text:
Blog Posts > Bipartisan Medicaid Bill Introduced in WV Legislature Could Reduce Churn and Expand Insured Population
Rhonda Rogombe
Bipartisan Medicaid Bill Introduced in WV Legislature Could Reduce Churn and Expand Insured Population
Since its inception in 1965, Medicaid has been one of the most impactful anti-poverty public health initiatives in the United States. Medicaid provides low-income Americans with free or low-cost health insurance, allowing them to receive treatment that may otherwise be inaccessible. The program has expanded significantly since its origin to include more people; today, it serves over 77 million people nationally. As of January 2021, that figure includes nearly 570,000 West Virginians or about one-third of the state population. And of those 570,000 people, 189,000 enrolled between 2013 and 2018 due to the Medicaid expansion permitted by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Despite Medicaid's significant accomplishments, many people across the country still do not have access to health care. While legislators have sought several ways of bridging the gap, gridlock at the federal level has put states at the forefront of long-term policy changes that will aid their citizens. One such policy that has bipartisan support in West Virginia is a Medicaid buy-in program. Essentially, a buy-in program allows people to pay to enroll in Medicaid or a Medicaid-like program, utilizing the networks, purchasing power, and structure of the state's existing program.
Anyone could enroll in a buy-in program, but only individuals within a specific income range would be eligible for a subsidy that would offset insurance costs. They would be above the current Medicaid threshold – in West Virginia, above 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) – but below a limit set by the state. Thus far, these state limits range from 200 to 400 percent of the FPL.
Some of the bipartisan popularity that Medicaid buy-in proposals possess could derive from the fact that these programs already exist and are successful in a majority of states. Most states passed legislation allowing buy-ins in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, they are minimal in their current form. Today 44 states and Washington, DC have a buy-in program for some working individuals with disabilities — and this includes West Virginia. In the Mountain State, people with disabilities whose incomes are between 138 and 250 percent of the FPL qualify for the buy-in program.
There has been a renewed interest in Medicaid buy-in programs in recent years as health care affordability for consumers continues to be of national concern. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half of uninsured people forwent insurance because of costs. Their analysis also found that churn is another significant barrier. Churn occurs when a change in income moves individuals between Medicaid and the private insurance market. Slight changes in income can trigger the churn effect, making coverage (and subsequently copays, premiums, etc.) difficult for families to plan for. A Medicaid buy-in plan could alleviate this problem by creating a transition, allowing for continuity of care while keeping medical costs low.
Pie chart showing different reasons individuals forgo health insurance, with nearly half opting out due to high costs.
Several states, including Delaware, New Mexico, and Massachusetts, have conducted studies investigating various models for expanding the program to all residents within specific income parameters. Others, including West Virginia, have introduced legislation. A bill introduced in the West Virginia House of Delegates this session with bipartisan support would allow West Virginians up to 200 percent of the FPL to receive subsidies for the program. It would include a range of essential services, from preventive and wellness to emergency, with a small monthly premium.
Enacting a broader Medicaid buy-in program has tremendous implications for public health and wellness across the state. The ACA significantly increased the number of people eligible for Medicaid, and a buy-in program would further build on this expansion. Adding uninsured West Virginians between 138 and 200 percent of the FPL to the state Medicaid program could reach a potential 24,000 people. Furthermore, a Colorado study estimated that nearly eight percent of people already on the individual market would switch over, which would equate to an additional 2,000 people across West Virginia, bringing the total to roughly 26,000.
Bar graph showing number of people covered under Medicaid and Medicaid expansion, where 26,000 could be covered by a buy-in program.
Statewide, this program could mitigate the persistent racial coverage gap, in which Black West Virginians are less likely than the overall population to have health insurance. Currently, 10 percent of Black West Virginians do not have health insurance, compared to about eight percent of their white counterparts.
Implementing a broad Medicaid buy-in would make West Virginia the first state to undertake such a measure. But the prevailing decades-long program for working adults with disabilities – not only in West Virginia but in nearly every state in the US – provides an indisputable and robust case for its potential to scale successfully. The legislation requires that the state apply for a 1332 waiver, which encourages states to utilize innovative public health strategies. Such action would dramatically reduce the cost of the program to the state. The reliability and efficiency of Medicaid buy-in programs contribute to lawmakers' growing interest as states continue to seek budget-friendly ways to provide for their constituents.
West Virginia showed its dedication to public health when it became one of the first states to expand Medicaid. Now the state has a unique opportunity to lead the nation by broadening the current Medicaid buy-in program. By utilizing the existing infrastructure, lawmakers can ensure that West Virginians have access to health care, particularly Black residents. Its low cost to both enrollees and the state makes it an ideal way for lawmakers of both parties to make affordable health care a reality in West Virginia.
Categories: Blog, Health


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Critical Mass: Michelle Frankfurter by Aline SmithsonNovember 10, 2011
Looking at portfolios from Critical Mass 2011…
Documentary photographer, Michelle Frankfurter, was born in Israel, lived in Nicaragua, worked in Haiti, and now calls Takoma Park, Maryland, home. She was worked for a number of editorial publications, has earned a World Press Photo Award for her work in Haiti, and has exhibited across the country.
Her work submitted to Critical Mass looks at the extreme and difficult passage that Mexican and Central American workers endure to make it across the border into the United States.
Destino, meaning both "destination" and "destiny" in Spanish, portrays the perilous journey across Mexico of undocumented Central American migrants as they attempt to enter the United States in pursuit of a better life. An unprecedented wave of Central American migration to the U.S. began in the 1980's – the consequence of bloody civil wars and relentless poverty. In a wandering odyssey, migrants travel by rail, relying on the network of freight trains inexorably lurching across Mexico.
Drawn to the frontier edginess and melancholy of the region, I began photographing along the U.S. – Mexico border in 2000, shortly after reading Cormac McCarthy's, The Crossing. The story has every narrative element that's captivated my imagination since I was about ten years old: a cast of characters that includes sinners, saints and pariahs, an epic journey across a hostile wilderness, a multitude of dangers, themes of salvation and redemption.
Victimized both by global economic trade policies that make earning a living wage in their native countries impossible and by a broken immigration policy in the United States, these itinerant Central Americans represent the quintessential underdog. I seek to portray them as individuals who, confronted by extreme circumstances, struggle to control their own destiny, much like the classic antihero protagonists of the adventure tales I grew up reading. Rather than establishing a narrative of hope and optimism circumscribed by a literal chronology, the photographs depict an emotional journey inching towards an uncertain future.
Tags: Behavior, Economy, Mexico, Michelle Frankfurter, Political
NEXT | Critical Mass: Michael Mergen >
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Convert Discriminated Union to primitive type via member function in F# I have the following discriminated union with a member function where I want to return the unboxed type:
type ModelData =
    | Double of double
    | UInt32 of uint32
    | UInt16 of uint16
    | Byte of byte
    | Int32 of int32
    | String of string
    | Bit of Bit
    member inline this.Value : 'a =
        match this with
        | Double x -> x
        | UInt32 x -> x
        | UInt16 x -> x
        | Byte x -> x
        | Int32 x -> x
        | String x -> x
        | Bit x -> x

The error is that the member 'this.Value' doesn't return the same type for each branch. Is this possible?
Edit #1
I have a Database defined as follows which uses this ModelData type:
module Database =
    type Drecord =
        { Value: ModelData}
    type Db = Dictionary<string, Drecord>

So I have a database full of values, then I take some of these values and generate a JSON string using sprintf.
sprintf "{\"General\":{\"Example\":%.3f}}" value //where value is of type ModelData

This currently does not work since sprintf requires a float and not a ModelData. So original I thought I could call a function to safely convert to that type (hence the this.Value member). I've got this to work by having this.Value instead return a string, and having only %s in my sprintf format string.
So this works:
sprintf "{\"General\":{\"Example\":%s}}" value.Value

Is there a better way to solve this?

