Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Cyberattack suspect to be sent home to Netherlands

MADRID (AP) ? A Dutch citizen arrested in Spain on suspicion of launching what authorities have called the biggest cyberattack in Internet history is expected to be handed over to the Netherlands within 10 days, a Spanish court official said Monday.

The suspect ? identified only by his initials S.K. ? was questioned Saturday in the National Court in Madrid after his arrest last week and agreed to the deal, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because court rules prevent him from giving his name.

Police say the 35-year-old suspect operated from a bunker in northeast Spain and also had a van capable of hacking into networks anywhere in the country. He was arrested Thursday in Granollers, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Barcelona.

He is accused of attacking the anti-spam watchdog group Spamhaus, whose main task is to halt ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills reaching the world's inboxes.

Dutch authorities alerted Spanish police in March of large denial-of-service attacks being launched from Spain that were affecting Internet servers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the U.S. These attacks culminated with a major onslaught on Spamhaus.

Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm a server with traffic, jamming it with incoming messages. Recent cyberattacks ? such as the ones that caused outages at U.S. banking sites last year ? have tended to peak at 100 billion bits per second. The attack on Spamhaus was three times that size.

Police from the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, Spain and the U.S. took part in the investigation.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cyberattack-suspect-sent-home-netherlands-123458203.html

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Monday, April 29, 2013

Play of the Day: The New $100 Bill

BERLIN, April 29 (Reuters) - Barcelona will try every trick in the book to overturn a 4-0 first-leg deficit against Bayern Munich in their Champions League semi-final return leg on Wednesday, honorary Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer warned on Monday. Bayern crushed the Spaniards last week in a surprisingly one-sided encounter but Beckenbauer, former player, coach and president of Germany's most successful club, warned that Barcelona were not ready to surrender. "Barca will try everything to throw Bayern off balance," he told Bild newspaper. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/play-day-100-bill-103744964.html

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Reading wordless storybooks to toddlers may expose them to richer language

Reading wordless storybooks to toddlers may expose them to richer language [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Nick Manning
nmanning@uwaterloo.ca
519-888-4451
University of Waterloo

WATERLOO, Ont. (Monday, April 29, 2013) Researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that children hear more complex language from parents when they read a storybook with only pictures compared to a picture-vocabulary book. The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal First Language.

"Too often, parents dismiss picture storybooks, especially when they are wordless, as not real reading or just for fun," said the study's author, Professor Daniela O'Neill. "But these findings show that reading picture storybooks with kids exposes them to the kind of talk that is really important for children to hear, especially as they transition to school."

The study, by Professor O'Neill of the Department of Psychology at Waterloo, and Angela Nyhout, a graduate student, recorded 25 mothers while they read to their toddlers both a wordless picture storybook and a vocabulary book with pictures.

"What we found was that moms in our study significantly more frequently used forms of complex talk when reading the picture storybook to their child than the picture vocabulary book," said Professor O'Neill.

The researchers were especially interested in looking at the language mothers use when reading both wordless picture storybooks and picture vocabulary books to see if parents provided extra information to children like relating the events of the story to the child's own experiences or asking their child to make predictions.

"So, when reading the picture story, we would hear moms say things such as 'where do you think the squirrel is going to go?' or 'we saw a squirrel this morning in the backyard.' But we didn't hear this kind of complex talk as often with vocabulary books, where mentioning just the name of the animal, for example, was more common, " said Professor O'Neill.

The results of the study are significant for both parents and educators because vocabulary books are often marketed as being more educational. "Books of all kinds can build children's language and literacy skills, but they do so perhaps in different ways," said Professor O'Neill. "It's exciting to find that even short wordless picture books provide children with exposure to the kinds of sophisticated language that they will encounter at school and that lay the foundation for later reading development."

A Research Development Initiative grant, which the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to Professor O'Neill, supported this research.

###

Journal Reference:

Nyhout, A., & O'Neill, D. K. Mothers' complex talk when sharing books with their toddlers: book genre matters. First Language, 33(2), 115-131, 2013.

About the University of Waterloo

In just half a century, the University of Waterloo, located at the heart of Canada's technology hub, has become one of Canada's leading comprehensive universities with 35,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Waterloo, as home to the world's largest post-secondary co-operative education program, embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery. In the next decade, the university is committed to building a better future for Canada and the world by championing innovation and collaboration to create solutions relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow. For more information about Waterloo, please visit http://www.uwaterloo.ca

Media Contact:

Nick Manning
University of Waterloo
519.888.4451
226.929.7627
nmanning@uwaterloo.ca

http://www.uwaterloo.ca/news

Attention broadcasters: Waterloo has facilities to provide broadcast-quality audio and video feeds with a double-ender studio. Please contact Nick Manning on 226.929.7627 or Pamela Smyth on 519.888.4777 for more information.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Reading wordless storybooks to toddlers may expose them to richer language [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Nick Manning
nmanning@uwaterloo.ca
519-888-4451
University of Waterloo

WATERLOO, Ont. (Monday, April 29, 2013) Researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that children hear more complex language from parents when they read a storybook with only pictures compared to a picture-vocabulary book. The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal First Language.

"Too often, parents dismiss picture storybooks, especially when they are wordless, as not real reading or just for fun," said the study's author, Professor Daniela O'Neill. "But these findings show that reading picture storybooks with kids exposes them to the kind of talk that is really important for children to hear, especially as they transition to school."

The study, by Professor O'Neill of the Department of Psychology at Waterloo, and Angela Nyhout, a graduate student, recorded 25 mothers while they read to their toddlers both a wordless picture storybook and a vocabulary book with pictures.

"What we found was that moms in our study significantly more frequently used forms of complex talk when reading the picture storybook to their child than the picture vocabulary book," said Professor O'Neill.

