The relationship between the ownership of elder care homes and quality of care in urban China

Traditional familial care has been challenged due to the reduction of family size and increased mobility of the Chinese population. Institutional elder care is increasingly becoming an alternative to familial care. This study explores the relationship between ownership of elder care home and care quality, using data collected in 2010 from 157 homes in Tianjin. Two hypotheses were proposed for the study: 1) There is a difference between government and non government-owned facilities in facility characteristics; 2) Government-owned facilities have better care quality outcomes. The t-test results showed that government-owned elder care homes had advantages in economic resources, staffing and the availability of services. Government-owned facilities reported lower mortality rate compared to non government-owned facilities. Multi-variant regression analysis showed that economic resources—whether funding from the government or high payments from care-recipients in private facilities--are important factors predicting higher levels of care quality. These results indicate that the Chinese government continues to play an important role in institutional long term care; in the meantime, private market is increasing its prominence in the long term care market

Asymptotic properties of solutions of certain third-order dynamic equations

AbstractIn this paper, the well known oscillation criteria due to Hille and Nehari for second-order linear differential equations will be generalized and extended to the third-order nonlinear dynamic equation (r2(t)((r1(t)xΔ(t))Δ)γ)Δ+q(t)f(x(t))=0 on time scale T, where γ≥1 is a ratio of odd positive integers. Our results are essentially new even for third-order differential and difference equations, i.e., when T=R and T=N. Two examples of dynamic equations on different time scales are given to show the applications of our main results

Higher-order Topology of Axion Insulator EuIn2_2As2_2

Based on first-principles calculations and symmetry analysis, we propose that EuIn$_2$As$_2$ is a long awaited axion insulator with antiferromagnetic (AFM) long range order. Characterized by the parity-based invariant $\mathbb Z_4=2$, the topological magneto-electric effect is quantized with $\theta=\pi$ in the bulk, with a band gap as large as 0.1 eV. When the staggered magnetic moment of the AFM phase is along $a/b$ axis, it's also a TCI phase. Gapless surface states emerge on (100), (010) and (001) surfaces, protected by mirror symmetries (nonzero mirror Chern numbers). When the magnetic moment is along $c$ axis, the (100) and (001) surfaces are gapped. As a consequence of a high-order topological insulator with $\mathbb Z_4=2$, the one-dimensional (1D) chiral state can exist on the hinge between those gapped surfaces. We have calculated both the topological surface states and hinge state in different phases of the system, respectively, which can be detected by ARPES or STM experiments

Twisted Coupled Wire Model for moir\'e Sliding Luttinger Liquid

Recent experiments in twisted bilayer WTe$_2$ revealed the existence of anisotropic Luttinger liquid behavior. To generically characterize such anisotropic twisted bilayer systems, we study a model of twisted bilayer of 2D arrays of coupled wires, which effectively form an array of coupled moir\'e wires. We solve the model by transfer matrix method, and identify quasi-1D electron bands in the system at small twist angles. With electron interactions added, we show that the moir\'e wires have an effective Luttinger parameter $g_\text{eff}$ much lower than that of the microscopic wires. This leads to a sliding Luttinger liquid (SLL) temperature regime, in which power-law current voltage relations arise. For parameters partly estimated from WTe$_2$, a microscopic interaction $U\sim0.7$eV yields a temperature regime of SLL similar to that in the WTe$_2$ experiments