State could help cover federal health care 'no-man's land'

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Health Care Reform by Elizabeth Stawicki, Minnesota Public Radio

May 23, 2012

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ST. PAUL, Minn. The primary goal of the federal health care overhaul is to help provide affordable health insurance to the millions of Americans who lack it. But health planners are wrestling with a little known, yet significant gap in the plan.

A low-income group under age 65 falls into a kind of no-man's land for affordable coverage. They earn too much to qualify for assistance through Medicaid, but not enough to afford even subsidized commercial insurance.

Minnesota officials are considering an optional program to help fill this gap but there is a huge unknown: how much it will cost.

The affordability gap affects about 100,000 low-income Minnesotans, people whose household incomes are slightly above the threshold to qualify for Medicaid's free or low cost coverage.

Yet their incomes are low enough that the deductibles and co-pays of their private health insurance could cause hardship even with the federal health care law's subsidies.

Many individuals in this predicament earn less than $2,000 a month.

According to the non-profit Kaiser Foundation, their out-of-pocket costs for the health care overhaul's benchmark plan could run as high as $220 per month.

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State could help cover federal health care 'no-man's land'

States show outlook for women's health under Romney

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If you want to see what womens health care in America will be like if Mitt Romney becomes president, just look at Texas and Arizona.

Both states are in the news for trying to prevent women from getting health care at Planned Parenthood. Its wrong and it will have devastating consequences for women for years to come, and Mitt Romney wants to do it in all 50 states.

Romney said in November he wants to eliminate the nations family-planning program, which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970 and provides essential preventive health services to over 5 million people a year, the vast majority of whom are poor and uninsured. Beyond the millions of people who are helped by this health-care program, investing in family planning saves the government money. For every dollar spent on family planning, experts say taxpayers save around $4.

Romney said in March that, if elected president, he would get rid of Planned Parenthood. He clarified his remarks to say he would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

This isnt about abortion. These health-care programs provide blood pressure and cholesterol monitoring, flu shots, breast-cancer screenings, Pap tests and birth control.

Michele Azzaro knows what Mitt Romneys America would look like because shes already experiencing it in Texas. Michelle has been a Planned Parenthood patient in Dallas for more than 20 years. Planned Parenthood was there when she had a breast-cancer scare, and her local health center has been there when she needs her yearly cholesterol test.

Last year, Texas drastically cut its family planning funding, the same way Mitt Romney says he would cut federal funding. Michele lost access to annual breast screenings and the birth-control pills she needs to manage her painful uterine fibroids.

She isnt alone. An estimated 160,000 women lost their health care when Texas slashed its family planning program last year. Now, the state is trying to throw another 100,000 women off health care by taking Planned Parenthood out of the Medicaid-supported Womens Health Program. Planned Parenthood health centers provide care to fully 40 percent of women in the program.

Texas program provides low-income, working women with lifesaving cancer screenings, well-woman exams, contraception, screening for diabetes and high blood pressure, and testing for sexually transmitted infections. The program was sponsored and implemented by Republicans less than a decade ago, an indication of how far to the right some in the party have gone in just a few years.

Planned Parenthood sued the state in federal court in order to continue providing these critical health services to women, and on Friday a federal appeals court blocked the states effort to deny women the health care they rely on at Planned Parenthood while the lawsuit proceeds. Meanwhile, Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation that cuts state funding for Planned Parenthoods preventive care.

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States show outlook for women's health under Romney

Research and Markets: Human Resources Management for Health Care Organizations: A Strategic Approach

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pnrxwj/human_resources_ma) has announced the addition of John Wiley and Sons Ltd's new book "Human Resources Management for Health Care Organizations: A Strategic Approach" to their offering.

This book is a comprehensive guide to the essential areas of health care human resources management, and is an immediately useful practical handbook for practitioners as well as a textbook for use health care management programs. Written by the authors of Handbook for the New Health Care Manager and Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, the book covers the context of human resources management in the unique health care business arena from a strategic perspective includes SHRM and human resources planning, organizational culture and assessment, and the legal environment of human resources management. Managing volunteers and job analysis performance appraisal instruments, training and development programs, and recruitment, targeted selection and hiring techniques are covered. Compensation poli?cies and practices, employer-provided benefits management, implementation of training and organizational development programs, as well as labor-management relations for health care organizations and health care human resource information technology are covered, with practical examples and proven strategies amply provided in each chapter.

