Can Micro Health Insurance Reduce Poverty? Evidence from Bangladesh

This paper examines the impact of micro health insurance on poverty reduction in rural areas of Bangladesh. The research is based on household level primary data collected from the operating areas of the Grameen Bank during 2006. A number of outcome measures relating to poverty status are considered; these include household income, stability of household income via food sufficiency and ownership of non-land assets, and also the probability of being above or below the poverty line. The results show that micro health insurance has a positive association with all of these indicators, and this is statistically significant and quantitatively important for food sufficiency

Evaluating the Health Effects of Micro Health Insurance Placement: Evidence from Bangladesh

We examine the impact of micro health insurance placement on health awareness, healthcare utilization and health status of microcredit members in rural Bangladesh, using data from 329 households in the operating areas of Grameen Bank. The results are based on econometric analysis conditioned on placement of the scheme, and show that placement has a positive association with all of the outcomes. The results are statistically significant for health awareness and healthcare utilization, but not for heath status. Our study makes an important contribution to the literature as it provides evidence on the impact of MHI on a broad set of health outcomes

Calibration of Large BGO and NAI Detectors Using 270 MeV 3-He Ions

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 87-1440

Avalanche noise characteristics of thin GaAs structures with distributed carrier generation

It is known that both pure electron and pure hole injection into thin GaAs multiplication regions gives rise to avalanche multiplication with noise lower than predicted by the local noise model. In this paper, it is shown that the noise from multiplication initiated by carriers generated throughout a 0.1 μm avalanche region is also lower than predicted by the local model but higher than that obtained with pure injection of either carrier type. This behavior is due to the effects of nonlocal ionization brought about by the dead space; the minimum distance a carrier has to travel in the electric field to initiate an ionization even

Zero Temperature Limit of Holographic Superconductors

We consider holographic superconductors whose bulk description consists of gravity minimally coupled to a Maxwell field and charged scalar field with general potential. We give an analytic argument that there is no "hard gap": the real part of the conductivity at low frequency remains nonzero (although typically exponentially small) even at zero temperature. We also numerically construct the gravitational dual of the ground state of some holographic superconductors. Depending on the charge and dimension of the condensate, the infrared theory can have emergent conformal or just Poincare symmetry. In all cases studied, the area of the horizon of the dual black hole goes to zero in the extremal limit, consistent with a nondegenerate ground state.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

The 1.23 Ga Fjellhovdane rhyolite, Grøssæ-Totak; a new age within the Telemark supracrustals, southern Norway

The Grøssæ-Totak supracrustal belt is part of the several-kilometre thick Telemark supracrustal sequences that are exposed in southern Norway. Deposition of the Telemark supracrustals spans the period between Telemarkian continental growth at ~1.52-1.48 Ga and Sveconorwegian orogenesis associated with continental collision at ~1.1-0.9 Ga. The timing of deposition is largely constrained by U-Pb geochronology of detrital zircons in sedimentary units, and igneous zircons within felsic volcanics. A younger Supergroup that has been referred to as the Sveconorwegian Supergroup comprises depositional ages younger than 1.16 Ga; units of the Grøssae-Totak belt have been mapped as part of this Supergroup. This study presents a new U-Pb age of 1233 ± 29 Ma for the Fjellhovdane rhyolite, one of the lowermost units within the Grøssæ-Totak belt; this age suggests that at least the lower part of this sequence is not part of the Sveconorwegian Supergroup, but formed in an earlier volcano-sedimentary basin that is correlative in age to the Sæsvatn-Valldal and Setesdal supracrustal belts that occur to the west and south respectively. The geochemistry of the Fjellhovdane rhyolite is compatible with crustal melting of previously-formed supra-subduction rocks, as has been advocated for the Sæsvatn-Valldal rhyolites

Ecological model of extinctions

We present numerical results based on a simplified ecological system in evolution, showing features of extinction similar to that claimed for the biosystem on Earth. In the model each species consists of a population in interaction with the others, that reproduces and evolves in time. Each species is simultaneously a predator and a prey in a food chain. Mutations that change the interactions are supposed to occur randomly at a low rate. Extinctions of populations result naturally from the predator-prey dynamics. The model is not pinned in a fitness variable, and natural selection arises from the dynamics.Comment: 16 pages (LaTeX type, RevTeX style), including 6 figures in gif format. To be published in Phys. Rev. E (prob. Dic. 96

Exact Gravity Dual of a Gapless Superconductor

A model of an exact gravity dual of a gapless superconductor is presented in which the condensate is provided by a charged scalar field coupled to a bulk black hole of hyperbolic horizon in asymptotically AdS spacetime. Below a critical temperature, the black hole acquires its hair through a phase transition while an electromagnetic perturbation of the background Maxwell field determines the conductivity of the boundary theory.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, a section on the stability of the MTZ black hole is added, references are added, version to be published in JHE

Time-reversal violating rotation of polarization plane of light in gas placed in electric field

Rotation of polarization plane of light in gas placed in electric field is considered. Different factors causing this phenomenon are investigated. Angle of polarization plane rotation for transition 6S_{1/2} - 7S_{1/2} in cesium (lambda=539 nm) is estimated. The possibility to observe this effect experimentally is discussed.Comment: 10 pages, Late