Environmental Implications of the Health Care Service Sector

This report analyzes the environmental effects associated with activities undertaken and influenced by the health care service sector. It is one part of a larger study to better understand the environmental effects of service sector activities and the implications for management strategies. Considerable analysis has documented the service sector's contribution to domestic economic conditions, yet little analysis has been performed on the broad impacts service firms have on environmental quality. For this study the authors developed a framework to examine the nature of service sector industries' influence on environmental quality. Three primary types of influence were identified: direct impacts, upstream impacts, and downstream impacts. In addition, indirect impacts induced by service sector activities include their influence over settlement patterns and indirect influences over other sectors of the economy. In their initial analysis, the authors noted that many functions performed in the service sector also are commonly found in other sectors. The impacts of these activities have been analyzed separately from those unique to the health care sector, as they present different challenges. Health care is one of the largest U.S. industries, employing one in nine workers and costing one in seven dollars generated in the economy. Functions performed in the industry that are common in other sectors include: transportation; laundry; food services; facility cleaning; heating and cooling; and photographic processing. Activities unique to the health care industry include: infectious waste generation and disposal; medical waste incineration; equipment sterilization; dental fillings; ritual mercury usage; x-ray diagnosis; nuclear medicine; pharmaceutical usage and disposal; and drinking water fluoridation. The industry has considerable leverage upstream on its suppliers, which is important to managing risks from the use of goods commonly used in the industry, including: mercury-containing products, polyvinyl chloride plastics, latex gloves, and syringe needles. The authors identified a number of areas for potential environmental management initiatives: controlling emissions from on-site "production" type functions; mercury use; the environmental consequences of infection control measures; pollution prevention through substitution of alternative health care services; and research and data collection.

Quantum advantage beyond entanglement in Bayesian game theory

Quantum discord has been utilised in order to find quantum advantage in an extension of the Clauser, Horne, Shimony, and Holt (CHSH) game. By writing the game explicitly as a Bayesian game, the resulting game is modified such the payoff's are different, and crucially restrictions are imposed on the measurements that Alice and Bob can perform. By imposing these restrictions, it is found that there exists quantum advantage beyond entanglement for a given quantum state. This is shown by decomposing the expected payoff into a classical and quantum term. Optimising over the expected payoff, results in the classical limit being surpassed. This gives an operational framework in order to witness and determine quantum discord.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

LET'S GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT: HOW DIFFERENT TOPICS AFFECT CONFLICT COMMUNICATION BEHAVIOR

Past research suggests it is not what a conflict is about or how much conflict exists between two people, but rather how the parties interact regarding their conflicting preferences that determines whether the conflict has negative effects on their relationship. The current study examined the degrees to which couples' communication behavior in specific situations in which they discuss a conflict-related topic is influenced by the conflict topic theme that they discuss and by their general communication patterns. Conflict topics were assessed with the Relationship Issues Survey, general communication patterns with the Communication Patterns Questionnaire, and specific communication behavior during discussions with the Marital Interaction Coding System - Global. Findings indicated several significant effects of both content area and general communication style on communication behavior. Post-hoc analyses indicated that couples discussing conflicts regarding basic life values, priorities, and consideration for one's partner exhibited more negative communication behavior than those discussing issues regarding closeness, relationship commitment, emotional connectivity, and expressiveness. Possible implications of the findings are discussed

Physiological and Psychological Well-being During the Spring Season in Female Soccer Players

Female student-athletes are an understudied population that are exposed to athletic stressors in addition to academic and social stressors. This study is designed to investigate the physiological and psychological well-being during the spring season in female Division I soccer players. During the 2017 spring season, participants competed in five matches over five weeks and participated in three to four soccer training sessions in between match days. To measure well-being, both objective and subjective measures were used. Activation state was collected via the Activation Deactivation Adjective Checklist (AD-ACL) before all matches. Heart rate and heart rate variability were measured during all matches via Polar Team Pro System (Kempele, Finland). Sources and symptoms of stress, measured via Daily Analysis of Life Demands in Athletes (DALDA), and symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection measured via Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey (WURSS-21) were collected once each week. Monthly measures of sleep quality were collected via the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Results indicated that energy-arousal increased from the first to final match, and was directly related to pass success percentage and number of tackles in midfielders. Freshman found training stressors to be worse than normal more often and experienced more severe cold symptoms than other academic years. Players who incurred a larger amount of match time had a greater degree of trouble motivating themselves to complete tasks outside of soccer. These observations signify the link between physiological well-being and psychological well-being, in addition to the combined impact of these characteristics on athletic and academic performance. Soccer players and staff should be aware of the transfer of fatigue that may occur between athletic and academic endeavors

Philanthropic Influence on Public Education: A Study of High-leverage Venture Philanthropy through Educational Investments of Local Education Foundations in Tennessee

