Cross-Subsidies: Government\u27s Hidden Pocketbook

Governments can use regulation to pay for public goods out of the pockets of consumers, rather than taxpayers. For example, the Affordable Care Act underwrites care for women and the infirm through higher insurance premium payments by healthy men. Building on a classic article from Richard Posner, we show that these “cross-subsidies” between consumers are a common feature of modern law, ranging from telecommunications to intellectual property to employee benefits. Critics of the ACA, and even some of its supporters, argue that taxes would be a better choice. Taxes are said to be more transparent, and to fit better with the recommendations of public finance economics. We show how these same arguments can be extended to many other contemporary cross-subsidies. We also argue, however, that the critics may well be wrong. Drawing on recent theoretical and empirical advances, we show that cross-subsidies can be more efficient than taxes, especially when they are used to redistribute wealth on grounds other than income, such as the ACA’s transfer from men to women. We then apply our analysis to several key contemporary cross-subsidies, including personal-injury law, patents, class action lawsuits, paid family leave, and of course the ACA

Matrix Effects in Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Biological Tissue

We have made several observations during the course of our studies that show the presence of matrix effects in soft biological tissue and standards. The sputtering rate of gelatin is approximately twice that of epoxy resin, but the ion yield of lithium in gelatin is an order of magnitude less than in epoxy. Osmium impregnation of freeze-dried material significantly alters the localization of calcium, but not potassium and barium. The absolute count rate for calcium in osmicated tissue is increased several-fold above that in freeze-dried tissue. Scanning electron microscopy of sputtered material shows the formation of cones during sputtering, which is particularly, but not exclusively, associated with melanin granules and red blood cells. These structures are known to be highly emissive for Na, K, and Ca. Boron implanted tissue also exhibits selective boron emission from melanin granules. Relative proportions of monoatomic and polyatomic emission vary in epoxy, gelatin and tissue. Ion images of carbon, chlorine and vanadium in tissue embedded with a vanadium-doped epoxy resin show variations in local regions that correspond to tissue structure. The energy distributions of common secondary ions differed somewhat in resin and two different tissue regions. These examples show the existence of potential matrix effects in soft biological tissue that involve both differential sputtering and ion yield effects

The Stochastic Container Relocation Problem

The Container Relocation Problem (CRP) is concerned with finding a sequence of moves of containers that minimizes the number of relocations needed to retrieve all containers, while respecting a given order of retrieval. However, the assumption of knowing the full retrieval order of containers is particularly unrealistic in real operations. This paper studies the stochastic CRP (SCRP), which relaxes this assumption. A new multi-stage stochastic model, called the batch model, is introduced, motivated, and compared with an existing model (the online model). The two main contributions are an optimal algorithm called Pruning-Best-First-Search (PBFS) and a randomized approximate algorithm called PBFS-Approximate with a bounded average error. Both algorithms, applicable in the batch and online models, are based on a new family of lower bounds for which we show some theoretical properties. Moreover, we introduce two new heuristics outperforming the best existing heuristics. Algorithms, bounds and heuristics are tested in an extensive computational section. Finally, based on strong computational evidence, we conjecture the optimality of the “Leveling” heuristic in a special “no information” case, where at any retrieval stage, any of the remaining containers is equally likely to be retrieved next

Continuous SO2 flux measurements for Vulcano Island, Italy

The La Fossa cone of Vulcano Island (Aeolian Archipelago, Italy) is a closed conduit volcano. Today, Vulcano Island is characterized by sulfataric activity, with a large fumarolic field that is mainly located in the summit area. A scanning differential optical absorption spectroscopy instrument designed by the Optical Sensing Group of Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, was installed in the framework of the European project "Network for Observation of Volcanic and Atmospheric Change", in March 2008. This study presents the first dataset of SO2 plume fluxes recorded for a closed volcanic system. Between 2008 and 2010, the SO2 fluxes recorded showed average values of 12 t.d—1 during the normal sulfataric activity of Vulcano Island, with one exceptional event of strong degassing that occurred between September and December, 2009, when the SO2 emissions reached up to 100 t.d—1