The researchers were especially interested in looking at the language mothers use when reading both wordless picture storybooks and picture vocabulary books to see if parents provided extra information to children like relating the events of the story to the child's own experiences or asking their child to make predictions.

"So, when reading the picture story, we would hear moms say things such as 'where do you think the squirrel is going to go?' or 'we saw a squirrel this morning in the backyard.' But we didn't hear this kind of complex talk as often with vocabulary books, where mentioning just the name of the animal, for example, was more common, " said Professor O'Neill.

The results of the study are significant for both parents and educators because vocabulary books are often marketed as being more educational. "Books of all kinds can build children's language and literacy skills, but they do so perhaps in different ways," said Professor O'Neill. "It's exciting to find that even short wordless picture books provide children with exposure to the kinds of sophisticated language that they will encounter at school and that lay the foundation for later reading development."

A Research Development Initiative grant, which the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to Professor O'Neill, supported this research.

###

Journal Reference:

Nyhout, A., & O'Neill, D. K. Mothers' complex talk when sharing books with their toddlers: book genre matters. First Language, 33(2), 115-131, 2013.

About the University of Waterloo

In just half a century, the University of Waterloo, located at the heart of Canada's technology hub, has become one of Canada's leading comprehensive universities with 35,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Waterloo, as home to the world's largest post-secondary co-operative education program, embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research and discovery. In the next decade, the university is committed to building a better future for Canada and the world by championing innovation and collaboration to create solutions relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow. For more information about Waterloo, please visit http://www.uwaterloo.ca

Media Contact:

Nick Manning
University of Waterloo
519.888.4451
226.929.7627
nmanning@uwaterloo.ca

http://www.uwaterloo.ca/news

Attention broadcasters: Waterloo has facilities to provide broadcast-quality audio and video feeds with a double-ender studio. Please contact Nick Manning on 226.929.7627 or Pamela Smyth on 519.888.4777 for more information.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uow-rws042913.php

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FAA: Air traffic system soon at full operation

NEW YORK (AP) ? The Federal Aviation Administration said that the U.S. air traffic system will resume normal operations by Sunday evening after lawmakers rushed a bill through Congress allowing the agency to withdraw furloughs of air traffic controllers and other workers.

The FAA said Saturday that it has suspended all employee furloughs and that traffic facilities will begin returning to regular staffing levels over the next 24 hours. The furloughs were fallout from the $85 billion in automatic-across-the-board spending cuts this spring. The bill, passed on Friday, allows the FAA to move as much as $253 million within its budget to areas that will allow it to prevent reduced operations and staffing.

The furloughs started to hit air traffic controllers this past week, causing flight delays that left thousands of travelers frustrated and furious. Planes were forced to take off and land less frequently, so as not to overload the remaining controllers on duty.

The FAA had no choice but to cut $637 million as its share of $85 billion in automatic, government-wide spending cuts that must be achieved by the end of the federal budget year on Sept. 30.

Flight delays piled up across the country Sunday and Monday of this week as the FAA kept planes on the ground because there weren't enough controllers to monitor busy air corridors. Cascading delays held up flights at some of nation's busiest airports, including New York, Baltimore and Washington. Delta Air Lines canceled about 90 flights Monday because of worries about delays. Just about every passenger was rebooked on another Delta flight within a couple of hours. Air travel was smoother Tuesday.

Things could have been worse. A lot of people who had planned to fly this week changed their plans when they heard that air travel might be difficult, according to longtime aviation consultant Daniel Kasper of Compass Lexicon.

"Essentially what happened from an airline's perspective is that people who were going to travel didn't travel," he said. But canceled flights likely led to lost revenue for airlines. Even if they didn't have to incur some of costs of fueling up planes and getting them off the ground, crews that were already scheduled to work still had to paid.

"One week isn't going to kill them, but had it gone on much longer, it would have been a significant hit on their revenues and profits," Kasper said.

It's also a toll on travelers. At New York's LaGuardia airport on Friday, traveler Roger Bentley said "getting on a flight and being delayed really puts people on the spot. It puts people on the edge and makes people edgy and that's not something I want."

The challenges this week probably cost airlines less than disruptions from a typical winter storm, said John F. Thomas, an aviation consultant with L.E.K. Consulting.

"I think the fact that it got resolved this week has minimized the cost as it was more the inconvenience factor," Thomas said.

The budget cuts at the FAA were required under a law enacted two years ago as the government was approaching its debt limit. Democrats were in favor of raising the debt limit without strings attached so as not to provoke an economic crisis, but Republicans insisted on substantial cuts in exchange. The compromise was to require that every government "program, project and activity" ? with some exceptions, like Medicare ? be cut equally.

The FAA had reduced the work schedules of nearly all of its 47,000 employees by one day every two weeks, including 15,000 air traffic controllers, as well as thousands of air traffic supervisors, managers and technicians who keep airport towers and radar facility equipment working. That amounted to a 10 percent cut in hours and pay.

Republicans accused the Obama administration of forcing the furloughs to raise public pressure on Congress to roll back the budget cuts. Critics of the FAA insist the agency could have reduce its budget in other ways that would not have inconvenience travelers including diverting money from other accounts, such as those devoted to research, commercial space transportation and modernization of the air traffic control computers.

President Barack Obama chided lawmakers Saturday over their fix for widespread flight delays, deeming it an irresponsible way to govern, dubbing it a "Band-Aid" and a quick fix, rather than a lasting solution to the spending cuts known as the sequester.

"Republicans claimed victory when the sequester first took effect, and now they've decided it was a bad idea all along," Obama said, singling out the GOP even though the bill passed with overwhelming Democratic support in both chambers.

