Pathways to Disability Income among Persons with Severe, Persistent Psychiatric Disorders

[Excerpt] Harsh skepticism pervades current public debate about who deserves public support and on what basis, particularly regarding the claims of individuals with disabling illness and injury. Heretofore, these claims were accepted, even reservedly, and the needs of such individuals were considered to be legitimate even when they were monitored closely. The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs and their recipients have been among the most visible and vulnerable targets of increased scrutiny and shrinking public beneficence. In 1997, congressional legislation redefined SSI eligibility for children, sparked largely by concerns that children have been deployed to engage in a type of public begging by acting crazy in order to secure benefits for their families. Maladaptive behaviors was removed from the mental disorder listings, and the Social Security Administration (SSA) estimates that 135,000 children will lose their benefits after review. In March 1996, Congress eliminated SSI, SSDI, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits for persons whose drug addiction or alcoholism is a prominent cause of disability, and as a result 141,000 recipients have been terminated. The SSA also was ordered to begin another sweeping review of all recipients of disability income. SSA officials reportedly expect this process to produce a termination rate of 14 percent, resulting in an estimated 196,000 additional individuals who would cease to receive SSI and SSDI

Quantum critical point in the spin glass-antiferromagnetism competition in Kondo-lattice systems

A theory is proposed to describe the competition among antiferromagnetism (AF), spin glass (SG) and Kondo effect. The model describes two Kondo sublattices with an intrasite Kondo interaction strength $J_{K}$ and an interlattice quantum Ising interaction in the presence of a transverse field $\Gamma$. The interlattice coupling is a random Gaussian distributed variable (with average $-2J_0/N$ and variance $32 J^{2}/N$) while the $\Gamma$ field is introduced as a quantum mechanism to produce spin flipping. The path integral formalism is used to study this fermionic problem where the spin operators are represented by bilinear combinations of Grassmann fields. The disorder is treated within the framework of the replica trick. The free energy and the order parameters of the problem are obtained by using the static ansatz and by choosing both $J_0/J$ and $\Gamma/J \approx (J_k/J)^2$ to allow, as previously, a better comparison with the experimental findings. The results indicate the presence of a SG solution at low $J_K/J$ and for temperature $T<T_{f}$ ($T_{f}$ is the freezing temperature). When $J_K/J$ is increased, a mixed phase AF+SG appears, then an AF solution and finally a Kondo state is obtained for high values of $J_{K}/J$. Moreover, the behaviors of the freezing and Neel temperatures are also affected by the relationship between $J_{K}$ and the transverse field $\Gamma$. The first one presents a slight decrease while the second one decreases towards a Quantum Critical Point (QCP). The obtained phase diagram has the same sequence as the experimental one for $Ce_{2}Au_{1-x}Co_{x}Si_{3}$, if $J_{K}$ is assumed to increase with $x$, and in addition, it also shows a qualitative agreement concerning the behavior of the freezing and the Neel temperatures.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys.

Cost benefit analysis of space communications technology. Volume 2: Final report

For abstract, see preceding accession

Cost benefit analysis of space communications technology: Volume 1: Executive summary

The questions of (1) whether or not NASA should support the further development of space communications technology, and, if so, (2) which technology's support should be given the highest priority are addressed. Insofar as the issues deal principally with resource allocation, an economics perspective is adopted. The resultant cost benefit methodology utilizes the net present value concept in three distinct analysis stages to evaluate and rank those technologies which pass a qualification test based upon probable (private sector) market failure. User-preference and technology state-of-the-art surveys were conducted (in 1975) to form a data base for the technology evaluation. The program encompassed near-future technologies in space communications earth stations and satellites, including the noncommunication subsystems of the satellite (station keeping, electrical power system, etc.). Results of the research program include confirmation of the applicability of the methodology as well as a list of space communications technologies ranked according to the estimated net present value of their support (development) by NASA

SENSITIVE ANALYSIS OF A COAL COMBUSTION MODEL ON A DROP TUBE FURNACE

In the present work a one-dimensional model for coal combustion in a Drop Tube Furnace (DTF) is developed. The equations that characterize the flow, heat transfer phenomena and coal combustion reactions are programmed in a FORTRAN90 language code. The results are compared with a reference model and experimental data, showing good agreement. A sensitivity study is performed to understand the behavior of coal combustion due to changes of some working parameters of the DTF. From the variation of the oxygen concentration, working temperature and input flow rates the response of the coal combustion in terms of unburned fraction can be obtained

Benefit-cost methodology study with example application of the use of wind generators

An example application for cost-benefit methodology is presented for the use of wind generators. The approach adopted for the example application consisted of the following activities: (1) surveying of the available wind data and wind power system information, (2) developing models which quantitatively described wind distributions, wind power systems, and cost-benefit differences between conventional systems and wind power systems, and (3) applying the cost-benefit methodology to compare a conventional electrical energy generation system with systems which included wind power generators. Wind speed distribution data were obtained from sites throughout the contiguous United States and were used to compute plant factor contours shown on an annual and seasonal basis. Plant factor values (ratio of average output power to rated power) are found to be as high as 0.6 (on an annual average basis) in portions of the central U. S. and in sections of the New England coastal area. Two types of wind power systems were selected for the application of the cost-benefit methodology. A cost-benefit model was designed and implemented on a computer to establish a practical tool for studying the relative costs and benefits of wind power systems under a variety of conditions and to efficiently and effectively perform associated sensitivity analyses

Implementação do banco de ideias/caixa de sugestões/canteiro de ideias.

Projeto/Plano de Ação: 11.11.11.111

Observability of an induced electric dipole moment of the neutron from nonlinear QED

It has been shown recently that a neutron placed in an external quasistatic electric field develops an induced electric dipole moment $\mathbf{p}_{\mathrm{IND}}$ due to quantum fluctuations in the QED vacuum. A feasible experiment which could detect such an effect is proposed and described here. It is shown that the peculiar angular dependence of $\mathbf{p}_{\mathrm{IND}}$ on the orientation of the neutron spin leads to a characteristic asymmetry in polarized neutron scattering by heavy nuclei. This asymmetry can be of the order of $10^{-3}$ for neutrons with epithermal energies. For thermalized neutrons from a hot moderator one still expects experimentally accessible values of the order of $10^{-4}$. The contribution of the induced effect to the neutron scattering length is expected to be only one order of magnitude smaller than that due to the neutron polarizability from its quark substructure. The experimental observation of this scattering asymmetry would be the first ever signal of nonlinearity in electrodynamics due to quantum fluctuations in the QED vacuum