Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
John Lewis offers overnight stays in 'try-before-you-buy' flats
 D epartment store John Lewis is offering customers the chance to stay overnight at special in-store apartments — where everything is for sale.

The fully fitted out apartments in the Oxford Street, Cambridge and Liverpool branches are being offered via random ballot for shoppers to stay over and test out a range of John Lewis products — including that all-important bed.

Each apartment has a fully furnished bedroom, dining and living room boasting a £3,000 sofa, £2,000 dining table and a £2,800 widescreen plasma television, for guests to curl up in front of.

The Oxford Street branch offers a fitted kitchen (complete with £1,300 coffee machine and wine cooler), a study and an indoor terrace overlooking Cavendish Square.

The latest Autumn Winter products can be found in every cupboard and wardrobe with an expert Residence team on hand to answer any questions.

Only available on Saturdays, those staying over will have private use of the apartment from 6.30pm until 9am the next day, with a Waitrose breakfast basket and newspapers delivered as a wake-up call.

There is also the choice of a 60-minute after hours private shopping time or an access all-areas tour of the department store included in the stay.

The Residence at John Lewis 1 / 8 The Residence at John Lewis The Residence Opening exclusively at John Lewis' Oxford Street, Cambridge and Liverpool stores, the retail giant is offering customers the chance to stay overnight at one of the special in-store apartments. The Residence Everything in the apartment will be for sale and exclusive to John Lewis as part of their "Only Here" Autumn campaign The Residence Only available on Saturdays, those staying over will have private use of the apartment from 6.30pm until 9am the next day, with a Waitrose breakfast basket and newspapers delivered as the wake-up call. The Residence Customers can chose to stay overnight or host their own intimate dinner party for up to 10 friends. The Residence The expert Residence team will be on hand to answer any questions about the apartment. The Residence For those unable to book an exclusive sleepover or dining experience, The Residence remains open to all throughout shop opening hours, and will host a series of free customer workshops.

London customers can also hire out the the Residence for dinner parties for up to 10 people, catered by a professional chef with cocktails prepared by the Residence's mixologist.

For those unable to book a sleepover or dining experience, the Residence remains open to all throughout shop opening hours.

The venue will also host a series of free customer workshops including how to pick the right duvet, tips on creating mood lighting and advice for hosting the perfect dinner party.

Output: UK retailer John Lewis is offering customers the opportunity to stay overnight in special, fully fitted-out flats at its Oxford Street, Cambridge and Liverpool branches. Each Residence is filled with items from the store's autumn/winter range, and everything in each flat is for sale. Customers, who are invited by random ballot, can stay in the Residence on Saturdays only, from 6.30pm to 9am the following day, while the flats are open to the public during trading hours.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
US financial planners favour outsourcing portfolio management
 Investment advisers are increasingly outsourcing portfolio management and concentrating on building client relationships, according to a study by Cerulli Associates.

Outsourcing has three advantages, according to Cerulli, and the first is that it allows advisers to concentrate on building client relationships, which is especially important to those holding Certified Financial Planner designations. “They are trained to focus their client interaction on holistic financial planning instead of managing portfolios,” the report said.

Several CFPs echoed that sentiment. “I outsource investment management, and I firmly believe that CFPs should not manage client portfolios,” said Wade Brittingham, CFP, of Voya Financial Advisors Inc. “I want to spend my time with clients adding value to their lives with my financial planning expertise.”

Mr. Brittingham said it’s wise for a certified financial planner to keep with his skill set, and that it saves a huge amount of time that’s better spent meeting with clients.

“We have a fee-only, hourly/project based financial planning firm and choose not to manage client money,” said George Reilly, CFP, of Safe Harbor Financial Advisors. “In fact, one of our mission statement sentences is that, ‘We help clients manage their own money.’” Portfolio management is not something we want to do.”

Mr. Reilly uses First Ascent Asset Management (FAAM) of Denver for that portfolio management. Clients engage separately with FAAM, he said. “We are the client-facing advisers, and they are, in effect, our back office,” Mr. Reilly said.

The financial planning industry isn’t unanimous on the issue. According to Cerulli, 54% of CFPs outsource portfolio management, and 46% keep it in-house.

“We don’t outsource our management,” said Evan Beach, a financial planner for Campbell Wealth Management. “We have a CFA in-house that does nothing but watch the markets and our portfolios. He is analytical, disciplined and experienced — not always the same things you want in a planner.”

Leon LaBrecque of LJPR Financial Advisors, was more succinct: “We insource it. That is what we are paid to do.”

Financial planners aren’t the only advisers that lean towards outsourcing, the Cerulli report said. “Outsourcers can also be found among insurance B-D advisers, for whom investment management is often an afterthought to selling insurance. Independent B-Ds, who often are strapped for resources and time, show a preference for outsourcing. Almost one-third (31%) of outsourcers are in the IBD channel, whereas 25% of insourcers are IBD representatives.”

Independent registered investment advisers are the least likely to outsource portfolio management, according to Cerulli. About 18% show a preference for insourcing, versus 5% for outsourcing.

Implementation of the DOL fiduciary rule is the second reason outsourcing has become more popular, the Cerulli report said. “Home offices will require even the most sophisticated advisers to document each action to protect themselves from future inquiries. These documentation processes may become cumbersome and expensive to many advisers and the home offices who are working to increase due diligence.”