He scolded lawmakers for helping the Federal Aviation Administration while doing nothing to replace other cuts that he said harm federal employees, unemployed workers and preschoolers in Head Start.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faa-air-traffic-system-soon-full-operation-172947164.html

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Friday, April 26, 2013

LG Optimus G Pro for AT&T detailed: Snapdragon 600, LTE and a Full HD IPS display

LG Optimus G Pro for AT&T detailed

There's not much surprise left to LG's Optimus G Pro reveal set for next Wednesday in New York. We've already seen the device slip through the FCC and recently had a previewed glimpse of the potential hardware. But thanks to an anonymous tipster, we now have more insight to the the upcoming AT&T variant's specifications. Based on the official doc we had a look at, LG's managed to keep this US model mostly in line with its global sibling, porting over the same 5.5-inch form factor, 3,140mAh battery, 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 processor paired with 2GB RAM, a healthy 32GB of internal storage (expandable via microSDXC to 64GB), 2.1-megapixel front-facing / 13-megapixel rear cameras, NFC and WiFi a/b/g/n. What has changed is the actual screen technology used, which should find this AT&T G Pro employing a Full HD IPS panel as opposed to the True HD-IPS+ in the original. Additionally, and unsurprisingly, the device's radios have been tweaked, with the AT&T G Pro now supporting the carrier's flavor of LTE (700/1700 MHz), HSPA+21 (850/1900/2100 MHz) and quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz).

Though it would be nice to see LG bump up this Optimus G Pro to a more current version of Android -- namely, 4.2.2 -- the AT&T model will likely ship with the more dated 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. Continuing further down the software track, carrier bloat looks to be at a minimum as only two automobile-specific apps are mentioned in the document: AT&T DriveMode and Navigator. Aside from that, LG's own software suite makes the transition, bringing along QSlide 2.0 (a multiwindow feature), Dual Recording (for the picture-in-picture effect), Tag+ for NFC, VuTalk (a note sharing app), QuickMemo, Notebook and the ability to preset the Home Key's LED. That enough of a preview for you? Stay tuned for the real deal to be unveiled next week.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/YqptPcvaZhk/

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Bipolar Disorder Drugs May 'Tweak' Genes Affecting Brain - Health ...

NS10595side brain head Bipolar Disorder Drugs May Tweak Genes Affecting Brain

By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) ? Medications taken by people with bipolar disorder may actually be nudging hundreds of genes that direct the brain to behave more normally, according to new research.

The study suggests that antipsychotic drugs activate a wide range of genes, changing their function, said lead author Dr. Melvin McInnis.

?A gene?s activity in any given cell will vary depending on what it?s exposed to,? said McInnis, a professor of bipolar disorder and depression at the School of Medicine at the University of Michigan.

It?s not often that scientists stumble upon something in research that they totally weren?t expecting to see. ?It was a major surprise to us that people treated with an antipsychotic [medication] had changes in the gene expression pattern,? McInnis said.

The findings could help point the way to new gene-targeted and stem cell therapies, and provide valuable insight into what causes manic-depressive mood swings, he added.

However, a genetics expert not connected to the study was more cautious about drawing implications from its findings.

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, affects about 5.7 million American adults, or about 2.6 percent of the U.S. population aged 18 and older, according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The brain disorder causes severe and unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out routine daily tasks.

The new research, published in a recent issue of the journal Bipolar Disorders, involved examining 26 brains donated to a nonprofit brain bank. Fourteen of the brains were from people who had bipolar disorder. Of those, seven were from people who had been taking one or more antipsychotic medications ? such as clozapine, risperidone and haloperidol ? when they died. Twelve brains were from those with no mental health condition.

In comparing the brains, the scientists observed that the genes of those that had been exposed to antipsychotics at the time of death or during their lifetime were similar to those from people who did not have bipolar disorder. This suggests that the drugs may normalize or suppress the kinds of brain pathology one would expect in bipolar disorder, according to the researchers.

The study also supports the idea that the ability of brain cells to effectively communicate with each other may be impaired in people with bipolar disorder. The researchers found that the brains of people who were taking antipsychotics and those who did not have bipolar disorder showed striking similarities in how their brains relayed signals between cell gaps, or synapses, and on high-speed neuronal ?freeways? called the nodes of Ranvier.

While antipsychotic medications can often be effective in moderating the effects of bipolar disorder, the side effects are often difficult for people to deal with. These include metabolic syndrome ? a combination of symptoms that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes ? as well as weight gain, increased blood sugar levels, and tremors, McInnis said.

However, one expert expressed some concerns about the study.

?It?s still not known if these changes just happen to occur or play a key role in the therapeutic effect,? said Dr. Francis McMahon, chief of the human genetics branch at the NIMH Intramural Research Program.

McMahon also noted that the researchers don?t have data on what medications the brains were exposed to during their lifetimes. ?Patients [with bipolar disorder] are exposed to antidepressants, drugs of abuse, and other medications, and we don?t have medication exposure data on the brains [of the people without bipolar disorder].?

For his part, study author McInnis said the research represents a step toward a radical evolution in the design of drugs for psychiatric conditions by the pharmaceutical industry.

?A lot of these psychiatric illnesses fluctuate, but now we give medications at a constant rate, almost as if we were giving a diabetic the same amount of insulin no matter what the person?s blood sugar is,? McInnis said. ?Medications as we know them will change based on our understanding of the biological mechanisms behind disease.?

More information

Learn more about bipolar disorder from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

HEALTHDAY Web XSmall Bipolar Disorder Drugs May Tweak Genes Affecting Brain

Source: http://news.health.com/2013/04/25/bipolar-disorder-drugs-may-tweak-genes-affecting-brain/

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How art will raise GDP by 3 percent

This summer, the US will start to include intellectual property as part of capital expenditure, rather than as input cost.?The relevance of this is that it will raise GDP (likely by about 3%) as input costs are subtracted from GDP while capital investment is included, Karlsson writes.

By Stefan Karlsson,?Guest blogger / April 25, 2013

Pablo Picasso's "Mother and Child" hangs in an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Intellectual property will be counted as capital expenditure, not input cost, in GDP calculations, beginning this summer.