Key Topics Covered:

Chapter 1: Introduction to Health Care Human Resources Management

Chapter 2: Strategic Health Care Human Resources Management and Planning

Chapter 3: Organizational Culture Standards for Health Care Human Resources

Chapter 4: Equal Employment Opportunity Laws and Health Care Human Resources Management

Chapter 5: Managing the Unique Health Care Workforce

Chapter 6: The Importance of Volunteers in Health Care Organizations

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Research and Markets: Human Resources Management for Health Care Organizations: A Strategic Approach

Greenwood Genetic Center Nets $275K to Develop Array-Based Autism Test

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IntegenX has appointed David Smith to serve as its new COO. Smith most recently served as CFO of Thoratec, and previous to that was CFO at Chiron. He currently is chair of the audit committee and a director of OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals and previously was chair of the audit committee and a director of Perlegen Sciences.

Vermillion said this week that President and CEO Gail Page will be leaving the company by September and the firm has begun the process to find her successor. Page also has resigned her seat on the board of directors, and effective immediately Vermillion amended its bylaws to eliminate the vacant seat, reducing its board from seven to six members.

Genomic Health has appointed Richard Tompane as president of its new subsidiary InVitae, which will focus on developing next-generation-based sequencing diagnostics for genetic diseases. Tompane was previously president and CEO of Gemfire and has also served as an independent consultant.

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Greenwood Genetic Center Nets $275K to Develop Array-Based Autism Test

Genetic marker may predict smoking quantity in African Americans

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Public release date: 22-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dina Basin dina.basin@sri.com 650-862-1657 SRI International

In a step toward understanding possible genetic differences in smoking behaviors, a team of researchers co-led by SRI International has identified a genetic marker associated with smoking quantity in people of African ancestry. The study's findings may help guide future public health decisions related to smoking, because the more people smoke, the higher their risk of lung cancer.

The genetic variant, called rs2036527, appears to function as a marker of smoking quantity in African Americans, predicting the number of cigarettes smoked per day. It is on the same nicotine receptor gene, located on Chromosome 15, as another marker previously identified in people of European descent. Earlier studies have also shown that this gene plays a role in limiting nicotine intake by affecting how pleasurable nicotine is, which in turn affects how much nicotine is consumed.

Findings from the Study of Tobacco Use in Minority Populations (STOMP) Genetics Consortium study are published in the May 22, 2012 issue of Translational Psychiatry (part of Nature Publishing Group).

To find the genetic variants for smoking behavior, researchers combined 13 genome-wide association studies. The result included data for genetics and smoking behavior for more than 32,000 African Americans.

Although African Americans are less likely to smoke than European Americans, if they do start smoking, they tend to start smoking later in life, are less likely to quit smoking, and die more often from smoking-related lung cancer. Smoking is the leading cause of premature death among African Americans. STOMP investigators did not assess lung cancer risk, but other researchers have found that the genetic marker (rs2036527) is associated with risk of lung cancer in African Americans.

"This study may have implications for personalized medicine and the need to identify targets for drug discovery." said Sean P. David, M.D., D.Phil., research physician and director of the Translational Medicine program in the Center for Health Sciences in SRI's Policy Division and also a family medicine physician and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. "However, we need to be careful not to draw conclusions about the degree to which a genetic variant associated with smoking quantity affects smoker's ability to quit. Future studies of smoking behavior, including smoking cessation clinical trials, should be performed in non-European ancestry groups, so that other informative biomarkers aren't missed."

###

The STOMP study, done in collaboration with 78 researchers from dozens of academic institutions and the National Institutes of Health, is the first meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of smoking behaviors among African Americans. Meta-analysis is a powerful technique that combines a number of similar research questions and studies. Using statistical techniques, researchers were able to find genetic linkages to smoking behaviors too subtle to see in small studies.

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Genetic marker may predict smoking quantity in African Americans

Researchers Find Genetic Marker that May Predict Smoking Quantity in African Americans

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MENLO PARK, Calif., May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In a step toward understanding possible genetic differences in smoking behaviors, a team of researchers co-led by SRI International has identified a genetic marker associated with smoking quantity in people of African ancestry. The study's findings may help guide future public health decisions related to smoking, because the more people smoke, the higher their risk of lung cancer.

The genetic variant, called rs2036527, appears to function as a marker of smoking quantity in African Americans, predicting the number of cigarettes smoked per day. It is on the same nicotine receptor gene, located on Chromosome 15, as another marker previously identified in people of European descent. Earlier studies have also shown that this gene plays a role in limiting nicotine intake by affecting how pleasurable nicotine is, which in turn affects how much nicotine is consumed.

Findings from the Study of Tobacco Use in Minority Populations (STOMP) Genetics Consortium study are published in the May 22, 2012 issue of Translational Psychiatry (part of Nature Publishing Group).

To find the genetic variants for smoking behavior, researchers combined 13 genome-wide association studies. The result included data for genetics and smoking behavior for more than 32,000 African Americans.

Although African Americans are less likely to smoke than European Americans, if they do start smoking, they tend to start smoking later in life, are less likely to quit smoking, and die more often from smoking-related lung cancer. Smoking is the leading cause of premature death among African Americans. STOMP investigators did not assess lung cancer risk, but other researchers have found that the genetic marker (rs2036527) is associated with risk of lung cancer in African Americans.

"This study may have implications for personalized medicine and the need to identify targets for drug discovery," said Sean P. David, M.D., D.Phil., research physician and director of the Translational Medicine program in the Center for Health Sciences in SRI's Policy Division and also a family medicine physician and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. "However, we need to be careful not to draw conclusions about the degree to which a genetic variant associated with smoking quantity affects smoker's ability to quit. Future studies of smoking behavior, including smoking cessation clinical trials, should be performed in non-European ancestry groups, so that other informative biomarkers aren't missed."

The STOMP study, done in collaboration with 78 researchers from dozens of academic institutions and the National Institutes of Health, is the first meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of smoking behaviors among African Americans. Meta-analysis is a powerful technique that combines a number of similar research questions and studies. Using statistical techniques, researchers were able to find genetic linkages to smoking behaviors too subtle to see in small studies.

SRI research was funded 100% by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Grant No. 5-U01-DA-020830-07. The total dollar amount of the grant is $158,221, of which a nominal amount went to support the research described above. SRI received no other source of funding for this work.

About SRI InternationalSilicon Valley-based SRI International, a nonprofit research and development organization, performs sponsored R&D for governments, businesses, and foundations. SRI brings its innovations to the marketplace through technology licensing, new products, and spin-off ventures. SRI is known for world-changing innovations in computing, health and pharmaceuticals, chemistry and materials, sensing, energy, education, national defense, and more.

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Researchers Find Genetic Marker that May Predict Smoking Quantity in African Americans

Darpa, Venter Launch Assembly Line for Genetic Engineering

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Darpa's "Living Foundries" program is looking to "transform biology into an engineering practice." Photo: VA

The military-industrial complex just got a little bit livelier. Quite literally.

Thats because Darpa, the Pentagons far-out research arm, has kicked off a program designed to take the conventions of manufacturing and apply them to living cells. Think of it like an assembly line, but one that would churn out modified biological matter man-made organisms instead of cars or computer parts.

The program, called Living Foundries, was firstannounced by the agency last year. Now, Darpas handed outseven research awardsworth $15.5 million to six different companies and institutions. Among them are several Darpa favorites, including the University of Texas at Austin and the California Institute of Technology. Two contracts were also issued to the J. Craig Venter Institute. Dr. Venter is something of a biology superstar: He was among the first scientists to sequence a human genome, and his institute was, in 2010, the first to develop an entirely synthetic organism.

