The Uninsured at the Starting Line: Findings from the 2013 Kaiser Survey of Low-Income Americans and the ACA

In January 2014, the major coverage provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into full effect. These provisions include the creation of new Health Insurance Marketplaces where low and moderate income families can receive premium tax credits to purchase coverage and, in states that opted to expand their Medicaid programs, the expansion of Medicaid eligibility to almost all adults with incomes at or below 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The ACA has the potential to reach many of the 47 million Americans who lack insurance coverage, as well as millions of insured people who face financial strain or coverage limits related to health insurance. Though implementation is underway and people are already enrolling in coverage, policymakers continue to need information to inform coverage expansions. Data on the population targeted for coverage expansions can help policymakers target early efforts, provide insight into some of the challenges that are arising in the first months of new coverage, and evaluate the ACA's longer-term effects. The Kaiser Family Foundation has launched a new series of comprehensive surveys of the low and moderate income population to provide data on these groups' experience with health coverage, current patterns of care, and family situation. This report, based on the baseline 2013 Kaiser Survey of Low-Income Americans and the ACA, provides a snapshot of health insurance coverage, health care use and barriers to care, and financial security among insured and uninsured adults across the income spectrum at the starting line of ACA implementation. The report also examines how findings from the baseline survey can help policymakers understand and address early challenges in implementing health reform

COW-CALF PRODUCERS' PERCEIVED PROFIT MAXIMIZATION OBJECTIVE: A LOGIT ANALYSIS

A logistic regression (logit) model was developed to examine how socioeconomic characteristics of cow-calf producers influenced their perceptions of themselves as profit maximizers. Amount of pasture acreage, percent of income earned from the cow-calf operation, and desire to increase net worth and efficiently use labor significantly increased the producer's probability of claiming to be in the business primarily to maximize profits. Some sociological reasons for owning cattle significantly reduced the probability of the producer claiming to be a profit maximizer while others significantly increased the probability.Livestock Production/Industries,

Hearing Sacred Sounds in Hindi Film Songs:Thoughts on the Mawlid in Tamale, Northern Ghana

Abstract This contribution explores the role of Hindi film songs in the Mawlid in northern Ghana, where Tijani Muslims combine Islamic texts with Hindi film song melodies to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. It explores how and why Hindi film songs are used in the Mawlid performance each year.</jats:p

Pat Young Goes To Dinner In Japan

Katherine Young, who is never called anything but Pat, spent the summer in Japan with her Air Force father, her mother and sister. She returned to Iowa State, 2 weeks after fall quarter started, with a 10-word Japanese vocabulary, fans and a kimono and such tales as the following one

Sensitivity Analysis Of Probabilistic Multi-Model Ensemble Forecasts Of Wintertime Fronts Over Northwestern Nevada

Probabilistic ensemble forecasting has become an essential tool to numerical weather prediction. With the chaotic nature of the atmosphere, decisions made by operational meteorologists are made with imperfect weather models. These deterministic numerical weather forecasts can be complemented with the use of regional ensemble predictions incorporating enhanced probabilistic, statistical analysis tools. The challenge is providing better statistical information using ensemble probabilistic information forecasts of mesoscale frontal features to better characterize frontal precipitation fields, intensity, and direction of movement. The purpose of this study was aimed at drawing attention to certain probabilistic distribution patterns for specific mesoscale circulations when physical parameterizations and/or initial conditions are varied for specific ensemble forecast members. A statistical sensitivity error-trend analysis of multi-model (MM5, COAMPS, and WRF) ensemble prediction system (EPS) was conducted to provide insight into how inherent changes to model parameterizations, i.e. PBL, convection, radiation, and microphysics can manifest intrinsic variability to ensemble predictability. Most studies in ensemble prediction used a single model in an ensemble mode, using variations in model initial conditions as the basis to produce simulation ensemble members and in most cases the total ensemble members were limited to 6-10. A total of 153 ensemble members with a horizontal resolution of 36 km were evaluated for this study using three state of the art regional-mesoscale models. Its focus was directed towards the use of a multi-model EPS to measure the statistical sensitivity of a sequence of three winter-time fronts observed over western Nevada during the period of 12-27 December 2008. The corresponding analysis and evaluation underscored a process through which 500 hPa thermal field dataset temperature differences, as it applied to rank data calculated for the three cold frontal systems observed over the period of the 15 day simulation, can also be applied to ensemble model spread and error trend analysis. This study enabled the extension of the forecast simulation period to two weeks, which is the assumed predictability limit for atmospheric simulations. Therefore, it became apparent that the use of statistical rank data error trends and ensemble model spread can improve predictability of certain aspects of frontal activity based on COAMPS smaller (high a priori forecast accuracy) ensemble simulation spread as compared to MM5 and WRF larger (low a priori forecast accuracy) ensemble spread

DAY OF THE BORDER GUARDS

This collection of poems examines themes of love, disillusionment, betrayal, and personal redemption. Set in locations ranging from Tomsk, Siberia, to a baseball stadium in Washington, D.C., these poems employ both traditional poetic form and free verse to explore the promise and peril of human connections across eras, borders, and cultures. The poems draw on the author's many years of living, working, and studying poetry in Russia and the former Soviet Union: in content and style, they are indebted to the traditions of Russian as well as English poetry. The thesis also includes six translations of poems from the Russian-language originals by award-winning poet Inna Kabysh, whose work is largely unavailable to English-language readers

Materializing Performance: The Interactions that Enact Inclusions, Exclusions and Arrangements in Charity Social Performance Reports

The accounting concept materiality is theorized then elaborated in two empirical studies. Materiality is theorized as a performative enactment of entangled objects and idealities that in turn influences which objects and idealities come to matter. Theorized in this way, materiality is not understood as judgements of human preparers and auditors, but a material-discursive practice interacting with agentive objects (such as templates and information technologies) and idealities (including professional norms). Inscriptions in accounting systems and public-facing reports are the traces of these interactions, which collectively constitute a text that is itself an entanglement of matter and meaning, and that itself enacts an ongoing becoming of what matters. The theorization of materiality is elaborated in the context of charity reporting on social (mission-related) performance. Materiality in charity reporting is a pressing question in its own right, and a useful context in which to bring visibility to materiality concepts that are taken-for-given in financial accounting contexts. The first study elaborates how things come to matter, and not matter, examining social performance reporting in charity annual accounts from 1865 to 2014. It focuses on the interactions of templates, expertise and printing technology in the inclusions, exclusions and arrangements of performance information in charity annual reports. The second study interrogates the differences in materiality by comparing six reports, each based on the same performance measures from a real charity. It focuses on the interactions of templates and prior inscriptions in the differential materializations. A final essay develops policy recommendations in light of the new theorization of materiality by reconsidering the idea of the reasonable investor and elaborating the concept of the reasonable donor