When Should There Be Vertical Choice in Health Insurance Markets?

We study the welfare effects of offering choice over coverage levels—“vertical choice”—in regulated health insurance markets. We emphasize that heterogeneity in efficient coverage level is not sufficient to motivate choice. When premiums cannot reflect individuals’ costs, it may not be in consumers’ best interest to select their efficient coverage level. We show that vertical choice is efficient only if consumers with higher willingness to pay have a higher efficient level of coverage. We investigate this condition empirically and find that as long as a minimum coverage level can be enforced, the welfare gains from vertical choice are either zero or economically small. (JEL D82, G22, H75, I13, I21)

Research Study on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development in Mongolia

There is scientific consensus that Mongolia is already facing the negative consequences of climate change. Raising public awareness and increasing education initiatives is one of the most important ways to adapt and mitigate climate change. The paper consists of two main sections. The first section reviewed the policies and provisions in support developing climate change education for sustainable development and analyzed the level of teachers' knowledge of climate change education for sustainable development and determined the needs for teacher training. The second part assessed the coverage level of climate change education for sustainability in national educational standards, curricula and textbooks in Mongolia. To evaluate the coverage level, the team defined the concepts and coverage of Climate change education (CCE), Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and Education for sustainable development (ESD) and developed the indicators to analyze CCE/DRR/ESD content coverage on the curricula and textbooks.

The effects of overconfident yield forecasting on cross-coverage level crop insurance demand

PurposeThis paper examines the effect of overconfident yield forecasting (optimism bias) on crop insurance coverage level choices across both yield and revenue insurance.Design/methodology/approachThis study simulates a representative producer’s preferred coverage level for both yield and revenue insurance under three potential models of decision-making and four potential manifestations of overconfident yield forecasting. The study then uses this framework to examine how coverage level choices change as overconfidence increases (decreases).FindingsAs overconfidence increases, producers prefer lower levels of crop insurance coverage than they would otherwise prefer, with extreme overconfidence inducing farmers to buy no insurance at all. While overconfidence affects cross-coverage demand for revenue and yield insurance similarly, this effect is more pronounced for yield insurance. Cross-coverage level demand for revenue insurance is relatively stable across changes in the correlation between prices and yields.Practical implicationsThis research has important implications for crop insurance subsidy design and crop insurance demand modeling.Originality/valueThere is a growing body of literature suggesting that producers are overconfident with regard to their future yield risk and that this bias reduces their willingness to pay for risk management tools such as crop insurance. This is the first study to look at how such overconfidence affects cross-coverage level demand for crop insurance.

A Game Theoretic Model For Cellular Network Operators’ Cooperation Under Government Intervention

In the digital world today, cellular networks and their operators play a competitive and important role in communications. The basis of the competition of operators, the quality of provided services, and the coverage level of their antennas, thereby attract customers. This paper studies cellular networks with two old and new operators and under the influence of government intervention in one area. Due to the high cost of building an antenna, the new operator participates in the cost of the infrastructure of the old operator to use the services of these antennas for their customers. On the other hand, the government considers incentive schemes to support mobile operators. The government plan is that he takes part in the infrastructure cost of the old operator and will receive it an income tax; to support the new operator declare it exempt from tax. The government subsidy contract with the old operator is based on the coverage level of the antenna and supports the operator to increase the coverage level. Some numerical examples for Iranian telecommunication companies are applied to examine the applicability of the proposed models. Finally, sensitivity analysis on the main parameters is analyzed in-depth to extract some managerial implications.

Broadcast Journalism of Private Radio in Cirebon, Indonesia, in the Convergence Era

Convergence is a deep integration of knowledge, tools, and all relevant areas of human activities. As an inevitable condition, convergence has also changed a lot of aspects of mass media at the international, national, and local levels. This study elaborates how the local radios in Cirebon, namely Sindangkasih FM, Suara Gratia FM, and Cirebon Radio, are adapting to the convergence culture. This study seeks to demonstrate how the convergence culture can affect private broadcast media, which are not in the epicentrum of media in Indonesia. This study indicates that these three private radios in Cirebon have tried to adapt to the convergence culture in minimally three aspects, namely structural, information coverage, and news presentation or storytelling convergence. The structural convergence happened at the organizational structure of the radio, in which more direct and fluid coordination in the newsgathering and writing processes is applied. At the news coverage level, reporters and scriptwriters are responsible for managing news content for old radio broadcasts and new online media as well. At the news presentation level, the news is not only broadcasted but also reported on new online channels, such as websites and social media. These convergences have further created a more convergent newsroom, including integrating journalism workflows, applying multiskilled journalism and resource sharing, using various technological tools, creating interactivity with the audience, and expanding the audience reach. Keywords: journalism, convergence, broadcasting, interactivity, radio

Automatic coverage measurement of shot peened panels

Shot peening is the process of treating metallic surfaces with a regulated blast of shots to increase material strength and durability. Determining the coverage level of the shots is an important parameter in the assessment of the quality of treatment. Traditionally, coverage measurement is performed manually using a magnifying glass, which leads to inefficiency. Despite the proposal for the use of image segmentation techniques for determining the coverage measurement, literature on this topic is not extensively developed. In this thesis, various relevant image segmentation techniques are investigated including thresholding, edge detection, watershed segmentation, active contour, graph cut and neural network. The aim is to develop a generic coverage measurement algorithm, which is accurate and robust to variations in illumination, shot type, coverage level and has real-time capabilities using a simple experimental setup. The results obtained from each method are discussed and compared against a set of relevant performance criteria.

Automatic coverage measurement of shot peened panels

Shot peening is the process of treating metallic surfaces with a regulated blast of shots to increase material strength and durability. Determining the coverage level of the shots is an important parameter in the assessment of the quality of treatment. Traditionally, coverage measurement is performed manually using a magnifying glass, which leads to inefficiency. Despite the proposal for the use of image segmentation techniques for determining the coverage measurement, literature on this topic is not extensively developed. In this thesis, various relevant image segmentation techniques are investigated including thresholding, edge detection, watershed segmentation, active contour, graph cut and neural network. The aim is to develop a generic coverage measurement algorithm, which is accurate and robust to variations in illumination, shot type, coverage level and has real-time capabilities using a simple experimental setup. The results obtained from each method are discussed and compared against a set of relevant performance criteria.

Opium dependence and the potential impact of changes in treatment coverage level: A dynamic modeling study

Background: The most common drug, illegally used in Iran is opium. The treatment of people with substance use disorder is one of the most important strategies in reducing its burden. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different increasing and decreasing opium treatment coverage on the patterns of abstinence, transition to heroin dependence and mortality, over 30 years. Methods: This study was a dynamic compartmental modeling conducted in three stages: 1) presenting a conceptual model of opium dependence treatment in Iran, 2) estimating model’s parameters value, and 3) modeling of opium dependence treatment and examining the outcomes for different treatment coverage scenarios. The input parameters of the model were extracted from the literature, and secondary data analysis, which were finalized in expert panels. Results: The number of opium dependence will increase from 1180550 to 1522063 [28.93% (95% CI: 28.6 to 29.2)] over 30 years. With a 25% decrease in coverage compared to the status quo, the number of deaths will increase by 459 cases [3.28% (95% CI: 0.91 to 5.7)] in the first year, and this trend will continue to be 2989 cases [15.63% (95% CI: 13.4 to 17.9)] in the 30th year. A 25% increase in treatment coverage causes a cumulative decrease of heroin dependence by 14451 cases [10.1% (95% CI: 9.5 to 10.8)] in the first decade. Conclusion: The modeling showed that the treatment coverage level reduction has a greater impact than the coverage level increase in the country and any amount of reduction in the coverage level, even to a small extent, may have a large negative impact in the long run.

Impact of Maternal and Child Health Interventions On Under-Five Mortality in Ghana: A Quasi-Experimental Study Design With Coarsened Exact Matching

Background Despite a 53% decline in under-five mortality (U5M) worldwide during the period of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), U5M remains a challenge. Under-five mortality decline in Ghana is slow and not parallel with the level of coverage of child health interventions. This study sought to assess the effectiveness of these interventions on U5M in Ghana. Methods A quasi-experimental study was conducted using secondary data of the 2008 and 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys. Coarsened Exact Matching and logistic regression were done. Results There were 6,098 children under-five years old and 93 (1.46%) died. Among the children who died, 47 (47%) were less than one month old. Coverage of antenatal care visits was the highest coverage level with 5,045 (84.0%) while water connection in the home was the lowest coverage level of 469 (8.1%). Less than 1.5% (58) of children received all eight (8) interventions and none of those who received all the eight interventions died. After controlling for potential confounders, clean postnatal care for babies within 2 days after delivery caused a 64% reduction in the average odds of death (aOR=0.36, 95%CI:0.15, 0.90) while early initiation of breastfeeding caused a 61% reduction in the average odds of death (aOR=0.39, 95% CI: 0.22-0.71). In the midst of the various interventions, some socio-demographic factors placed children at higher odds of death. Children with less than two years preceding birth interval, being a neonate, multiple birth, or from a polygamous home put children at a higher odds of under-five mortality.Conclusion Two out of eight interventions caused reduction in the average odds of death. A further decline in under-five mortality in Ghana will require increase in the coverage levels of these two high impact interventions. Additionally, attention should be paid to children at higher risk of dying including neonates, multiple births, children from polygamous homes and those with preceding birth interval less than two years.