Finally, there’s the matter of investment returns. While many in the advisory business feel they can produce superior returns than a fully dedicated investment manager, the evidence doesn’t support it, the report said. “Cerulli research finds that advisers are quick to leave a falling equity market, but slow to enter when the market recovers. Since they miss a significant portion of a market upswing, their portfolios underperform over the long term.”

Output: More than half of certified financial planners (CFPs) outsource their portfolio management so they can focus on building good relationships with clients, according to a study by Cerulli Associates. It revealed that 46% of CFPs prefer to keep it in-house, while almost a third of independent insurance business development advisers outsource to save time and money. The study also found that the cost of implementing the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule encouraged outsourcing by advisers, and that advisers' returns often underperformed those of a dedicated investment manager.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
South African grocer Pick n Pay pilots in-store bitcoin payments
 The ICT services and telecom company says it is waiting for more information on the offer, including the proposed offer price

Output: South African grocery chain Pick n Pay has piloted in-store payments using bitcoin. The exercise used Electrum's cloud-based payments platform on infrastructure provided by global bitcoin company Luno. Customers at the company's Cape Town head office campus store were able to use the cryptocurrency to buy groceries and services, checking out using a QR code scanner on their smartphones. Deputy CEO Richard van Rensburg said the trial was limited and that there were no plans to enable bitcoin payments until a more comprehensive regulatory framework for cryptocurrency use was in place.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
South African grocer Pick n Pay pilots in-store bitcoin payments
 In what is potentially a world first for a major grocery retailer, Electrum has enabled Pick n Pay to accept Bitcoin payments in-store. As a result of this ground breaking innovation project, for a limited time customers at Pick n Pay’s head office campus store have been able to use the Bitcoin cryptocurrency to purchase groceries and services. The checkout process is as simple as scanning a QR code using a Bitcoin wallet app on the customer’s smartphone.

Jason Peisl, IS Executive at Pick n Pay, explains, "At Pick n Pay one of our key values is to embrace change and encourage innovation and leadership. To deliver on that promise we are constantly working with our technology partners to find ways in which we can deliver valuable, innovative services to our customers. Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin are still relatively new payment concepts, yet we have been able to effectively demonstrate how we are able to accept such alternative payments."

Electrum provided the cloud-based enterprise payments platform used for the transactions. Electrum MD Dave Glass says, "We've worked closely with PnP for several years as a key technology provider. Our mission is to support innovative enterprises like Pick n Pay, and together we use the advanced Electrum software-as-a-service technology to move quickly on new opportunities, whilst at the same time delivering the best possible shopping experience".

The Bitcoin infrastructure for the project was provided by Luno, a global Bitcoin company, active in Southeast Asia and Africa, and with an office in Cape Town. Luno enables South African consumers to easily buy, sell, send and spend Bitcoin.

*update* Business Day has picked up this blog post - No paying via bitcoin just yet, says Pick n Pay

Output: South African grocery chain Pick n Pay has piloted in-store payments using bitcoin. The exercise used Electrum's cloud-based payments platform on infrastructure provided by global bitcoin company Luno. Customers at the company's Cape Town head office campus store were able to use the cryptocurrency to buy groceries and services, checking out using a QR code scanner on their smartphones. Deputy CEO Richard van Rensburg said the trial was limited and that there were no plans to enable bitcoin payments until a more comprehensive regulatory framework for cryptocurrency use was in place.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
PwC UK’s BAME workers paid 12.8% less than white staff
 Investing in technology, tools and training for our people and communities

We’ve invested heavily in technology this year, with more than two-thirds of our people agreeing that ‘those I work with actively seek out new ways to use technology’. Our firmwide Tech For All digital learning programme has given our people knowledge of key technologies and, in line with our flexible working approach, is available on mobile, anytime, anywhere. We’ll continue to build on this investment in the coming year by upskilling our entire workforce and creating a place for our people to learn about working with different technologies and sharing this across our business.

Technology is helping us allocate work fairly and efficiently, and we’ve deployed an AI tool matching our people to the right client projects. We’ve also built technological capabilities into our new development programme for senior managers, ensuring they have the skills they need to become our future leaders.

Our investment goes beyond the people who currently work for us and this year we’ve been using immersive experiences and interactive videos to bring our culture to life for potential graduate and school leaver recruits. We’re also continuing to inspire young women to pursue a career in technology via our Tech She Can Charter.

Output: UK firm PwC has released data showing that its black, Asian and minority-ethnic (BAME) employees earn 12.8% less than other staff. The company blamed the discrepancy on the fact that many BAME employees worked in junior and administrative roles. PwC stated that it had released the information in order to encourage efforts to tackle “ethnicity challenges”. "The more transparent we are with our diversity and social mobility data, the more we hold ourselves accountable to achieving real change", said Kevin Ellis, chairman at PwC.


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Input:
Harvey shows vulnerability of oil storage tanks to excessive rain
 More than two dozen storage tanks holding crude oil, gasoline and other contaminants ruptured or otherwise failed when Harvey slammed into the Texas coast, spilling at least 145,000 gallons (548,868 liters) of fuel and spewing toxic pollutants into the air, according to an Associated Press analysis of pollution reports submitted to state and federal regulators.

The tank failures follow years of warnings that the Houston area’s petrochemical industry was ill-prepared for a major storm, with about one-third of the 4,500 storage tanks along the Houston Ship Channel located in areas susceptible to flooding, according to researchers.

More of the massive storage tanks could be put to the test in coming days as Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida. The tanks are prone to float and break during floods, and Harvey’s unprecedented rainfalls revealed a new vulnerability when the roofs of some storage tanks sank under the weight of so much water.

