Olympia Circuits' Arno Shield lets Arduino newcomers bring their own board

While there have certainly been attempts at easing the Arduino learning curve, many of these still demand a new board or simplify just one aspect of a much larger universe. Olympia Circuits' new Arno Shield could help strike a better balance between starting fresh and diving into the deep end. It includes all the buttons, lights and sensors needed for 40-plus educational projects, but grafts on to existing boards such as the company's LeOlympia or an Arduino Uno. Owners don't have to add parts or wires; they just remove the shield once they've learned enough to create their own masterworks. The shield kit won't be cheap when it arrives on May 2nd for $60, but it may prove the real bargain for tinkerers who want a full-fledged Arduino board as soon as the training wheels come off.

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Source: Olympia Circuits

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Why Did It Take So Long to Make a See-Through Highlighter Tip?

Not since Liquid Paper has there been an innovation in office supplies as awesome as this highlighter's see-through tip that makes it easier to see the text as you're... well... highlighting it. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/_S26iUFNGs0/why-did-it-take-so-long-to-make-a-see+through-highlighter-tip

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Recovery Business Marketing Not Immune from Kickback Exposure ...

Written By: Jeffrey L. Cohen Date: April 22nd, 2013. Topic: Behavioral Health.

Many business people involved in some aspect of the recovery business world (e.g. IOPs, PHPs, Detox) are not aware of the punishing laws that apply to their marketing arrangements. Simply paying someone commission-based sales compensation without fully appreciating the applicable laws is dangerous and costly.

The big federal law involved in the issue, the Anti Kickback Statute (?AKS?) (42 CFR 1320a-7b(b)) basically forbids paying anyone for referring patients whose care is compensated in any way by any state or federal healthcare program (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, CHAMPUS or TriCare). The law enforcement arm of that law, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG), has been clear that such commission-based sales arrangements implicate the AKS and has identified some core suspect indicators, including:

• Compensation set on a percentage-of-sales basis

• Direct billing of any federal healthcare program by the seller for an item sold by the contractor

• A direct contract between the contractor and a physician in a position to order or refer

• A direct contract between the contractor and federal healthcare program beneficiaries

The AKS has both criminal and civil monetary consequences and is one of the government?s favorite tools. Recovery service providers are well advised to become familiar with not only the AKS, but also the law?s exceptions, so called ?Safe Harbors,? which describe arrangements that don?t violate the AKS. The ?personal services arrangement? Safe Harbor has particular application in the area of marketing, as does the AKS exception for ?bona fide employment arrangements,? which apply to W-2 employees, but not independent contractor relationships. Though the AKS arguably applies to just about every arrangement, at least these are some good examples of what?s OK.

Many recovery service providers do not interact with federal or state healthcare programs of any kind. That?s great. For them, the AKS may not seem to be an issue, since the law only applies when services are reimbursable by a state or federal healthcare program. But states are equally unkind in enacting laws that essentially require providers to comply with the AKS even when no state or federal healthcare program dollars are involved. For instance, Florida?s Patient Brokering Act (?PBA?) mirrors the AKS in many ways and carries with it criminal consequences. Even more damaging is the fact that many insurers use the PBA to deny payment for claims.

Recovery service providers have to be careful about how federal and state laws apply to marketing arrangements. Though doing so is a little like playing Whack a Mole, it?s totally doable with the right guidance.

Source: http://www.recoveryview.com/2013/04/recovery-business-marketing-not-immune-from-kickback-exposure/

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House passes cybersecurity bill as privacy concerns linger

By Alina Selyukh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives passed legislation on Thursday designed to help companies and the government share information on cyber threats, though concerns linger about the amount of protection the bill offers for private information.

This is the second go-around for the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act after it passed the House last year but stalled in the Senate after President Barack Obama threatened to veto it over privacy concerns.

The bill drew support from House Democrats, passing on a bipartisan vote of 288-127, although the White House repeated its veto threat on Tuesday if further civil liberties protections are not added.

Some lawmakers and privacy activists worry that the legislation would allow the government to monitor citizens' private information and companies to misuse it.

U.S. authorities have recently elevated the exposure to Internet hacks and theft of digital data to the list of top threats to national security and the economy.

Though thousands of companies have long been losing data to hackers in China and elsewhere, the number of parties publicly admitting such loss has been growing. The bill's supporters say a new law is needed to let the government share threat information with entities that don't have security clearances.

"If you want to take a shot across China's bow, this is the answer," said the House bill's Republican co-author and Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers.

While groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union are displeased, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer called the new version of the bill "a significant improvement from what was passed last year."

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, said he will work with Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota and leaders of other committees to bring cyber legislation to a vote in the Senate as soon as possible.

"Today's action in the House is important, even if CISPA's privacy protections are insufficient," Rockefeller said in a statement. "There is too much at stake - our economic and national security - for Congress to fail to act."

SECURITY AND PRIVACY

House Intelligence Committee leaders have made refinements and endorsed several amendments to the bill to try to put to rest some of the privacy concerns. In particular, these specify that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice rather than any military agencies would be the clearinghouses of the digital data to be exchanged - to "give it a civilian face," as Rogers put it.

"We felt very strongly that it had to be civil," said the bill's Democratic co-author Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland. "If you don't have security, you don't have privacy."

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi reflected concerns shared by the White House and many civil liberties groups, that the bill did not do enough to ensure that companies, in sharing cyber threat data with the government and each other, strip out any personal data of private citizens.