A: I'm not sure I understand what are you trying to do. If you define a discriminated union, then the value can be either of the cases and when you want to use a value of your ModelData type, you'll need to pattern match on it in order to decide what kind of value you have.
If you add a way of getting a value that works only for one specific case (e.g. when the value is a float), you are losing all the safety that discriminated unions give you. So, I think that doing what you're asking for is most likely going to be a bad idea.
That said, you can define a member GetValue<'a> that can be called to extract value of a specific type using the unbox function:
type ModelData =
    | Double of double
    | UInt32 of uint32
    | UInt16 of uint16
    member inline this.GetValue<'a>() : 'a =
        match this with
        | Double x -> unbox<'a> x
        | UInt32 x -> unbox<'a> x
        | UInt16 x -> unbox<'a> x

let v = Double 1.23
v.GetValue<float>()

This will, of course, throw an InvalidCastException if you call it with the wrong type argument, e.g. v.GetValue<int>() in the above case. Also note that this needs to be a method so that you can make it generic.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


MICHAEL BRYANT / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Syrian refugee Abeer Bdaiwi samples chipotle that chef Jack McDavid (left) used.
Two dozen Syrian refugees, recently resettled in Philadelphia's Lower Northeast, would meet Tuesday night in Reading Terminal Market with two dozen of their native-born American neighbors for a meal and discussion about the challenges of assimilation.
The meeting "was relevant even before" President Trump's executive order five days ago barring Syrian immigration to the United States, "and relevant on steroids now," said Terminal general manager Anuj Gupta.
"Our country is doing things that I could have never imagined. … And for me this is personal. I am here because my … grandmother had a chance to flee a war zone between India and Pakistan and come to a safe haven.
The Syrian participants were chosen by two local resettlement agencies, HIAS Pennsylvania and Nationalities Service Center.
Pamela Baranackie, vice chair of the Lower Northeast community group Take Back Our Neighborhood, chose the long-term residents who attended.
Husband and wife Ahmad Moaddal and Khaldieh Al Ali arrived in Philadelphia four months ago and Tuesday night dropped by the table where Arabic-speaking Hesham Barouki, of Kamal's Middle East Market, was forming ground chickpeas into small balls to be fried for falafel. Al Ali and Barouki discussed technique.
In another corner set aside for the event, chef Jack McDavid of the Down Home Diner prepared blackened catfish.
McDavid said his ancestors were refugees from Ireland.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Julia Clayton of Castor Gardens, a retired university billing office employee, said she came out to see what she could do to help welcome her new foreign-born neighbors.
The forum that brought these new neighbors together, "Breaking Bread, Breaking Barriers: Food as a bridge to cultural understanding," was inspired in part by the book The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life by sociologist Elijah Anderson.
The "canopy," said Gupta, is Anderson's metaphor for the Terminal, where food is a common denominator that stimulates interactions between strangers of completely different backgrounds.
Gupta drew on that concept in his successful pitch for approximately $80,000 in Knight Foundation grant funding.
The money will pay for six two-part forums. Residents meet at the first part and come back about six months — hopefully better acquainted — to cook a meal together during the second part.
Mediated through interpreters, communication Tuesday was a bit cumbersome. But shared smiles spoke volumes.
Of the states that have resettled Syrian refugees, Pennsylvania was third in fiscal 2015 with 102, preceded by Michigan (166), and California (122).
According to the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington research center that publishes data on immigration, more than 11 million Syrians have been displaced — internally and externally — by Syria's six-year-old civil war. Of them, about 18,000 were resettled in the U.S. between Oct. 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2016.
Trump's executive order put a stop to that.
Radwan Mahmoud, 50, came to Philadelphia with his wife and two children six months ago, and works as a bilingual counselor in the School District of Philadelphia.
Much has been made of Milwaukee being one of, if not the most, racially segregated cities in the country. And yet a quick glance at a map of resident ethnicity confirms there are a number of places where diverse populations mix. Yale professor Elijah Anderson explores these places where people of all backgrounds peacefully coexist and rub elbows in his book The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life. Anderson draws on Philadelphia for his inspiration, but the examples he cites have direct corollaries in Milwaukee.
What can be done to expand these spaces? Why do they still fail? How do we break down barriers to create a less segregated city? We'll discuss the places Anderson examines, including parks, transit stations, malls and public markets, as a way to look at better designing places for everyone.
Come for discussion and a social hour on Monday, December 12th in the backroom of My Office, 763 N. Milwaukee St., from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend, the discussions are informal and open-ended. If you don't finish the book, don't worry. Come to listen, learn and engage.
The book is available from Amazon, the Milwaukee Public Library, and book stores everywhere.
To stay in the loop about future book club news, sign up for our Book Club mailing list. To help us better plan, please RSVP on Facebook, although it's not required.
Elijah Anderson is the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Sociology at Yale University. He is one of the leading urban ethnographers in the United States. His publications include Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999), winner of the Komarovsky Award from the Eastern Sociological Society; Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community(1990), winner of the American Sociological Association's Robert E. Park Award for the best published book in the area of Urban Sociology; and the classic sociological work, A Place on the Corner (1978; 2nd ed., 2003). Anderson's most recent ethnographic work, The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life, was published by WW Norton in March 2012. He is the 2013 recipient of the prestigious Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award of the American Sociological Association.
Dr. Anderson has served on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and is formerly a vice-president of the American Sociological Association. He has served in an editorial capacity for a wide range of professional journals and special publications, including Qualitative Sociology, Ethnography, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, City & Community, Annals of the Society of Political and Social Science, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. He has also served as a consultant to a variety of government agencies, including the White House, the United States Congress, the National Academy of Science and the National Science Foundation. Additionally, he was a member of the National Research Council's Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior.
Were a future historian to turn to the sociological literature of the past fifty years to seek information on how members of different races were living together in urban areas, he or she would get almost no sense of the extent to which blacks and whites (not to mention other groups) have interacted along and across racial lines. Harvey Molotch's Managed Integration (1972) showed, by counting the number of blacks and whites in various stores and commercial spaces, that they may have gone shopping side by side, but otherwise, they did not socialize in public. There has been little ethnographic data collected on the topic since. In works like Massey and Denton'sAmerican Apartheid (1994) and Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged (1987), which emphasize the extent of social isolation and segregation in the United States, interaction suffuses these studies as an imputed variable. These works were never intended to be informative about the actual interactions that occur between and outside such communities as their inhabitants circulate throughout the city, but the influence of demographic images could give the impression that blacks and whites barely interact.


text:
Q: Load image from photo library
*

*How can I load an image from photo library and show it in imageView?

*How can I change image to black and white?

A: If you want to load an image from photo library, you have to use UIImagePickerController class. Refer this Link

A: To convert image form UIImagePickerController to black and white you can use this code:
UIImage *originalImage = [info objectForKey:UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage]; // this image we get from UIImagePickerController

CGColorSpaceRef colorSapce = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceGray();
CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(nil, originalImage.size.width, originalImage.size.height, 8, originalImage.size.width, colorSapce, kCGImageAlphaNone);
CGContextSetInterpolationQuality(context, kCGInterpolationHigh);
CGContextSetShouldAntialias(context, NO);
CGContextDrawImage(context, CGRectMake(0, 0, originalImage.size.width, originalImage.size.height), [originalImage CGImage]);

CGImageRef bwImage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(context);
CGContextRelease(context);
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSapce);

