Lessons for emerging state Children's Health Insurance Premium Assistance programs: Case study of the Massachusetts Masshealth Family Assistance Program (MHFAP)

Providing health insurance coverage for vulnerable populations such as low-income high-risk children with limited access to health care is a challenge for many states. Over the past decade, higher private insurance premiums and unpredictable labor markets have increased the number of uninsured and underinsured children nationwide. Due to recent economic downfalls, many states such as Texas, have expressed interest in using premium assistance programs to increase enrollment of low income children and families in private coverage through employer sponsored health insurance. Massachusetts has been especially successful in reducing the number of uninsured children through the implementation of MassHealth Family Assistance Program (MHFAP), an employer based premium assistance program. The purpose of this study is to identify key implementation factors of a fully established premium assistance program which may provide lessons and facilitate implementation of emerging premium assistance programs. ^ The case study of the fully established MassHealth Family Assistance Program (MHFAP) has illustrated the ability of states to expand their Medicaid and SCHIP programs in order to provide affordable health coverage to uninsured and underinsured low income children and their families. As demonstrated by MHFAP, the success of a premium assistance program depends on four key factors: (1) determination of participant and employer eligibility; (2) determination of employer benefits meeting benchmark equivalency (Medicaid or State Children's Health Insurance Program); (3) the use of appropriate marketing and outreach strategies; and (4) establishment of adequate monitoring and reporting techniques. Successful implementation strategies, revealed by the case study of the Massachusetts MassHealth Family Assistance Program, may be used by emerging premium assistance programs, such as Texas Children's Health Insurance Premium Assistance Program (CHIP-PA) toward establishment of an effective, efficient, and equitable employer sponsored health program.^

Flexibility of representational states in working memory

The relationship between working memory (WM) and attention is a highly interdependent one, with evidence that attention determines the state in which items in WM are retained. Through focusing of attention, an item might be held in a more prioritized state, commonly termed as the focus of attention (FOA). The remaining items, although still retrievable, are considered to be in a different representational state. One means to bring an item into the FOA is to use retrospective cues (‘retro-cues’) which direct attention to one of the objects retained in WM. Alternatively, an item can enter a privileged state once attention is directed towards it through bottom-up influences (e.g. recency effect) or by performing an action on one of the retained items (‘incidental’ cueing). In all these cases, the item in the FOA is recalled with better accuracy compared to the other items in WM. Far less is known about the nature of the other items in WM and whether they can be flexibly manipulated in and out of the FOA. We present data from three types of experiments as well as transcranial magnetic stimulation to early visual cortex to manipulate the item inside FOA. Taken together, our results suggest that the context in which items are retained in WM matters. When an item remains behaviourally relevant, despite not being inside the FOA, re-focusing attention upon it can increase its recall precision. This suggests that a non-FOA item can be held in a state in which it can be later retrieved. However, if an item is rendered behaviourally unimportant because it is very unlikely to be probed, it cannot be brought back into the FOA, nor recalled with high precision. Under such conditions, some information appears to be irretrievably lost from WM. These findings, obtained from several different methods, demonstrate quite considerable flexibility with which items in WM can be represented depending upon context. They have important consequences for emerging state-dependent models of WM.

A case for a mobile architecture and built environment laboratory

Deakin University and other research and industry partners have recently won a grant for the establishment of a Mobile Architecture and Built Environment Laboratory (MABEL). MABEL provides the first means of integrated, on-site measurement of the key aspects of the built environment (power, sound, light and comfort) using the latest instrument technology. There exists an ongoing need to establish a versatile and comprehensive in-situ testing facility for built internal environments, for the provision of research, education, training and technology diffusion. The ability to make on-site measurements across the environmental spectrum is unique and important. Individual measurements might demonstrate improved lighting performance, reduced power consumption, and improved ventilation or better building acoustics. More importantly, an integrated perspective will address an interaction in terms of energy efficiency and overall occupant comfort. H is recognised that many of the parameters we can measure with existing instrumentation remain unresolved regarding their diagnostic significance on occupant health, comfort and productivity. Also, developed standards for in-situ measurement are at an emerging state, in the delivery of reliable and useful assessment methods. This paper discusses the inception and role of the MABEL facility for building research, learning and teaching.

