Begging the Question: Permanent Income and Social Mobility

The extent of social mobility is one of three key considerations - along with living standards and the level of inequality - in any assessment of a society’s economic merits. The intergenerational correlation (IGC) between the incomes of parents and their children provides a summary statistic of income mobility, where low income correlations reflect high mobility, whilst high correlations reflect low mobility. As such it has become the primary measure of this variable. The main alternative measure, in the form of mobility matrices, is unable to provide a single measure of mobility but has the advantage of capturing variation in mobility across different parts of the income distribution.

Preparing for an Aging Nation: The Need for Academic Geriatricians

According to the author of this issue brief, a strong commitment by the government to a regular stream of financial support for geriatrics would encourage medical centers to establish or expand programs, enhance their ability to attract funds from private sources, and ultimately produce a sufficient number of academic geriatricians. Given the impending retirement of the baby boom generation, this process should begin as soon as possible. This issue brief highlights the critical need for academic geriatricians and presents a realistic proposal to help address the problem

Characterizing Uncertainty in Air Pollution Damage Estimates

This study uses Monte Carlo methods to characterize the uncertainty associated with per-ton damage estimates for 100 power plants in the contiguous United States (U.S.) This analysis focuses on damage estimates produced by an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) for emissions of two local air pollutants: sulfur dioxide (SO2) and .ne particulate matter (PM2:5). For each power plant, the Monte Carlo procedure yields an empirical distribution for the damage per ton of SO2 and PM2:5:For a power plant in New York, one ton of SO2 produces $5,160 in damages with a 90$1,000 and $14,090. A ton of PM2:5 emitted from the same facility causes$17,790 worth of damages with a 90% percentile interval of $3,780 and$47,930. Results for the sample of 100 fossil-fuel .red power plants shows a strong spatial pattern in the marginal damage distributions. The degree of variability increases by plant location from east to west. This result highlights the importance of capturing uncertainty in air quality modeling in the empirical marginal damage distributions. Further, by isolating uncertainty at each module in the IAM we .nd that uncertainty associated with the dose-response parameter, which captures the in.uence of exposure to PM2:5 on adult mortality rates, the mortality valuation parameter, and the air quality model exert the greatest in.uence on cumulative uncertainty. The paper also demonstrates how the marginal damage distributions may be used to guide regulators in the design of more efficient market-based air pollution policy in the U.S.Monte Carlo, Air Pollution, Market-based Pollution Policy

Quantum double of a (locally) compact group

We generalise the quantum double construction of Drinfel'd to the case of the (Hopf) algebra of suitable functions on a compact or locally compact group. We will concentrate on the *-algebra structure of the quantum double. If the conjugacy classes in the group are countably separated, then we classify the irreducible *-representations by using the connection with so-called transformation group algebras. For finite groups, we will compare our description to the result of Dijkgraaf, Pasquier and Roche. Finally we will work out the explicit examples of SU(2) and SL(2,R).Comment: LaTeX2e, 18 pages. Univ. of Amsterdam, Depts. of Math. and of Theor.Phys., to be published in the Journal of Lie Theor

Tensor product representations of the quantum double of a compact group

We consider the quantum double D(G) of a compact group G, following an earlier paper. We use the explicit comultiplication on D(G) in order to build tensor products of irreducible *-representations. Then we study their behaviour under the action of the R-matrix, and their decomposition into irreducible *-representations. The example of D(SU(2)) is treated in detail, with explicit formulas for direct integral decomposition (`Clebsch-Gordan series') and Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. We point out possible physical applications.Comment: LaTeX2e, 27 pages, corrected references, accepted by Comm.Math.Phy

Flame sprayed dielectric coatings improve heat dissipation in electronic packaging

Heat sinks in electronic packaging can be flame sprayed with dielectric coatings of alumina or beryllia and finished off with an organic sealer to provide high heat and electrical resistivity