UIImage *resultImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:bwImage]; // This is result B/W image.
CGImageRelease(bwImage);


text:
var crypto = require('crypto');

module.exports = {
  isWebhookAuthentic: isWebhookAuthentic
};

function isWebhookAuthentic(webhookSecret, requestBody, sentSignature) {
  //
  // Used to verify that requests sent to a webhook endpoint are from Button
  // and that their payload can be trusted. Returns true if a webhook request
  // body matches the sent signature and false otherwise.
  //
  // ## Usage
  //
  // isWebhookAuthentic(
  //   process.env['WEBHOOK_SECRET'],
  //   buf,
  //   req.headers['X-Button-Signature']
  // );
  //
  // @param {String} webhookSecret your webhooks's secret key.  Find yours at
  //   https://app.usebutton.com/webhooks.
  // @param {String|Buffer} requestBody UTF8 encoded byte-string of the request
  //   body
  // @param {String} sentSignature "X-Button-Signature" HTTP Header sent with
  //   the request.
  // @returns {bool} whether or not the webhook request is authentic
  //
  if (arguments.length !== 3) {
    throw new Error('#isWebhookAuthentic must be invoked with (webhookSecret, requestBody, sentSignature)');
  }

  var computed_signature = crypto.createHmac('sha256', webhookSecret)
    .update(requestBody)
    .digest('hex');

  return computed_signature === sentSignature;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Just read that Foursquare is set to launch a "big new" redesign on June 7 — thanks for sharing the link, John Lucas.
First thought – Too late. Show is over. Move on, nothing to see here. The check in has checked out.
Second thought – What if they've actually made it awesome?
I've craved (from a venue manager role) having a meaningful location-based service to play with on campus. I really thought Gowalla was the chosen one… I was wrong, although it was chosen by Facebook for elimination (got your ears on Instagram?). Will the "new" Foursquare be the one? Will they evolve their product so it becomes a go-to app instead of an "I'm checking in just in case someday this place offers a mayor special" afterthought?
Two years ago I floated a suggestion, something that I felt was missing, yet very doable. Something that would have made foursquare a valuable addition to UWGB's social web presence. Something that would have helped promote events and not only encourage participation, but track it. Less emphasis on place, more emphasis on combining place with time over a semester. The idea made it all the way up to the co-founder, but to my knowledge was never released to the masses.
I would like to set up special check ins for events.
Ex. Groovin Grounds in the Coffee House goes from 8-10pm on Friday, but people can check in to the Coffee House at any time. Is it possible to make location AND time specific checkins? So when people check in at 8:32pm on a Friday they get credit for attending Groovin Grounds.
This would be done to encourage attendance at campus events (concerts, movies, presentations, etc.) and a way to reward the Mayor of "Student Life" — is this even possible?
I know that Gowalla was giving out a special "garyvee" item if you showed up to a bookstore where he was doing a book signing during the posted hours of the event (utilizing both location and time).
Simple request, right? I mean, even Gowalla was able to figure out half of it.
Hey Todd … awesome ideas you've got going there in GB … Here's the scoop: we don't do time-based specials in our system right now BUT if you want to use 4SQ to boost attendance at these events, you could try using some foursquare specials to offer some sort of freebies (coffee, food, etc.) for people who checkin at these events. Similarly, while a "mayor of student life" based on checkins at events isn't possible right now, you could definitely set up all kinds of venues around campus and offer the mayor of each some kind of special. For example, we have another college right now who is printing a huge poster of the mayor each month and hanging it in the dining hall. Be as creative as you want!
At the time, I didn't want to run specials, so the first suggestion didn't work (at least not for me). And I didn't want to award mayors of locations and buildings, I wanted to celebrate multiple mayors of involvement and participation.
Dennis Crowley, the CEO of Foursquare, chiming in with his thoughts, very cool! However, since this conversation in March 2010, to my knowledge, it still isn't possible to award users for participation in a series of events. But what if the "new" Foursquare will make it happen? Maybe "super soon" means within 2 years, and now is the time.
Or, like in the video below, will Foursquare drop the ball in the end. I don't need another Yelp, I need better "non-special" management options for my current venues. I need to be wowed by the product before I strongly encourage its use campuswide. I need something I can take to the Director of Student Life and have it sing. I need a Foursquare that brings non-monetary value to the check in, meaning to mayorship, and the ability to promote its use for things that aren't offered up as sugarcoated specials.
I really want a Foursquare that is less about unlocking deals and more about discovering/sharing opportunities to participate on campus. My fingers will be crossed until Thursday.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged #allnew4sq, foursquare by Todd Sanders. Bookmark the permalink.


text:
The Origin of the Moon in Stellar Metamorphosis
A lot of steps and ideas are neglected in this paper, it is just a main priority paper to solidify that the Moon and the Earth are a captured system, but much richer in past history than what is assumed by the dogma. (They assume Earth was always solid/liquid material, even though it was really much more gaseous and even plasmatic deep in its past history as a hotter younger star).
Do not take my word for it, it is right on wikipedia, Earth being basically rock and lava:
Here is the paper:
http://vixra.org/pdf/1706.0398v1.pdf
A short rant on solar system questions...
Lets start with the basics.
The great dichotomy of the Solar System: Small terrestrial embryos and massive giant planet cores
Below is the abstract.
[I]The basic structure of the Solar System is set by the presence of low-mass terrestrial planets in its inner part and giant planets in its outer part. This is the result of the formation of a system of multiple embryos with approximately the mass of Mars in the inner disk and of a few multi-Earth-mass cores in the outer disk, within the lifetime of the gaseous component of the protoplanetary disk. What was the origin of this dichotomy in the mass distribution of embryos/cores? We show in this paper that the classic processes of runaway and oligarchic growth from a disk of planetesimals cannot explain this dichotomy, even if the original surface density of solids increased at the snowline. Instead, the accretion of drifting pebbles by embryos and cores can explain the dichotomy.[/I]
Lets examine the assumptions first. No model tweaking examines assumptions, so if the assumptions are false, then tweaking does nothing but make the problem worse.
1. "The basic structure of the solar system."
This right off the bat means they consider the solar system as a singular "structure". What structure have you ever seen that has billions of kilometers of vacuum separating the objects? That is absolutely ridiculous! That is like saying you have a bridge, yet there is nothing connecting the islands but a small path off each island and a wide expanse of water in between the islands. The solar system is NOT a singular structure, it is comprised of thousands of individual structures. The objects are completely independent of each other. It is the mindset from the very beginning that ruins their ability to view the solar "system" as it really is. These objects are independent of each other. The only concept that connects them is the fact that they are in orbit around the Sun. Not only that, but most objects in the solar system DO NOT EVEN ORBIT THE SUN!
2. "low-mass terrestrial planets in its inner part and giant planets in its outer part."
Outer and inner are completely relative. The vast majority of "exoplanets" found would be considered "inner", meaning ALL the hot Jupiters and hot Neptunes, etc., so any model that chooses to stress their distance from the host is ill-suited, and again, based on the assumption that the solar system is representative of anything. With that, it can also follow that they still assume that figuring out the solar system's patterns will lead to understanding exoplanets. So essentially they are basing this entire paper on HABIT alone. With that said, it is predictable how NOTHING in the paper mentions exoplanets. These scientists are still talking about the Solar system still as if it is all we have observed. They have gone stale. This paper was written in 2015!!!
3. "What was the origin of this dichotomy in the mass distribution of embryos/cores?"
They are asking a question they cannot answer. They even say they can't answer it, yet in very strange wording:
"A more quantitative modeling of planet accretion accounting for disk's evolution remains to be done and is left for a future work."
You know why they just brush it off for future work? Because they can't do it! They have no mechanism to clump material together. The "pebble" argument is bogus! Yet it is mentioned dozens of times.
Neptune is a Star, Neptunes are not Rare, Stellar Metamorphosis
As the reader can see, Neptune sized objects are going to be very common, as opposed to establishment dogma which predicted that they are rare. They are not rare, they are common in stellar metamorphosis theory because they are intermediate aged stars.
Here is the paper.
Neptune is a Star, Neptunes are not Rare, Stellar ...


Mercer | What are the Challenges and How Can You React?
What are the Challenges and How Can You React?
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As an experienced pension expert, Mercer can help you determine the right strategy and measures for your company and pensions fund. Just fill out the form below to contact us.


text:
Krzysztof Kornacki (ur. 1970) – polski nauczyciel akademicki, doktor habilitowany, prof. nadzwyczajny Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, filmoznawca.

Życiorys
Pracownik Katedry Kultury i Sztuki Instytutu Filologii Polskiej, specjalizuje się w historii kina polskiego. Autor m.in. książek: "Kino polskie wobec katolicyzmu 1945 – 1970" (nominowana do nagrody im. Bolesława Michałka), "Popiół i diament Andrzeja Wajdy" (nagroda "Pióro Fredry"); współredaktor tomu "Poszukiwanie i degradowanie sacrum w kinie oraz Sacrum w kinie: dekadę później"; współzałożyciel i pierwszy prezes Dyskusyjnego Klubu Filmowego Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego "Miłość blondynki"; członek Rady Redakcyjnej czasopisma kultury audiowizualnej "Panoptikum", nagrodzony medalem Komisji Edukacji Narodowej. Wykładowca m.in. Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, Gdyńskiej Szkoły Filmowej, Akademii Filmu Polskiego, Akademii Edukacji Filmowej w Ostrołęce.