El tratado demonológico como espacio del conflicto político entre la autoridad religiosa y los emergentes Estados territoriales : El Malleus Maleficarum y la subordinación de la autoridad seglar a la eclesiástica

Tomando en consideración las motivaciones particulares de los autores del Malleus Maleficarum y los condicionantes culturales de su redacción, este trabajo pondrá el foco en las reflexiones allí vertidas acerca del rol de la autoridad secular, y su relación de cara a los inquisidores como representantes eclesiásticos, en la extirpación de la nueva secta de las brujas. Finalmente establecerá la relación existente entre la producción del texto y la emergencia del Estado territorial moderno. Podemos adelantar que un período en el que comienzan a emerger las nuevas estructuras estatales, nuestros teólogos exaltaron, por sobre cualquier otra fuente de poder fáctico, la potestad del vicario de Cristo, haciendo del discurso demonológico un espacio de debate político entre dos fuentes de autoridad en pugna (a pesar de sustentarse en el mismo fundamento -Dios-)

Aportes para la construcción de un modelo conceptual para el diseño, evaluación e investigación en educación virtual

El artículo se centra en el estado incipiente del soporte teórico de la educación dada en entornos digitales. Con fines de contribuir con el desarrollo de dicho soporte, ofrece un modelo conceptual fundamentado en un enfoque constructivista sociocultural, como referente para el diseño, la evaluación y la investigación en el campo particular de la educación digital. El modelo es resultado de la ampliación justificada del triángulo interactivo propuesto por Coll (1996; 2004) para el análisis de las actividades educativas. Está constituido por cuatro grupos de factores: del contenido, del estudiante, del docente y de las condiciones técnico-ambientales del programa, permitiendo abordar sistemáticamente las particularidades de las actividades educativas dadas en entornos digitales. Sustentado en fuentes actualizadas, el artículo presenta y describe los factores más relevantes de cada grupo.

El tratado demonológico como espacio del conflicto político entre la autoridad religiosa y los emergentes Estados territoriales : El Malleus Maleficarum y la subordinación de la autoridad seglar a la eclesiástica

Tomando en consideración las motivaciones particulares de los autores del Malleus Maleficarum y los condicionantes culturales de su redacción, este trabajo pondrá el foco en las reflexiones allí vertidas acerca del rol de la autoridad secular, y su relación de cara a los inquisidores como representantes eclesiásticos, en la extirpación de la nueva secta de las brujas. Finalmente establecerá la relación existente entre la producción del texto y la emergencia del Estado territorial moderno. Podemos adelantar que un período en el que comienzan a emerger las nuevas estructuras estatales, nuestros teólogos exaltaron, por sobre cualquier otra fuente de poder fáctico, la potestad del vicario de Cristo, haciendo del discurso demonológico un espacio de debate político entre dos fuentes de autoridad en pugna (a pesar de sustentarse en el mismo fundamento -Dios-)

Aportes para la construcción de un modelo conceptual para el diseño, evaluación e investigación en educación virtual

El artículo se centra en el estado incipiente del soporte teórico de la educación dada en entornos digitales. Con fines de contribuir con el desarrollo de dicho soporte, ofrece un modelo conceptual fundamentado en un enfoque constructivista sociocultural, como referente para el diseño, la evaluación y la investigación en el campo particular de la educación digital. El modelo es resultado de la ampliación justificada del triángulo interactivo propuesto por Coll (1996; 2004) para el análisis de las actividades educativas. Está constituido por cuatro grupos de factores: del contenido, del estudiante, del docente y de las condiciones técnico-ambientales del programa, permitiendo abordar sistemáticamente las particularidades de las actividades educativas dadas en entornos digitales. Sustentado en fuentes actualizadas, el artículo presenta y describe los factores más relevantes de cada grupo.

El tratado demonológico como espacio del conflicto político entre la autoridad religiosa y los emergentes Estados territoriales : El Malleus Maleficarum y la subordinación de la autoridad seglar a la eclesiástica

Tomando en consideración las motivaciones particulares de los autores del Malleus Maleficarum y los condicionantes culturales de su redacción, este trabajo pondrá el foco en las reflexiones allí vertidas acerca del rol de la autoridad secular, y su relación de cara a los inquisidores como representantes eclesiásticos, en la extirpación de la nueva secta de las brujas. Finalmente establecerá la relación existente entre la producción del texto y la emergencia del Estado territorial moderno. Podemos adelantar que un período en el que comienzan a emerger las nuevas estructuras estatales, nuestros teólogos exaltaron, por sobre cualquier otra fuente de poder fáctico, la potestad del vicario de Cristo, haciendo del discurso demonológico un espacio de debate político entre dos fuentes de autoridad en pugna (a pesar de sustentarse en el mismo fundamento -Dios-)

Aportes para la construcción de un modelo conceptual para el diseño, evaluación e investigación en educación virtual

El artículo se centra en el estado incipiente del soporte teórico de la educación dada en entornos digitales. Con fines de contribuir con el desarrollo de dicho soporte, ofrece un modelo conceptual fundamentado en un enfoque constructivista sociocultural, como referente para el diseño, la evaluación y la investigación en el campo particular de la educación digital. El modelo es resultado de la ampliación justificada del triángulo interactivo propuesto por Coll (1996; 2004) para el análisis de las actividades educativas. Está constituido por cuatro grupos de factores: del contenido, del estudiante, del docente y de las condiciones técnico-ambientales del programa, permitiendo abordar sistemáticamente las particularidades de las actividades educativas dadas en entornos digitales. Sustentado en fuentes actualizadas, el artículo presenta y describe los factores más relevantes de cada grupo.

