5,412 research outputs found
Therapeutic Foster Care: Some Characteristics of Youth and Children in Out of Home Placements in the State of North Dakota
This study provides a description of the children and youth who are in out of home placements. The study population consists of an analysis of some characteristics of 146 children and youth to be used as a baseline analysis which can be utilized for agency program planning, policy development, and administration. The characteristics of the children and youth were obtained from individuals residing in therapeutic foster care in the state of North Dakota, supervised by the Professional Association of Treatment Home (PATH). An independent organization tabulated the raw data utilized in this study. The information was collection for a period of 18 months, beginning April 1, 1995.
The analysis of the information collected will provide a partial profile of the children and youth served at PATH, differentiated by gender, psychiatric diagnosis, involvement with the judicial system, length of service, race, school problems, and family problems.
The information concluded from this study will assist with future planning and program development for PATH of North Dakota. Recent political decisions and economic downsizing necessitate awareness of agency functioning and effectiveness. Ability to adapt and improve is the key to agency survival in order to maintain the commitment of quality service to the children and families served through PATH
A Role for Ethical Analysis in Social Research on Agrifood and Environmental Standards
Lawrence Busch claims that, although some philosophers may recognize the ethical import of standards, they do not endeavor to understand how people justify standards in social reality. The argument in this paper is that the Michigan State University (MSU) School of Agrifood Governance and Technoscience should actually be understood as fleshing out a more important role for ethicists. This argument is explored through an analysis of the MSU School’s research on standards, a reassessment of J.O. Urmson’s “On Grading,” and a review of major ethical theories, from utilitarianism to discourse ethics. The conclusion is that, though standards may be used and justified within social networks and worlds, there will always be points where their determination and application require discussion by stakeholders and other publics. It is at these points that the reasons offered in support of various standards should be subject to debate and skepticism, and the role of ethics as an activity is crucial in conjunction with social scientific research
X-Ray Emission from M32: X-Ray Binaries or a micro-AGN?
We have analysed archival {\it ROSAT} PSPC data for M32 in order to study the
x-ray emission from this nearest elliptical galaxy. We fit spectra from three
long exposures with Raymond-Smith, thermal bremsstrahlung, and power-law
models. All models give excellent fits. The thermal fits have kT4 keV,
the Raymond-Smith iron abundance is Solar, the power-law
fit has =1.60.1, and all fits have consistent with the
Galactic column. The source is centered on M32 to an accuracy of 9, and
unresolved at 27 FWHM (90 pc). M32 is x-ray variable by a factor of
3--5 on timescales of a decade down to minutes, with evidence for a possible
period of 1.3 days.
There are two plausible interpretations for these results: 1) Emission due to
low-mass x-ray binaries; 2) Emission due to accretion onto a massive central
black hole. Both of these possibilities are supported by arguments based on
previous studies of M32 and other old stellar systems; the {\it ROSAT} PSPC
data do not allow us to unambiguously choose between them. Observations with
the {\it ROSAT} HRI and with {\it ASCA} are required to determine which of
these two very different physical models is correct.Comment: 9 pages, 5 PostScript figures, uses AASTeX style files, Accepted for
publication in Astrophysical Journal Letter
Healthcare Price Transparency: Policy Approaches and Estimated Impacts on Spending
Healthcare price transparency discussions typically focus on increasing patients' access to information about their out-of-pocket costs, but that focus is too narrow and should include other audiences -- physicians, employers, health plans and policymakers -- each with distinct needs and uses for healthcare price information. Greater price transparency can reduce U.S. healthcare spending.For example, an estimated 18 billion over the next decade. While 40 trillionin total projected health spending over the same period. In contrast, using state all-payer claims databases to gather and report hospital-specific prices might reduce spending by an estimated $61 billion over 10 years.The effects of price transparency depend critically on the intended audience, the decision-making context and how prices are presented. And the impact of price transparency can be greatly amplified if target audiences are able and motivated to act on the information. Simply providing prices is insufficient to control spending without other shifts in healthcare financing, including changes in benefit design to make patients more sensitive to price differences among providers and alternative treatments. Other reforms that can amplify the impact of price transparency include shifting from fee-for-service payments that reward providers for volume to payment methods that put providers at risk for spending for episodes of care or defined patient populations. While price transparency alone seems unlikely to transform the healthcare system, it can play a needed role in enabling effective reforms in value-based benefit design and provider payment
