Digital cardiometer computes and displays heartbeat rate

To compute the heartbeat rate from the waveform output of an electrocardiogram, a digital cardiometer with solid state circuit elements has been developed. This computes the beat every 15 seconds and visually presents the data on numerical display tubes

Do Drug Plans Matter? Effects of Drug Plan Eligibility on Drug Use Among the Elderly, Social Assistance Recipients and the General Population

The 1984 Canada Health Act does not require that the provinces subsidize prescription drugs. Many provinces do, however, provide categorical coverage to the elderly, social assistance recipients and others, although the generosity of coverage is highly variable. A system of parallel private insurance covers the non-elderly ineligible for social assistance. In this study, we assessed the socio- economic, health and demographic determinants of private drug insurance. We also assessed the effect of inter-provincial variations in drug insurance coverage for the elderly and low income on variations in drug insurance coverage for the elderly and low income on their drug use. In addition, using instrumental variables methods, we considered the effect of prescription drug insurance coverage status on drug use in the non-elderly population ineligible for social assistance. Consistent with the previous literature, we find that for most seniors and non-indigent, drug coverage has only minor effects on drug use. The drug use of social assistance recipients was, however, sensitive to even relatively modest copayments of $0-$6.prescription drug utilization, copayments, user fees, pharmaceutical cost control

Colored Pseudo-Goldstone Bosons and Gauge Boson Pairs

If the electroweak symmetry breaking sector contains colored particles weighing a few hundred GeV, then they will be copiously produced at a hadron supercollider. Colored technipions can rescatter into pairs of gauge bosons. As proposed by Bagger, Dawson, and Valencia, this leads to gauge boson pair rates far larger than in the standard model. In this note we reconsider this mechanism, and illustrate it in a model in which the rates can be reliably calculated. The observation of both an enhanced rate of gauge-boson-pair events and colored particles would be a signal that the colored particles were pseudo-Goldstone bosons of symmetry breaking.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures not include

Death Spiral or Euthanasia? The Demise of Generous Group Health Insurance Coverage

Employers must determine which sorts of healthcare insurance plans to offer employees and also set employee premiums for each plan provided. Depending on how they structure the premiums that employees pay across different healthcare insurance plans, plan sponsors alter the incentives to choose one plan over another. If employees know they differ by risk level but premiums do not fully reflect these risk differences, this can give rise to a so-called "death spiral" due to adverse selection. In this paper use longitudinal information from a natural experiment in the management of health benefits for a large employer to explore the impact of moving from a fixed dollar contribution policy to a risk-adjusted employer contribution policy. Our results suggest that implementing a significant risk adjustment had no discernable effect on adverse selection against the most generous indemnity insurance policy. This stands in stark contrast to previous studies, which have tended to find large impacts. Further analysis suggests that previous studies which appeared to detect plans in the throes of a death spiral, may instead have been experiencing an inexorable movement away from a non-preferred product, one that would have been inefficient for almost all workers even in the absence of adverse selection.

Global Dimension of Polynomial Rings in Partially Commuting Variables

For any free partially commutative monoid $M(E,I)$, we compute the global dimension of the category of $M(E,I)$-objects in an Abelian category with exact coproducts. As a corollary, we generalize Hilbert's Syzygy Theorem to polynomial rings in partially commuting variables.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Study of zero-gravity, vapor/liquid separators

Heat exchange, mechanical separation, surface tension, and dielectrophoretic methods of separating vapor from liquid at zero gravity for vapor ventin

A Generic Algorithm for IACT Optical Efficiency Calibration using Muons

Muons produced in Extensive Air Showers (EAS) generate ring-like images in Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes when travelling near parallel to the optical axis. From geometrical parameters of these images, the absolute amount of light emitted may be calculated analytically. Comparing the amount of light recorded in these images to expectation is a well established technique for telescope optical efficiency calibration. However, this calculation is usually performed under the assumption of an approximately circular telescope mirror. The H.E.S.S. experiment entered its second phase in 2012, with the addition of a fifth telescope with a non-circular 600m$^2$ mirror. Due to the differing mirror shape of this telescope to the original four H.E.S.S. telescopes, adaptations to the standard muon calibration were required. We present a generalised muon calibration procedure, adaptable to telescopes of differing shapes and sizes, and demonstrate its performance on the H.E.S.S. II array.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherland

Advances in Engineering and Application of Optogenetic Indicators for Neuroscience

Our ability to investigate the brain is limited by available technologies that can record biological processes in vivo with suitable spatiotemporal resolution. Advances in optogenetics now enable optical recording and perturbation of central physiological processes within the intact brains of model organisms. By monitoring key signaling molecules noninvasively, we can better appreciate how information is processed and integrated within intact circuits. In this review, we describe recent efforts engineering genetically-encoded fluorescence indicators to monitor neuronal activity. We summarize recent advances of sensors for calcium, potassium, voltage, and select neurotransmitters, focusing on their molecular design, properties, and current limitations. We also highlight impressive applications of these sensors in neuroscience research. We adopt the view that advances in sensor engineering will yield enduring insights on systems neuroscience. Neuroscientists are eager to adopt suitable tools for imaging neural activity in vivo, making this a golden age for engineering optogenetic indicators. Keywords: optogenetic tools; neuroscience; calcium sensor; voltage sensor; neurotransmitter

Invariant manifolds and the geometry of front propagation in fluid flows

Recent theoretical and experimental work has demonstrated the existence of one-sided, invariant barriers to the propagation of reaction-diffusion fronts in quasi-two-dimensional periodically-driven fluid flows. These barriers were called burning invariant manifolds (BIMs). We provide a detailed theoretical analysis of BIMs, providing criteria for their existence, a classification of their stability, a formalization of their barrier property, and mechanisms by which the barriers can be circumvented. This analysis assumes the sharp front limit and negligible feedback of the front on the fluid velocity. A low-dimensional dynamical systems analysis provides the core of our results.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. To appear in Chaos Focus Issue: Chemo-Hydrodynamic Patterns and Instabilities (2012