Buffalo Water Authority

The Buffalo Municipal Water Finance Authority Act governs the Water Board. In general, the Buffalo Water Authority is empowered to establish, fix, revise, change, collect, and enforce the payments of all fees, rates, rents, and other service charges for the use of the services furnished by the system. The Buffalo Water Authority is in charge of setting rates and of capital improvements to the system as a whole over $10,000. Some specific powers of the Water Board: terminate water service, sue and be sued, enter into contracts necessary to carry out the main purposes of the Water Authority, hold property in order to carry out the purpose of the Water Authority, appoint officers and employees necessary to carry out its duties, and apply for grants from the government and invest money to carry out its duties

Higher Coxeter graphs associated to affine su(3) modular invariants

The affine $su(3)$ modular invariant partition functions in 2d RCFT are associated with a set of generalized Coxeter graphs. These partition functions fall into two classes, the block-diagonal (Type I) and the non block-diagonal (Type II) cases, associated, from spectral properties, to the subsets of subgroup and module graphs respectively. We introduce a modular operator $\hat{T}$ taking values on the set of vertices of the subgroup graphs. It allows us to obtain easily the associated Type I partition functions. We also show that all Type II partition functions are obtained by the action of suitable twists $\vartheta$ on the set of vertices of the subgroup graphs. These twists have to preserve the values of the modular operator $\hat{T}$.Comment: Version 2. Abstract, introduction and conclusion rewritten, references added. 36 page

Action of a finite quantum group on the algebra of complex NxN matrices

Using the fact that the algebra M := M_N(C) of NxN complex matrices can be considered as a reduced quantum plane, and that it is a module algebra for a finite dimensional Hopf algebra quotient H of U_q(sl(2)) when q is a root of unity, we reduce this algebra M of matrices (assuming N odd) into indecomposable modules for H. We also show how the same finite dimensional quantum group acts on the space of generalized differential forms defined as the reduced Wess Zumino complex associated with the algebra M.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, uses diagrams.sty, to be published in "Particles, Fields and Gravitation" (Lodz conference), AIP proceeding

Financing health care in high-income countries

The main lesson from the experience of high-income countries with health care financing is a simple one: financing reforms should support the ultimate goal of universal coverage. Most high-income countries started with voluntary health insurance systems, which were then gradually extended to compulsory social insurance for certain groups and finally reached universal coverage, either as nationwide social health insurance schemes or as tax-financed national health services. The risk pooling and prepayment functions are essential. Moreover, the revenue collection mechanisms, whether as general tax revenues or payroll taxes, are secondary to the basic object of providing financial protection through effective risk pooling mechanisms. The experience of high-income countries indicates that private health insurance, medical savings accounts, and other forms of private resource collection are supplementary methods for increasing universal coverage.