Caryn Rousseau/AP/File

Enlarge

Washington Post reports?that the U.S. will, starting this summer, start to include "research and development and the creation of artistic works", or in other words IP as part of capital expenditure, rather than as input cost. The relevance of this is that it will raise GDP (likely by about 3%) as input costs are subtracted from GDP while capital investment is included.

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There are three possible way to measure output. One is to include the value of all transactions, the second is to include the value of only consumption and gross investment, the third is to include only consumption and net investment. GDP is essentially the second approach.

The problem with the first approach is that makes no distinction as to how much value was created in a certain transaction, creating the result that if a company outsourced one step in the production process rather than performing with its own employees then output would be considered higher even if the value of the final product wasn't bigger.?

Patient centered medical home helps assess social health determinants and promote health

Patient centered medical home helps assess social health determinants and promote health [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jenny Eriksen
jenny.eriksen@bmc.org
617-638-6841
Boston University Medical Center

(Boston) - Physicians from the Departments of Pediatrics and Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) are proposing that current pediatric guidelines and practices could be implemented within a Patient Centered Medical Home model to address social determinants of health. The article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), also suggests that these guidelines could reduce socioeconomic disparities in health care for all patients.

Arvin Garg, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM and pediatrician at BMC, served as the study's first author. Barry Zuckerman, MD, professor of pediatrics at BUSM and a pediatrician at BMC, and Brian Jack, MD, Chief and Chair of Family Medicine at BMC and BUSM, were the article's co-authors.

A Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is a comprehensive and coordinated health care model in which a team of providers coordinate all of the patient's health needs, including management of chronic health conditions, visits to specialists, hospital admissions and routine health screenings. Socioeconomic disparities continue to play a role in the health of children and families. Previous studies have shown that the environment in which a patient lives can impact their health, and these factors have historically been managed by public health and community organizations. However, a PCMH model allows for physicians to play a role in examining the social determinants of health in order to assess and treat patients with a more holistic approach and improve population health.

The authors list five recommendations to help address social context of patient care within the PCMH model: making social determinants of health an important aspect of clinical guidelines; screening for particular social determinants at medical visits; helping patients and families access community based resources, such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), job training and food pantries; implementing "outside the box" multidisciplinary primary care interventions, such as programs like Reach out and Read, the Medical-Legal Partnership and Health Leads (developed at BMC); and integrating home visiting programs to better understand living conditions.

They suggest that the implementation of these guidelines will provide important data about the types of services necessary to improve population health. Additionally, the indicators related to social determinants of care may some day become part of pay for performance and quality evaluation metrics of the medical home model.

"Overall, implementing social determinants of health within the PCMH model will potentially reduce socioeconomic disparities in health that continue to exist today and ultimately improve the health care system, especially for PCMH's that serve low-income patient populations," said the authors.

The authors note that the "medical home" is not a novel concept in the world of pediatrics. Current guidelines and practices within pediatrics now address social risks of populations and these guidelines are adaptable to adult and elderly populations within the medical home as well.

###


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?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Patient centered medical home helps assess social health determinants and promote health [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 25-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jenny Eriksen
jenny.eriksen@bmc.org
617-638-6841
Boston University Medical Center

(Boston) - Physicians from the Departments of Pediatrics and Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) are proposing that current pediatric guidelines and practices could be implemented within a Patient Centered Medical Home model to address social determinants of health. The article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), also suggests that these guidelines could reduce socioeconomic disparities in health care for all patients.

Arvin Garg, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM and pediatrician at BMC, served as the study's first author. Barry Zuckerman, MD, professor of pediatrics at BUSM and a pediatrician at BMC, and Brian Jack, MD, Chief and Chair of Family Medicine at BMC and BUSM, were the article's co-authors.

A Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is a comprehensive and coordinated health care model in which a team of providers coordinate all of the patient's health needs, including management of chronic health conditions, visits to specialists, hospital admissions and routine health screenings. Socioeconomic disparities continue to play a role in the health of children and families. Previous studies have shown that the environment in which a patient lives can impact their health, and these factors have historically been managed by public health and community organizations. However, a PCMH model allows for physicians to play a role in examining the social determinants of health in order to assess and treat patients with a more holistic approach and improve population health.

The authors list five recommendations to help address social context of patient care within the PCMH model: making social determinants of health an important aspect of clinical guidelines; screening for particular social determinants at medical visits; helping patients and families access community based resources, such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), job training and food pantries; implementing "outside the box" multidisciplinary primary care interventions, such as programs like Reach out and Read, the Medical-Legal Partnership and Health Leads (developed at BMC); and integrating home visiting programs to better understand living conditions.

They suggest that the implementation of these guidelines will provide important data about the types of services necessary to improve population health. Additionally, the indicators related to social determinants of care may some day become part of pay for performance and quality evaluation metrics of the medical home model.

"Overall, implementing social determinants of health within the PCMH model will potentially reduce socioeconomic disparities in health that continue to exist today and ultimately improve the health care system, especially for PCMH's that serve low-income patient populations," said the authors.

The authors note that the "medical home" is not a novel concept in the world of pediatrics. Current guidelines and practices within pediatrics now address social risks of populations and these guidelines are adaptable to adult and elderly populations within the medical home as well.

###


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/bumc-pcm042513.php

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Why Delhi University's Four Year Undergraduate Programme ...

A Note Prepared at the Request of the Department of Higher Education, MHRD, Govt of India

Preamble:

Universities are meant to educate, that is, to teach students how to identify, understand and evaluate multiple points of view. Therefore, dissent, debate and argument are the core concerns of a University ? they cannot be regarded as irrelevant irritations or acts of sedition. Debate cannot continue indefinitely, and must be responsible. But what constitutes responsible and well-considered criticism is inevitably a matter of judgement ? it cannot be decided through assertion and counter-assertion. It is also inevitable that motives will be called into question. This is once again a matter of judgement, based on available evidence on who is speaking (what is their wider credibility beyond the immediate dispute?) and why (what do they stand to gain or lose by what they are saying?), and an overall sense of what is at stake in the issue. We invite such judgements.

