5,400 research outputs found
Modern Bootlegging and the Prohibition on Fair Prices: Last Call for the Repeal of Pharmaceutical Price Gouging
This article discusses the recent passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Modernization and Improvement Act of 2003, and the executive and judicial decisions affecting the ability of the general public to access foreign pharmaceutical markets. The article examines the recent actions taken by the U.S. government, explore various state movements within the United States aimed at reducing pharmaceutical drug prices, outline the process of pharmaceutical drug prices in foreign countries, and advocate for a workable integration of all available mechanisms to feasibly reduce prescription drug prices for the benefit of both U.S. consumers and U.S. drug companies. As avenues to meaningful lower drug prices close one by one, a last chance may remain to finally combine state initiatives, government safety concerns, and ideas abroad into a workable form of price control. The proposed model will protect the pharmaceutical industry’s profit interests, as well as the American public’s interest in meaningful access to prescription drugs that does not choke off access to meaningful lives
A survey of factors influencing career preference in new-entrant and exiting medical students from four UK medical schools
Our thanks to Professor Gillian Needham and Dr Murray Lough for their encouragement and support, and their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Our thanks also to NHS Education for Scotland [NES] for funding, and the Scottish Medical Deans Education Group [SMDEG] for supporting this project. We are grateful to all the students who gave their time to complete the survey questionnaire and to those who helped organise and carry out data collection.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Dissipation in a rotating frame: master equation, effective temperature and Lamb-shift
Motivated by recent realizations of microwave-driven nonlinear resonators in
superconducting circuits, the impact of environmental degrees of freedom is
analyzed as seen from a rotating frame. A system plus reservoir model is
applied to consistently derive in the weak coupling limit the master equation
for the reduced density in the moving frame and near the first bifurcation
threshold. It turns out that additional interactions between momenta of system
and bath appear which have been omitted in previous studies. Explicit
expressions for the effective temperature and the Lamb-shift are given which
for ohmic baths are in agreement with experimental findings, while for
structured environments population inversion is predicted that may
qualitatively explain recent observations.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Performance of silicon solar cell assemblies
Solar cell assembly current-voltage characteristics, thermal-optical properties, and power performance were determined. Solar cell cover glass thermal radiation, optical properties, confidence limits, and temperature intensity effects on maximum power were discussed
Electron-phonon coupling and longitudinal mechanical-mode cooling in a metallic nanowire
We investigate electron-phonon coupling in a narrow suspended metallic wire,
in which the phonon modes are restricted to one dimension but the electrons
behave three-dimensionally. Explicit theoretical results related to the known
bulk properties are derived. We find out that longitudinal vibration modes can
be cooled by electronic tunnel refrigeration far below the bath temperature
provided the mechanical quality factors of the modes are sufficiently high. The
obtained results apply to feasible experimental configurations.Comment: 4+ pages, 3 figure
Effect of quantum nuclear motion on hydrogen bonding
This work considers how the properties of hydrogen bonded complexes,
D-H....A, are modified by the quantum motion of the shared proton. Using a
simple two-diabatic state model Hamiltonian, the analysis of the symmetric
case, where the donor (D) and acceptor (A) have the same proton affinity, is
carried out. For quantitative comparisons, a parametrization specific to the
O-H....O complexes is used. The vibrational energy levels of the
one-dimensional ground state adiabatic potential of the model are used to make
quantitative comparisons with a vast body of condensed phase data, spanning a
donor-acceptor separation (R) range of about 2.4-3.0 A, i.e., from strong to
weak bonds. The position of the proton and its longitudinal vibrational
frequency, along with the isotope effects in both are discussed. An analysis of
the secondary geometric isotope effects, using a simple extension of the
two-state model, yields an improved agreement of the predicted variation with R
of frequency isotope effects. The role of the bending modes in also considered:
their quantum effects compete with those of the stretching mode for certain
ranges of H-bond strengths. In spite of the economy in the parametrization of
the model used, it offers key insights into the defining features of H-bonds,
and semi-quantitatively captures several experimental trends.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Notation clarified. Revised figure including the
effect of bending vibrations on secondary geometric isotope effect. Final
version, accepted for publication in Journal of Chemical Physic
Quantum gears: a simple mechanical system in the quantum regime
Abstract. The quantum mechanics of a simple mechanical system is considered. A group of gears can serve as a model for several different systems such as an artifically constructed nanomechanical device or a group of ring molecules. It is shown that the classical motion of the gears in which the angular velocities are locked together does not correspond to
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