W 2021 odznaczony Srebrnym Krzyżem Zasługi.

Przypisy

Linki zewnętrzne

 Akademia polskiego filmu

Ludzie związani z Ostrołęką
Odznaczeni Medalem Komisji Edukacji Narodowej
Odznaczeni Srebrnym Krzyżem Zasługi (III Rzeczpospolita)
Polscy filmoznawcy
Wykładowcy Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego
Urodzeni w 1970

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
De B-hunter is een drone uit 2002, sinds 2004 in gebruik bij de Belgische Defensie, ontwikkeld door de Israëlische leverancier Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) en het Israëlische Leger. Het verschil met de Israëlische versie, de IAI RQ-5 Hunter, is dat het systeem via een laser geleid wordt tijdens vertrek en terugkeer. De Belgische versie wordt toepasselijk aangeduid met "B-Hunter". Het systeem bestaat uit een vliegtuig, een controlestation op de grond en een verbindingsantenne. Het toestel is, in tegenstelling tot de Israëlische versie, uitgerust met een trek- en een duwmotor van het Italiaanse Moto Guzzi V75 Hi.e met elk een vermogen van 62 pk bij 7.500 rpm. Deze Hunters zijn o.a. populair bij verkennings- en intelligence-operaties.

De spanwijdte bedraagt 8,9 meter, de lengte 6,9 meter en de hoogte 1,81 meter. Het gewicht is leeg 500 kg, het maximumgewicht 727 kg. De maximale vlieghoogte is 1.500 meter. De B-hunter heeft een actieradius van 100 km, een kruissnelheid van 120 km/h en een maximumsnelheid van 200 km/h.

België
Het Belgische Leger is sinds 2004 het enige Europese leger dat  over deze toestellen beschikt. Zij maken deel uit van het 80ste UAV Squadron, dat gestationeerd is op de militaire vliegbasis van Florennes. Op termijn wenste men over 18 toestellen te beschikken, elk met een camera, en zes controlestations. Er zijn B-Hunters op missie in de Democratische Republiek Congo, een missie in Bosnië en Herzegovina werd succesvol afgesloten. In 2018 zijn door crashes nog 11 toestellen beschikbaar.

Neergehaalde of gecrashte exemplaren
Er zijn Belgische B-Hunters gestationeerd in de Democratische Republiek Congo, hiervan zijn er al enkele neergehaald: de eerste met een vuurwapen toen het landde op de luchthaven van Kinshasa-N'Dolo.

Begin oktober 2006 stortte het tweede neer in het centrum van Kinshasa (DR Congo) tijdens een beveiligingsoperatie van de verkiezingen. Daarbij kwam een vrouw om het leven en raakten twee kinderen gewond.

In oktober 2017 stortte een toestel neer in de regio Alentejo (Portugal).