Facts which are NOT disputed:

1. The proposed FYUP is the biggest, most far reaching change of curriculum in the recent (i.e., last 30-40 years) history of DU ? it will replace every existing undergraduate course of study in every college and every discipline (professional courses & some other low-enrolment courses may be exceptions).

2. The first time that the FYUP was placed before any statutory body of the University was at the Academic Council meeting of Monday, 24 December, 2012. This meeting ? to discuss the biggest curricular reform in several decades ? was an Extraordinary meeting, called at 3 days? notice, which was issued on Friday, 21 December, 2012 and delivered over the weekend, giving Departments no time to consider the proposal and formulate an informed response.3. The structure of the FYUP presented to the Academic Council on 24 December had not been sent to the Committees of Courses at the Faculties or Departments, or to the Staff Councils of Colleges.

4. The Academic Council meeting of 24 December approved the FYUP with 6 dissents, including a written submission by the Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, specifically requesting that the University take more time to think through this major change, and that a detailed White Paper on the FYUP be prepared and made public to enable the University community to respond to it.

5. The Executive Council meeting at which the AC approval of the FYUP was presented was held on Wednesday, 26 December, 2012, i.e. the next working day after the AC meeting of 24 December.

6. The first official communication to all Heads of Department asking them to initiate the process of syllabus formation and designing of courses for the FYUP (strictly according the structure already decided) was issued on 5 March, 2013. This letter asked that the entire exercise be completed by 20 March, 2013. The deadline was later informally extended by one month to 20th April, 2013.

7. In the past, curricular changes of any significance have usually involved open discussions by teachers of the relevant discipline at both college and university level. Proposals for changes to old courses or addition of new courses have then been presented to statutory Committees of Courses at the Department and Faculty levels. These bodies have given time for members to respond to the proposed changes, and after due discussion at meetings they have sometimes rejected the changes in the form proposed, and returned them to Departments for reconsideration and re-presentation after modifications.

8. The procedures being followed currently depart from past practice in terms of the time limit for course-making, the openness of the process, and the space and time given to statutory bodies to exercise their oversight functions.

Claims that ARE disputed:

1. The FYUP has been arrived at after adequate public discussion and debate.

a) There is no evidence of any formal public discussion of any kind on the FYUP prior to September 2012.

b) The ?Academic Congress? at which the FYUP is claimed to have been discussed makes no mention of it whatsoever in its official programme. There was no session and no individual presentation devoted to the FYUP as such. The Academic Congress was not open to the public, or even to all members of the University. Admission was strictly by invitation ? passes were issued outside the venue to a pre-decided list of invitees; only pass holders were granted entry. Several teachers of the University who tried to attend the event were denied the opportunity to attend the Academic Congress.

c) The 61-member ?Task Force? ? which is the only body that has deliberated on the FYUP and decided its entire structure ? was created through selective appointment. In other words, its members were selected as individuals by the VC and his team, without reference to any general principle like ?all Deans of Faculty?, ?all Heads of Department?, ?all Principals of Colleges? etc. Significant numbers of eminent teachers at both college and university level of proven pedagogic competence as well as commitment to issues of curriculum design, were never consulted in any way.

d) Even today there is no publicly available document detailing the rationale of the FYUP (why are 4 years better than 3?); justifying its framework (the types of courses proposed and their relative weight, the exit points, the mode of evaluation etc.); or explaining the logistical plans (procedures for admission, meeting infrastructure needs, adequacy of staffing etc.) made for its implementation. All we have are ad hoc pronouncements, with corrections and clarifications being issued piecemeal as difficulties are discovered, and even these we learn of through the media.

2. The structure of the proposed FYUP is sound and in keeping with global best practice.

a) The structure of the FYUP is fundamentally flawed because its objectives are too many and too divergent to be achieved by a single curriculum. From the students? perspective, the FYUP clubs disparate groups with very different needs and capabilities into a single homogenous mass and subjects them to the same curricular requirements, but offers them different exit points. In effect, it assumes that different phases/stages of the same curriculum can sustain vastly different pedagogical orientations. The four year course is thus a vocational course for the first two years; an applications-based disciplinary specialisation in the third year; and a research-oriented specialisation in the fourth year. These are impossible demands to make of a single curriculum. It would be more honest to offer at least two different degree courses, each with a coherent and achievable set of objectives.

b) The proposed FYUP does not match any major pattern of undergraduate education, let alone best practices. For example, both the American pattern based on the two-year community college and the four-year liberal education university or college, and the U.K. pattern of polytechnics and degree-colleges involve separate institutions with distinct curricula. While movement from the former to the latter may be permitted, it is conditional and happens at the discretion of the longer-duration institution. In the case of the DU FYUP, it would be as though the community college student and the four-year degree student were taking the same courses in the same classroom.

c) Until now, undergraduate students at DU have been differentiated in two ways ? in terms of the type of instruction (regular vs. non-formal, the latter consisting of evening class courses and distance education courses) and type of degree (the Honours and BA/BSc Programme streams). Roughly one-third of all undergraduates are in regular courses while two-thirds are in non-formal courses; and Honours students are one quarter of all undergraduates, while three-quarters are in the BA/BSc Programme. (See table below).

Classification of DU Undergraduates

(by type of degree and type of instruction)

Honours

Programme

Total

Regular

19

14

33

Non-Formal

5

62

67

Total

24

76

100

Based on 2011-12 enrolment data, excluding technical/professional courses (law, medicine etc.). Figures are percentage shares rounded to nearest integer.

