Simulation of a health insurance market with adverse selection

A health insurance market is examined in which individuals with a history of high utilization of health care services tend to select fee-for-service (FFS) insurance when offered a choice between FFS and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). In addition, HMOs are assumed to practice community rating of employee groups. Based on these observations and health plan enrollment and premium data from Minneapolis-St. Paul, a deterministic simulation model is constructed to predict equilibrium market shares and premiums for HMO and FFS insurers within a firm. Despite the fact that favorable selection enhances their ability to compete with FFS insurers, the model predicts that HMOs maximize profits at less than 100% market share, and at a lower share than they could conceivably capture. That is, HMOs would not find it to their advantage to drive FFS insurers from the market even if they could. In all cases, however, the profit-maximizing HMO premium is greater than the experience-rated premium and, thus, the average health insurance premium per employee in firms offering both HMOs and FFS insurance is predicted to be greater than in firms offering one experience-rated plan. The model may be used to simulate the effects of varying the employer's method of contributing to health insurance premiums. Several contribution methods are compared. Employers who offer FFS and HMO insurance and pay the full cost of the lowest-cost plan are predicted to have lower average total premiums (employer plus employee contributions) than employers who pay any level percent of the cost of each plan.     

Aromatic hydrocarbon-carbonium ion molecular complexes

Molecular complexes of aromatic hydrocarbons and carbonium ions are described according to Mulliken's donor — acceptor theory. Estimations of electron affinities of several cations are deduced from charge-transfer transition energies and the indepently measured electron affinity of the tropylium ion.     

Effect of fluid flow on cavitation erosion of materials under exposure to vibrations from a hydrodynamic generator

The results of investigation of cavitation erosion of lead in various places of a hydrodynamic-generator submerged jet are presented. Features of erosion caused by the effect of flow are established. It can both strengthen the erosion intensity and weaken it in dependence on the angle of incidence. The stratification of air bubbles under the action of pressure waves is possible in the flow under the interaction with the surface of objects. The flow can change the number of air bubbles participating in the cavitation near the surface. It can also influence the mechanical effect on the surface of the tested materials inducing their nonuniform deformation. All the factors listed affect the cavitation erosion complicating considerably the physics of the process.     

Nonparametric identification of asymmetric nonlinear vibration systems with the Hilbert transform

The objective of the paper is presenting a simple and more accurate technique for precise identification of nonlinear elastic force functions acting in asymmetric vibration systems. The identification procedure based on the Hilbert transform is a nonparametric one; it does not require a priori information about the system structure or its parameters. The examples of the identification of asymmetric classic vibration nonlinear models – the Helmholtz and the double-well Duffing oscillators – are investigated.     

Poly(vinyl chloride) Nanocomposites

Poly(vinyl chloride) is one of the major thermoplastics beside other commodities polymers like polyethylene and polystyrene. However, some of its main characteristics such as plasticity, thermal and photo stability are inferior to other commodity polymers. Adding nano scale inorganic fillers to poly(vinyl chloride) or other polymers in view to obtain polymer nanocomposites with superior properties has drawn the attention of many researchers in the last decades. Poly(vinyl chloride) nanocomposites are obtained mainly by in situ polymerization, solution based or mixing techniques. The resulting products show improvement of most important properties of poly(vinyl chloride) such as thermal, mechanical, rheological, flammability, antibacterial, etc. This paper presents preparation ways of poly(vinyl chloride) nanocomposites using different nano fillers and the improved properties compared with those of virgin poly(vinyl chloride).     

Relationship between Reactivity Ratios and Configuration for Donor—Acceptor Type Copolymers

For binary copolymers from an acrylic monomer (acceptor type, M¹) and an aromatic-substituted monomer (donor type, M₂) a linear relation between log (r₂/r¹) and the probability of “coisotactic” alternating addition is observed. This can be a proof for the influence of monomer polarity on the copolymer configuration.     

Acrylic Terpolymer-Based Blends with Improved Properties

Blending of acrylic terpolymer (AT) with vinyl acetate-vinyl chloride (VAc-VC) copolymer, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer, and polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) polymer, respectively, resulted in sealant compositions with improved properties and enhanced outdoor weathering resistance. The morphology of these blends was studied by SEM, energy-dispersive x-ray analysis (EDXA), and DSC. The blends are heterogeneous and consist of a continuous phase which is either pure or mixed AT and a particulate phase having the morphology of the added component. The particulate phase of AT and AT-(VAc-VC) copolymer blends contains mixed AT, whereas that of AT-PVA and AT-PVAc does not. The AT-based blends have generally improved mechanical properties (e.g., ultimate tensile strength, adhesive strength). The improvement in mechanical properties is particularly strong in mixtures of AT with (VAc-VC) copolymer, probably because the added component has greater specific interaction capabilities with AT than the polymers incorporated in the other blends. Whereas the unblended AT has very low outdoor durability, the AT-based blends display enhanced resistance to weathering, as evidenced by substantially higher ultimate tensile strength of weathered specimens than those of the controls (unweathered).     

Mass spectrometry imaging as a tool for surgical decision‐making

Despite significant advances in image‐guided therapy, surgeons are still too often left with uncertainty when deciding to remove tissue. This binary decision between removing and leaving tissue during surgery implies that the surgeon should be able to distinguish tumor from healthy tissue. In neurosurgery, current image‐guidance approaches such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) combined with neuronavigation offer a map as to where the tumor should be, but the only definitive method to characterize the tissue at stake is histopathology. Although extremely valuable information is derived from this gold standard approach, it is limited to very few samples during surgery and is not practically used for the delineation of tumor margins. The development and implementation of faster, comprehensive, and complementary approaches for tissue characterization are required to support surgical decision‐making – an incremental and iterative process with tumor removed in multiple and often minute biopsies. The development of atmospheric pressure ionization sources makes it possible to analyze tissue specimens with little to no sample preparation. Here, we highlight the value of desorption electrospray ionization as one of many available approaches for the analysis of surgical tissue. Twelve surgical samples resected from a patient during surgery were analyzed and diagnosed as glioblastoma tumor or necrotic tissue by standard histopathology, and mass spectrometry results were further correlated to histopathology for critical validation of the approach. The use of a robust statistical approach reiterated results from the qualitative detection of potential biomarkers of these tissue types. The correlation of the mass spectrometry and histopathology results to MRI brings significant insight into tumor presentation that could not only serve to guide tumor resection, but that is also worthy of more detailed studies on our understanding of tumor presentation on MRI. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Landscape of supersymmetric particle mass hierarchies and their signature space at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

The minimal supersymmetric standard model with soft breaking has a large landscape of supersymmetric particle mass hierarchies. This number is reduced significantly in well-motivated scenarios such as minimal supergravity and alternatives. We carry out an analysis of the landscape for the first four lightest particles and identify at least 16 mass patterns, and provide benchmarks for each. We study the signature space for the patterns at the CERN Large Hadron Collider by analyzing the lepton+ (jet> or =2) + missing P{T} signals with 0, 1, 2, and 3 leptons. Correlations in missing P{T} are also analyzed. It is found that even with 10 fb{-1} of data a significant discrimination among patterns emerges.