Changes in Health Insurance Coverage in the Great Recession, 2007-2010

Examines trends in the number of uninsured by age, race/ethnicity, work status, citizenship status, and region; contributing factors such as the decline in employer-sponsored coverage and real incomes; and mitigating factors such as Medicaid provisions

Navigating Chinese Culture and Politics: The Destinies of Companies in China

It is generally accepted that the colossal Chinese market offers great opportunities for dynamic entrepreneurial businesses, as well as individuals, but it also means that there are more potential obstacles to be aware of and to overcome than in smaller countries. This study will show how successful businesses in the Chinese market are directly influenced by China’s unique culture, religious beliefs, codes of behavior and political policies. It will also show ignorance or unawareness of these influences can lead to a loss of business or even total failure. Indeed, a lack of understanding of these influences has been the downfall for some otherwise successful global international companies. To analyze this phenomenon, this research will investigate the extent to which Chinese culture and practices such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism define the nature of business relationships. Similarly, it will reveal the undeniable influence of the Maoist-inherited Chinese political system on the destiny of businesses in China. Along with secondary academic resources on business practices in China, this essay includes news, reports, questionnaires, and real-life cases. In carefully examining companies like Uber, Coca Cola, Tencent, Didi, BestBuy Google, and eBay, this research suggests that there is a close correlation between adapting to Chinese cultural values and political systems and the fate of a business

A Decade of Coverage Losses: Implications for the Affordable Care Act

Examines 2000-10 trends in employer-sponsored health insurance and Medicaid/CHIP coverage by income group; contributing factors, including a growing low-income population; and projected coverage among low-income adults under the 2010 healthcare reform

House Republican Budget Plan: State-by-State Impact of Changes in Medicaid Financing

Estimates how the April 2011 Budget Plan passed by the House of Representatives would affect federal Medicaid funding for states between 2012 and 2021 and how in turn this would affect Medicaid spending and enrollment and hospitals under three scenarios

Dynamic communicability and epidemic spread: a case study on an empirical dynamic contact network

We analyze a recently proposed temporal centrality measure applied to an empirical network based on person-to-person contacts in an emergency department of a busy urban hospital. We show that temporal centrality identifies a distinct set of top-spreaders than centrality based on the time-aggregated binarized contact matrix, so that taken together, the accuracy of capturing top-spreaders improves significantly. However, with respect to predicting epidemic outcome, the temporal measure does not necessarily outperform less complex measures. Our results also show that other temporal markers such as duration observed and the time of first appearance in the the network can be used in a simple predictive model to generate predictions that capture the trend of the observed data remarkably well.Comment: 31 pages, 15 figures, 11 tables; typos corrected; references added; Figure 3 added; some changes to the conclusion and introductio

ACA Implementation Monitoring and Tracking: Declining Health Insurance in Low-Income Working Families and Small Businesses

Examines falling employer-sponsored insurance rates among low-wage employees of large firms and high-wage employees of small firms and how provisions of federal healthcare reform address coverage for these groups

Rapid online buffer exchange for screening of proteins, protein complexes and cell lysates by native mass spectrometry

It is important to assess the identity and purity of proteins and protein complexes during and after protein purification to ensure that samples are of sufficient quality for further biochemical and structural characterization, as well as for use in consumer products, chemical processes and therapeutics. Native mass spectrometry (nMS) has become an important tool in protein analysis due to its ability to retain non-covalent interactions during measurements, making it possible to obtain protein structural information with high sensitivity and at high speed. Interferences from the presence of non-volatiles are typically alleviated by offline buffer exchange, which is time-consuming and difficult to automate. We provide a protocol for rapid online buffer exchange (OBE) nMS to directly screen structural features of pre-purified proteins, protein complexes or clarified cell lysates. In the liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS) approach described in this protocol, samples in MS-incompatible conditions are injected onto a short size-exclusion chromatography column. Proteins and protein complexes are separated from small molecule non-volatile buffer components using an aqueous, non-denaturing mobile phase. Eluted proteins and protein complexes are detected by the mass spectrometer after electrospray ionization. Mass spectra can inform regarding protein sample purity and oligomerization, and additional tandem mass spectra can help to further obtain information on protein complex subunits. Information obtained by OBE nMS can be used for fast (<5 min) quality control and can further guide protein expression and purification optimization

DICER-LIKE2 plays a primary role in transitive silencing of transgenes in Arabidopsis.