Federal and state rules require companies to be prepared for spills, but mandate no specific measures to secure storage tanks at refineries, chemical plants and oil production sites.

Although Florida has no oil refineries, it has more than 20 petroleum product storage terminals in coastal communities and about 30 chemical companies with a presence in the state, including a significant number of facilities in the Tampa Bay area, according to the American Chemistry Council and U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Tampa Bay is one of the most vulnerable cities in the country” to hurricanes, said John Pardue, a Louisiana State University professor who has researched problems with storage tanks during storms.

“But there’s no requirement that says when you’re in a hurricane zone you’ve got to do things differently,” Pardue added. “If we’re going to continue to put some of these facilities in harm’s way, it would be great to have some specific regulations” to safeguard storage tanks.

The storm surge from Harvey was small enough that the refineries in the Houston Ship Channel appear to have avoided the huge spills associated with past storms such as Hurricane Katrina, when ruptured storage tanks released several millions of gallons of oil including into residential areas, according to Jamie Padgett, an associate professor at Rice University who has inventoried the Houston Ship Channel’s storage tanks.

One difference during Harvey was that prior to the storm, some refineries apparently were able to fill up their storage tanks to make them less buoyant and therefore less prone to floating and being damaged, said Kyle Isakower, vice president of regulatory policy at the American Petroleum Institute.

That wasn’t the case with about a dozen smaller storage tanks that experienced spills in Fayette County west of Houston, said Ron Whitmire with EnerVest, the Houston-based company that operated the tanks. The capacity of those tanks ranged from about 250 to 400 barrels, which he said was not large enough to resist the force of the floodwaters that swept them away.

“Do we plan for storms and hurricanes? Absolutely,” Whitmire said. “But nobody plans for 50-plus inches of rain.”

The record rainfall also exposed problems among almost 400 large storage tanks in the Houston area that have “floating roofs” that go up or down depending on how much fuel is inside the containers. The unprecedented rains that came with Harvey caused 14 of those roofs to sink, in some instances allowing the chemicals inside them to escape, according to company reports and Padgett of Rice.

There are no government rules dictating how tanks are designed. But the American Petroleum Institute has established industry standards for tank construction that call for tanks to be able to drain at a minimum 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain over a 24-hour period. Rain was falling at more than twice that rate during Harvey, Padgett said.

At least two of the floating roof failures occurred in gasoline storage tanks at Shell Oil’s Deer Park refinery and another occurred at Exxon Mobil’s Baytown refinery.

Pollution reports submitted by the companies to Texas regulators blamed the roof problems on Harvey’s excess rainfall. The reports said air pollutants including benzene, toluene and xylene were released into the atmosphere. Long-term exposure to such pollutants can cause cancer, although Texas officials said they never reached concentrations high enough in the storm’s wake to cause health concerns.

A Shell representative said in a statement to the AP that the roof problems presented an “extremely rare” circumstance and that company workers had quickly responded by spraying the spilled fuel with foam to suppress any harmful vapors. All the gasoline that was released was contained on-site, Shell spokesman Ray Fisher said.

Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Charlotte Huffaker said safety was a priority for the company and it was able to lessen environmental damage from Harvey by shutting down equipment in advance. Huffaker said Exxon “reported and responded to the event as soon as it was identified.”

As state and federal officials investigate the impacts from Harvey, it’s uncertain how much spilled material flowed off-site from the storage yards, oil production areas and refineries.

It’s expected to take about two weeks from the time of the spills for any contamination in the ship channel to reach Galveston Bay, according to Hanadi Rifai, director of the graduate program in environmental engineering at the University of Houston.

Texas has rules governing protections for underground storage tanks during floods, but not for above-ground tanks found at many refineries and chemical plants, according to Andrea Morrow, a spokeswoman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Morrow declined to say if the agency planned to investigate the Harvey-related tank failures and whether tanks that failed had been properly secured before the storm.

“We have established a Unified Command with other state and federal partners, and are in the field conducting rapid needs assessment at this time,” she said. “Due to the widespread impact from Harvey, the TCEQ anticipates conducting many storm-related investigations over the next several months.”

___

Associated Press Correspondent Matthew Brown reported from Billings, Montana. AP data journalist Larry Fenn reported from New York City.

___

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter at www.twitter.com/matthewbrownap and get the best of the AP’s all-formats reporting on Irma and Harvey in your inbox: http://apne.ws/ahYQGtb .

Output: The record rainfall from Hurricane Harvey exposed the lack of adequate measures to protect refineries, chemical plants and oil production sites in and around Houston, according to data from reports submitted to state and federal regulators. Some smaller above-ground oil storage tanks were not big enough to resist flood waters, while the roofs on 14 of 400 large storage tanks collapsed under the weight of 20 inches of rainwater. Louisiana State University professor John Pardue, who has researched storage tanks, said: "There’s no requirement that says when you’re in a hurricane zone you’ve got to do things differently.”


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Low academic achievement tied to lack of broadband in Florida
 Technology's Impact on Learning

Link between Low Broadband Access and Lower Degree Achievement Noted in Florida

A lack of widely available broadband is correlated to a smaller percentage of residents with college degrees or certificates. That's the suggestion of a presentation made recently in Florida to the Higher Education Coordinating Council. The gap will hold back the state from achieving its goal of having 55 percent of its working-age population obtain a degree or professional certificate by 2025, according to Ed Moore, president of Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida. Moore's organization has 30 non-profit institutions that deliver undergraduate, graduate, first-time professional and continuing education programs throughout the state, many of which are online.