Vliegtuig
Krijgsmacht van België


text:
Image signatures with unique watermark ID
A healthcare network that is used by doctors, patients, nurses, home healthcare agencies, hospitals, etc. employs digital signatures for providing secure access to documents and other information. It also employs watermarked electronic image signatures to authenticate the documents and other information. When a user, such as a doctor, signs a document, such as a patient's documents, a watermarked electronic image signature of the user is selectively employed, along with the user's digital signatures that are based on public and private keys, to authenticate the user and determine the identity of the signer. Such a mechanism makes it possible to employ the watermarked electronic image signature as proof of the user having signed the document. In addition, when the document is printed or viewed on the screen, the inclusion of the electronic image signature on the display or the insertion of the watermarked electronic image signature in the printed output helps confirm the fact that the document has been previously signed, while also providing information about the signer's identity.
Rice, Marion R. (Rochelle, TX, US)
Rao, Bindu R. (Austin, TX, US)
RICE MARION R.
RAO BINDU R.
G06F19/00; G06F21/00; G06Q10/10; G06Q20/02; G06Q50/24; G06T1/00; (IPC1-7): G06F17/60
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PYZOCHA, MICHAEL J
McAndrews Held & Malloy, LTD (500 W. Madison Street 34th Floor, Chicago, IL, 60661, US)
1. A healthcare network comprising: a document database that stores at least one patient document having a digital signature of a signor; a web server communicatively coupled to the document database; a computer, communicatively coupled to the web server, running browser software used to review the at least one patient document; at least one web page, selectively delivered by the web server to the computer, that displays the at least one patient document and at least an indication of the digital signature; and the computer responding to input via the at least one web page by at least causing generation of a watermark ID based on at least information regarding the signor.
2. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the generation is further based on at least one of information regarding the patient document and information regarding the patient.
3. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the digital signature comprises an electronic image signature.
4. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the healthcare network selectively verifying the authenticity of the at least one patient document using the watermark ID.
5. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the healthcare network selectively verifying the authenticity of the at least one patient document using the watermark ID and the digital signature.
6. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the computer responding to input via the at least one web page by causing merger of the watermark ID with the digital signature.
7. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the computer displays the watermark ID with or without the digital signature.
8. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the watermark ID comprises a barcode.
9. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the computer responding to input via the at least one web page by at least causing association of the watermark ID with the at least one document.
10. The healthcare network of claim 1 wherein the computer responding to input via the at least one web page by at least causing, using the at least an indication of the digital signature, an electronic image signature to be obtained from a database.
11. A method of verifying the authenticity of a patient document in a healthcare network comprising: retrieving a patient document from a document database having a digital signature of a signor; generating a watermark ID based on at least information regarding the signor; and displaying the watermark ID on a screen for review.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the generation is further based on at least one of information regarding the patient document and information regarding the patient.
13. The method of claim 11 wherein the digital signature comprises an electronic image signature.
14. The method of claim 11 further comprising merging the watermark ID with the digital signature.
15. The method of claim 11 further comprising displaying the digital signature with the watermark ID.
16. The healthcare network of claim 11 wherein the watermark ID comprises a barcode.
17. The method of claim 11 further comprising associating the watermark ID with the patient document.
18. The method of claim 11 further comprising obtaining an electronic image signature from a database.
19. A patient management system comprising: a user interface; a patient document that has a digital signature of a signor; and a processor that responds to the user interface by generating a watermark ID using at least information regarding the signor.
20. The patient management system of claim 19 wherein the generation is further based on at least one of information regarding the patient document and information regarding the patient.
21. The patient management system of claim 19 wherein the digital signature comprises an electronic image signature.
22. The patient management system of claim 19 wherein the processor merges the watermark ID with the digital signature.
23. The patient management system of claim 19 wherein the processor causing display of the watermark ID with or without the digital signature.
24. The patient management system of claim 19 wherein the watermark ID comprises a barcode.
25. The patient management system of claim 19 wherein the processor associates the watermark ID with the patient document.
[0001] This application makes reference to, and claims priority to and the benefit of, U.S. provisional application Serial No. 60/206,851 filed May 23, 2000.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH
[0002] NA
[0003] U.S. provisional application Serial No. 60/206,851 filed May 23, 2000 is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
[0004] 1. Technical Field
[0005] The present invention relates generally to the signing of documents in a healthcare environment, and more specifically to the application of electronic image signatures and other authentication related techniques to the process of accessing documents.
[0006] 2. Related Art
[0007] The home healthcare industry is undergoing computerization although, for the most part, much of the referral, assessment, form generation, and form processing take place manually. When doctors or healthcare providers access patient and patient care information, such access needs to be secure and only authorized personnel must be allowed access to sensitive information such as patient information. In addition, documents pertaining to care and services provided by nurses and other care providers are typically signed by a doctor as part of an "approval" or "oversight" process. The doctor's signature is essential for processing care related information in hospitals and home healthcare agencies, and are often required before disbursement of funds in order to compensate the parties involved.
[0008] Aspects of the present invention may be found in a healthcare network having a document database that stores one or more patient documents. A patient document has a digital signature of a signor, such as, for example, that of a doctor. The digital signature may be, for example, an electronic image signature. The healthcare network further has a web server that is communicatively coupled to the document database and to a computer. The computer may be that of a doctor, nurse or patient, for example. The computer runs browser software that is used by the operator of the computer to review the patient document. The web server delivers to the computer one or more web pages that display the patient document and at least an indication of the digital signature. If the digital signature is not present, the indication of the digital signature may be used to obtain the digital signature from a signature database. In either case, the computer, responsive to user input via the one or more web pages, at least causes a watermark ID to be generated using at least information regarding the signor of the patient document.
[0009] In one embodiment the watermark ID is generated also using information regarding the patient document and/or information regarding the patient. In any case, the healthcare network may selectively verify the authenticity of the patient document using the watermark ID and/or the digital signature. In addition, the computer may, in response to user input via the one or more web pages, cause the watermark ID and the digital signature to be merged. The computer may display the watermark ID, with or without the digital signature, for review and verification by the user.
[0010] In one embodiment, the watermark ID is a barcode that, for example, authenticates the signor and verifies that the document and digital signature belong together. The watermark ID may then be associated with the patient document, and both may be stored in the document database.
[0011] Other aspects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DIAGRAMS
[0012] The numerous objects and advantages of the present invention may be better understood by those skilled in the art by reference to the accompanying figures in which:
[0013] FIG. 1 is a perspective diagram of a healthcare network that facilitates retrieval of various patient, drugs and medical care related information from a plurality of sources, while also providing an authentication and security mechanism that is based on electronic image signatures with customizable watermarks as well as on digital signatures;
[0014] FIG. 2 is a perspective block diagram of an exemplary patient's document into which is embedded an electronic image signature of the doctor along with a unique watermark ID, when the doctor signs the document; and
[0015] FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the details of a print and a display operation for a patient document that has an associated electronic image signature with watermark ID.
[0016] FIG. 1 is a perspective diagram of a healthcare network 105 that facilitates retrieval of various patient, drugs and medical care related information from a plurality of sources, while also providing an authentication and security mechanism that is based on electronic image signatures with customizable watermarks as well as on digital signatures. The retrieval of various patient, medical drugs, and medical care related information, etc. from a plurality of sources by a plurality of users (using web browsers), such as a doctor, a patient, a nurse at a payer office, or a nurse at a clinical study office using a doctor's browser 125, a patient browser 123, a payer monitor browser 133 or a clinical study browser 135, respectively, is controlled by associated servers and/or systems. Such control on information access is implemented by selectively employing the dual and complementary security mechanisms provided by the healthcare network 105.
[0017] More than one consumer of various records provided for viewing or for printing by healthcare network 105 may view the records and ascertain if the records have been signed. Signed records typically display the signatures of the person who signed the document. For example, electronic patient records signed by a doctor typically incorporate the electronic image signature of the doctor. Such electronic image signatures are displayed or printed in the healthcare network 105 after incorporating a watermark ID into the displayed or printed electronic image signature.
[0018] In one embodiment, the watermark ID is typically a unique identification of the document that is generated based upon a formula that selectively incorporates information identifying the associated document, information associated with the individual signing the document, information associated with the subject of the document such as the patient whose record a document incorporates, etc. The watermark ID is displayed as a watermark for the electronic image signature, and the position of the watermark ID is customizable. A user viewing a printed version of the document or viewing a document on a computer screen would not only be able to clearly view the signature but also read the watermark ID so that the user may subsequently choose to verify the authenticity of the electronic image signature, if necessary, by using the watermark ID. For example, a user, with a copy of a printed version of a signed document may retrieve an electronic copy of the document along information about the signer of the document using the watermark ID as a reference, and also retrieve an original signature of the signer of the document for comparison (either electronic or visual) with the signature on the signed document. In addition, the user can verify if the document and the signature belong together by retrieving the document (and its associated electronic image signature) based upon the watermark ID on a printed version of the document (or an onscreen visible version) and comparing the electronic image signatures of the one that is visible with the one on the document retrieved.
[0019] In another embodiment, the watermark ID incorporated into an electronic image signature after a user signs the associated document takes the form of a bar code that is merged with the electronic image signature when the document is displayed or printed subsequently. The barcode can subsequently be used to retrieve the signed document and/or information about the signer of the document (i.e. the user).
[0020] In yet another embodiment, the electronic image signature is modified, for display on a screen or for printing, based upon a pattern, the pattern generated using a formula that incorporates various inputs such as the information identifying the associated document, information associated with the individual signing the document, information associated with the subject of the document such as the patient whose record a document incorporates, etc. The pattern, when applied to the electronic image signature, causes portions of the electronic image signature to change in tone, in color, or in some other non-obvious characteristics such that the electronic image signature is still visible to the naked eye when the document is printed or viewed on the screen. The pattern is typically computed on the fly and applied to the electronic image signature before the signature is displayed or printed. The pattern is also selectively stored with the signed document for subsequent processing, archival or retrieval. In one embodiment, the pattern may be extracted from a printed document or from a screen shot of a visible electronic image signature and compared to the computed or retrieved pattern to verify its authenticity.
[0021] Using their browsers 123 and 125, patients and doctors, respectively, selectively review patient records from a plurality of sources of patient information, medical drugs and medical care related information from a home healthcare/nursing home server 121, drug related information from drug company servers 127, a drug interaction information from a drug interaction server 129, diagnostic and other medical information from medical/diagnostic servers 131, test results and related information from lab/testing servers 137, and patient records and patient history records from a patient server 117. In one embodiment, all of these patient related information is retrieved after authenticating the consumer, where the information required to authenticate the consumer, such as the consumer's public and private keys, passwords, electronic signatures, etc. are all selectively stored at, and selectively accessed from, the signature repository and verification system 149. Again, communication between the various producers and consumers of various patient, medical drugs and medical care related information is facilitated by Internet, Dial-up, &/or other public/Private Network 107.
[0022] In one embodiment of the present invention, the healthcare network 105 is a home healthcare network that provides support for processing patient and patient care, diagnostics and medication related information to patients, doctors, home healthcare agencies, etc., where each patient's documents are selectively signed, either using digital signatures or employing electronic image signatures with watermark IDs, by doctor's and/or nurses as part of the patient care oversight process. In another embodiment, the healthcare network 105 is a hospital care network where a plurality of participating hospitals and nursing home servers provide access to patient and patient care related information to a plurality of patients, doctors, nurses etc. In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the healthcare network 105 allows a plurality of hospital servers, nursing home servers, home healthcare servers, medical diagnostic servers, drug company servers, etc. to participate in providing access to patient, patient care, diagnostics and medication related information to doctors, nurses, patients, etc.
[0023] In general, various kinds of information is provided by the healthcare network 105 to a plurality of consumers, such as a doctor who uses the doctor's browser 125, a payer using a payer/monitor browser 133, a clinical study browser 135 or a patient using a patient's browser 123. Each of the consumers of information in the healthcare network 105 is selectively subjected to security checks before access to information is granted by the healthcare network 105. In addition to security checks, the authenticity of information and the identity of the creator and/or sender of information are verified using digital signature techniques based on public keys, private keys, digital signatures and certificates. Typically, verification of the consumer's right to access the requested information is automatically performed by associated systems or software without any human intervention, such as security implemented by a secure socket layer employed for communications between systems. However, when patient documents and patient-related information is printed or viewed on a screen, in order to promote visual and human readable authentication of the creator or sender of information, an electronic image signature is also incorporated into, or associated with, such information. Such electronic image signature may be treated as part of the newly created or sent information and subjected to processing during the creation and verification of the digital signature of the associated creator or sender. Again, when signed documents containing electronic image signatures are displayed or viewed, a watermark ID is incorporated into the electronic image signatures.
[0024] In one embodiment, when information is created or reviewed in the healthcare network 105, such information is selectively signed by a creator or reviewer of information, such as a doctor reviewing patient records or a home healthcare agency reviewing care plan oversight records, and the signed information may subsequently be accessed by other consumers. The process of signing a document by a viewer, such as by a doctor reviewing patient records on the doctor's browser 125, typically involves one or more of the following activities: a) retrieving and associating the electronic image signature of the signer, such as the doctor, with the document being signed; b) computing a watermark ID based on the document information, associated patient information, etc. c) incorporating the watermark ID with the electronic image signature; d) selectively displaying the signed document with the watermarked signature; e) saving the signed document along with the electronic image signature merged with the watermark ID, with the electronic image signature and the watermark ID (both not merged), or with only the electronic image signature; f) modifying the status of the document as changed in the database where such documents are saved, such as the patient records database in the patient server 117; and g) using digital certificates, public and private keys of the signer, such as a doctor, creating a digital signature of the signed document (with or without the electronic image signature and the watermark ID) and saving it with the signed document.
[0025] Using the exemplary signing process described above, the watermarked signature of a doctor incorporating both the doctor's electronic image signature retrieved from a signature repository and verification system as well as the watermark ID computed by the associated server, such as the patient server 117, is displayed and selectively attached or associated with a document being reviewed and approved by the doctor. The consumers of signed information, such as a home healthcare agency receiving the signed document from the doctor, selectively verify the doctor's signature associated with the signed information. Based upon the capability of the software or system that acts as a consumer of signed information or as a displayer of signed information, such as the payer/monitor browser 133, either one or both of the forms of signatures—namely, the watermarked electronic image signatures and digital signatures, are used for verification of the authenticity of the creator of the signed information.
[0026] In the healthcare network 105, the signature repository and verification system 149 provides support for: registration of digital signatures and electronic image signatures of various information producers and consumers, who typically are subscribers; creating a unique private-key and public-key pair for each subscriber; securely dispensing private keys to such subscribers; access of public keys of registered subscribers based on one or more criteria; access to certificates by subscribers for inclusion with digitally signed information; access of electronic image signatures of subscribers; verification of digital signatures and electronic image signatures; selectively computing watermark IDs for signatures based on one or more inputs; verification of authenticity of certificates; and verification of the authenticity of watermarked electronic image signatures.
[0027] The healthcare network 105 also comprises the patient server 117 that provides access to patient records stored in a patient records database while also accessing the signature repository and verification system 149, as necessary, to retrieve the public-keys of various consumers of information for encryption of such information, and to retrieve electronic image signatures of producers of documents so that the electronic image signatures may be incorporated into, or associated with, the documents produced. In addition, the patient server 117 is used to retrieve patient records based on a given watermark ID. Such watermark ID may have been retrieved from a printed patient document or provided as input to a search screen, such as a document search screen provided to a patient using the patient browser 123.
[0028] FIG. 2 is a perspective block diagram of an exemplary patient's document 201 into which is embedded an electronic image signature 205 of the doctor along with a unique watermark ID, when the doctor signs the document. Typically, the patient's document 201 comprises a patient profile section 213, a diagnosis section 211, a medication section 207, the electronic image signature section 205, and the watermark ID section 217. In one embodiment, the electronic image signature section 205 is used to store the electronic image signature of the individual who signed the document, such as a doctor, and the watermark section 217 is used to store the unique watermark ID associated with the signed document, both the electronic signature and the watermark ID assigned to the document after the document is signed. In another embodiment, a watermarked electronic image signature is stored in the electronic image signature section 205, and, in addition, the watermark ID is stored in the watermark section 217. In yet another embodiment, the watermarked electronic image signature is stored in the electronic image signature section 205, and the watermark ID is not stored with the document—instead, it is computed as and when required using a formula that takes one or more relevant parameters, such as a patient and document information.
[0029] In a different embodiment, the electronic image signature section 205 is used to store one or more electronic image signatures of the individuals who signed the document, such as those of one or more doctors or nurses. In this embodiment, only one watermark ID is employed for all the electronic image signatures, and is stored in the watermark section 217. In a related embodiment, more than one watermark ID is employed, and they are all stored in the watermark section 217.
[0030] In one embodiment of the patient document 201, the electronic image signature 205 is not embedded into the patient document 201 and is stored external to the patient document 201. Only a reference to the electronic image signature 205 is stored in the patient document 201, which is then encrypted or decrypted as part of the patient document 201 whenever the patient document 201 in encrypted or decrypted. If a user of the patient document 201 needs to verify the signature of the person (such as a doctor) that signed the document, then the reference to the electronic image signature 205 is retrieved from the patient document 201 and the reference is used to retrieve the actual electronic image signature 205 for viewing purposes. The reference to the electronic image signature 205 may alternatively be stored in the watermark ID field 217.
[0031] In one embodiment, the patient's document 201, including the electronic image signature 205, is digitally signed by the doctor (for example, when a doctor activates a sign button on a browser frame) while viewing via the doctor's browser application 125, by using a digital certificate and an associated private-key issued to the doctor by the healthcare network 105. The signed document is then stored in the patient's records database 119, either in the encrypted format; after decryption by the patient server using the public key of the doctor; or after decryption by the patient server using the public key of the doctor and the subsequent encryption using the private key of the patient server. When a user, such as a patient using a patient's browser 123, views the signed document, the patient server retrieves the patient's document 201, encrypts it using a patient's public-key and sends it to the patient's browser 123, where the patient's document 201 is decrypted by the patient browser 123 using a patient's private key and then displayed on the patient browser 123.
[0032] In one embodiment of the patient document 201, the electronic image signature 205 is not embedded into the patient document 201 and is stored external to the patient document 201. Only a reference to the electronic image signature 205 is stored in the patient document 201, which is then encrypted or decrypted as part of the patient document 201 whenever the patient document 201 in encrypted or decrypted. If a user of the patient document 201 needs to verify the signature of the person (such as a doctor) that signed the document, then the reference to the electronic image signature 205 is retrieved from the patient document 201 and the reference is used to retrieve the actual electronic image signature 205 for viewing purposes.
[0033] Typically, the patient document 201 is generated as an eXentisible markup language (XML) file, either by a home healthcare/nursing home server 121 or by a patient server 117, in response to a doctor's activities using the doctor's browser 125. In addition, the patient server generates such XML files based on the patient's records available in the patient records database 119, the correlation of drug interaction information associated with the patient's record and the drug interaction information available at the drug interaction server 129, the patient's information available at the lab/testing servers 137, etc. Specifically, if during the generation of the XML file, the patient server 117 discovers that a clinical study or research is being conducted in which the patient could participate, this fact is brought to the doctor's attention by creating a corresponding highlighted box in the XML file.
[0034] In one exemplary embodiment, when a doctor using the doctor's browser 125 activates the viewing of a patient's information in the doctor's browser 125, an XML file containing the patient's information is sent to the doctor's browser by the patient server 117. The doctor's browser 125 parses the XML file containing the patient's information, or some component associated with the doctor's browser 125, and the information contained in the XML file is displayed on the doctor's browser 125.
[0035] In general, the signed patient document 201 can be securely transmitted between the patient server 117 and a user's browser, such as the doctor's browser 125, using public and private keys, of the patient server and the recipient's of the patient's document 201, previously established and stored in the signature repository and verification system 149. However, when the patient's document is printed or viewed on a screen, if the fact that the signed patient's document 201 has been signed, say by a doctor, has to be indicated (in the printout or on the screen), then the electronic image signature 205 is incorporated into the display of the patient document 201, along with a watermark ID uniquely identifying the patient's document, the watermark ID computed by the patient's server (or alternatively, by the user's browser) and merged with the electronic image signature 205 for display purposes.
[0036] FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the details of a print and a display operation for a patient document that has an associated electronic image signature with watermark ID. At a block 301, the processing starts, and at a block at a block 305, a user of a healthcare network, such as a doctor, patient, nurse, home healthcare agency, hospital, etc. retrieves a document that employs digital signatures for providing secure access to documents and other information as well as an electronic image signatures to authenticate the documents and other information. Then, at a block 307, the retrieved patient document is decrypted.
[0037] Later, at a block 311, the position of the electronic image signature on the patient document is determined and, at a block 313, the watermark ID is computed for the document, using a formula that selectively employs several inputs, one of them being the document information and another being the information about a signer of the document, such as the information about a doctor signing a patient records.
[0038] Subsequently, after the document has been signed by the signer (using appropriate GUI or browser screen), at a block 315, the electronic image signature of the signer, and the watermark ID computed, are merged into a single image in order to print or view the document on the screen along with the watermarked signature. In addition, the watermarked electronic image signature is positioned in specific user specified coordinates (or default coordinates) on the patient document, before executing the branch at the next block 317 where it is determined if the user intends to print or view the document. Based on user preference, one of either block 319 or 321 is executed, to either print the patient document with inclusion of the watermarked electronic image signature on a printer or to display the patient document with inclusion of the watermarked electronic signature on a GUI screen, such as a browser screen, respectively, before terminating execution at a block 323. Such visual display or the insertion of the watermarked electronic image signature in the printed output helps confirm to the user the fact that the document has been previously signed, while also providing information about the signer's identity and the ability to verify that the document and the signature belong together using the watermark ID to retrieve the document electronically.
[0039] Although the signing of documents in the medical field has been described in this application, the same approach can be applied to the process of signing documents in other fields too, such as in the legal field where an attorney signs documents, or in the field of banking where a customer signs receipts and bills, etc.
[0040] Although a system and method according to the present invention has been described in connection with the preferred embodiment, it is not intended to be limited to the specific form set forth herein, but on the contrary, it is intended to cover such alternatives, modifications, and equivalents, as can be reasonably included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by this disclosure and appended diagrams.
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This hunting lease is leased and not available. This impressive farm is about 1 hour east of Indianapolis. This farm has been lightly hunted...has a lot of deer... and you get 2 separate areas to hunt. Just a wonderful opportunity for anyone looking to hunt central Indiana.
This hunting lease is leased and not available. Here is another Rush County farm with 2 separate sections of 41 and 40 acres respectively. This property is in the Flat Rock River corridor... both sections will hunt great, and offer parking to walk into the usual southwest and west winds.


