11,436 research outputs found
Readability, Contracts of Recurring Use, nd the Problem of Ex Post Judicial Governance of Health Insurance Policies
While the rhetoric surrounding the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act focused on core issues such as cost, quality, and access to care, the dialog rarely acknowledged a key problem-the fact that most Americans do not understand their health insurance. Simply put, consumers do not fully grasp their health insurance coverage because the jargon found in many health insurance contracts is impenetrable to most Americans. This is disconcerting because consumer-oriented information is central to our increasingly consumer-directed health care system. Consumers are expected to make cost-effective choices among the array of health insurance plans that may be available to them, utilize health care services in a cost-effective manner, navigate provider networks, minimize their out-of-pocket expenses, and effectively appeal denials of coverage. Furthermore, unlike other types of insurance agreements, health insurance policies are contracts of recurring use. That is, health insurance policies are routinely and repeatedly invoked by consumers to finance their health care. Yet, such contracts are written at a level that is beyond the reading skills of most Americans. As such, insureds not only have difficultly understanding the details of their coverage, they do not fully comprehend the benefits and rights afforded by the policy. Consequently, the traditional approach of ex post judicial governance of insurance agreements (as adhesion contracts) by interpreting ambiguities in favor of insureds provides inadequate protection for health insurance consumers. If consumers do not understand their coverage rights and benefits, they cannot reasonably be expected to know when those benefits have been wrongly denied. The better, ex ante solution is to make health insurance contracts readable in the first instance by requiring that health insurance contracts meet an eighth grade readability standard as a condition of state approval
Gauge techniques in time and frequency domain TLM
Typical features of the Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) algorithm in
connection with stub loading techniques and prone to be hidden in common
frequency domain formulations are elucidated within the propagator approach to
TLM. In particular, the latter reflects properly the perturbative character of
the TLM scheme and its relation to gauge field models. Internal 'gauge' degrees
of freedom are made explicit in the frequency domain by introducing the complex
nodal S-matrix as a function of operators that act on external or internal
fields or virtually couple the two. As a main benefit, many techniques and
results gained in the time domain thus generalize straight away. The recently
developed deflection method for algorithm synthesis, which is extended in this
paper, or the non-orthogonal node approximating Maxwell's equations, for
instance, become so at once available in the frequency domain. In view of
applications in computational plasma physics, the TLM model of a relativistic
charged particle current coupled to the Maxwell field is treated as a
prototype.Comment: 20 pages; Keywords: Gauge techniques, perturbative schemes, TLM
method, propagator approach, plasma physic
Psychological impacts of challenging behaviour and motivational orientation in staff supporting individuals with autistic spectrum conditions
Despite increased risk of experiencing challenging behaviour, psychological impacts on community and residential staff supporting adults with autistic spectrum conditions are under-explored. Studies examining related roles indicate protective psychological factors may help maintain staff well-being. This study investigated relationships between motivational orientation (eudaimonic or hedonic), challenging behaviour frequency and type (physical, verbal or self-injurious), and psychological impacts (anxiety, depression and life satisfaction). Participants (N=99) were recruited from six organisations providing autism-specific adult services within Scotland. A series of binary logistic regressions demonstrated weekly challenging behaviour exposure (compared to monthly or daily) significantly increased the likelihood of anxiety caseness. Increased eudaimonic motivation significantly reduced the likelihood of anxiety caseness while also predicting higher life satisfaction. Further, having high levels of eudaimonic motivation appeared to moderate the impact of weekly challenging behaviour exposure on anxiety. No motivational orientation or challenging behaviour factor significantly predicted depression. This sample also demonstrated higher anxiety, lower depression, and equivalent life satisfaction levels compared to general population norms. The results highlight the need for considering staff’s motivational orientations, their frequency of exposure to challenging behaviour, and both positive and negative psychological outcomes, if seeking to accurately quantify or improve well-being in this staff population
Jet-Images: Computer Vision Inspired Techniques for Jet Tagging
We introduce a novel approach to jet tagging and classification through the
use of techniques inspired by computer vision. Drawing parallels to the problem
of facial recognition in images, we define a jet-image using calorimeter towers
as the elements of the image and establish jet-image preprocessing methods. For
the jet-image processing step, we develop a discriminant for classifying the
jet-images derived using Fisher discriminant analysis. The effectiveness of the
technique is shown within the context of identifying boosted hadronic W boson
decays with respect to a background of quark- and gluon- initiated jets. Using
Monte Carlo simulation, we demonstrate that the performance of this technique
introduces additional discriminating power over other substructure approaches,
and gives significant insight into the internal structure of jets
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