Decreasing Opportunities for Low-Wage Workers: The Role of the Nondiscrimination Law for Employer-Provided Health Insurance

As of 1978, the favorable tax treatment of fringe benefits, including health insurance, has been regulated via a nondiscrimination clause such that low-wage, full-time workers must be offered health insurance (and other benefits) that are offered to higher-wage workers by the firm. Part-time workers may be excluded from coverage, however, creating incentives for firms to hire some types of workers part time to deny them coverage. We hypothesize that firms will hire fewer workers whose relative costs have increased, that is, low-wage workers. These workers will be less likely to work for firms that offer coverage, and those that do will be more likely to work part time without being eligible for the firm’s health insurance benefits. We use the 1988 and 1993 Employee Benefits Supplements to the Current Population Surveys and an employer premium imputation to examine these hypotheses. Both the descriptive and multivariate analysis are consistent with our hypotheses. We predict the probability of working for a firm that offers health insurance to decrease as premiums increase for both high- and low-wage workers. An increase in the premium is also associated with a decrease in the probability of part-time work, but an even greater decrease in the joint probability of part-time work with eligibility for health insurance.

Housing flexibility effects on rotor stability

Preliminary rotordynamic evaluations are performed with a housing stiffness assumption that is typically determined only after the hardware is built. In addressing rotor stability, a rigid housing assumption was shown to predict an instability at a lower spin speed than a comparable flexible housing analysis. This rigid housing assumption therefore provides a conservative estimate of the stability threshold speed. A flexible housing appears to act as an energy absorber and dissipated some of the destabilizing force. The fact that a flexible housing is usually asymmetric and considerably heavier than the rotor was related to this apparent increase in rotor stability. Rigid housing analysis is proposed as a valuable screening criteria and may save time and money in construction of elaborate housing finite element models for linear stability analyses

Developing collaborative partnerships with culturally and linguistically diverse families during the IEP process

Family participation in the special education process has been federally mandated for 40 years, and educators recognize that effective collaboration with their students’ families leads to improved academic and social outcomes for students. However, while some family-school relationships are positive and collaborative, many are not, particularly for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families. This article provides practice guidelines based in research for teachers who seek to improve their practices when working with CLD families who have children served by special education

Plasmas in Saturn's magnetosphere

The solar wind plasma analyzer on board Pioneer 2 provides first observations of low-energy positive ions in the magnetosphere of Saturn. Measurable intensities of ions within the energy-per-unit charge (E/Q) range 100 eV to 8 keV are present over the planetocentric radial distance range about 4 to 16 R sub S in the dayside magnetosphere. The plasmas are found to be rigidly corotating with the planet out to distances of at least 10 R sub S. At radial distances beyond 10 R sub S, the bulk flows appear to be in the corotation direction but with lesser speeds than those expected from rigid corotation. At radial distances beyond the orbit of Rhea at 8.8 R sub S, the dominant ions are most likely protons and the corresponding typical densities and temperatures are 0.5/cu cm and 1,000,000 K, respectively, with substantial fluctuations. It is concluded that the most likely source of these plasmas in the photodissociation of water frost on the surface of the ring material with subsequent ionization of the products and radially outward diffusion. The presence of this plasma torus is expected to have a large influence on the dynamics of Saturn's magnetosphere since the pressure ratio beta of these plasmas approaches unity at radial distances as close to the planet as 6.5 R sub S. On the basis of these observational evidences it is anticipated that quasi-periodic outward flows of plasma, accompanied with a reconfiguration of the magnetosphere beyond about 6.5 R sub S, will occur in the local night sector in order to relieve the plasma pressure from accretion of plasma from the rings

Bimodality in Damped Lyman alpha Systems

We report evidence for a bimodality in damped Ly systems (DLAs). Using [C II] 158 mu cooling rates, lc, we find a distribution with peaks at lc=10^-27.4 and 10^-26.6 ergs s^-1 H^-1 separated by a trough at lc^crit ~= lc < 10^-27.0 ergs s^-1 H^-1. We divide the sample into low cool DLAs with lc < lc^crit and high cool DLAs with lc > lc^crit and find the Kolmogorv-Smirnov probabilities that velocity width, metallicity, dust-to-gas ratio, and Si II equivalent width in the two subsamples are drawn from the same parent population are small. All these quantities are significantly larger in the high cool population, while the H I column densities are indistinguishable in the two populations. We find that heating by X-ray and FUV background radiation is insufficient to balance the cooling rates of either population. Rather, the DLA gas is heated by local radiation fields. The rare appearance of faint, extended objects in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field rules out in situ star formation as the dominant star-formation mode for the high cool population, but is compatible with in situ star formation as the dominant mode for the low cool population. Star formation in the high cool DLAs likely arises in Lyman Break galaxies. We investigate whether these properties of DLAs are analogous to the bimodal properties of nearby galaxies. Using Si II equivalent width as a mass indicator, we construct bivariate distributions of metallicity, lc, and areal SFR versus the mass indicators. Tentative evidence is found for correlations and parallel sequences, which suggest similarities between DLAs and nearby galaxies. We suggest that the transition-mass model provides a plausible scenario for the bimodality we have found. As a result, the bimodality in current galaxies may have originated in DLAs.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal 18 pages 14 figure

COBRA: a new European research project for organic plant breeding

Development of organic plant breeding and seed production will have a valuable impact on organic plant production. Breeding of plant material adapted for organic agriculture is crucial in order to cope with stresses such as climate change, weeds and seed borne diseases. Conventional varieties may not meet the specific needs of organic agriculture. The use of plant material adapted to conditions of organic agriculture will have a positive effect on the productivity and sustainability of organic crop production

Heat exchange mediated by a quantum system

We consider heat transfer between two thermal reservoirs mediated by a quantum system using the generalized quantum Langevin equation. The thermal reservoirs are treated as ensembles of oscillators within the framework of the Drude-Ullersma model. General expressions for the heat current and thermal conductance are obtained for arbitrary coupling strength between the reservoirs and the mediator and for different temperature regimes. As an application of these results we discuss the origin of Fourier's law in a chain of large, but finite subsystems coupled to each other by the quantum mediators. We also address a question of anomalously large heat current between the STM tip and substrate found in a recent experiment. The question of minimum thermal conductivity is revisited in the framework of scaling theory as a potential application of the developed approach.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure