Health Savings Accounts: Participation Increased and Was More Common among Individuals with Higher Incomes

[Excerpt] he number of individuals participating in HSA-eligible health plans and HSAs increased significantly between 2004 and 2007; however, in all years, many HSA-eligible plan enrollees did not open an HSA. The number of individuals covered by HSA-eligible plans increased significantly between September 2004 and January 2007 from about 438,000 to approximately 4.5 million, according to industry estimates. Despite the growth, these plans represented a small share of individuals with private health coverage about 2 percent in 2006. The number of tax filers reporting HSA activity also increased, nearly tripling between 2004 and 2005, from about 120,000 to about 355,000. Industry estimates suggest continued growth in HSA participation in 2006 and 2007. Despite the growth in HSA participation, nationally representative survey estimates from 2005, 2006, and 2007 found that more than 40 percent of HSA-eligible health plan enrollees did not open an HSA. Tax filers who reported HSA activity in 2005 had higher incomes on average than other tax filers. Among tax filers between the ages of 19 and 64, the average AGI for filers reporting HSA activity was about $139,000 compared with about$57,000 for all other filers. The income differences existed across all age groups. The total value of all HSA contributions reported to IRS in 2005 was about twice that of withdrawals$754 million compared with$366 million. Among all filers reporting HSA activity in 2005, average contributions were about $2,100, compared to average withdrawals of about$1,000. Survey estimates of the contributions employers made to employees\u27 HSAs in 2007 varied. One employer survey reported average contributions for single coverage of $626 among large employers, while another employer survey reported average contributions for single coverage of$806 among small and large employers. More than a third of surveyed employers that offered HSA-eligible plans made no HSA contributions

Data Acquisition, Management, and Analysis in Support of the Audiology and Hearing Conservation and the Orbital Debris Program Office

My internship at Johnson Space Center, Houston TX comprised of working simultaneously in the Space Life Science Directorate (Clinical Services Branch, SD3) in Audiology and Hearing Conservation and in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Sciences Directorate in the Orbital Debris Program Office (KX). The purpose of the project done to support the Audiology and Hearing Conservation Clinic (AuHCon) is to organize and analyze auditory test data that has been obtained from tests conducted onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and in Johnson Space Center's clinic. Astronauts undergo a special type of auditory test called an On-Orbit Hearing Assessment (OOHA), which monitors hearing function while crewmembers are exposed to noise and microgravity during long-duration spaceflight. Data needed to be formatted to assist the Audiologist in studying, analyzing and reporting OOHA results from all ISS missions, with comparison to conventional preflight and post-flight audiometric test results of crewmembers. Orbital debris is the #1 threat to manned spacecraft; therefore NASA is investing in different measurement techniques to acquire information on orbital debris. These measurements are taken with telescopes in different parts of the world to acquire brightness variations over time, from which size, rotation rates and material information can be determined for orbital debris. Currently many assumptions are taken to resolve size and material from observed brightness, therefore a laboratory (Optical Measurement Center) is used to simulate the space environment and acquire information of known targets suited to best model the orbital debris population. In the Orbital Debris Program Office (ODPO) telescopic data were acquired and analyzed to better assess the orbital debris population

Counselor Opinion as a Predictor of Academic Success for Entering College Freshmen

The purpose of this study was to determine if high school counselors\u27 predictive opinions of freshman college academic success were reliable indicators of actual college academic success achieved by freshman students. Eleven null hypotheses were tested which involved high school counselors\u27 opinions of college freshman grade point average and actual college grade point average achieved by freshmen in regard to the following variables: (1) sex of the counselor, (2) high school location, (3) sex of the student, (4) high school size, and (5) high school accreditation. All except one of the null hypotheses were rejected at the .05 level of confidence. The one null hypothesis retained involved male counselors\u27 grade point average predictions for female students. Yule\u27s Q was the main statistical method used in determining the relationship between the variables as stated in the hypotheses. Chi-square was used in testing null hypotheses when cross-analysis of data was needed. The findings indicated that counselors generally over-predict grade point averages for their students. However, female counselors predicted more accurately than male counselors for grade point average. Counselors in small schools predicted more accurately for grade point average than counselors in large schools. Counselors in high schools with a Kentucky accreditation of Standard and Basic predicted more accurately for grade point average than did counselors in high schools accredited as Comprehensive and Accredited. In regard to location, counselors In the Western Kentucky area predicted more accurately for college freshman grade point average at Western Kentucky University than did counselors in the Central and Eastern Kentucky areas. The significant differences found in this study may be the result of several factors. For example, female counselors may be more methodical and careful in making use of predictive data than male counselors. The halo effect may have entered into the relationship between male counselors and female students in regard to grade point average prediction. Counselors In small schools, which are generally accredited as Standard and Basic, may be better acquainted with their students\u27 home and school situations and therefore are better able to forecast college grade point average. Counselors in the Western Kentucky area may be graduates of and/or are familiar with the academic offerings as well as the grading system at Western Kentucky University