For the purposes of his argument, Moore used the Federal Communications Commission's definition for internet access speed — 25 Mbps for download and 3 Mbps for upload — as the minimum required for residential access to distance learning programs. As Moore put it, almost 700,000 Floridians are "stranded on the wrong side of a distance learning divide." The FCC estimates, Moore added, that a tenth of all Americans — 34 million people — lack access to this benchmark service level.

But the biggest identifiable shortage occurs in rural areas, where 39 percent of people across the country lack broadband. In Florida, the more isolated rural counties — those away from large metropolitan areas — have fewer people with fast internet access and "are also more likely to have lower educational attainment and lower income levels per capita," Moore stated.

The 13 "trailing" counties with the least amount of internet access, ranging from Madison County, where 41 percent of residents have no access, to Dixie County, where 99 percent lack access, show a smaller percentage of residents with college degrees or certificates (from 12 percent to 27 percent). In the 19 counties where the total without internet access is zero percent, the share of residents with degrees or certificates runs from a low of 16 percent to a high of 54 percent.

Moore explained that while his organization's member schools "now offer more than 590 fully online degree and certificate programs," the access to those programs "should not be driven by where one lives." Limits on broadband access, he said, "slams the door on accessibility. You cannot get ahead if you cannot get online."

Reporting by the Gainesville Sun quoted Marshall Criser, chancellor of the state university system, who advised education leaders to work "collaboratively" with the business community on developing policy recommendations for expanding broadband services. Criser, a former president of AT&T in Florida, called the gap a "chicken or egg" kind of problem, pointing out that "there were sound reasons for broadband development to follow population densities."

According to reporter Lloyd Dunkelberger, the council may "invite the companies that provide broadband access and infrastructure to talk about the issue."

Output: Poor access to broadband in rural areas of Florida is connected to low educational attainment, according to research by Ed Moore, President of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida. Moore found that in counties with the least internet access, people are more likely to have poor educational records and lower incomes. His research suggests that across the US, 10% of people lack access to minimum standards of internet access.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Portable DNA sequencer could speed up diagnosis of dengue fever
 TOKYO -- A team led by a professor from the University of Tokyo has devised a fast and cost-effective method of determining dengue fever virus types using a portable DNA sequencer.

Use of the palm-sized device will hopefully be able to speed up diagnosis at hospitals in developing countries and also help trace the path of infection.

Output: Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a portable DNA sequencer to help hospitals in developing countries diagnose dengue fever more quickly and trace its path of infection. After separating serum from blood samples, the researchers converted it to DNA fragments which are amplified for sequencing. A computer linked to the device then cross-references the DNA with a database of genetic information to determine which virus type the patient is infected with. Currently, diagnosis of dengue fever relies on advanced genetic sequencers or a polymerase chain reaction, which are too costly for healthcare budgets in the developing world.


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Input:
Teledyne Cormon updates pipeline corrosion monitoring system
 Corrosion can be considered one of the offshore oil and gas industry’s worst enemies.

The cost of corrosion in the oil and gas production industry surpasses $1.3 billion each year, according to NACE International’s estimates.

Subsea technology-focused Teledyne Cormon, which specializes in corrosion monitoring equipment as well as the design and manufacture of corrosion sensors among other types, sees global spending on corrosion and erosion monitoring for the topside and subsea markets combined at more than an estimated $150 million.

The offshore industry has seen advances in recent years with corrosion-resistant alloys designed for harsh offshore environments, intelligent pigs that detect cracking and pitting corrosion, biocides that aim to prevent or stop corrosion in its tracks and high-temperature corrosion inhibitors. Yet corrosion is still considered one of the leading causes of subsea pipeline failures.

“We estimate about half of [subsea pipeline] failures to be related to corrosion or erosion within the equipment,” Teledyne Cormon’s Tom Wollam said in a statement. “Costs can vary to replace a subsea pipeline but include much more than simply the cost of materials and labor to replace it. Often the cost is driven up exponentially by ancillary costs such as offshore vessels, engineering, testing and any environmental or safety impact the failure may have caused.

However, having an “effective asset integrity program can be an operator’s best insurance against preventable corrosion-related problems. … The risk of pipeline failure far outweighs the costs associated with installing, monitoring and maintaining effective corrosion control systems.”

Effective pipeline corrosion control comes down to quality design and installation of equipment, proper technologies and ongoing maintenance and monitoring by trained professionals, he added.

Corrosion and all of the problems it comes with is not new to the oil and gas industry. But the topic still commands attention considering its potential impact on oil and gas operations as facilities—particularly those in areas such the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico (GoM)—get older. About half of the platforms in the GoM are more than 20 years old, while some in the North Sea are even older. More than 50% of the world’s oil rigs will be more than 30 years old within the next decade, said Wollam, regional sales manager for Teledyne Cormon.

“Older infrastructure is at higher risk of corrosion damage, especially as operators face tighter budgets and are faced with tough choices such as extending the life of aging rigs, or reducing monitoring programs and personnel,” he added. “The simple fact of the matter is that as soon as a steel platform hits the saltwater it begins to corrode and therefore should be subject to monitoring, inspection and maintenance soon after deployment.”

The industry has typically used corrosion coupons with electrical resistance (ER) probes for monitoring. Ultrasonic inspections also have been used to measure wall thickness to determine corrosion and erosion rates in pipelines. Pigging is another common technique.

