2,900 research outputs found

    How Does the Benefit Value of Medicare Compare to the Benefit Value of Typical Large Employer Plans?: A 2012 Update

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    Compares the value of benefits for those age 65 and older under Medicare and under two large employer plans typical of those for which premium support could be offered under reform proposals. Examines share of costs paid by the plan and by individuals

    Soundtracks and the moving image

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    This study is a survey and analysis of modern soundtrack pieces accompanying recent movies. I will analyze the form and chord progressions within the scores to better understand the role each musical element plays in the piece. Then, I will compare these details to find common themes to see if they correspond more to the Western classical tradition, or to modern pop music, and how each textural element enhances its visual counterpart. This paper is an attempt to define and understand the formal procedures are common across the audio that accompanies modern movies

    Evidence for anti-intellectualism about know-how from a sentence recognition task

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    An emerging trend in cognitive science is to explore central epistemological questions using psychological methods. Early work in this growing area of research has revealed that epistemologists\u27 theories of knowledge diverge in various ways from the ways in which ordinary people think of knowledge. Reflecting the practices of epistemology as a whole, the vast majority of these studies have focused on the concept of propositional knowledge, or knowledge-that. Many philosophers, however, have argued that knowing how to do something is importantly different from knowing that something is the case. Hence, in this paper we turn our attention to people\u27s concept of knowledge-how. We present data from two experiments that employed a sentence recognition task as an implicit measure of conceptual activation. The data from this implicit measure suggest that, contrary to prominent intellectualist theories of knowhow, according to which know-how is a species of propositional knowledge, people\u27s concept of know-how more closely aligns with anti-intellectualism, the view that knowing how to perform some task consists in having the appropriate skills or abilities

    THE IMPACT OF PERSON-SITUATION CONGRUENCE ON PEOPLEā€™S PREFERENCE FOR INTERPERSONAL INTERACTIONS

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    The present study aims to test the hypothesis that participants will prefer to interact with individuals in situations whose demands are congruent with the participantā€™s personality traits. The study used both poles of the Big Five personality traits systematically and comprehensively paired with five of the eight situational characteristics from the DIAMONDS model. The study comprised 94 participants with a gender split of 70:20, favoring females. Of the participant population, 59% (59.14%) were between the ages of 18-21. 44% (44.09%) of participants were White and non-Hispanic. Results indicated the predicted congruence effects only for the Extraversion/Sociality pair, whereas Neuroticism/Adversity also showed congruence but in the unpredicted direction. For the other three pairings, the desirability of one pole of the trait dominated the preference judgment

    People Work to Sustain Systems: A Framework for Understanding Sustainability

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    Sustainability is commonly recognized as an important goal, but there is little agreement on what sustainability is, or what it requires. This paper looks at some common approaches to sustainability, and while acknowledging the ways in which they are useful, points out an important lacuna: that for something to be sustainable, people must be willing to work to sustain it. The paper presents a framework for thinking about and assessing sustainability which highlights people working to sustain. It also briefly discusses Integrated Water Resource Management and the example of the California Water Plan to explore what such a perspective brings that is overlooked in other approaches, and how this approach might be pursued. Ultimately, this framework argues that a system can only be described as sustainable if peopleā€™s work to sustain the system is biophysically possible, socially possible, and if people would freely choose to do the sustaining work. -/- Read More: http://ascelibrary.org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29WR.1943-5452.0000526

    Mechanisms of Acquired Resistance to Anti-VEGF Therapy for Neovascular Eye Diseases

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    PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate clinical reports of response-loss in patients with neovascular eye diseases, such as neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), after repeated anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy. To assess experimental evidence of associations of other angiogenic growth factors and endothelial glycolytic pathways with the diseases and to propose the underlying mechanisms. METHODS: Review of published clinical studies and experimental investigations. RESULTS: Intravitreal injection of anti-VEGF biologic drugs (e.g. bevacizumab, ranibizumab, and aflibercept) is the front-line treatment for neovascular AMD and DME, and acts by halting the progression of excess blood vessel growth and leakage. Despite favorable clinical results, exudation returns in a number of patients after repeated administrations over time. Patients suffering from disease recurrence may have developed an acquired resistance to anti-VEGF therapy. We have analyzed clinical and preclinical findings on changes to angiogenic signaling pathways following VEGF-targeted treatment and hypothesize that switching to alternative pathways could potentially bypass VEGF blockade, accounting for development of resistance to anti-VEGF therapy. We have also discussed potential reprogramming of ocular endothelial glycolysis in response to VEGF antagonism and proposed that metabolic adaptations could impair blood-retinal barrier function, counteracting the clinical efficacy of VEGF-targeted therapies and contributing to a decline of response to them. CONCLUSIONS: Future studies of the mechanisms proposed in this review may shed some light on how these adaptations result in the development of acquired resistance to anti-VEGF therapy, which should help discover new therapeutic strategies for overcoming anti-VEGF resistance and improving clinical efficacy

    Sustainability of What? Recognizing the Diverse Values that Sustainable Agriculture Works to Sustain

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    The contours of sustainable systems are defined according to communitiesā€™ goals and values. As researchers shift from sustainability-in-the-abstract to sustainability-as-a-concrete-research-challenge, democratic deliberation is essential for ensuring that communities determine what systems ought to be sustained. Discourse analysis of dialogue with Michigan direct marketing farmers suggests eight sustainability values ā€“ economic efficiency, community connectedness, stewardship, justice, ecologism, self-reliance, preservationism and health ā€“ which informed the practices of these farmers. Whereas common heuristics of sustainability suggest values can be pursued harmoniously, we discuss how this typology reflects the more intricate project of balancing values in tension with one another

    Advanced Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage: Low-Temperature, Solid-State Conversion Reactions of Cuprous Sulfide and the Stabilization and Application of Titanium Disilicide as a Lithium-Ion Battery Anode Material

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    Thesis advisor: Dunwei WangIn this work, we present our findings regarding the low-temperature, solid-state conversion of Cuā‚‚S nanowires to Cuā‚‚S/Cuā‚…FeSā‚„ rod-in-tube structures, Cuā‚‚S/ZnS segmented nanowires, and a full conversion of Cuā‚‚S nanowires to ZnS nanowires. These conversion reactions occur at temperatures as low as 105 degrees Celsius, a much lower temperature than those required for reported solid-state reactions. The key feature of the Cuā‚‚S nanowires that enables such low conversion temperatures is the high ionic diffusivity of the Cuāŗ within a stable S sublattice. The second portion of this work will focus on the oxide-stabilization and utilization of TiSiā‚‚ nanonets as a lithium-ion battery anode. This nanostructure, first synthesized in our lab, was previously demonstrated to possess a lithium storage capacity when cycled against a metallic Li electrode. However, with subsequent lithiation and delithiation cycles, the TiSiā‚‚ nanonet structure was found to be unstable. By allowing a thin oxide layer to form on the surface of the nanonet, we were able to improve the capacity retention of the nanonets in a lithium-ion half-cell; 89.8% of the capacity of the oxide-coated TiSiā‚‚ was retained after 300 cycles compared to 62.3% of the capacity of as-synthesized TiSiā‚‚ nanonets after 300 cycles. The layered structure of C49 TiSiā‚‚ exhibited in the nanonets allows for a specific capacity greater than 700 mAh g(-1), and the high electrical conductivity of the material in conjunction with the layered structure confer the ability to cycle the anode at rates of up to 6C, i.e., 10 minute charge and discharge cycles, while still maintaining more than 75% of the capacity at 1C, i.e., 1 hour charge and discharge cycles.Thesis (MS) ā€” Boston College, 2013.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry
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