Ink Under the Fingernails: Making Print in Nineteenth-Century Mexico City

This dissertation examines Mexico City’s material politics of print—the central actors engaged in making print, their activities and relationships, and the legal, business, and social dimensions of production—across the nineteenth century. Inside urban printshops, a socially diverse group of men ranging from manual laborers to educated editors collaborated to make the printed items that fueled political debates and partisan struggles in the new republic. By investigating how print was produced, regulated, and consumed, this dissertation argues that printers shaped some of the most pressing conflicts that marked Mexico’s first formative century: over freedom of expression, the role of religion in government, and the emergence of liberalism. Printers shaped debates not only because they issued texts that fueled elite politics but precisely because they operated at the nexus where new liberal guarantees like freedom of the press and intellectual property intersected with politics and patronage, the regulatory efforts of the emerging state, and the harsh realities of a post-colonial economy.

Historians of Mexico have typically approached print as a vehicle for texts written by elites, which they argue contributed to the development of a national public sphere or print culture in spite of low literacy levels. By shifting the focus to print’s production, my work instead reveals that a range of urban residents—from prominent printshop owners to government ministers to street vendors—produced, engaged, and deployed printed items in contests unfolding in the urban environment. As print increasingly functioned as a political weapon in the decades after independence, print production itself became an arena in struggles over the emerging contours of politics and state formation, even as printing technologies remained relatively unchanged over time.

This work examines previously unexplored archival documents, including official correspondence, legal cases, business transactions, and printshop labor records, to shed new light on Mexico City printers’ interactions with the emerging national government, and reveal the degree to which heated ideological debates emerged intertwined with the most basic concerns over the tangible practices of print. By delving into the rich social and cultural world of printing—described by intellectuals and workers alike in memoirs, fiction, caricatures and periodicals— it also considers how printers’ particular status straddling elite and working worlds led them to challenge boundaries drawn by elites that separated manual and intellectual labors. Finally, this study engages the full range of printed documents made in Mexico City printshops not just as texts but also as objects with particular visual and material qualities whose uses and meanings were shaped not only by emergent republicanism but also by powerful colonial legacies that generated ambivalent attitudes towards print’s transformative power.

Laser-driven ion acceleration: State of the art and emerging mechanisms

Ion acceleration driven by high intensity laser pulses is attracting an impressive and steadily increasing research effort. Experiments over the past 10-15 years have demonstrated, over a wide range of laser and target parameters, the generation of multi-MeV proton and ion beams with unique properties, which have stimulated interest in a number of innovative applications. While most of this work has been based on sheath acceleration processes, where space-charge fields are established by relativistic electrons at surfaces of the irradiated target, a number of novel mechanisms has been the focus of recent theoretical and experimental activities. This paper will provide a brief review of the state of the art in the field of laser-driven ion acceleration, with particular attention to recent developments.

The Family Novel in the Emerging Nation-State: A Comparative Study of Ba Jin’s Jia and Lev Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina

The theme of family in literature and in popular discourse occurs at times when the family as an institution is under attack. Attacks against the family coupled with defence of the family are viewed as the barometer of people’s satisfaction with the society in which they live. This outpouring of emotion, whether it is in defence of or attacking the family, is the result of the family’s position on the bridge between nature and society – a fortunate (or a detrimental) link between an individual and the units that make up a society. Across the United States and much of the western world, the battle for gay marriage and inclusive civil unions has revealed the fissures in our collective moral view of the family. The conservative concern about the absence of ‘family values’ is magnified by our situation in a world of flux. Inflation, war, terrorist threats, and the depletion of natural resources are but a few examples. When so much is unknown, how do we position ourselves? What anchors us to the past, gives us comfort in the present, and supports us in the future if not the family? Alternatively, what coddles us more in the past, shackles us more to the present, and lulls us more into a fixed conception of the future than the family? My research is not a sociological survey into the family nor does it stake any claims to understanding the present state of the family in society. The study seeks, however, to shed light on the rhetorical uses of the family by analysing two novels that are inextricably concerned with the theory of the family in times of heightened social change. In particular, my research focuses upon the social role and political meaning of the family in Anna Karenina and Jia.