Estimating healthcare demand for an aging population: a flexible and robust bayesian joint model

In this paper, we analyse two frequently used measures of the demand for health care, namely hospital visits and out-of-pocket health care expenditure, which have been analysed separately in the existing literature. Given that these two measures of healthcare demand are highly likely to be closely correlated, we propose a framework to jointly model hospital visits and out-of-pocket medical expenditure. Furthermore, the joint framework allows for the presence of non-linear effects of covariates using splines to capture the effects of aging on healthcare demand. Sample heterogeneity is modelled robustly with the random effects following Dirichlet process priors with explicit cross-part correlation. The findings of our empirical analysis of the U.S. Health and Retirement Survey indicate that the demand for healthcare varies with age and gender and exhibits significant cross-part correlation that provides a rich understanding of how aging affects health care demand, which is of particular policy relevance in the context of an aging population

On the Absorption and Emission Spectra of Rare Earth Crystals

In this paper the results of investigation of the emission and absorption spectra of the rare earth ions like La++, Ce+++, etc., in crystals are given. An attempt has been made to correlate their absorption and emmision spectra with special reference to Ce+++ions.It has been observed that the La++ ions in crystals do not fluoresce. The emission spectra due to Ce+++ ions in the chloride and the sulphate crystals consist of two discrete bands. The positions of the bands are slightly different in the two salts but they occupy almost the same positions whether the salts investigated ate hydrated or dehydrated. The spectra due to CeF3 consist of three such emission bands; further on excitation with high frequency a weak Huminescence appears on the long wave side of the bands

Reunion of Vicious Walkers: Results from ϵ\epsilon-Expansion -

The anomalous exponent, $\eta_{p}$, for the decay of the reunion probability of $p$ vicious walkers, each of length $N$, in $d$ $(=2-\epsilon)$ dimensions, is shown to come from the multiplicative renormalization constant of a $p$ directed polymer partition function. Using renormalization group(RG) we evaluate $\eta_{p}$ to $O(\epsilon^2)$. The survival probability exponent is $\eta_{p}/2$. For $p=2$, our RG is exact and $\eta_p$ stops at $O(\epsilon)$. For $d=2$, the log corrections are also determined. The number of walkers that are sure to reunite is 2 and has no $\epsilon$ expansion.Comment: No of pages: 11, 1figure on request, Revtex3,IP/BBSR/929

Entanglement entropy of a quantum unbinding transition and entropy of DNA

Two significant consequences of quantum fluctuations are entanglement and criticality. Entangled states may not be critical but a critical state shows signatures of universality in entanglement. A surprising result found here is that the entanglement entropy may become arbitrarily large and negative near the dissociation of a bound pair of quantum particles. Although apparently counter-intuitive, it is shown to be consistent and essential for the phase transition, by mapping to a classical problem of DNA melting. We associate the entanglement entropy to a subextensive part of the entropy of DNA bubbles, which is responsible for melting. The absence of any extensivity requirement in time makes this negative entropy an inevitable consequence of quantum mechanics in continuum. Our results encompass quantum critical points and first-order transitions in general dimensions.Comment: v2: 6 pages, 3 figures (title modified, more details and figures added

Dynamic instability of microtubules: effect of catastrophe-suppressing drugs

Microtubules are stiff filamentary proteins that constitute an important component of the cytoskeleton of cells. These are known to exhibit a dynamic instability. A steadily growing microtubule can suddenly start depolymerizing very rapidly; this phenomenon is known as ``catastrophe''. However, often a shrinking microtubule is ``rescued'' and starts polymerizing again. Here we develope a model for the polymerization-depolymerization dynamics of microtubules in the presence of {\it catastrophe-suppressing drugs}. Solving the dynamical equations in the steady-state, we derive exact analytical expressions for the length distributions of the microtubules tipped with drug-bound tubulin subunits as well as those of the microtubules, in the growing and shrinking phases, tipped with drug-free pure tubulin subunits. We also examine the stability of the steady-state solutions.Comment: Minor corrections; final published versio