Living Foundries aspires to turn the slow, messy process of genetic engineering into a streamlined and standardized one. Of course, the field is already a burgeoning one: Scientists have tweaked cells in order to developrenewable petroleumandspider silkthats tough as steel. And a host of companies areinvestigatingthe pharmaceutical and agricultural promise lurking with some tinkering, of course inside living cells.

But those breakthroughs, while exciting, have also been time-consuming and expensive.As Darpa notes, even the most cutting-edge synthetic biology projects often take 7+ years and tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to complete. Venters synthetic cell project, for example,costan estimated $40 million.

Synthetic biology, as Darpa notes, has the potential to yield new materials, novel capabilities, fuel and medicines everything from fuels to solar cells to vaccines could be produced by engineering different living cells. But the agency isnt content to wait seven years for each new innovation. In fact, they want the capability for on-demand production of whatever bio-product suits the militarys immediate needs.

To do it, Darpa will need to revamp the process of bio-engineering from the initial design of a new material, to its construction, to its subsequent efficacy evaluation. The starting point, and one that agency-funded researchers will have to create, is a library of modular genetic parts: Standardized biological units that can be assembled in different ways like LEGO to create different materials.

Once that library is created, the agency wants researchers to come up with a set of parts, regulators, devices and circuits that can reliably yield various genetic systems. After that, theyll also need test platforms to quickly evaluate new bio-materials. Think of it as a biological assembly line: Products are designed, pieced together using standardized tools and techniques, and then tested for efficacy.

The process, once established, ought to massively accelerate the pace of bio-engineering and cut costs. The agencys asking researchers to compress the biological design-build-test cycle by at least 10X in both time and cost, while also increasing the complexity of systems that can be designed and executed.

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Darpa, Venter Launch Assembly Line for Genetic Engineering

Enginasion Partners with TransCytos to Develop Breakthrough ‘Transfection’ Technology for Genetic Engineering …

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WEST BOYLSTON, Mass. & SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

TransCytos: NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE

Enginasion and TransCytos announced today that their collaboration has resulted in a prototype transfection technology that is designed to have a dramatic and positive impact on the drug-research industry.

Enginasions product development partner, TransCytos, is developing a novel transfection instrument, Cytofector R1, based on a breakthrough, patent-pending hydrodynamic transfection technology. Transfection, the introduction of genetic material into living cells, is a fundamental and essential genetic engineering process in biomedical research, and drug and gene therapy development. It has revolutionized, worldwide, biotech and pharmaceutical R&D, including the research into such diseases as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, substance abuse, neurological disorders such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers, and also has applications in the study of anxiety, aging, and pain management. Furthermore, transfection is key in the production of recombinant human proteins such as insulin, hormones, antibiotics, and vaccines.

Frost & Sullivan estimates the 2010 transfection market at $350 million, with about 200 million transfections conducted per year. However, existing transfection technologies are limited to a small number of particular cell types just five cell lines make up as much as 50% of the market; in addition, low efficiency and cell viability, as well as very slow cell recovery, are slowing progress.

Because the new TransCytos transfection technology is gentle, highly effective, and does not physically damage cells, it is potentially capable of transfecting all cell types, says Dr. Otto Prohaska, CEO of TransCytos. Current transfection techniques represent a considerable bottleneck for biomedical and pharma R&D due to low efficiency, high variability, cellular toxicity, and the inability to introduce genetic material into many of the most important cell types relevant to major diseases. The majority of cells are hard or impossible to transfect, requiring lengthy, expensive procedures with low yield and poor reproducibility. Field testing of the Cytofector R1 prototype instrument showed (a) transfection of previously non-transfectable cells (e.g. neurons), and (b) better transfection efficiencies and expression of gene products in a shorter period of time, and at lower cost.

The TransCytos transfection process could contribute to a faster and more dependable path to drug discovery, a higher success rate for biotech and pharma, and better cures, added David Bonneau, CEO of Enginasion. The capability of transfecting primary cells effectively is expected to revolutionize progress in research, and especially in drug discovery, development, and production. Enginasion is very proud to be the product-development partner of TransCytos.