"They can just ship the whole kit and caboodle and we're saying minimize what is relevant to our national security," Pelosi said. "The rest is none of the government's business."

Still, the future of cybersecurity legislation in the Senate remains unclear, given Obama's veto threat and the lingering concerns of many privacy-focused lawmakers and groups.

The White House did not immediately comment on the bill's passage, but it was quickly welcomed by many industry groups that had supported it.

Backers included the wireless group CTIA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and TechNet, which represents big technology companies such as Google Inc, Apple Inc, Yahoo! Inc and Cisco Systems Inc.

(Editing by Ros Krasny, Philip Barbara and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/house-passes-cybersecurity-bill-privacy-concerns-linger-180114733--finance.html

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Polio vaccine developer Koprowski dies

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Dr. Hilary Koprowski, a pioneering virologist who developed the first successful oral vaccination for polio, died this week at his suburban Philadelphia home. He was 96.

Although not as well-known as fellow researchers Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, Koprowski in 1950 became the first to show it was possible to vaccinate against polio, the crippling and sometimes fatal disease that's now all but eradicated.

Koprowski's son, Christopher, said Saturday his father liked the scientific recognition his work received without the celebrity of Salk and Sabin.

"He enjoyed not having his scientific work disrupted," said Christopher Koprowski, chief of radiation oncology at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del. "Not that he was a modest individual, mind you."

Christopher Koprowski said his father had been sick for several months before dying Thursday in the same Wynnewood home he'd lived in since 1957.

Hilary Koprowski self-administered the live-virus oral vaccine he developed before the 1950 clinical trial ? about two years before Salk's injectable version using a dead form of the virus began testing with the backing of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, now the March of Dimes.

Sabin, who Koprowski's son said sometimes collaborated with his father, was the first to get the more-effective oral version, which didn't require boosters, licensed for use in the U.S.

Koprowski went on to be the director of The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia from 1957 to 1991. Under his leadership, the independent research institution developed a rubella vaccine that helped eradicate the disease in much of the world, Wistar officials said. It was during that time the institute also developed a more effective rabies vaccine.

A talented musician, the Polish-born Koprowski was a penniless immigrant in Rio de Janeiro making money teaching piano before hooking up with a lab there and eventually moving to the United States, his son said.

"He was a great dad. He was colorful, charismatic," Christopher Koprowski said. "He's still the most brilliant person I've ever met."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/polio-vaccine-developer-koprowski-dies-022153503.html

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'Worst tragedy we've ever had': Fire kills five in small Idaho town

SALMON, Idaho - A fire sparked by an electrical short swept through a house in Idaho on Saturday, killing a family of four and a teenage friend who had been spending the night as part of a birthday celebration, a fire official said.

Orofino Fire Chief Mike Lee said flames had fully engulfed the home and likely caused the smoke inhalation deaths of the five occupants by the time firefighters arrived at a blaze reported by a neighbor at 1:38 a.m. local time. The home did not have smoke alarms.

The fire in the small logging community in north-central Idaho killed a couple and their two teenage children as well as the teenage friend, Lee said.

---

There was no sign of foul play, he said. Autopsies were planned early next week for the dead, whose names were withheld pending notification of family.

"It is the worst tragedy we've ever had in Orofino, fire-wise," Lee said. He added that two veteran Idaho state fire marshals reported they had never investigated a house fire that took as many lives.

The fire was ignited by a short in an overloaded extension cord on the front porch of a two-story home in a residential neighborhood, Lee said. He said the family was likely asleep when the fire swept through the rooms on the ground floor of the home.?

-- Reuters

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2ab0a067/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C140C177412580Eworst0Etragedy0Eweve0Eever0Ehad0Efire0Ekills0Efive0Ein0Esmall0Eidaho0Etown0Dlite/story01.htm

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Price Chopper cuts 80 jobs; local sites OK

Friday April 5, 2013

PITTSFIELD -- The Price Chopper supermarket chain is eliminating 80 positions, but none are in Berkshire County, a company official said on Thursday.

"All of the positions were administrative," said Price Chopper spokeswoman Mona Golub.

This is the first time in the 81-year history of the Schenectady, N.Y.-based Golub Corporation that Price Chopper has laid off members of its administrative staff, according to the Albany (N.Y.) Business Review.

Price Chopper, the largest grocery chain in New York's Capital Region, operates Berkshire County stores in Great Barrington, Lee, Lenox, North Adams and Pittsfield.

No further layoffs are planned, Golub said.

Of the 80 positions cut, 46 of them are "open" positions eliminated by attrition over the last six months.

The 34 other positions were held by administrators who were let go on Wednesday. Price Chopper has also created 10 new positions that have yet to be filled, according to the Albany Business Review.

The staff reductions were spread across several departments, including the company's headquarters in Schenectady and a distribution warehouse in Rotterdam, N.Y, according to the Business Review.

Price Chopper said the workforce restructuring is one of many steps it has taken to decrease administrative expense and maximize the company's ability to remain successful.

The company has increased its focus on cost-containment over the last 10 years due to

rises in health care, fuel and other costs of doing business.

"This was a difficult, but necessary, decision for us to make as we move forward in today's challenging economy," said Price Chopper President and CEO Jerry Golub in a statement.

"Continuing to focus our efforts on efficiency and innovation will help us to enhance our customers' shopping experience while providing them with tangible value," he said.

Source: http://www.thetranscript.com/ci_22958601/price-chopper-cuts-80-jobs-local-sites-ok?source=rss_viewed

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