Dicer-like (DCL) enzymes play a pivotal role in RNA silencing in plants, processing the long double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) that triggers silencing into the primary short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that mediate it. The siRNA population can be augmented and silencing amplified via transitivity, an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDR)-dependent pathway that uses the target RNA as substrate to generate secondary siRNAs. Here we report that Arabidopsis DCL2-but not DCL4-is required for transitivity in cell-autonomous, post-transcriptional silencing of transgenes. An insertion mutation in DCL2 blocked sense transgene-induced silencing and eliminated accumulation of the associated RDR-dependent siRNAs. In hairpin transgene-induced silencing, the dcl2 mutation likewise eliminated accumulation of secondary siRNAs and blocked transitive silencing, but did not block silencing mediated by primary siRNAs. Strikingly, in all cases, the dcl2 mutation eliminated accumulation of all secondary siRNAs, including those generated by other DCL enzymes. In contrast, mutations in DCL4 promoted a dramatic shift to transitive silencing in the case of the hairpin transgene and enhanced silencing induced by the sense transgene. Suppression of hairpin and sense transgene silencing by the P1/HC-Pro and P38 viral suppressors was associated with elimination of secondary siRNA accumulation, but the suppressors did not block processing of the stem of the hairpin transcript into primary siRNAs. Thus, these viral suppressors resemble the dcl2 mutation in their effects on siRNA biogenesis. We conclude that DCL2 plays an essential, as opposed to redundant, role in transitive silencing of transgenes and may play a more important role in silencing of viruses than currently thought

Red Flags, Red Herrings, and Common Ground: An Expert Study in Response to State Reading Policy

In many U.S. states, legislation seeks to define effective instruction for beginning readers, creating an urgent need to turn to scholars who are knowledgeable about ongoing reading research. This mixed-methods study considers the extent to which recognized literacy experts agreed with recommendations about instruction that were included on a state’s reading initiative website. Our purpose was to guide implementation and inform policy-makers. In alignment with the initiative, experts agreed reading aloud, comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, phonological awareness, and phonics all deserve a place in early literacy instruction. Additionally, they agreed some components not included on the website warranted attention, such as motivation, oral language, reading volume, writing, and needs-based instruction. Further, experts cautioned against extremes in describing aspects of early reading instruction. Findings suggest that experts’ knowledge of the vast body of ongoing research about reading can be a helpful guide to policy formation and implementation

Evaluating Technology-Mediated Collaborative Workflows for Telehealth

Goals: This paper discusses the need for a predictable method to evaluate gains and gaps of collaborative technology-mediated workflows and introduces an evaluation framework to address this need. Methods: The Collaborative Space Analysis Framework (CS-AF), introduced in this research, is a cross-disciplinary evaluation method designed to evaluate technology-mediated collaborative workflows. The 5-step CS-AF approach includes: (1) current-state workflow definition, (2) current-state (baseline) workflow assessment, (3) technology-mediated workflow development and deployment, (4) technology-mediated workflow assessment, (5) analysis, and conclusions. For this research, a comprehensive, empirical study of hypertension exam workflow for telehealth was conducted using the CS-AF approach. Results: The CS-AF systemized approach reveals critical cross-disciplinary evaluation data concerning gains and gaps of collaborative workflows when technology-mediated enhancements are characterized and compared with a baseline workflow for the goal of continuous workflow improvement. Conclusion: The CS-AF is an effective approach that can be adapted for use in multiple domains