Improvements in the corrosion monitoring area continue.

Teledyne recently updated its data storage and transfer instrumentation for its ER probes to help determine metal loss caused by corrosion or erosion.

“Our transmitters now offer direct Modbus RS485 output straight from the transmitter without the need for any post processing or conversion. The updated transmitter is especially well paired with our CEION technology, which offers unrivalled response time and probe life,” Wollam said. “Often there is a tradeoff between these two aspects of ER probe monitoring; however, with CEION we combine both, giving the customer a very fast response time without the traditional concern of a short probe life.”

For real-time data acquisition, the technology can be combined with an online transmitter system.

Robotics is also playing a role in combating corrosion.

Companies are using AUVs and ROVs for close-up inspections of assets using lights, cameras and multi-beam sonar systems. “This application is gaining traction in the offshore industry as a low-logistics method to collect data on structural integrity of pipelines or other equipment,” Wollam said.

But the advent of Big Data and machine learning could usher in another way of advances for corrosion monitoring.

While the measurement of metal loss, described by Wollam as the “principal benchmark of corrosion monitoring” is unchanged, technology has brought to the industry higher resolution measuring electronics that speeds up the detection of changes in measurements.

“The value of this faster detection lies in the ability to respond more quickly to increases in the metal loss rate, which can reduce the total metal lost, and thereby extend asset life,” Wollam added. “We now can see real-time changes in metal loss, enabling the operator to respond more quickly to issues that may arise or develop an optimized maintenance plan with greater confidence with the help of data to support and justify the plan.”

However, these same advances could pose obstacles. One challenge could lie in technology itself, specifically the ability to get large amounts of data quickly.

Wollam posed these questions:

How do you manage, store and use all the data in a practical sense?

What kind of IT infrastructure needs to be in place to handle all the data coming in?

How can operators ensure the data give them actionable information?

“Without applications or analysis to transform the data into recommendations, alerts or reports, the data are essentially worthless regardless of the quality or size,” Wollam said. “The measurement technology has evolved, but our data management systems may be in need of upgrades as well.”

This article originally appeared in Hart Energy’s Subsea Engineering News newsletter.

Output: UK-based subsea technology company Teledyne Cormon offers a low-logistics method of collecting data on the corrosion of pipelines. The company said its updated transfer and data storage instrumentation, combined with an online transmitter system, can offer real-time data on corrosion and erosion rates in pipelines. Within the next decade, more than half of the world's oil rigs will have been in service for more than 30 years, one reason that corrosion costs the oil and gas industry more than $1.3bn a year, according to NACE International.


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Input:
Utah-based fintech Square applies for industrial loan licence
 Square Wants to Be a Bank Too

Just a few weeks ago it was announced that the mobile-only bank Vary Money had applied for a national bank charter. Now another popular FinTech company also has its sights set on becoming a bank: Square. However, unlike Varo’s charter, Square intends to become an industrial loan company and will be based in Utah. According to the Wall Street Journal, this route was chosen since, under a traditional banking license, the company would no longer be able to engage in other businesses like selling their famed card readers. Similarly, WSJ reports that some of Square’s other financial efforts, including their P2P money-sending app Square Cash, would be separate from this new venture. Should the charter be approved, the new bank would be known as Square Financial Services Inc.

Square’s plan to open a banking wing isn’t exactly out of left field. While it may mostly be known for its small business point of sale solutions, they’ve also offered small business loans since 2014 under their Square Capital initiative. This program was in partnership with Celtic Bank — a bank also based in Utah. WSJ reports that Square Capital has loaned $1.8 billion to 41,000 small businesses to date.

So, if Square is already lending large amounts of cash to businesses through its partnership with Celtic, why bother going solo? As Jacqueline Reses, who currently heads Square Capital and will be the chairman of Square Financial Services Inc., explains, “As we scale, it’s becoming increasingly important that we have direct relationships with regulators.” This would certainly imply that Square has larger plans for its FinTech operations and suggests Jack Dorsey and co. could continue to push the envelope when it comes to small business (and perhaps consumer?) finance.

Another major reason Square might want to expand into banking is so that it can be a one-stop shop. The more services that Square can offer to its customers, the more likely they are to stay loyal and within their “ecosystem.” Therefore, if the company can role out small business banking solutions on par with their other services, they could prove to be an even bigger powerhouse in the industry and a major ally for entrepreneurs

Of course, like with Varo Money charter, this is also an exciting development for FinTech. Although many (like I have) will surely lump the two together due to timing, the charters they’re applying for are actually quite different. While Varo’s national bank aspirations aim to show that banks can be exclusively mobile, Square’s plans to become an industrial loan company displays the belief that nonfinancial entities can still provide great financial services. In the end both of the assertions may prove controversial but, once affirmed, could mark a big leap for the FinTech industry.

Output: Payments company Square has applied for a charter to become a Utah-based industrial loan company. The move would enable Square to continue to sell its payment card readers, which it would be banned from doing under a traditional banking licence. Although Square Capital already offers small businesses loans through its partnership with Celtic Bank, by opening a banking wing, Square would be able to establish direct relationships with regulators, which would assist it as it grows, said Jacqueline Reses, the head of Square Capital. Square will also be able to improve the scope of financial services it offers businesses.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
US insists on post-Harvey inspection of oil and gas pipelines
 Hurricanes can wreak devastation on offshore infrastructure. In the case of pipelines, a physical impact, such as a dragging anchor, can breach a pipeline and cause pollution.

