How Race/Ethnicity, Immigration Status, and Language Affect Health Insurance Coverage, Access to and Quality of Care Among the Low-Income Population

Uses data from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families to examine the roles of race/ethnicity, citizenship status, and language on insurance coverage, access to care, and quality of care, particularly focusing on the low-income Latino population

The acoustic bubble: ocean, cetacean and extraterrestrial acoustics, and cold water cleaning

This paper summarizes the content of a plenary lecture on the author’s personal research into the interactions between bubbles and sound fields, covering particular topics involving the climatically important gas exchange between atmosphere and ocean, the implications of bubbly ocean water to marine mammals that use sound, and the opportunities afforded by incorporating acoustical sensors onto probes launched to investigate other worlds in our solar system. It closes with recent data on the opportunities of bubble acoustics to investigate methods of cold water cleaning

Mass transfer enhancement produced by laser induced cavitation

A microelectrode is used to measure the mass transfer perturbation and characteristics during the growth and subsequent collapse of a single bubble (which, following its initial expansion, achieved a maximum radius, Rm, of not, vert, similar500–1000 ?m). This mass transfer enhancement was associated with the forced convection, driven by bubble motion, as the result of a single cavitation event generated by a laser pulse beneath a 25 ?m diameter Au microelectrode. Evidence for bubble growth and rebound is gained from the electrochemical and acoustic measurements. This is supported with high-speed video footage of the events generated. A threshold for the formation of large cavitation bubbles in electrolyte solutions is suggested

High resolution bubble sizing through detection of the subharmonic response with a two frequency excitation technique

Sizing bubbles in fluid using a two-frequency excitation technique is not prone to the same drawbacks of some other sizing methods—it has a global maximum at the bubble resonance frequency and allows good spatial resolution. The bubble is insonated with a high fixed imaging signal and a variable pumping signal tuned to the resonant frequency of the bubble, which are coupled at resonance by the high-amplitude oscillation of the bubble wall, with the formation of sum-and-difference terms. This paper examines both the resonance and off-resonance behavior of such combination frequency signals. A coupling of the subharmonic bubble response with the imaging frequency is shown to be a much more accurate and unambiguous detector of the bubble resonance than couplings involving the fundamental resonance. The characteristics of this subharmonic signal are examined using an automated sizing method, and the dependence of the response on the pumping signal amplitude and the frequency step size between two successive pumping frequencies is examined. The location of a definite subharmonic threshold is reported and quantified both for single bubbles held on a wire and for free rising bubbles moving through the focus of the transducers. This amplitude is found to be orders of magnitude lower than that predicted by traditional volumetric pulsation models, but agrees very closely with the theoretical onset of surface wave

An activated fluid stream – new techniques for cold water cleaning

Electrochemical, acoustic and imaging techniques are used to characterise surface cleaning with particular emphasis on the understanding of the key phenomena relevant to surface cleaning. A range of novel techniques designed to enhance and monitor the effective cleaning of a solid/liquid interface is presented. Among the techniques presented, mass transfer of material to a sensor embedded in a surface is demonstrated to be useful in the further exploration of ultrasonic cleaning of high aspect ratio micropores. In addition the effect of micropore size on the cleaning efficacy is demonstrated. The design and performance of a new cleaning system reliant on the activation of bubbles within a free flowing stream is presented. This device utilised acoustic activation of bubbles within the stream and at a variety of substrates. Finally, a controlled bubble swarm is generated in the stream using electrolysis, and its effect on both acoustic output and cleaning performance are compared to the case when no bubbles are added. This will demonstrate the active role that the electrochemically generated bubble swarm can have in extending the spatial zone over which cleaning is achieved

Does masking matter? Shipping noise and fish vocalizations

Shipping creates large near-field background noises at levels similar to or higher than fish vocalizations and in the same critical bandwidths. This noise has the potential to "mask" biologically important signals and prevent fish from hearing them; any interference with the detection and recognition of sounds may impact fish survival. The Lombard effect, whereby vocalizations are altered to reduce or exclude masking effects, is an adaptation that has been observed in mammals and birds. Research is needed to establish whether the Lombard effect occurs in fish to gain a better understanding of the implications of noise pollution on fish populations