The main feature driving the huge enrolment in the non-formal courses has been the much-advertised fact that they follow exactly the same curriculum as the regular courses within each of the Honours/Programme streams of DU. By subjecting all undergraduates to the same curriculum, the FYUP effectively proposes to impose a structure oriented to 19% of the students in the Regular-Honours category on the remaining 81%. Since much of the FYUP content (20 courses in the major discipline, 6 courses in the minor discipline, etc.) and pedagogical innovations (emphasis on class presentations, hands-on applications courses, etc.) have not been part of the Programme stream, and their applicability to the non-formal formats is doubtful, this raises important issues that need to be explicitly addressed. Are the non-formal formats going to be delinked from the regular formats? How will the interests of either the Honours-stream minority or the Programme-stream majority be served by a single curriculum?

d) While the only written document on the rationale behind the FYUP (the overview ?The Rationale for the Proposed Undergraduate Program? presented at the AC meeting of 24 December 2012) repeatedly mentions ?flexibility?, the FYUP structure offers no flexibility. Heads of Department were told to keep optionals to a minimum in Discipline 1 (there was actually no provision for any in the structure; this concession was also made after insistence), and to have none in Discipline 2 courses. This means a full set of six and only six courses can be opted for as Discipline 2. This is less choice than is available under the current BA/BSc Programme course. Similarly, if only two limited options are offered in Discipline 1, this will also be less than what is currently available in most Honours disciplines. Besides, all 11 Foundation courses are mandatory. It is thus difficult to see where flexibility comes in, other than in the ?exit? option after two years.

3. Departures from past practice are not significant, and do not violate statutory norms.

a) The most significant departure from past practice is in the procedures being followed by most departments in designing courses. Courses and sometimes even entire syllabi are being made by a few individuals in secret, without intimation of meetings and with no provision for vetting or seeking responses. Secrecy is being maintained even after courses have been made, and they are being sent to the Committee of Courses at the Faculty level without being revealed to teachers of the same discipline at the college or department levels. The claim that such flagrant violations of established practices are not significant is simply untenable.

b) The time table fixed for the making of courses ? even after the one month extension ? is still too short because it coincides with the period of maximum teaching and internal evaluation activity in colleges and departments, namely March-April. There are also the end semester examination papers to be set, moderated and translated (in the case of undergraduate degrees), much of which used to be done by the Examination Branch but has since been thrust on to departments.

c) The oversight function of the Committees of Courses will effectively be nullified by the timeline that the administration is insisting upon. This is not a change in one or two courses, something that can expect to be passed in a single CoC meeting. This is an entirely new programme, with 30 courses in each discipline. How are members of CoCs going to study these syllabi in any meaningful sense if they are expected to pass them in the same meeting in which they are proposed? This is all the more true if syllabi are being kept secret until presentation at the CoC.

d) There are a host of statutory issues on which there is utter silence. Introducing a new programme of study offering a new degree with a different course duration involves complex legal issues implicating the UGC, the Act of Parliament that established DU, and other certifying bodies. For example, the two-year teacher certification course being proposed as part of the FYUP does not have NCTE approval. The FYUP effectively converts every course into an Honours type course; in the past, permission to offer Honours courses was conditional upon the college concerned being able to meet the required norms, which were the subject of review and inspection. Is this process going to be bypassed? How will the staffing patterns be adjusted for the differences in workload across disciplines that the transition will entail? This list does not even include the many financial issues that will arise, beginning with the UGC having to bear the extra costs that the fourth year will involve, and going on to the costs that students and their families will have to bear.

4. Adequate preparations have been made to meet logistical & infrastructural needs.

a) It is well known that the enhancement of infrastructure promised during the ?OBC expansion? is yet to materialize, especially classroom space and library/laboratory additions. The predictable pressures of semesterisation have severely damaged the examination branch and brought it to the brink of collapse; its in-house functions have been thrust on to departments without warning. More than 3000 UGC-sanctioned teaching posts have remained vacant for three years. On this already overstretched infrastructure, the FYUP will inevitably impose an additional burden of nearly 33%! The University has not made public any credible, systematic plan to deal with these and related infrastructural issues.

b) Despite some adhoc media announcements, there appears to be no clear roadmap for handling admissions under the FYUP. In the past, admission to the undergraduate programme at DU has depended on three factors ? school leaving examination marks, and the applicant?s choice of college and discipline. The BA/BSc Programme accounted for 76% of all undergraduate enrolment; even if we ignore the non-formal formats, the Programme stream students account for 42% of all regular-format undergraduates. All these students will now be forced to apply to one or the other disciplines, thus significantly raising enrolment in the larger disciplines like Political Science, Physics, History or Hindi. How will the ?cut-offs? (the minimum percentages in the school leaving exams that will be required to gain admission to specific disciplines) be affected by this large addition to the candidate pool for the honours-like structure of the FYUP? How will the distribution of students across colleges and disciplines be reconciled with existing capacities and staffing patterns? Questions like this need to be addressed well in advance of the admissions process, with clear and well-publicised instructions to candidates. None of this is in place, and school principals and guidance counsellors are desperately seeking non-existent information and clarifications, while prospective applicants and their parents are left with no option but to downgrade DU in their priority lists.

5. DU is a happy and well-run institution, except for a few ?misguided colleagues?.

Among all the claims listed above, this one is unique in the sense that it is both the least credible and the hardest to refute. If all that we have said is true, why were there only 6 dissenters in an Academic Council with more than 100 members? Why are Deans and Heads of Department actively enforcing everything that we claim is harmful or wrong?

We know that we cannot answer these questions to the satisfaction of our opponents. We also admit that we cannot explain why the DU authorities are adamant on implementing the FYUP in a self-defeating manner and with an impossible timetable, when there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by hastening slowly. But we do believe that we have shown that this is in fact what is happening. We invite those who disagree to show us how and why we are wrong.

Shahid Amin (History), Apoorvanand (Hindi), Aditya Bhattacharjea(Economics),

P.K. Datta(Political Science), Satish Deshpande (Sociology), Krishna Kumar(Education),

Udaya Kumar (English) and Shobhit Mahajan(Physics)

?