Spectral variations of the X-ray binary pulsar LMC X-4 during its long period intensity variation and a comparison with Her X-1
We present spectral variations of the binary X-ray pulsar LMC X-4 using the
RXTE/PCA observations at different phases of its 30.5 day long super-orbital
period. Only out of eclipse data were used for this study. During the high
state of the super-orbital period of LMC X-4, the spectrum is well described by
a high energy cut-off power-law with a photon index in the range of 0.7-1.0 and
an iron emission line. In the low state, the spectrum is found to be flatter
with power-law photon index in the range 0.5-0.7. A direct correlation is
detected between the continuum flux in 7-25 keV energy band and the iron
emission line flux. The equivalent width of the iron emission line is found to
be highly variable during low intensity state, whereas it remains almost
constant during the high intensity state of the super-orbital period. It is
observed that the spectral variations in LMC X-4 are similar to those of Her
X-1 (using RXTE/PCA data). These results suggest that the geometry of the
region where the iron line is produced and its visibility with respect to the
phase of the super-orbital period is similar in LMC X-4 and Her X-1. A
remarkable difference between these two systems is a highly variable absorption
column density with phase of the super-orbital period that is observed in Her
X-1 but not in LMC X-4.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Five-Year Cost of Dementia: Medicare
About 5.5 million older adults are living with dementia, a chronic, progressive disease characterized by severe cognitive decline. This number will likely grow significantly as the U.S. population ages, which has cost implications for the Medicare program. A full accounting of these additional expenses will help policymakers plan for them in their Medicare budgets. In this study, Norma Coe and colleagues examined survival and Medicare expenditures in older adults with and without dementia to estimate dementia’s incremental costs to Medicare in the five years after diagnosis
SAFETY PATROL: UTILIZING TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE RESPONSE TIMES IN EMERGENCY EVENT SITUATIONS
Mass shootings have, tragically, been on the rise in recent years and, heartbreakingly, those incidents can and do take place on school grounds. Techniques are presented herein that support a Safety Patrol facility that accelerates emergency services response times and equips first responders with the critical information that is required to act quickly in an emergency situation. According to the presented techniques, after an emergency event (such as a gunshot, a fire alarm, etc.) is detected, a network may react to the notification of that event by automatically creating a new Wi-Fi service set identifier (SSID) named FirstResponders and generating a splash page for first responder login. After successfully logging in, the presented techniques provide an overview of a facility (through floor plan maps) and identify the locations of video cameras which may be selected to receive live video feeds. Additionally, according to the presented techniques detected events may be displayed on a floor plan along with timestamps to provide historical situational awareness and equip first responders with not just information regarding what occurred where, but also access to the live feeds depicting what is currently happening
Orbital phase spectroscopy of X-ray pulsars to study the stellar wind of the companion
High Mass X-ray Binary Pulsars (HMXBP), in which the companion star is a
source of supersonic stellar wind, provide a laboratory to probe the velocity
and density profile of such winds. Here, we have measured the variation of the
absorption column density along with other spectral parameters over the binary
orbit for two HMXBP in elliptical orbits, as observed with the Rossi X-ray
Timing Explorer (RXTE) and the BeppoSAX satellites. A spherically symmetric
wind profile was used as a model to compare the observed column density
variations. In 4U 1538-52, we find the model corroborating the observations;
whereas in GX 301-2, the stellar wind appears to be very clumpy and a smooth
symmetric wind model seems to be inadequate in explaining the variation in
column density.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. To be Published in Elsevier/AS
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