Strong waves and currents can move a pipeline, causing stress and potential ruptures.

Pipeline crossings may also be damaged by wave and current action, and waves can even expose buried pipelines in water depths of less than 200 feet.

The connectors between risers and surface facilities also can succumb to stress from wind and wave action.

“We

Output: The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has issued a directive following Hurricane Harvey requiring that all offshore oil and gas facilities in the storm's path are inspected and reported on to BSEE by the end of March 2018, and repairs made by 1 June the same year. Among the inspection requirements included in the directive are the visual inspection of pipeline tie-ins and crossings in less than 200 feet of water, and all pipelines must undergo a two-hour leak test before returning to service. So far the bureau has not received any reports of damage.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
UK's ESI Media plans to double its video team to increase output
 After shuttering its print paper in March 2016, The Independent is profitable again and can spend more on what its audience wants — and that’s video.

Over the next six months, ESI Media, the parent company of The Independent and the Evening Standard, plans to double its video team to 50. Each title currently has a team of 10 video specialists, and a central team of five works across both brands on bigger projects. The Independent needed to get its video offering right before growing its team, according to editor Christian Broughton.

Broadly speaking, The Independent’s original video falls into three categories: foreign correspondence, like reporting on a fire in a refugee camp in Syria; explainers with journalists, such as one with economics editor Ben Chu about whether austerity is over in the U.K.; and mini-documentaries about subjects like a teenage drug dealer. All are under five minutes long.

“We have been focusing on international and foreign reporting and putting a spotlight on the lives people who are struggling in some way,” said Broughton. “These are the ideas that represent the brand and mission of [The Independent].”

In the next month, The Independent will make its documentary videos easier to identify by packaging them under a new name and on a separate landing page. The Independent’s previous documentaries will be rebadged and housed here, too.

In a platform era, publishers struggle to get readers to recognize their brands. As The Independent exists solely on digital, this is a challenge it knows all too well. “Video is one of the more chaotic parts of online media; it comes out in an unruly way,” said Broughton.

According to analysis by the News Media Association and NewsWhip, news brands account for 47 percent of all social media engagements with U.K. content, stoking the fire for publishers that don’t feel they are getting a fair reward from platforms for the content they provide. But publishing on Facebook has been a big driver in growing The Independent in the U.S., where it gets a third of its traffic.

In July, The Independent had 140 million views on its videos, almost all of which came from Facebook, where each video has an average of 570,000 views, according to Tubular Labs. Many of these views come from videos licensed from news agencies or aggregated from the web.

“As media houses, we have less control on how and where content is consumed,” said Zach Leonard, managing director of digital for ESI Media. “That’s not an expression of relaxing, but recognition that a 14-year-old won’t be having a relationship with a newspaper but will be gathering their news by osmosis. It behooves us as brands to make sure we’re there.”

Broughton admits the size of The Independent’s video team is smaller than that of most other news brands. By comparison, the Guardian has around 35 people on its video team. Last year, The Telegraph reported it had 30 people on its video team, News UK’s title The Sun had about a dozen people working on video and the Financial Times had about 15 staff dedicated to video.

With the increase in team size, the number of videos it makes will increase, but Broughton is reluctant to establish a formal schedule for how many videos it plans to produce a week, saying this misdirects effort and focus.

“There are some areas we can strongly influence,” said Leonard. “In our case, that’s intense focus on the quality and efficacy of accurate journalism.”

We’ll recognize this year’s Best Video Publisher Partner for Brands at the Digiday Video Awards. Learn more about entering here.

Output: ESI Media, the owner of UK news website the Independent and Evening Standard newspaper, plans to double its video team to 50 staff, as it seeks to satisfy growing audience appetite for the format. Next month, the Independent will package all its video content under a new name and separate landing page, but editor Christian Broughton is unwilling to formalise how much content will be produced and published each week. In July, the Independent had 140 million views of its videos, almost all from Facebook, where they were viewed on average about 570,000 times.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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'Dieselgate' scandal blamed for 5,000 European deaths a year
 Emissions from diesel cars rigged to appear eco-friendly may be responsible for 5,000 air pollution deaths per year in Europe alone, according to a new study

Emissions from diesel cars rigged to appear eco-friendly may be responsible for 5,000 air pollution deaths per year in Europe alone, according to a study published on Monday.

The numbers are in line with previous assessments of deaths due to the so-called "Dieselgate" scandal, which erupted when carmaker Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating on vehicle emissions tests.

Many other carmakers have since fallen under suspicion.

In May this year, a study in the journal Nature said "excess" emissions from diesel vehicles exceeding certification limits were associated with about 38,000 "premature" deaths globally in 2015.

The new study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, focuses on the perils for Europe.

The researchers from Norway, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands calculated that about 10,000 deaths in Europe per year can be attributed to small particle pollution from light duty diesel vehicles (LDDVs).

Almost half of these would have been avoided if emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from diesel cars on the road had matched levels measured in the lab.

Volkswagen admitted installing illegal software devices in cars that reduced emissions only for the duration of tests.

If diesel cars emitted as little NOx as petrol ones, almost 4,000 of the 5,000 premature deaths would have been avoided, said the authors.

The concentration of fine particulate matter due to excess NOx emissions from diesel cars, vans and light commercial vehicles across Europe. Blue colors indicate low concentrations, orange and red indicates high extra pollution. Unit: microgram PM2.5 per cubic metre, annual average 2013. Credit: Jonson et al 2017

The countries with the heaviest burden are Italy, Germany, and France, the team added, "resulting from their large populations and high share of diesel cars in their national fleets."