Click NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE link (above) for further information about TransCytos.

About Enginasion

For more than two decades, Enginasion (formerly Industrial Automation Systems) has been an invaluable partner to companies in the Industrial, Medical Technology, Military and Pharmaceutical sectors that need a sophisticated yet affordable engineering resource to help them overcome critical hurdles related to automation, control electronics, embedded software, and/or integrated product development. Since 1995, the Company has been providing key elements of successful R&D projects, manufacturing processes, and new high-tech products at innovative companies in the Northeast U.S.

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Enginasion Partners with TransCytos to Develop Breakthrough ‘Transfection’ Technology for Genetic Engineering ...

Impatient Futurist: Your Domestic Robot Servant Has Finally Arrived (in a Fashion) | DISCOVER Magazine

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Humanoid robots can dance and play Ping Pong. But folding towels and catering a party are proving to be trickier tasks.

David Plunkert

Like many people with limited social skills, Ive always wanted a robot. And Ive never been the least put off by the strict movie rule that having a robot can only result in its owner being pushed down the stairs, sucked into the vacuum of outer space, or enslaved with whats left of humanity. Im well aware that movie rules are hardly ever wrong, but it hasnt been fear of betrayal thats kept me from having a robot helper. Its been the lack of their existence, in spite of a century of big talk. And this has left me not only without the sort of nonemotion-experiencing companion who could really understand me but also with a lot more laundry, cooking, dirty dishes, and child care than a technophilic citizen of the 21st century should have to put up with.

Useful home robots have always been about 20 years in the future, according to expertsa discouraging estimate, since the same experts assure me every other exciting technology under development is only 5 years away. Yes, I know, you can drive over to Walmart and pick up a carpet-vacuuming robot to keep your lawn-mowing robot company. While youre there, why dont you also grab a house in the camping department? Ive got no interest in keeping company with hundreds of dumb, whirring little things. Scampering scrubbers and pot-stirrers are way too small and stupid to push me down the stairs when Im not looking.

Im hardly more impressed with the current small crop of machines that fall into the category of sticking a laptop on a wheeled dress mannequin and calling it a robot. The best youre going to do there is Luna, a human-size robot that will soon be widely available from a company called RoboDynamics in Santa Monica, California, for $3,000incredibly cheap for a humanoid, but incredibly expensive for a device that cant do much more than try not to bump into furniture and senior citizens as it desultorily wheels itself around your home, toting a tray of drinks youve carefully placed on its precarious, pipe-like arms. Dont count on much more than that from Ava, a forthcoming armless robot from iRobot (the Roomba folks) that replaces the laptop head with an iPad head. Please.

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No, Im holding out for something more along the lines of Personal Robot 2, or PR2 to its friends. Now theres a robot Id be proud to be enslaved by. Sold by Willow Garage in Menlo Park, California, 2 doesnt merely slink around your home, it actually does useful stuff. Get this: PR2 can fold laundry, walk and pick up after dogs, and cook a complete breakfast of Weisswurst Frhstck. Thats probably a lot more than you do around the house, assuming youre not one of those Bavarian superspouses who try to make the rest of us look bad.

AndPR2has viable competition for my enslavement: HERB (a.k.a. Home Exploring Robotic Butler, in keeping with the intergalactic law requiring all robot names to be colorless acronyms), developed by the Personal Robotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University.HERBcan, among many other things, fetch beer, which is criticalany robot I buy that cant do as much is going straight back to Amazon. Whats more,HERBcan pick up and carry around mugs of coffee and later bring the empty mugs to the sink, and has been enlisted at parties to do this all day long. This really impresses me, because its what I do all day long, too, and its taken me quite a while to get good at it.

So why dont i consider myself to be living in the age of home robots? I hate to go negative on my future best friends/masters, but I feel obligated to point out their shortcomings.PR2can do cool things, but only under tightly controlled conditions, and with uneven results. For example, the only laundry it can fold is a towel, and it takes it six minutes to fold a single one (bright sideishly, thats down from 25 minutes in earlier versions). AlsoPR2costs $400,000. That would be a big drawback for me, too, if it werent for the generous expense budget I get as a columnist. HERB is similarly limitedit dropped eight mugs during the aforementioned partyand would probably be at least as expensive if it were buyable. Which it isnt.