L'ADAPTATION PRISMATIQUE A-T-ELLE UN EFFET BÉNÉFIQUE SUR L'HÉMINÉGLIGENCE À DISTANCE? ETUDE CLINIQUE ET COMPORTEMENTALE

L'héminégligence (HN) est un trouble neuropsychologique qui indique une incapacité totale ou partielle de repérer, intégrer ou s'orienter vers des stimuli sensoriels présents dans l'hémi-espace controlatéral à une lésion touchant le plus souvent l'hémisphère cérébral droit. Chaque expression clinique de la pathologie peut être analysée selon le périmètre d'action définit par l'espace qui se trouve autour de l'être humain et qui peut être divisé en trois zones: l'espace personnel, l'espace péripersonnel et l'espace extrapersonnel. Cette étude a pour but d'évaluer l'efficacité d'une séance d'adaptation prismatique (AP) sur la description d'objets ou d'images dans l'espace lointain et dans l'espace proche chez des patients présentant une HN. L'AP consiste en un exercice de pointage effectué par le patient alors qu'il porte des lunettes avec des prismes qui dévient le champ visuel vers le côté ipsilatéral à la lésion. Au cours de l'AP classique, le patient agit dans l'espace péripersonnel ("proche"). Aucune étude n'a à présent déterminé si l'AP est aussi efficace dans l'espace extrapersonnel ("lointain"). En comparant les performances d'un groupe de patients HN dans une tâche de description d'images, présentées dans l'espace proche et lointain, avant et après une séance d'AP à celles d'un autre groupe de patient HN effectuant les mêmes descriptions mais sans séance d'AP entre les deux, nous avons pu démontrer que l'amélioration lors de la deuxième passation de la tâche était plus importante pour le groupe ayant eu une séance d'AP. Cette amélioration était d'autant plus importante lorsque les éléments à décrire se situaient dans l'espace gauche que dans l'espace droit. Finalement, des analyses post-hoc plus détaillées ont montré une amélioration significative pour le groupe ayant eu une séance d'AP lorsque les éléments étaient situés dans l'espace lointain et du côté gauche uniquement. L'ensemble de ces résultats montre que l'AP a un effet bénéfique sur les déficits d'HN dans l'espace proche et dans l'espace lointain, cependant, le dernier résultat montre que dans notre tâche l'effet bénéfique de l'AP sur les déficits à gauche est plus important dans l'espace lointain que dans l'espace proche. Ces résultats ont des implications importantes en ce qui concerne la réhabilitation et la qualité de vie des patients présentant une HN extrapersonnelle: la démonstration d'un effet bénéfique de l'AP sur l'HN dans l'espace lointain pourrait permettre l'élaboration d'une stratégie de prise en charge plus ciblée et adaptée aux nécessités de chaque patient et améliorer ainsi leur autonomie dans la vie de tous les jours

Approaches to assessment in time-limited Mentalization-Based Therapy for Children (MBT-C)

In this article we describe our clinical approach to assessment, formulation and the identification of a therapeutic focus in the context of time-limited Mentalization-Based Treatment for Children (MBT-C) aged between 6 and 12. Rather than seeing the capacity to mentalize as a global construct, we set out an approach to assessing the developmental 'building blocks' of the capacity to mentalize the self and others, including the capacity for attention regulation, emotion regulation, and explicit mentalization. Assessing the child's strengths and vulnerabilities in each of these domains provides a more nuanced picture of the child's mentalizing capacities and difficulties, and can provide a useful approach to case formulation. The article sets out an approach to assessment that includes a consideration of mentalizing strengths and difficulties in both the child and the parents, and shows how this can be used to help develop a mutually agreed treatment focus. A clinical vignette illustrates the approach taken to assessment and connects it to routine clinical practice

``Plug and play'' systems for quantum cryptography

We present a time-multiplexed interferometer based on Faraday mirrors, and apply it to quantum key distribution. The interfering pulses follow exactly the same spatial path, ensuring very high stability and self balancing. Use of Faraday mirrors compensates automatically any birefringence effects and polarization dependent losses in the transmitting fiber. First experimental results show a fringe visibility of 0.9984 for a 23km-long interferometer, based on installed telecom fibers.Comment: LaTex, 6 pages, with 2 Postscript figures, Submitted to Applied Physics Letter