What Americans Think of the New Insurance Marketplaces and Medicaid Expansion: Findings from the Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Marketplace Survey, 2013

The Affordable Care Act's health insurance marketplaces are opening for enrollment on October 1, 2013. The Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Marketplace Survey, 2013, finds that only two of five adults are aware of the marketplaces or of potential financial help that may be available to them to pay for plans purchased though the marketplaces. However, three of five adults who might be eligible for these new options said they were likely to take advantage of them. The survey also finds broad support for state expansion of the Medicaid program, even in states that have not yet decided to expand their programs. While outreach and education are critical to ensuring that those eligible for the new coverage options will enroll, the survey results suggest that eligible Americans will likely take advantage of the law's insurance reforms in the months and years to come

Bursts in discontinuous Aeolian saltation

Close to the onset of Aeolian particle transport through saltation we find in wind tunnel experiments a regime of discontinuous flux characterized by bursts of activity. Scaling laws are observed in the time delay between each burst and in the measurements of the wind fluctuations at the fluid threshold Shields number $\theta_c$. The time delay between each burst decreases on average with the increase of the Shields number until sand flux becomes continuous. A numerical model for saltation including the wind-entrainment from the turbulent fluctuations can reproduce these observations and gives insight about their origin. We present here also for the first time measurements showing that with feeding it becomes possible to sustain discontinuous flux even below the fluid threshold

Combinatorial classification of quantum lens spaces

We answer the question of how large the dimension of a quantum lens space must be, compared to the primary parameter $r$, for the isomorphism class to depend on the secondary parameters. Since classification results in C*-algebra theory reduces this question to one concerning a certain kind of $SL$-equivalence of integer matrices of a special form, our approach is entirely combinatorial and based on the counting of certain paths in the graphs shown by Hong and Szyma\'nski to describe the quantum lens spaces.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figure

Magnetoinductive breathers in magnetic metamaterials

The existence and stability of discrete breathers (DBs) in one-dimensional and two-dimensional magnetic metamaterials (MMs), which consist of periodic arrangem ents (arrays) of split-ring resonators (SRRs), is investigated numerically. We consider different configurations of the SRR arrays, which are related to the relative orientation of the SRRs in the MM, both in one and two spatial dimensions. In the latter case we also consider anisotropic MMs. Using standard numerical methods we construct several types of linearly stable breather excitations both in Hamiltonian and dissipative MMs (dissipative breathers). The study of stability in both cases is performed using standard Floquet analysi s. In both cases we found that the increase of dimensionality from one to two spatial dimensions does not destroy the DBs, which may also exist in the case of moderate anisotropy (in two dimensions). In dissipative MMs, the dynamics is governed by a power balance between the mainly Ohmic dissipation and driving by an alternating magnetic field. In that case it is demonstrated that DB excitation locally alters the magnetic response of MMs from paramagnetic to diamagnetic. Moreover, when the frequency of the applied field approaches the SRR resonance frequency, the magnetic response of the MM in the region of the DB excitation may even become negative (extreme diamagnetic).Comment: 12 pages 15 figure

X-Ray Emission from the Warm Hot Intergalactic Medium

The number of detected baryons in the Universe at z<0.5 is much smaller than predicted by standard big bang nucleosynthesis and by the detailed observation of the Lyman alpha forest at red-shift z=2. Hydrodynamical simulations indicate that a large fraction of the baryons today is expected to be in a ``warm-hot'' (10^5-10^7K) filamentary gas, distributed in the intergalactic medium. This gas, if it exists, should be observable only in the soft X-ray and UV bands. Using the predictions of a particular hydrodynamic model, we simulated the expected X-ray flux as a function of energy in the 0.1-2 keV band due to the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM), and compared it with the flux from local and high red-shift diffuse components. Our results show that as much as 20% of the total diffuse X-ray background (DXB) in the energy range 0.37-0.925keV could be due to X-ray flux from the WHIM, 70% of which comes from filaments at redshift z between 0.1 and 0.6. Simulations done using a FOV of 3', comparable with that of Suzaku and Constellation-X, show that in more than 20% of the observations we expect the WHIM flux to contribute to more than 20% of the DXB. These simulations also show that in about 10% of all the observations a single bright filament in the FOV accounts, alone, for more than 20% of the DXB flux. Red-shifted oxygen lines should be clearly visible in these observations.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure

Effective Widths of Unstiffened Elements under Combined Compression and Bending

Details of a dual-actuator rig developed for testing rectangular plates simply supported on three sides, with the remaining (longitudinal) edge free, under combined uni-axial compression and in-plane bending are presented. Particular attention is given to ensuring a constant strain eccentricity to the loaded ends, as opposed to a constant load eccentricity, in order to determine the post-buckling behavior and ultimate load and moment capacities of unstiffened thin-walled elements. Strain gradients varying from pure compression to pure bending are facilitated. The plate test results are presented in the form of strength curves, and are used to establish effective width equations for the strain gradients tested. The applicability of using elastic or plastic effective widths for unstiffened elements under strain gradients is discussed

Design Provisions for Sections Containing Unstiffened Elements under Stress Gradients

Current American design provisions treat unstiffened elements under stress gradients as if they were uniformly compressed for effective width calculations. This paper presents a design method for calculating the effective width of these elements, based on plate test results. Current international codes allow the capacity of sections that contain unstiffened elements under stress gradients to be calculated on the basis of initiation of yielding in the section. A non-iterative method for the calculation of the capacity, based on inelastic reserve capacity, is presented. The method is shown to be in good agreement with experimental data of I-sections and plain channels in minor axis bending. Particular attention is given to the effect of both the elastic buckling coefficient used in the effective width method, and the use of inelastic considerations, on the bending capacity of sections that contain unstiffened elements under stress gradients

Kennedy Channel and its geophysical lineaments: new evidence that the Wegener Fault is a myth

2010, the year under review, marks the centennial of perhaps the most controversial structure in the Arctic: the Wegener Fault, the 1000-km long fracture that is supposed to underlie Nares Strait and define the north-western margin of an independent Greenland plate (Fig. 1). The seaway between Greenland and Ellesmere Island, Canada, was branded a megashear by Frank Taylor who, purely on physiographic expression, postulated massive Tertiary strike-slip (Taylor 1910). This revolutionary idea fittingly found a place in Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift and thereafter in plate-tectonic theory with Greenland drifting hundreds of kilometres from North America along what Tuzo Wilson subsequently dubbed the ‘Wegener Fault’ (Wilson 1963). Today, the concept lives on. In modern palaeogeography, Nares Strait is given a long multiphase dynamic history with collision of Greenland and Canada in the Palaeogene (Fig. 1). A freely drifting Greenland plate unconstrained by ties to North America is now part of conventional wisdom as related in textbooks, review articles and educational material available on the internet. Accordingly, the Wegener Fault is a standard feature in international compilations of world geology (e.g. UNESCO 2010; Fig. 2). Unfortunately, this 100-year acclamation from Taylor (1910) to UNESCO (2010) is fundamentally flawed: the rocks and their relationships at Nares Strait flatly contradict the existence of the structure