text:
Towards equal peace: Australian regional investment in gender equality
Jacqui True Sara E Davies Katrina Lee-Koo Nicole George
Women's participation in peace processes and inclusion of gender-equality provisions is key to their long-term success.
A human rights seminar on the role of women in ongoing peace efforts drew hundreds of participants In Kunduz, Afghanistan, September 2019 (Fardin Waezi/UNAMA/Flickr)
Published 5 Mar 2020 12:00 0 Comments
Follow @n_george2
This year we celebrate International Women's Day on 8 March (with the theme #EachforEqual), the 25th anniversary of the UN Beijing Platform for Action, and the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 inaugurating the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. At the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi in January, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Marise Payne said, "We can make more progress on global security and prosperity by ensuring the inclusion of women and girls in decision-making." Australia's foreign policy and development outreach has been steadily devoted to gender equality and women's empowerment, because they are the best frontline defence against violence and instability. Australia sits among only nine countries (Belgium, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden,) that have prioritised the promotion of gender equality as principal objective in aid programming.
There is, however, a long way to go in realising global gender equality. The security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific region are considerable and linked to systematic and widespread gendered inequality. The region is home to the greatest share of internally displaced people in the world, the large majority of whom are women and children. Climate risks are accelerating, while women who are primarily responsibility for everyday food security of their families remain largely excluded from the governance structures designed to mitigate these risks. New crises expose the consequences of gender exclusion in the spread of violent extremism, endemic gender-based violence, forced migration, health pandemics, and persistent inequality.
Delayed prioritisation of gender provisions, such as women's access to maternal care, legislation to prosecute violence against women, and to secure women's participation in peace and political processes, increases the risk that peace will fail and that a country will return to conflict.
For the past three years, we have had a research partnership with the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) examining the participation of women in peace processes and the inclusion and implementation of gender-equality provisions in peace agreements (e.g., women's right to equal citizenship, women's right to own land). We have looked at 55 countries and 110 peace agreements, and conducted detailed research, including fieldwork, in 20 countries across the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. We have held two regional workshops (Bangkok 2018 and Nadi 2019) to share our findings with our partners, many of whom are individual women peacebuilders doing immensely hard and dangerous work on the ground advocating for the rights of women and girls.
Three major findings from our research (recent report here) stand out, which we outline here.
What have we found?
More work to do. Gender-equality provisions are unevenly distributed across current peace agreements intended to resolve protracted civil wars and conflicts. For example, provisions that address violence against women and women's inclusion in post-conflict economic recovery appear in less than half of all peace agreements with gender-equality provisions since 2000. Our data finds that even when gender provisions are included in a peace agreement, they are rarely implemented. Most provisions were given a score of 4/10 for their implementation based on whether they have a mechanism for implementation and have any demonstrable gender-equality outcomes. There is a need to keep sustained focus on every peace agreement that political and armed groups are signing, to make sure women are involved and women's rights are not being traded away.
Gender inclusion is not a menu of choices from which we can pick and choose. Gender provisions that address violence against women legislation, women's post-conflict justice issues (such as access to land), and women's economic empowerment (access to training and small loans) appear the least in peace agreements. Women's equal access to citizenship appears the most. The absence of comprehensive gender provisions is a problem if we want women to have time, resources, and safety to be present in decision-making. It is also a problem if we want effective conflict resolution, which requires long-term solutions. If we want peace, then we need to include all groups and communities, including women, who often pay the highest price during conflict and have the most to gain from peace.
Time waits for no woman. Conflicts worldwide have doubled over the last decade, from 278 in 2006 to 402 in 2016. Preventing these conflicts would save between US$5 billion and $70 billion per year, the UN/World Bank Pathways to Peace 2018 study estimated. Women and men must not be told that addressing gender inclusion and gender provisions can "come later" which is often the message from combatants, political elites, and donors – gender equality is "not the most urgent priority" in post-conflict rebuilding or "we will address it when we have the resources". Delayed prioritisation of gender provisions, such as women's access to maternal care, legislation to prosecute violence against women, and to secure women's participation in peace and political processes, increases the risk that peace will fail and that a country will return to conflict.
Network. The Australian government is well placed with civil society, the security sector, and private-sector donor and philanthropy partners to build a network of women peacebuilders and Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) experts in the Indo-Pacific region, the single largest region and the one facing a confluence of protracted conflict, mass displacement, and climate-induced disasters and insecurity. There is more work to do, so we need to ensure women can be found and find each other in the region for support, information, and advocacy to engender peace – from the grassroots to the elite peace tables.
A ministerial conference on the sidelines of the Beijing+25 Review brought together participants from across South and Southeast Asia to discuss gender equality and the future of work, Bangkok, 28 November 2019 (Pornvit Visitoran/UN Women/Flickr)
Keep a record and track progress. Gender equality is integral to achieving "traditional" peace and security measures such as law and order, and the peaceful reintegration of former soldiers because these impact communities and households. Attention to gender equality means we must listen to women on matters of peace and security and include data that captures their experience and knowledge. Before the Marawi City siege in the Philippines in 2017, women civil society groups were observing more intercommunal violence, and people came to them to report the stockpiling of weapons at homes. When these groups sought to communicate their concerns about the rise of extremist violence to the local government, they were ignored and trivialised. Gender inclusion can make a difference on the ground, but we need to continue to build the evidence base to show the doubters why and how gender inclusion makes a difference and specifically where the investment in gender equality can be a catalyst for greater security and opportunity. Doubters exist not just in the country where peace processes are unfolding, but among donor governments and the citizens funding these programs through taxable income.
Prioritise. Gender equality is core to Indo-Pacific growth and stability. The Australian government and people have a major leadership role to play in supporting gender-sensitive and inclusive post-conflict and peace settlement processes in the Indo-Pacific. Our region benefits in security and prosperity from the progress in gender equality and gender-inclusive governments, and so do Australian government, companies, non-government organizations, educational institutions, and partners. It is everyone's business to ensure gender-equal access to opportunity, because we all benefit from the growth in markets for our products and services, the knowledge and innovation that is opened up, and the people to people relations that facilitate peaceful cooperation and exchange.
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Erin Watson-Lynn 6 Mar 2020 14:00
Saudi Arabia is not offside on gender equality
Years of legislative and cultural change will come to a head at the G20 to show how far the Kingdom has come for women.
Amanda Robbins, Rachel Mason Nunn 9 Mar 2020 06:00
Playing to strengths: The best use of Australian aid in the Pacific
Big spending on infrastructure catches headlines but replicates the work of others and may not be what the region needs.
Irine Hiraswari Gayatri, Nuri Widiastuti Veronika, Jacqui True 2 Sep 2020 12:00
Indonesia's UN Security Council drive for inclusive peace and security
Jakarta is seeking to boost its regional leadership taking up the issue of women's roles in peacebuilding.