Multi-criteria assessment of the Representative Elementary Watershed approach on the Donga catchment (Benin) using a downward approach of model complexity

International audienceThis study is part of the AMMA – African Multidisciplinary Monsoon Analysis – project and aims at a better understanding and modelling of the Donga catchment (580 km2, Benin) behaviour. For this purpose, we applied the REW concept proposed by Reggiani et al. (1998, 1999), which allows the description of the main local processes at the sub-watershed scale. Such distributed hydrological models, which represent hydrological processes at various scales, should be evaluated not only on the discharge at the outlet but also on each of the represented processes and in several points of the catchment. This kind of multi-criteria evaluation is of importance in order to assess the global behaviour of the models. We applied such multi-criteria strategy to the Donga catchment (586 km2), in Benin. The work is supported by a strategy of observation, undertaken since 1998 consisting in a network of 20 rain gauges, an automatic meteorological station, 6 discharge stations and 18 wells. The first goal of this study is to assess the model ability to reproduce the discharge at the outlet, the water table dynamics in several points of the catchment and the vadose zone dynamics at the sub-catchment scale. We tested two spatial discretisations of increasing resolution. To test the internal structure of the model, we looked at its ability to represent also the discharge at intermediary stations. After adjustment of soil parameters, the model is shown to accurately represent discharge down to a drainage area of 100 km2, whereas poorer simulation is achieved on smaller catchments. We introduced the spatial variability of rainfall by distributing the daily rainfall over the REW and obtained a very low sensitivity of the model response to this variability. Our results suggest that processes in the unsaturated zone should first be improved, in order to better simulate soil water dynamics and represent perched water tables which were not included in this first modelling study

Feasibility trial of the newly introduced optical enhancement technology in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease

BACKGROUND: Optical Enhancement technology (OE) combines bandwidth-limited light and image enhancement processing technology to enhance subtle mucosal and vascular details. This is the first study assessing the new technology for the diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Consecutive patients with GERD and controls were prospectively included. The distal esophagus was examined in all quadrants with high definition white-light endoscopy (HD-WLE) followed by OE and biopsies for histopathological analysis. Features observed only by OE were compared between controls and patients with GERD. RESULTS: A total of 100 areas were evaluated. About 56% of patients had a diagnosis of GERD. The mean age of patients was 53 years (range 27-89 years), 60% were female. Compared to controls, patients with diagnosis of GERD showed significantly more often tortuosity (p = 0.042), dilation (p = 0.0003), and increased number (p = 0.001) of intrapapillary capillary loops (IPCLs). In addition, increased vascularity and mucosal breaks were significantly more often found in patients with GERD as compared to controls (p < 0.05). On multivariate analysis, increased number and dilation of IPCL were the best predictors of GERD. CONCLUSIONS: The newly introduced OE technology significantly improves the diagnosis of GERD compared to HD-WLE. The results should be confirmed in a multicenter trial

X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy and mass spectrometry studies of X-ray-processed solid CO2

Solid CO2 films have been grown on a stainless steel substrate and processed by X-ray bombardment for up to 6 hr.. The reactions induced were monitored using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and mass spectrometry. The XPS results are twofold: direct X-ray photolysis of the CO2 ice produced CO and an unidentified O product, possibly atomic O; secondary effects resulting from surface reactions between CO, O, and residual H from the vacuum environment produced H2CO, CH3OH, and a water ice cap on the CO2 film. The rate of production of CO from direct X-ray photolysis of CO2 is measured to be 5.4 × 102 molecule photon-1, corresponding to a formation cross section of 4.7 × 10-20 cm2. The growth rate for the water cap is calculated to be 2.6 × 10-4 monolayers s-1 for a partial pressure of H equal to 2 × 10-10 Torr. The appearance of gas-phase products from the film showed a time lag which indicates that the diffusion of the product species in the bulk CO2 is affected by some time-dependent process, possibly the creation of defects in the film. A model for the observed time dependence of the dissociation products in the gas phase yields diffusion coefficients in the CO2 of 5 × 10-12 and 1 × 10-12 cm2 s-1, for O and CO, respectively