Supplemental Security Income: Calculating the Impact of Earnings on Benefits

The purpose of this guide is to educate New Yorkers with disabilities about the impact of earnings on Supplemental Security Income benefits

Medicaid & Work: Keeping your Medicaid While You Work

The purpose of this guide is to educate New Yorkers with disabilities who receive SSI about how they can go to work and keep their Medicaid

Ticket to Work: Choosing the Right Employment Network

The purpose of this guide is to educate New Yorkers with disabilities who have a Ticket to Work from the Social Security Administration on how to secure the services and supports to go to work by choosing an Employment Network

Prehistoric psychotropic consumption in Andean Chilean mummies

Hallucinogenic plants are often regarded as the main source of psychoactive drugs in antiquity to reach deep altered states of consciousness^1,2^. Many researchers believe this was particularly true during the Tiwanaku empire expansion, circa (500-1000 A.D.), along the Atacama Desert of Chile. Highly decorated snuffing tablets and tubes are often found as grave goods during this period^3,4,5,6,7,8^. Until now the type of drugs consumed in this paraphernalia has been unclear. From the modern city of Arica, naturally mummified human bodies with abundant hair provided a unique opportunity to test for hallucinogenic plants consumed in Andean prehistory. Analysis by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry demonstrated the presence of harmine. The Banisteriopsis vine, commonly called Ayahuasca, was the probable source. This is the first confirmed evidence of psychoactive plant consumption in pre-Hispanic Andean populations along the Atacama coastal region. Of the 32 mummy hair samples analyzed 3 males tested positive for harmine. This alkaloid aids in the catalysis and synergic effects of powerful hallucinogenic drugs. The consumption of harmine was likely related to medicinal practices and not exclusively ingested by shamans. Another important aspect of this evidence is that Banisteriopsis is an Amazon plant. It does not grow in the Atacama coastal region. Thus, our findings reveal extensive plant trade networks in antiquity between the coast, desert, highlands, and Amazon basin. The excellent preservation of human organic specimens, the use of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry allowed us to map and demonstrate the consumption of psychoactive compound plants in Andean prehistory. In addition, our findings open the door for future studies to debate the consumption and social role of ancient psychoactive and hallucinogenic plants

A recoverable production planning model

Aware of the importance of developing new alternatives to improve the performance of the companies, our purpose in this paper is to develop a medium term production planning model that deals with the concepts of Partnership and Reverse Logistics. Our model takes advantage of the synergies of integration, developing a model for global production planning that generates the optimal production and purchasing schedule for all the companies integrating a logistic chain. In a second part of the paper we incorporate products returns to the first model proposed, and analyze the implications they have over this model. We use some examples with different configurations of supply chains varying the number of production plants, distribution centers and recovery plants. To solve the model we have combined optimization and simulation procedures.Reverse logistics, production planning, remanufacturing, returns, supply chain management, simulation, optimization

Measuring the Radiative Histories of QSOs with the Transverse Proximity Effect

Since the photons that stream from QSOs alter the ionization state of the gas they traverse, any changes to a QSO's luminosity will produce outward-propagating ionization gradients in the surrounding intergalactic gas. This paper shows that at redshift z~3 the gradients will alter the gas's Lyman-alpha absorption opacity enough to produce a detectable signature in the spectra of faint background galaxies. By obtaining noisy (S:N~4) low-resolution (~7A) spectra of a several dozen background galaxies in an R~20' field surrounding an isotropically radiating 18th magnitude QSO at z=3, it should be possible to detect any order-of-magnitude changes to the QSO's luminosity over the previous 50--100 Myr and to measure the time t_Q since the onset of the QSO's current luminous outburst with an accuracy of ~5 Myr for t_Q<~50 Myr. Smaller fields-of-view are acceptable for shorter QSO lifetimes. The major uncertainty, aside from cosmic variance, will be the shape and orientation of the QSO's ionization cone. This can be determined from the data if the number of background sources is increased by a factor of a few. The method will then provide a direct test of unification models for AGN.Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJ. 16 page

The “New” Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program: Enhancing Economic Self-Sufficiency of Beneficiaries through Work Opportunities and Public/Private Partnership

Discusses the history of the Social Security Administration’s Vocational Rehabilitation and describes the intents and functioning of the Ticket to Work and work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. This publication is based on federal Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) laws, regulations and policy. Following Sections I and II pertaining to historical context and evolution of SSA and the Ticket, information presented regarding the operations and structure of the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program is based exclusively on the new 2008 regulations