I don't know why the first thing I do in the morning is to reach for my phone as if Im expecting to find something life-changing in it. Like free money? Not.
Saw this list in the NZ Herald and it made me smile.
1. Use olive oil instead of extra-virgin olive oil when cooking with heat. It has a higher smoke point and is cheaper. Use your nice oil for finishing dishes, not for preparing them.
2. When you break a glass on a hard floor, shine a flashlight parallel to the floor so you can see the shadows of tiny pieces you would otherwise miss.
3. Unless you like soggy wet toast, buy butter/margarine with the highest grams of fat per serving.
4. When ironing clothes, don't start from the front side. Leave the front side to the last to have an excellent finish.
5. When cleaning mirrors or windows and have no window cleaner in hand, use newspaper with water.
6. If you want to avoid pocket dials, move your recent calls icon into a separate folder.
7. Bees hate CO2. If one is bothering you, gently blow on it and it will fly away.
8. Tourist with a camera? Take a picture of your contact details. This would make it easier for someone to get in touch with you if you ever lose your camera.
9. If you are given a prepaid debit card as a gift, save it after you spend the money. You can use it to sign up for free trials online without worry of being scammed.
10. If your printer is out of black ink and you need urgent printout, change the color of the font to #010101, which is 99 per cent grey, it will help you quite a lot.
11. Let someone know you're picking up the tab for a meal after they've ordered. This allows a considerate friend to order what s/he wants freely and also prevents a colleague/acquaintance from taking advantage of your generosity.
12. If your other half can't make a decision about where to eat, play the 5-2-1 game. You give them five restaurants, they pick two, and you pick from those.
13. Whenever you travel abroad bring a new soundtrack for each place you visit, preferably one you have never heard before. In the future, every time you listen to each soundtrack again they will bring you vivid memories of the places you have visited.
14. If Word crashes or shuts down and your document didn't save, search ".asd" in the file Explorer under "This/My PC". It should be there.
15. When you're about to cry, think of words that rhyme or count backwards from 100 in sevens. Engaging the logic part of your brain shifts blood flow away from your emotional centres and helps you maintain your composure.
16. If you are buying headphones/speakers, test them with Bohemian Rhapsody. It has the complete set of highs and lows in instruments and vocals.
17. If you want to "vacuum seal" food, put it in a ziplock bag and submerge it in a bowl of water with the bag open above the water. The water will push the air out of the bag, and you can close it without any left inside.
18. When you sign up for anything online, put the website's name as your middle name. That way when you receive spam/advert emails, you will know who sold your information.
19. If an indoor cat gets outside and lost, put their litter box outside. They can smell it from up to a mile away and find their way home.
20. Learn to read food labels. "Made from 100 per cent ..." is not the same as "Made with 100 per cent ..."
21. If somebody comes to your door selling a home security system and asks if you have one, always say yes. You never know if you're talking to a potential burglar.
22. When walking your dogs, make them sit and wait before crossing streets. This will make them hesitate about running into roads if they ever get loose.
23. If you want to learn a new language, figure out the 100 most frequently used words and start with them. Those words make up about 50 per cent of everyday speech already and should be a very solid basis.
24. Go to the zoo when it is a little cool outside. The animals will be active trying to warm up.
25. Bring a healthy snack to work. If you're looking for a snack but don't feel like eating the one you brought, you're not hungry, you're bored.
26. There is a visible difference between not working out at all and doing 15 pushups every day. Make 15 pushups your new "not working out".
27. If you can hear them but they can't hear you, you're the one with the weak signal.
28. Leave the washing machine lid open after every load of wash to allow moisture to escape and dry it out.
29. If you have a clogged drain use baking soda and vinegar to dissolve the clog and flush with boiling water to avoid buying expensive drain cleaners.
30. After you assemble furniture, use duct tape to attach things like hex keys, that came with the furniture, to the underside. You won't have to look for it when you have to disassemble the furniture.