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Impatient Futurist: Your Domestic Robot Servant Has Finally Arrived (in a Fashion) | DISCOVER Magazine

Don’t mention income inequality please, we’re entrepreneurs

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There was a bit of a scandal last week when it was reported that a TED Talk on income equality had been censored. That turned out to be not quite the entire story. Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist with a book out on income inequality, was invited to speak at a TED function. He spoke for a few minutes, making the argument that rich people like himself are not in fact job creators and that they should be taxed at a higher rate.

The talk seemed reasonably well-received by the audience, but TED curator Chris Anderson told Hanauer that it would not be featured on TEDs site, in part because the audience response was mixed but also because it was too political and this was an election year.

Hanauer had his PR people go to the press immediately and accused TED of censorship, which is obnoxious TED didnt have to host his talk, obviously, and his talk was not hugely revelatory for anyone familiar with recent writings on income inequity from a variety of experts but Andersons responses were still a good distillation of TEDs ideology.

In case youre unfamiliar with TED, it is a series of short lectures on a variety of subjects that stream on the Internet, for free. Thats it, really, or at least that is all that TED is to most of the people who have even heard of it. For an elite few, though, TED is something more: a lifestyle, an ethos, a bunch of overpriced networking events featuring live entertainment from smart and occasionally famous people.

Before streaming video, TED was a conference it is not named for a person, but stands for technology, entertainment and design organized by celebrated information architect (fancy graphic designer) Richard Saul Wurman. Wurman sold the conference, in 2002, to a nonprofit foundation started and run by former publisher and longtime do-gooder Chris Anderson (not the Chris Anderson of Wired). Anderson grew TED from a woolly conference for rich Silicon Valley millionaire nerds to a giant global brand. It has since become a much more exclusive, expensive elite networking experience with a much more prominent public face the little streaming videos of lectures.

Its even franchising TEDx events are licensed third-party TED-style conferences largely unaffiliated with TED proper and while TED is run by a nonprofit, it brings in a tremendous amount of money from its members and corporate sponsorships. At this point TED is a massive, money-soaked orgy of self-congratulatory futurism, with multiple events worldwide, awards and grants to TED-certified high achievers, and a list of speakers that would cost a fortune if they didnt agree to do it for free out of public-spiritedness.

According to a 2010 piece in Fast Company,the trade journal of the breathless bullshit industry, the people behind TED are creating a new Harvard the first new top-prestige education brand in more than 100 years. Well! Thats certainly saying something. (What its mostly saying is This is a Fast Company story about some overhyped Internet thing.)

To even attend a TED conference requires not just a donation of between $7,500 and $125,000, but also a complicated admissions process in which the TED people determine whether youre TED material; so, as Maura Johnston says, maybe its got more in common with Harvard than is initially apparent.

Strip away the hype and youre left with a reasonably good video podcast with delusions of grandeur. For most of the millions of people who watch TED videos at the office, its a middlebrow diversion and a source of factoids to use on your friends. Except TED thinks its changing the world, like if This American Life suddenly mistook itself for Doctors Without Borders.

The model for your standard TED talk is a late-period Malcolm Gladwell book chapter. Common tropes include:

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Don’t mention income inequality please, we’re entrepreneurs

As Myanmar opens, protesters test boundaries of freedom

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YANGON (Reuters) - As long-isolated Myanmar opens up, its people are flexing their newly democratic muscles and testing the boundaries of freedom in a series of protests over chronic power outages. On Tuesday evening, several hundred people in the commercial capital Yangon marched at Sule Pagoda, the focal point of demonstrations in 2007 and 1988 that were crushed by the military which ruled for ...

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As Myanmar opens, protesters test boundaries of freedom

4 Ways to Balance Freedom With Focus When Starting Up

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This isn't my first entrepreneurial rodeo. I started my first business in the early 2000s, before I was lured back into corporate America and all its fancy resources, stability and brand names. But after five years of the so-called stability, I was ready for that freedom again -- freedom to tweet, to travel and ideate. Freedom to speak as I saw fit, to work where I wanted and to manage my own ...