Living on Highways

“Living on Highways” is a selection comprised of ten poems from my honors thesis. The poems focus on nature and views of human reality in the context of nature, two subjects that require attention to sustainability. I find my strongest inspiration in experiences of interaction with nature, simply being outside and observing the relationship between people and nature. Written in the environmental literary tradition of poets such as Billy Collins and Emily Dickinson, “Living on Highways” situates its poems within the context of nature but comes with a focused regard on humanity’s responsibility toward the appreciation of the environment and its preservation

Nanoindentation of the a and c domains in a tetragonal BaTiO3 single crystal

Nanoindentation in conjunction with piezoresponse force microscopy was used to study domain switching and to measure the mechanical properties of individual ferroelectric domains in a tetragonal BaTiO3 single crystal. It was found that nanoindentation has induced local domain switching; the a and c domains of BaTiO3 have different elastic moduli but similar hardness. Nanoindentation modulus mapping on the a and c domains further confirmed such difference in elasticity. Finite element modeling was used to simulate the von Mises stress and plastic strain profiles of the indentations on both a and c domains, which introduces a much higher stress level than the critical value for domain nucleation

Power extraction circuits for piezoelectric energy harvesters and time series data in water supply systems

This thesis investigates two fundamental technological challenges that prevent water utilities from deploying infrastructure monitoring apparatus with high spatial and temporal resolution: providing sufficient power for sensor nodes by increasing the power output from a vibration-driven energy harvester based on piezoelectric transduction, and the processing and storage of large volumes of data resulting from the increased level of pressure and flow rate monitoring. Piezoelectric energy harvesting from flow-induced vibrations within a water main represents a potential source of power to supply a sensor node capable of taking high- frequency measurements. A main factor limiting the amount of power from a piezoelectric device is the damping force that can be achieved. Electronic interface circuits can modify this damping in order to increase the power output to a reasonable level. A unified analytical framework was developed to compare circuits able to do this in terms of their power output. A new circuit is presented that out-performs existing circuits by a factor of 2, which is verified experimentally. The second problem concerns the management of large data sets arising from resolving challenges with the provision of power to sensor devices. The ability to process large data volumes is limited by the throughput of storage devices. For scientists to execute queries in a timely manner, query execution must be performant. The large volume of data that must be gathered to extract information from historic trends mandates a scalable approach. A scalable, durable storage and query execution framework is presented that is able to significantly improve the execution time of user-defined queries. A prototype database was implemented and validated on a cluster of commodity servers using live data gathered from a London pumping station and transmission mains. Benchmark results and reliability tests are included that demonstrate a significant improvement in performance over a traditional database architecture for a range of frequently-used operations, with many queries returning results near-instantaneously

High intensity x-ray diffraction in transmission mode employing an analog of Poisson's spot

Poisson’s spot is a diffraction phenomenon producing an intensity maximum at the center of the geometric shadow of circular opaque objects. In an analog of the Poisson spot experiment, we show that a tubular cone of x-rays incident upon a crystalline sample produces diffraction spots or foci, corresponding to Bragg maxima within a transmission shadow. We discuss the beam geometry and the intensity gain recorded at the foci in transmission mode. We describe the geometric growth and decay of the foci over a linear axis with the aid of a movie sequence synchronized with the plotting of a diffractogram. The mean signal of a small central area in each successive camera image provides the intensity data for the diffractogram