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Deafilosophy
Simplicity As Confirmation Bias
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For those philosophically minded, William Ockham will immediately engender various degrees of analytic glee, the name synonymous with logical parsimony or simple explanation. The more user-friendly phrase concerning parsimony is: "Don't multiply entities beyond necessity." Then again, perhaps the phrase isn't as friendly as it may be to some. Thankfully that's rather the point here, simplicity being, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Consider a rose possessed of a particular color and a certain number of petals arising out of a stem. To the average person it is a thing of beauty. To a botanist there will be an entire history of breeding involved. To a chemist there will be a litany of compounds and scents included. Which one is more simple? Is that even the right question? For Ockham, the answer to the latter is most certainly not.
As human beings, possessed of a surplus of intelligence and imagination, the need to offer explanations is not only a seeming necessity, but the source of a great deal of social fracas. Some of the earliest childhood memories are related to giving explanations for behavior in a manner to deflect guilt, as when explaining a broken window or why there's chocolate on fingertips despite being told not to eat dessert before dinner. Such stories certainly continue into adulthood, though the ramifications of our explanations become exponentially more. Issues of social policy will take into account explanations for human behavior, the American justice system being predicated on the offering of behavior being intrinsically free. Matters of geopolitics rest on explanations of human interaction and the role force plays in building and maintaining countries. Environmental concerns run through the sieve of explanations concerning biological diversity and origins, including the age of the earth and the cosmos. None of the offered explanations for these matters come without consequences, often beginning during the battle of determining which explanation is better than another.
To understand the significance when one hears the term "explanation," it can be helpful to immediately supplant it with "story" or "narrative." Curiously, people often appreciate simple explanations but balk at stories that aren't sufficiently complex. Perhaps the discontinuity has to do with the former being considered work and the latter associated often with play or fun. "Tell me a story" is the phrase of a child wanting to be entertained; "explain this" is the demand of a superior in any bureaucratic system. Further, when offering an explanation, complex stories are associated with guilt or falsity, whereas simplicity is connected with truth and as advice for not being caught in keeping one's lies straight.
These tendencies in human psychology and social communication find rationalization in the use of Ockham's Razor. Alternatively referred to as the "KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle," the Razor is the favorite of anybody
Ockham himself was not concerned with simplicity. Consider this from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Ockham's Razor, in the senses in which it can be found in Ockham himself, never allows us to deny putative entities; at best it allows us to refrain from positing them in the absence of known compelling reasons for doing so. In part, this is because human beings can never be sure they know what is and what is not "beyond necessity"; the necessities are not always clear to us.
Rather than attempting to address skepticism concerning particular entities, Ockham was more concerned with noting the limitations of human knowledge. The difficulty of "beyond necessity" can be seen by a simple thought experiment. Pick an object in view and consider how it got there, perhaps a tree outside a window. Then broaden the perspective out one step at a time, noting how things are connected. The tree needs a seed, soil, water and sun, then the land itself and whether such was capable of sustaining life of its kind, then how buildings and natural features constrained where it was possible to grow, the cityscape that those buildings are a part of, the societal structure the city is part of and onward into the cosmos. At what point is something considered a necessity? Which entity becomes superfluous to the explanation? Is there even one answer to these questions?
Precisely because of the interconnected reality of nature, necessity and parsimony will quite often be determined less by the context of the situation and more by the structure behind the inquiry. If asked to explain how a rock was thrown, physical mechanics may be brought up, but there's likely not much purpose in going into the geologic history of the rock itself. If asked "where did we come from?", the answer will be contingent upon just what is meant by "we" and the nature of what is meant by "coming from." With this in mind, a person's principle-driven worldview will determine the extent of a given explanation, what is considered sufficient and when the simple is proclaimed to be needlessly complex.
Thus it is that we come back to a consideration of what Ockham was most concerned with, determining best explanations rather than the denial of things. The extent of the universe that is known continues to be astronomically smaller than that which is unknown. A simple explanation in the past has often been superseded by a more complex answer in the present and there is a high probability that it will be yet further replaced by or expanded into an even more complex answer in the future. If the first inclination when presented with a contrary explanation is to remove it in part or in whole then the concern isn't in expanding one's explanatory power, it's in expressing one's confirmation bias. If there was a monument to ideas changed and cast aside throughout history, it's base would be human hubris. The universe is bigger than we think and that's a good thing.
For More from David Teachout, Click HERE
#Secularism #SECULAR #belief #Indoctrination #evidence #life
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