Touted as less polluting, the share of diesel cars in Europe rose fast compared to petrol since the 1990s, and now comprise about half the fleet.

There are more than 100 million diesel cars in Europe today, twice as many as in the rest of the world together, said the study authors.

Diesel engines emit less planet-warming carbon dioxide than petrol ones, but significantly more NOx.

Number of premature deaths due to excess NOx emissions from diesel cars, vans and light commercial vehicles in Europe (left column). Almost 50% could be have been avoided if diesel emission limits had been respected on the road (center column). Almost 80% could have been avoided had diesel cars emitted no more NOx than petrol cars (right column). Credit: Jonson et al 2017

Road transport, said the study authors, contributed about 40 percent of NOx emissions in the countries of the European Union plus Norway and Switzerland.

Composed of nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, NOx gases contribute to acid rain and suffocating smog.

Through long-term exposure, they can cause breathing problems, eye irritation, loss of appetite, corroded teeth, headaches, and chronically reduced lung function.

The central value is 9,830 premature deaths annually in EU28+NOR+SWI, with an uncertainty range from 6,300 to 13,000 premature deaths. Direct health impacts from NO2 have not been included to avoid double-counting. Remaining 20 EUR countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden. They account for 23% of the population, but only for 10% of the premature deaths from dieselgate. For comparison the top four countries have 50% of the population and 70% of the dieselgate premature deaths. Credit: Jonson et al 2017

"Excessive premature deaths will continue into the future until LDDVs with high on-road NOx emissions have been replaced," said the study authors.

Earlier this month, tougher emissions tests came into force in Europe.

© 2017 AFP

Output: Almost half the 10,000 deaths in Europe a year caused by small particle pollution from diesel engines could have been avoided had diesel vehicles' emissions matched levels measured in labs, according to a study. Researchers from Austria, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden found Europe had more than 100 million diesel vehicles, with Italy, France and Germany having the largest share. About 4,000 of the 5,000 premature deaths could have been avoided if the diesel vehicles' NOx emissions were no worse than those of petrol-engined vehicles. The figures are consistent with earlier research into the "dieselgate" scandal over Volkswagen cheating emissions tests.


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Why Are Drug Prices So High? We’re Curious, Too
 Along the way, we’ve asked readers to share their stories about their struggles with high drug costs. We’ve heard from nearly 1,000 people.

In recent weeks, a few stories caught our eye. A woman in Texas, for example, told us that the company that manages her drug benefits, OptumRx, was going to start asking her to pay more out of pocket for Butrans, a painkilling patch that contains the drug buprenorphine. As a “lower cost alternative,” OptumRx, which is owned by UnitedHealth Group, suggested she try painkillers like OxyContin, according to a letter she shared with us, even though they carry a higher risk of abuse and dependence.

“The whole point of pain management is to take the least amount of medication possible to manage your pain, so that you always have somewhere to go when the pain increases or changes,” she wrote to us. “This is irresponsible and scary ‘cost management.’ ” She did not want us to use her name, saying her employer prohibited her from identifying herself, but she allowed us to share OptumRx’s redacted letter.

Her pharmacy benefit manager, she wrote, is “effectively contributing to the ‘opioid crisis’ with its own policies.”

Output: This much is clear: The public is angry about the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs. Surveys have shown that high drug prices rank near the top of consumers’ health care concerns, and politicians in both parties — including President Trump — have vowed to do something about it.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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New CA Legislation Will Widen Healthcare Access
 On Sept. 11, the California legislature passed health care bill SB 17, which requires pharmaceutical companies to release critical information on how major drugs are priced. SB 17 — although not yet signed by Gov. Jerry Brown — received support from both Republicans and Democrats in the waning hours of the 2017 legislative session. Many proponents from both sides believe that the bill could revolutionize national health care policy, as it would check the power of an increasingly monopolized business.

Specifically, the measure requires that pharmaceuticals make three important pieces of information public: the 25 most commonly prescribed drugs, the 25 most costly drugs and the 25 drugs with the largest annual increase in price. In addition, SB 17 forces manufacturers to report any increase in the cost of their products at least 60 days in advance if it exceeds a certain threshold.

Unsurprisingly, drug manufacturers are not pleased. If SB 17 goes into effect, big pharmaceutical companies would no longer have the power to raise the price of major drugs without receiving at least some kind of backlash. Public silence is what these companies feed on, allowing them to get away with limiting free enterprise and maximizing profit on their products.

Pharmaceutical companies’ ability to take advantage of that monopoly is highlighted in a 2014 Express Script report, which states that Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s supply of opioids despite representing only 5 percent of the population. Powerful painkillers are, undoubtedly, addictive and have serious side effects, and the fact that most Americans have a full bottle stocked in their cabinets at home is not to be taken lightly. In fact, the opioid epidemic, now deemed a national emergency by the Trump administration, was responsible for 28,000 American deaths in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of these fatalities were from prescribed medications.

The issue is indicative of most manufacturers’ reckless disregard for public health; knowing that doctors over-prescribe drugs without properly weaning patients off of them, pharmaceuticals have made a business out of creating potentially harmful products and selling them to consumers who likely did not need the medication in the first place. Indeed, the more money rolls in from the hordes of drug-abusing Americans, the easier it is to push ethical boundaries in the industry. Put simply, big manufacturers undermine national health care policy by shifting the focus from the well-being of American citizens to the potential profits that can be made by big business.

