we determine that approximately 80% of PDGFRβ+ cells in the mouse pituitary have a non‐perivascular location and 20% are pericytes. Investigation of gene expression in a magnetic cell sorted population of PDGFRβ+ cells shows that, despite a mostly non‐perivascular location, this population is enriched for mural cell markers but not enriched for rat or human folliculostellate cell markers. This is confirmed by immunohistochemistry. The present study concludes that a mural cell network is present throughout the anterior pituitary of the mouse and that this population does not express well‐characterised human or rat folliculostellate cell markers

Thin Fisher Zeroes

Biskup et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 (2000) 4794] have recently suggested that the loci of partition function zeroes can profitably be regarded as phase boundaries in the complex temperature or field planes. We obtain the Fisher zeroes for Ising and Potts models on non-planar (``thin'') regular random graphs using this approach, and note that the locus of Fisher zeroes on a Bethe lattice is identical to the corresponding random graph. Since the number of states appears as a parameter in the Potts solution the limiting locus of chromatic zeroes is also accessible.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

HPCC Update and Analysis

Abstract: The last year has seen significant updates in the programming environment and operating systems on the Cray X1E and Cray XT3 as well as the much anticipated release of version 1.0 of HPCC Benchmark. This paper will provide an update and analysis of the HPCC Benchmark Results for Cray XT3 and X1E as well as a comparison against historical results