More than $500 billion of funding went to public education in 2005 to support educational programming and instruction. At the same time, some of the most prominent, nationally-organized private foundations have sought to influence education by using high-leverage venture philanthropy grants. However, little research has been done to assess whether more local foundations have been following the lead of these national foundations with regards to increasing investments through high-leverage venture philanthropy to education. Being closer to local educational policy makers, the local foundations have great potential influence on local education.The purpose of this study is to analyze the philanthropic investments of local education foundations in Tennessee in order to identify if a shift toward high-leverage investments has taken place in their giving, as it has nationally, and, if such changes were present, to assess what models and programs those HLVP investments supported.This study utilized a quantitative study to collect historical documents about and survey data from local educational foundations about their granting trends. The study was a replication of previous national studies and focused on the top 15 private foundations giving to education in the state of Tennessee. First, IRS 990PF filings were analyzed from the cross sectional years of 2005, 2010, and 2015, and each grant to educational initiatives was coded according to Greene’s (2005) taxonomy of high-leverage giving. Additionally, survey data from four participating foundation executive directors was used to triangulate with the historical documents to determine consistency between the recorded data and the espoused data.The key findings of the study include the following: (1) though high-leverage venture philanthropy was steady for all of the 15 foundations studied, a “top three” foundations emerged similar to national studies and had steadily shifted educational funding to more high-leverage initiatives, (2) educational support directly to public educational models has dramatically reduced over the decade of study, and (3) the popular choice for giving in a high-leverage manner is to give to external models of education which could be competing with public education

The Migration of the Aura – Exploring the Original Through Its Facsimiles

Following the marvelous example provided by the fac simile of Veronese’s Nozze di Cana in San Giorgio in Venice and constrasting this case of a good reproduction with the catastrophic restoration of Holbein’s Ambassadors, the paper explores the reason why common sense has so much difficulty with the notion that a facsimile may actually add new layers of originality to the original –contrary to the thesis so much popularized by Walter Benjamin’s essay on mechanical reproduction. Contrary to this too famous essay, the paper argues that digital technologies have nothing « slavish » nor « mechanical » about them, and that facsimiles allow to peel away the many layers composing the originality of a work of art –to the point when a painting too, algough so obviouvsly material, can be taken as an instance of performative art

Quantum Protocol for Decision Making and Verifying Truthfulness among NN-quantum Parties: Solution and Extension of the Quantum Coin Flipping Game

We devised a protocol that allows two parties, who may malfunction or intentionally convey incorrect information in communication through a quantum channel, to verify each other's measurements and agree on each other's results. This has particular relevance in a modified version of the quantum coin flipping game where the possibility of the players cheating is now removed. Furthermore, the analysis is extended to $N$-parties communicating with each other, where we propose multiple solutions for the verification of each player's measurement. The results in the $N$-party scenario could have particular relevance for the implementation of future quantum networks, where verification of quantum information is a necessity

Fuel utilization of Supported Treadmill Running

Supported treadmill running is used in clinical and athletic settings for rehabilitation and overcoming movement disabilities. Prescription for exercise intensity is difficult due to the added support during treadmill exercise. PURPOSE: To measure fuel utilization of supported treadmill running. METHODS: College age volunteers were fitted into a full-body support harness for all trials that allowed volunteers to be partially supported during treadmill running. Oxygen consumption (VO2) was measured using an open flow system during body weight (control) and supported (experimental) running. Respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER) was calculated as VCO2/VO2. Volunteers completed control and experimental trials at treadmill speeds of 2.24 m∙s-1, 2.46 m∙s-1, 2.68 m∙s-1, and 3.13 m∙s-1. Experimental trials were classified as running at either 90% (n = 10) or 85% (n = 9) of bodyweight. Data for VO2, heart rate and RER were collected at rest and during all trials. RESULTS: Average (± SD) RER under control conditions were 0.93 (±0.07), 0.98 (±0.11), 0.98 (±0.06), and 1.07 (±0.11) for treadmill speeds of 2.24, 2.46, 2.68, and 3.13 m∙s-1, respectively. Average (±SD) RER experimental conditions at 90% of body weight were 0.97 (±0.07), 0.98 (±0.06), 1.01 (±0.08), and 1.04 (±0.07) for treadmill speeds above. At 85% of bodyweight, average RER was 0.96 (±0.09), 1.00 (±0.08), 0.98 (±0.07), and 1.04 (±0.09) for same speeds as above. Across all speeds, average RER values were 0.99, 1.00, and 0.99 for control, 90%, and 85% of body weight. CONCLUSION: We conclude that volunteers were doing less external work during supported running yet fuel utilization was similar

Quantum advantage beyond entanglement in Bayesian game theory

Quantum discord has been utilised in order to find quantum advantage in an extension of the Clauser, Horne, Shimony, and Holt (CHSH) game. By writing the game explicitly as a Bayesian game, the resulting game is modified such the payoff's are different. Crucially, restrictions are imposed on the measurements that Alice and Bob can perform. By imposing these restrictions, it is found that there exists quantum advantage beyond entanglement for a given quantum state. This is shown by decomposing the expected payoff into a classical and quantum term. By optimising over the expected payoff, the classical limit is surpassed for the given state in the restricted measurement space. This gives an operational framework in order to witness and determine the quantum discord for specific states, whilst demonstrating the importance of measurement in quantum advantage