Survey of psychosocial support provided by UK paediatric oncology centres

Aim: To obtain a comprehensive overview of current patterns of psychosocial support provided by National Health Service ( NHS) paediatric oncology treatment centres across the UK. Methods: A postal questionnaire was sent to co-ordinators in the UK Children's Cancer Study Group ( a professional body that is responsible for the organisation of treatment and management of childhood cancer in the UK) in 21 treatment centres and three separate Teenage Cancer Trus units. A range of psychosocial topics were explored, including ratio of staff providing support to patients; facilities provided for children and families; psychosocial support services such as support groups; information provision; and transition support. Results: There were many good areas of support provided by centres, but there was also a lack of standard practices and procedures. All centres employed social workers, play specialists, and paediatric oncology outreach nurses, but patient to staff ratios varied across centres. The poorest staff provision was among psychologists, where patient to staff ratios ranged from 132:1 to 1100:1. Written information was standard practice, while provision of other types of information (audiovisual, online) varied; none of the centres provided audio information specifically for children/young people. Conclusion: This variability in practices among centres frequently occurred, as centres rarely had procedures formally agreed or recorded in writing. British government policy currently seeks to develop standards and guidelines of care throughout the National Health Service. This study further demonstrates the importance of standards and the need to agree guidelines for the provision of psychosocial support for children/young people and their families throughout the course of the illness

Catalog of Lunar Craters I

This catalog gives the selenographic coordinates of all craters observable on a selected portion of the moon's surface. The diameter of the crater together with comments on shape are also given. Approximately 25 per cent of the craters have been measured previously by other observers. The catalog gives the position found in the present series of measurements and the name adopted by the International Astronomical Union

Entangled photon apparatus for the undergraduate laboratory

We present detailed instructions for constructing and operating an apparatus to produce and detect polarization-entangled photons. The source operates by type-I spontaneous parametric downconversion in a two-crystal geometry. Photons are detected in coincidence by single-photon counting modules and show strong angular and polarization correlations. We observe more than 100 entangled photon pairs per second. A test of a Bell inequality can be performed in an afternoon.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figure

Retirement Responses to Early Social Security Benefit Reductions

This paper evaluates potential responses to reductions in early Social Security retirement benefits. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) linked to administrative records, we find that Social Security coverage is quite uneven in the older population: one-quarter of respondents in their late 50’s lacks coverage under the Disability Insurance program, and one-fifth lacks coverage for old-age benefits. Among those eligible for benefits, respondents who subsequently retired early appear quite similar initially to those who later filed for normal retirement benefits, but both groups were healthier and better educated than those who later filed for disability benefits. Next we investigate the potential impact of curtailing, and then eliminating, early Social Security benefits. A life-cycle model of retirement behavior provides estimated parameters used to simulate the effects of cutting early Social Security benefits on retirement pathways. We find that cutting early Social Security benefits would boost the probability of normal retirement by twice as much as it would the probability of disability retirement.

Employee Health Insurance Decisions In a Flexible Benefits Environment

Empirical investigations of flexible benefits plans, an increasingly popular type of plan that allows employees to choose among multiple benefits options, have been limited. This study investigates hypotheses relating to the determinants of employees\u27 choices among six different health insurance options under a flexible benefits plan. Using employee-specific selection and demographic data provided by a large firm, we estimate a logistic regression model to analyze the effects of employee and plan characteristics on choice of health care plan. Results suggest that health plan decisions are significantly influenced by option premium, deductible and coinsurance amounts, and by employees\u27 age, gender, salary, and marital status. The results are considered within an expected utility maximization model

Entangled photons, nonlocality and Bell inequalities in the undergraduate laboratory

We use polarization-entangled photon pairs to demonstrate quantum nonlocality in an experiment suitable for advanced undergraduates. The photons are produced by spontaneous parametric downconversion using a violet diode laser and two nonlinear crystals. The polarization state of the photons is tunable. Using an entangled state analogous to that described in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen ``paradox,'' we demonstrate strong polarization correlations of the entanged photons. Bell's idea of a hidden variable theory is presented by way of an example and compared to the quantum prediction. A test of the Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt version of the Bell inequality finds $S = 2.307 \pm 0.035$, in clear contradiciton of hidden variable theories. The experiments described can be performed in an afternoon.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Modeling Lifetime Earnings Paths: Hypothetical versus Actual Workers

To assess the distributional effects of social security reform proposals, it is essential to have good information on real-world workers’ lifetime earnings trajectories. Until recently, however, policymakers have relied on hypothetical earnings profiles for policy analysis. We use actual lifetime earnings data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to compare actual workers’ covered earnings profiles to these hypothetical profiles. We show that the hypothetical profiles do not track earnings patterns of current retirees; thus lifetime pay levels are much higher than for most HRS workers. Therefore, using hypothetical profiles could misrepresent benefits paid and taxes collected under such reforms.

Worklife Determinants of Retirement Income Differentials Between Men and Women

Women enter retirement having spent fewer years in market work, earned less over their lifetimes, and worked in different jobs than men of the same age. This study examines whether these differences in work-life experiences help explain why many women end up with lower levels of retirement income in old age. We use the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which provides information on labor market histories along with the ability to predict retirement income from employer pensions, social security benefits, and investment returns. We document differences in anticipated retirement income by sex that exist largely between nonmarried men and women. Multivariate models show that 85 percent of this retirement income gap can be attributed to differences in lifetime labor market earnings, years worked, and occupational segregation by sex. Our results suggest that as women's work-life experiences become more congruent with men's over time, the gap in retirement income between men and women may shrink.

Complex, Historical, Self-Reflexive: Expect the Unexpected!

The object world of the social sciences is complex, historical and self-reflexive. It generates nonlinear effects, it is unique, and it is able to understand the theories developed about it and respond to them intentionally. Recognizing the emergent, historically contingent and self-organizing nature of the social world, and developing responsive policy vehicles for managing its complexity, requires a shift in our conception of science in general and of economics in particular.Die Gegenstandswelt der Sozialwissenschaften ist komplex, historisch und reflexiv. Sie unterliegt nicht-linearen Effekten, es gibt sie immer nur einmal, sie versteht die über sie entwickelten Theorien und reagiert auf sie mit eigenem Willen. Den emergenten, historisch kontingenten und selbstorganisierenden Charakter der sozialen Welt zu erkennen und Politikinstrumente zu finden, die ihrer Komplexität gerecht werden, erfordert ein verändertes Konzept von Wissenschaft im Allgemeinen und von Wirtschaftstheorie im Besonderen

The conduciveness of CA-rule graphs

Given two subsets A and B of nodes in a directed graph, the conduciveness of the graph from A to B is the ratio representing how many of the edges outgoing from nodes in A are incoming to nodes in B. When the graph's nodes stand for the possible solutions to certain problems of combinatorial optimization, choosing its edges appropriately has been shown to lead to conduciveness properties that provide useful insight into the performance of algorithms to solve those problems. Here we study the conduciveness of CA-rule graphs, that is, graphs whose node set is the set of all CA rules given a cell's number of possible states and neighborhood size. We consider several different edge sets interconnecting these nodes, both deterministic and random ones, and derive analytical expressions for the resulting graph's conduciveness toward rules having a fixed number of non-quiescent entries. We demonstrate that one of the random edge sets, characterized by allowing nodes to be sparsely interconnected across any Hamming distance between the corresponding rules, has the potential of providing reasonable conduciveness toward the desired rules. We conjecture that this may lie at the bottom of the best strategies known to date for discovering complex rules to solve specific problems, all of an evolutionary nature