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Source: http://kafila.org/2013/04/25/why-delhi-universitys-four-year-undergraduate-programme-should-not-be-implemented-with-irresponsible-haste/

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Bomb suspect influenced by mysterious radical

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

FILE - This combination of undated file photos shows Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The FBI says the two brothers are the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, and are also responsible for killing an MIT police officer, critically injuring a transit officer in a firefight and throwing explosive devices at police during a getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left Tamerlan dead and Dzhokhar captured, late Friday, April 19, 2013. The ethnic Chechen brothers lived in Dagestan, which borders the Chechnya region in southern Russia. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade, one of their uncles reported said. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young, File)

Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, speaks with the media outside his home in Montgomery Village in Md. Friday, April, 19, 2013. Tsarni urged his nephew to turn himself in. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In the years before the Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev fell under the influence of a new friend, a Muslim convert who steered the religiously apathetic young man toward a strict strain of Islam, family members said.

Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.

"Somehow, he just took his brain," said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence. Efforts over several days by The Associated Press to identify and interview Misha have been unsuccessful.

Tamerlan's relationship with Misha could be a clue in understanding the motives behind his religious transformation and, ultimately, the attack itself. Two U.S. officials say he had no tie to terrorist groups.

Throughout his religious makeover, Tamerlan maintained a strong influence over his siblings, including Dzhokhar, who investigators say carried out the deadly attack by his older brother's side, killing three and injuring 264 people.

"They all loved Tamerlan. He was the eldest one and he, in many ways, was the role model for his sisters and his brother," said Elmirza Khozhugov, 26, the ex-husband of Tamerlan's sister, Ailina. "You could always hear his younger brother and sisters say, 'Tamerlan said this,' and 'Tamerlan said that.' Dzhokhar loved him. He would do whatever Tamerlan would say.

"Even my ex-wife loved him so much and respected him so much," Khozhugov said. "I'd have arguments with her and if Tamerlan took my side, she would agree: 'OK, if Tamerlan said it.'"

Khozhugov said he was close to Tamerlan when he was married and they kept in touch for a while but drifted apart in the past two years or so. He spoke to the AP from his home in Almaty, Kazakhstan. A family member in the United States provided the contact information.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a police shootout Friday. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, and he could face the death penalty if convicted.

"Of course I was shocked and surprised that he was Suspect No. 1," Khozhugov said, recalling the days after the bombing when the FBI identified Tamerlan as the primary suspect. "But after a few hours of thinking about it, I thought it could be possible that he did it."

Based on preliminary written interviews with Dzhokar in his hospital bed, U.S. officials believe the brothers were motivated by their religious views. It has not been clear, however, what those views were.

As authorities try to piece together that information, they are touching on a question asked after so many terrorist plots: What turns someone into a terrorist?

The brothers emigrated in 2002 or 2003 from Dagestan, a Russian republic that has become an epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from the region of Chechnya.

They were raised in a home that followed Sunni Islam, the religion's largest sect. They were not regulars at the mosque and rarely discussed religion, Khozhugov said.

Then, in 2008 or 2009, Tamerlan met Misha, a slightly older, heavyset bald man with a long reddish beard. Khozhugov didn't know where they'd met but believed they attended a Boston-area mosque together. Misha was an Armenian native and a convert to Islam and quickly began influencing his new friend, family members said.

Once, Khozhugov said, Misha came to the family home outside Boston and sat in the kitchen, chatting with Tamerlan for hours.

"Misha was telling him what is Islam, what is good in Islam, what is bad in Islam," said Khozhugov, who said he was present for the conversation. "This is the best religion and that's it. Mohammed said this and Mohammed said that."

The conversation continued until Tamerlan's father, Anzor, came home from work.

"It was late, like midnight," Khozhugov said. "His father comes in and says, 'Why is Misha here so late and still in our house?' He asked it politely. Tamerlan was so much into the conversation he didn't listen."

Khozhugov said Tamerlan's mother, Zubeidat, told him not to worry.

"'Don't interrupt them,'" Khozhugov recalled the mother saying. "'They're talking about religion and good things. Misha is teaching him to be good and nice.'"

As time went on, Tamerlan and his father argued about the young man's new beliefs.

"When Misha would start talking, Tamerlan would stop talking and listen. It upset his father because Tamerlan wouldn't listen to him as much," Khozhugov said. "He would listen to this guy from the mosque who was preaching to him."

Anzor became so concerned that he called his brother, worried about Misha's effects.

"I heard about nobody else but this convert," Tsarni said. "The seed for changing his views was planted right there in Cambridge."

It was not immediately clear whether the FBI has spoken to Misha or was attempting to.

Tsarnaev became an ardent reader of jihadist websites and extremist propaganda, two U.S. officials said. He read Inspire magazine, an English-language online publication produced by al-Qaida's Yemen affiliate.

Tamerlan loved music and, a few years ago, he sent Khozhugov a song he'd composed in English and Russian. He said he was about to start music school.

Six weeks later, the two men spoke on the phone. Khozhugov asked how school was going.

"I quit," Tamerlan said.

"Why did you quit?" Khozhugov asked. "You just started."

"Music is not really supported in Islam," he replied.

"Who told you that?"

"Misha said it's not really good to create music. It's not really good to listen to music," Tamerlan said, according to Khozhugov.

Tamerlan took an interest in Infowars, a conspiracy theory website. Khozhugov said Tamerlan was interested in finding a copy of the book "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," the classic anti-Semitic hoax, first published in Russia in 1903, that claims a Jewish plot to take over the world.

"He never said he hated America or he hated the Jews," Khozhugov said. "But he was fairly aggressive toward the policies of the U.S. toward countries with Muslim populations. He disliked the wars."