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4 Ways to Balance Freedom With Focus When Starting Up

Freedom Energy Holdings, Inc. Secures $800,000 Investment Commitment

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FORT WAYNE, Ind., May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Freedom Energy Holdings, Inc. (Pink Sheets: FDMF.PK) CEO, Brian Kistler, today announced that DME SECURITIES, LLC a New York Stock Exchange Member, has secured a commitment for $800,000 from Kodiak Capital Group, LLC, a Newport Beach-based private investment fund.

Brian Kistler stated, "As we continue to grow and diversify our interests, Kodiak is the perfect partner for Freedom Energy Holdings as we continue to make inroads into the most suited markets for the deployment of our proprietary technologies KC 9000 and Patent Pending SR-139."

Ryan Hodson, Managing Director, Kodiak Capital Group, LLC, commented, "Freedom Energy is a perfect match for our interest in the oil and gas industry as well as the renewable energy. We are especially interested in the SR-139 process for the recovery of the hydrocarbons from the over 11 million tons of asphalt shingles disposed annually. The potential market for Patent Pending SR-139 is very exciting and we at Kodiak see the advantages of making this sizable commitment into Freedom under Mr. Kistler's direction."

Kistler continued, "With assistance from Kodiak I will be able to start the development and creation of the mechanical process that will allow us to recover the over 2 million tons of hydrocarbons being thrown away each year in landfills. I am thankful for their confidence and the guidance I have received from DME. With this team in place we will no longer be captivated by the inability of others to perform."

"Further, I am happy to report that the KC 9000 shipped to the Middle East has been cleared through customs and is in the control of our agent. Bench tests have begun and even though there have been delays, all is on track and I look forward to bringing further updates as they are made available," concluded Kistler.

ABOUT KODIAK CAPITAL GROUP, LLC Kodiak is an institutional investor headquartered in Newport Beach, CA. Kodiak's experienced professionals manage a portfolio of investments in public and private entities. These investments are in a wide range of companies and industries emphasizing life sciences, energy and technology. Kodiak's investments range from multiyear financial commitments to fund growth to special situation financings to long-term strategic capital offering companies certainty, flexibility and consistency. For more information, visit http://www.kodiak-capital.com

ABOUT DME SECURITIES, LLC DME SECURITIES, LLC, headquartered in New York, is a member of the New York Stock Exchange, National Association of Securities Dealers, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. DME is a full service financial firm providing comprehensive financial advice and superior service to the individual and institutional investors and serves clients through a network of professionals.

ABOUT FREEDOM ENERGY HOLDINGS, INC: Freedom Energy Holdings, Inc. (FDMF.PK) is a publicly traded company that specializes in the identification and development of technologies with commercial applications in the energy industry sector. The company's original primary focus is the commercial development of its proprietary, heavy oil technology. KC 9000, a breakthrough technology, provides an effective and cost efficient system to enable heavy oil deposits to flow without heat. Recent research has developed and shown SR-139 to be effective at breaking down asphalt shingles allowing the recovery of hydrocarbons.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT This press release contains certain "forwardlooking" statements, as defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Statements, which are not historical facts, are forwardlooking statements. The Company, through its management, makes forwardlooking public statements concerning it expected future operations, performance and other developments. Such forwardlooking statements are necessarily estimates reflecting the Company's best judgment based upon current information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the Company. They include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to develop operations, the Company's ability to consummate and complete the acquisition, the Company's access to future capital, the successful integration of acquired companies, government regulation, managing and maintaining growth, the effect of adverse publicity, litigation, competition, sales and other factors that may be identified from time to time in the Company's public announcements.

Contact: Brian Kistler CEO, 260-490-9990 Freedom Energy Holdings, Inc. Investor Relations Steven Marcus DME Capital LLC 917-648-0663 http://www.freedomenergyinternational.com

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Freedom Energy Holdings, Inc. Secures $800,000 Investment Commitment

Freedom Imaging Preserves Client Data Files in Online Tech’s HIPAA Compliant Data Center

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ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Freedom Imaging Systems, a document management pioneer, has chosen Online Techs HIPAA compliant data center for colocation services to store their clients data and image files.

