Do Welfare Asset Limits Affect Household Saving? Evidence from Welfare Reform

In this paper, we use household-level data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the impact of new saving incentives that were implemented as part of the overhaul of U.S. welfare policy during the mid-1990s on the saving of households at risk of entering welfare. The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program devolved responsibility of program rules to the states, and many states have responded by relaxing liquid asset and vehicle-equity limits that determine program eligibility, and by introducing time limits on benefit receipt. According to the recent theoretical work and statements made by public officials, such policies are predicted to increase total savings for those households who have a large ex-ante probability of welfare receipt such as female-headed households with children. We follow a sample of female heads with children from 1994 to 2001 and find that in both absolute terms, and relative to comparison groups of male heads and female heads without children, there has been no impact of welfare policy changes on the saving of at-risk households.

Glueball Spin

The spin of a glueball is usually taken as coming from the spin (and possibly the orbital angular momentum) of its constituent gluons. In light of the difficulties in accounting for the spin of the proton from its constituent quarks, the spin of glueballs is reexamined. The starting point is the fundamental QCD field angular momentum operator written in terms of the chromoelectric and chromomagnetic fields. First, we look at the restrictions placed on the structure of glueballs from the requirement that the QCD field angular momentum operator should satisfy the standard commutation relationships. This can be compared to the electromagnetic charge/monopole system, where the quantization of the field angular momentum places restrictions (i.e. the Dirac condition) on the system. Second, we look at the expectation value of this operator under some simplifying assumptions.Comment: 11 pages, 0 figures; added references and some discussio

Measurement of the sign of the spectroscopic quadrupole moment for the 21+_{1}^{+} state in 70^{70}Se: no evidence for oblate shape

Using a method whereby molecular and atomic ions are independently selected, an isobarically pure beam of 70Se ions was postaccelerated to an energy of 206 MeV using REX-ISOLDE. Coulomb-excitation yields for states in the beam and target nuclei were deduced by recording deexcitation γ rays in the highly segmented MINIBALL γ-ray spectrometer in coincidence with scattered particles in a silicon detector. At these energies, the Coulomb-excitation yield for the first 2+ state is expected to be strongly sensitive to the sign of the spectroscopic quadrupole moment through the nuclear reorientation effect. Experimental evidence is presented here for a prolate shape for the first 2+ state in 70Se, reopening the question over whether there are, as reported earlier, deformed oblate shapes near to the ground state in the light selenium isotopes

Cellular automaton rules conserving the number of active sites

This paper shows how to determine all the unidimensional two-state cellular automaton rules of a given number of inputs which conserve the number of active sites. These rules have to satisfy a necessary and sufficient condition. If the active sites are viewed as cells occupied by identical particles, these cellular automaton rules represent evolution operators of systems of identical interacting particles whose total number is conserved. Some of these rules, which allow motion in both directions, mimic ensembles of one-dimensional pseudo-random walkers. Numerical evidence indicates that the corresponding stochastic processes might be non-Gaussian.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Long range correlations in DNA : scaling properties and charge transfer efficiency

We address the relation between long range correlations and charge transfer efficiency in aperiodic artificial or genomic DNA sequences. Coherent charge transfer through the HOMO states of the guanine nucleotide is studied using the transmission approach, and focus is made on how the sequence-dependent backscattering profile can be inferred from correlations between base pairs.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Cocaine, treatment and public health: A case study in Merseyside and Cheshire

Originating from the coca plant in South America, the prevalence of cocaine use has increased in recent times and it has become a global commodity. It is the second most trafficked illicit drug in the world, after cannabis, with world seizures in 2006 amounting to 706 tonnes (EMCDDA, 2008). General population surveys show an increase in cocaine use in many European countries, especially among young people, though this may now be slowing in countries with the highest rates of use. Indicators of cocaine availability in Europe, including seizures of the drug and amounts seized have also increased dramatically in recent years, with the demand for treatment for cocaine use increasing substantially in recent years in some European countries. There is evidence to suggest that the proportions of adults (15-64 year olds) in the UK using the drug are within the top 5% in Europe (EMCDDA, 2007) and the 2008/9 British Crime Survey found that 3.0% of adults had used cocaine in the past year compared to 2.3% in 2007/8 (Hoare, 2009)

A Complexity View of Rainfall

We show that rain events are analogous to a variety of nonequilibrium relaxation processes in Nature such as earthquakes and avalanches. Analysis of high-resolution rain data reveals that power laws describe the number of rain events versus size and number of droughts versus duration. In addition, the accumulated water column displays scale-less fluctuations. These statistical properties are the fingerprints of a self-organized critical process and may serve as a benchmark for models of precipitation and atmospheric processes.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Personalised electronic messages to improve sun protection in young adults

The incidence of all skin cancers, including melanoma, continues to rise. It is well known that ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the main environmental risk factor for skin cancer, and excessive exposure at a young age increases the risk of developing skin cancer. The aim of this study was to determine the acceptability and feasibility of delivering sun protection messages via electronic media such as short message services (SMS) to people 18-40 years, and explore factors associated with their acceptability. Overall, 80% of participants agreed that they would like to receive some form of sun protection advice; of these, 20% prefer to receive it via SMS and 42% via email. Willingness to receive electronic messages about the UV index was associated with being unsure about whether a suntanned person would look healthy and greater use of sun protection in the past. Careful attention to message framing and timing of message delivery and focus on short-term effects of sun exposure such as sunburn and skin ageing should increase the acceptability of such messages to young people. We conclude that sun protection messages delivered to young adults via electronic media appear feasible and acceptable

Spectral fluctuation characterization of random matrix ensembles through wavelets

A recently developed wavelet based approach is employed to characterize the scaling behavior of spectral fluctuations of random matrix ensembles, as well as complex atomic systems. Our study clearly reveals anti-persistent behavior and supports the Fourier power spectral analysis. It also finds evidence for multi-fractal nature in the atomic spectra. The multi-resolution and localization nature of the discrete wavelets ideally characterizes the fluctuations in these time series, some of which are not stationary.Comment: 7 pages, 2 eps figure