One of the brothers' neighbors, Albrecht Ammon, recently recalled an encounter in which Tamerlan argued about U.S. foreign policy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and religion.

Ammon said Tamerlan described the Bible as a "cheap copy" of the Quran, used to justify wars with other countries.

"He had nothing against the American people," Ammon said. "He had something against the American government."

Khozhugov said Tamerlan did not know much about Islam beyond what he found online or what he heard from Misha.

"Misha was important," he said. "Tamerlan was searching for something. He was searching for something out there."

___

Associated Press writers Lara Jakes and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

___

AP's Washington investigative team can be reached at DCinvestigations(at)ap.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-23-Boston%20Marathon-Radicalization/id-b972b1cc07c74c90a9fd88ecd5139726

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Governments may push workers to health exchange

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- In a quest to save money, political leaders in Washington state are exploring a proposal that would shift some government workers out of their current health plans and onto the insurance exchange developed under President Barack Obama's health care law.

Lawmakers believe the change, which could affect thousands of part-time state employees and education workers, would save the state $120 million over the next two years. It would consequently push more health care costs onto the federal government because many of the low-income workers would likely qualify for federal subsidies.

Washington state appears to be the first major government to seriously explore the possibility of pushing public employees into the exchange, but it probably won't be the last. Rick Johnson, who advises state and local governments on health care policy at the New York-based consulting firm Segal Company, said he expects it will be an option some state and local governments will explore in the years to come.

"I can see that as one of the solutions out there," Johnson said.

A spokeswoman with the Department of Health and Human Services declined comment.

Because the federal law requires employers to provide coverage for those working at least 30 hours a week, states are exploring various ways to manage their part-time employees.

Virginia, for example, is requiring all part-time employees to work fewer than 30 hours, which will help the state avoid penalties for not providing health coverage. Florida is facing a potential $300 million penalty for not covering workers who are on duty 30 to 39 hours a week, so it's moving to extend coverage to those employees.

Washington state is in a less common situation because it already provides coverage for part-timers down to 20 hours a week.

The Washington proposal has been advanced as a way to help deal with a $1.2 billion budget shortfall. Under it, Washington state would make policy changes and secure agreements in which staffers who work between 20 and 30 hours a week would get extra compensation but lose their current health coverage. They would then be eligible to get health care in the federal plan, without any consequence for the state.

While Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about the Washington state plan this year, it is drawing growing interest with a bipartisan group of political leaders in the state.

Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, who supported the Obama health care law while in Congress, has reservations about the plan but also said federal rules don't dictate how employers and employees should handle insurance coverage. Inslee indicated that he may consider supporting the idea in the future.

"It's one of those ideas that's premature for us to launch this year, but I don't think we should take it off the table," Inslee said Tuesday.

Supporters of the plan say the proposal could help some part-time workers financially and could put them in a position to have better health care benefits. Lawmakers also see it as a boon for the state budget.

"I think it's a great way to fully take advantage of the Affordable Care Act," said Republican Sen. Andy Hill, one of the state's top budget writers.

K-12 workers would have to adopt new bargaining agreements to implement the change, although the state would help by offering sweeteners that would be equivalent to as much as a $2 per hour raise.

Rick Chisa, political director at the Public School Employees of Washington, said the union is open to shifting some workers to the exchange. But Chisa didn't feel that the current proposal ? an inducement valued at perhaps $200 a month for someone working 25 hours a week ? provided an adequate incentive, especially if it may be taxed as compensation.

He said the change might eventually make sense for cafeteria workers and teacher's assistants who are on the low end of the pay spectrum. But union leaders also want to see what the insurance product will end up looking like in the exchange before making that move.

"We want to make sure that we're not selling workers short and being mesmerized by a shiny $2 bill," Chisa said. He said it was "very unlikely" for such a shift to happen this year.

The shift could be a problem particularly for part-time workers who have larger family incomes.

Steve Hodes, who works 24 hours a week doing policy work for the Washington state Employment Security Department, said he would not qualify for insurance subsidies because his wife makes a decent salary working as an attorney.

He suspects he and his family might be on the hook for thousands of dollars in new expenses if he was moved to the exchange, although solid numbers are elusive because the exchange has not started operating.

"They don't have a clue how much it is," said Hodes, 63.

Under the federal law, large employers who fail to provide coverage to full-time workers will face penalties, but they will not face penalties for not covering employees who work less than 30 hours a week. Thousands of part-time government employees in Washington state work between 20 and 30 hours a week and currently qualify for state medical coverage.

While few states are following Washington's path at the moment, there has been concern about how private employers will handle the new health care law and the possibility that some may shed insurance coverage. The owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants, for example, began experimenting last year with putting more workers on part-time status.

Virginia is doing something similar, with Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell directing that all part-time state employees work less than 29 hours weekly. That is creating a financially crippling problem for many of Virginia's 9,100 adjunct faculty members at the state's 23 community colleges on 40 campuses statewide.

"I've never anticipated getting rich off being a teacher," said J. Gabriel Scala, an adjunct English professor at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond.

"But the rent has to be paid. And I have to eat. And gas has to be put in the car ? and $17,000 a year isn't going to do it," she added.

___

Associated Press writer Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.

AP Writer Mike Baker can be reached on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/HiPpEV

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/governments-may-push-workers-health-075842837.html

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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Windows Phone gets an official Tumblr app

Tumblr releases app for Windows Phone

You can now scratch one more big name off the list of apps not available on Windows Phone. Tumblr has just released its official app for Microsoft's mobile platform (the latest version of it, at least), offering all the key features found in its iOS and Android counterparts with a distinct Windows Phone flavor. That includes the ability to swipe left and right to switch between the dashboard and "explore" options, and the option to add the latest images from your dashboard to your lock screen or live tiles. You can also rest assured that animated GIFs will remain animated while you scroll.

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Source: Tumblr, Windows Phone Blog

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/8tbsA7ETDIA/

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