Before using Online Techs colocation services, Freedom only installed a server on-site with the client to house and manage their patient and business files. By teaming with Online Tech, Freedom is able to offer cloud-based hosting services while obtaining HIPAA, SOX and PCI compliant colocation solutions. Their clients receive the peace of mind and security of independently SAS 70, SSAE 16 (SOC 1), SOC 2 & 3, HIPAA, and PCI audited data centers to protect data from external threats while meeting privacy standards.

Freedom provides a paperless environment and implements digital workflow for healthcare and small and medium-sized businesses. Their paperless platform supports a wide variety of file types, including TIFF, PDF, Microsoft Office files, and PACS images, along with many others. Further Freedom can interface with nearly any information system via health Level 7 (HL7), ANSI standard files, XML or other interface formats.

Many of Freedoms clients store sensitive information such as ePHI (electronic protected health information) in their files, so security was a critical factor for Freedom in their selection of a hosting partner.

"When it came to searching for a hosting provider, I was looking for a known entity with a positive reputation," said Dave Gillis, CEO and President of Freedom Imaging Systems. "I found Online Tech to be a company I could work with and trust."

Were proud of setting the national standard in our commitment to independent auditing across mission critical industries. But were not too proud to roll up our sleeves and problem solve with each client to find the best balance of security, compliance, and affordability for their unique needs, said Mike Klein, President and COO of Online Tech.

Online Tech is the only independently HIPAA audited data center hosting provider offering colocation, managed dedicated and cloud servers, and disaster recovery. A HIPAA audit by an independent Certified HIPAA Practitioner (CHP) and Certified HIPAA Security Specialist (CHSS) foundOnline Tech to be 100% compliant with the technical, physical, and administrative safeguards of all 54 HIPAA citations and 19 standards stipulated in HIPAA version 1.2.1 of the Security Rule.

Online Tech fully owns and operates all of their data centers located in areas with historically low risk natural disasters. Their high availability IT framework ensures that critical data and applications are always secure and always available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The top tier data centers are geographically separated to meet natural disaster risk management guidelines, but interconnected with dedicated Gigabit fiber for Internet traffic failover and routing of backup and disaster recovery data between data centers.

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State Seeking Eugenics Victims

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By Kirsten Ballard

Staff Writer

State officials are traveling to various communities to seek people who could qualify for compensation under the state's new Justic for Sterilization Victims Foundation.

"Many victims said this day would never come," said Charmaine Fuller Cooper, executive director for the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. Cooper was in Moore County last week to talk about the program.

In 2010, Gov. Bev Perdue established the "N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation," with the ultimate goal of compensation and healing for the victims of the N.C. Eugenics Program. The foundation is a clearinghouse for information and assistance for victims.

Between 1933 and 1974, an estimated 7,600 poor, uneducated, institutionalized, sick or disabled persons were sterilized by choice, force or coercion during the eugenics program in all 100 counties. There was a wide range of victims; 85 percent were women, and 60 percent white. Poverty was the only common theme.

Legislation was filed in the General Assembly earlier this month to compensate the sterilization victims and their families. If passed, the bill will give a lump sum, tax-free payment of $50,000 to victims verified before Dec. 31, 2015. It will also provide continued funding for the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. The bill will not cover mental health services.

"Compensation is so we remember and do not repeat this history," said Fuller Cooper. "It will serve as a deterrent. It does not right the wrong, but it admits the state was wrong.

"Once the petition for sterilization was received, it was basically a done deal," said Fuller Cooper on what she describes as the "most aggressive" eugenics program in the nation. Nationally, 33 states had Eugenic Boards, but North Carolina's ran the longest.

So far, 132 verifications statewide have been made, including 118 living victims. The foundation estimates between 1,500 to 2,000 victims are still living and unverified.

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State Seeking Eugenics Victims