The aforementioned evils of Big Pharma are personified in one formidable public enemy: Martin Shkreli. Those familiar with his name might remember him as the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, a manufacturer that primarily markets the drugs Daraprim and Vecamyl. In 2015, Shkreli — otherwise known as the “most hated man in America” — sparked national uproar after he raised the price of Daraprim, which treats malaria and AIDS, by over 5,000 percent. Shkreli was later arrested for fraud.

Like Shkreli, a large number of these companies do not care about meeting public health needs because they have more important things on their minds — like money. In other words, major manufacturers can sleep well at night knowing that they jeopardized the health of millions if it meant making a quick billion. And, while it is true that some pharmaceuticals may be unfairly demonized by a bad apple, the impersonality embodied by Shkreli is still largely characteristic of the direction the industry is going in.

The California legislature should be commended for its decision to tackle pharmaceuticals like Turing during this year’s session. In addition to SB 17, lawmakers introduced measure AB 265, which cuts discounts to pricier drugs when more affordable alternatives are available. If successful, the bill would limit manufacturers’ ability to manipulate consumers by tempting them with seemingly less expensive brands. Also notable is AB 315, a bill that focuses on regulating pharmacy benefit managers, who are largely responsible for driving up the cost of prescription medication.

Missing from the equation in these measures, however, is public knowledge of the situation — which is why SB 17 will be critical if signed into law. In matters as important as healthcare, each citizen deserves to know how his or her access to essential medication is being impacted by big pharmaceutical companies. College students, and those transitioning into a life of self-sufficiency, should be able to know much their EpiPens might cost in a few years.

While insurers usually take much of the blow from rising drug prices, SB 17 is a step in the right direction. Our legislators cannot have informed, productive conversations with pharmaceuticals if there is not at least some level of transparency. As mentioned before, drug companies have too long been held unaccountable for the prices of their products, and measures like SB 17 are necessary checks on their power, albeit small ones.

If Brown signs this bill, perhaps other states will follow suit — and the nation can take back public health for the sake of health.

Output: On Sept. 11, the California legislature passed health care bill SB 17, which requires pharmaceutical companies to release critical information on how major drugs are priced. SB 17 — although not yet signed by Gov. Jerry Brown — received support from both Republicans and Democrats in the waning hours of the 2017 legislative session.


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Will Epic's new record-sharing tool solve interoperability challenges?
 "This sounds like a very positive incremental improvement in the use of patient portals in the Epic customer base," said Dr. David Kibbe, CEO of the not-for-profit governance group DirectTrust. "But it doesn't seem to me to be a global solution. The most obvious limitation is that it's available only to customers of Epic who also have MyChart accounts," he said, referring to Epic's patient portal.

According to Charles Christian, vice president of technology and engagement at the Indiana Health Information Exchange, Share Everywhere doesn't quite count as interoperability. "It's not really moving data around but providing access to it."

Pamela McNutt, chief information officer at Dallas-based Methodist Health System, agreed, calling Share Everywhere "another vehicle for access to very important information. It's really exciting, and it's moving us closer to a patient having a personal health record that they can control." Her system, which uses Epic, will advertise the new feature on its website and when it encourages new patients to sign up for MyChart.

Epic argues that this kind of data exchange does indeed qualify as interoperability and, more importantly, makes that interoperability patient-directed, said Sean Bina, Epic's vice president of access applications. "Whether traveling internationally, receiving home care, or simply seeking a second opinion, patient-driven interoperability is now a reality even when the caregiver doesn't have an interoperable EHR," he said.

Patient control over medical records is a requirement under meaningful use, which specifies that patients are supposed to be able to view, download and transmit their data. Epic's Share Everywhere achieves the crucial "transmit" portion of that trio, centering the data around the patient rather than around a single provider and maintaining a patient's privacy under HIPAA along the way, since the patient is the one moving the information.

The industry has long touted the potential benefits of patient-centered care, calling it an important part of the Triple Aim, since it will improve outcomes and lower costs. But, Christian said, "at times, we may be asking too much of the patients." Sometimes, he said, patients want providers to initiate the exchange of data.

"It's an idea that makes a ton of sense, to put patients in the middle of interoperability," said Dr. Christopher Longhurst, CIO for UC San Diego Health. But, he said, he's found that "when you ask our patients, most of them tell you they don't want to be in the middle."

Epic's Care Everywhere—not to be confused with Share Everywhere—helps in that quest. Using the technology, organizations exchange 2 million records per day with Epic and other vendors' systems. Epic is also a member of Carequality, an initiative of the Sequoia Project whose framework supports data transfer among its members. Carequal- ity members will soon be able to exchange data with members of the Commonwell Health Alliance, co-founded by Epic market rival Cerner Corp., greatly expanding interoperability.

Share Everywhere will be available for free in November to Epic users. Epic declined to say what the average cost of implementing its EHR is. But installing new systems can be expensive: The installation of an Epic EHR at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville this fall, for instance, is estimated to cost $214 million.

Asked if providers might be drawn to purchase Epic because of Share Everywhere. Longhurst said likely not. "It's not a game-changer," he said.

Output: By most accounts, Epic Systems Corp.'s announcement that it was releasing a digital tool allowing patients to share their medical records with any provider was a huge leap toward reaching the ever-elusive digital exchange of medical information.


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CBO: ACA markets to see premium increases, stunted enrollment
 Dive Brief:

Premiums in next year’s Affordable Care Act plans will be about 15% higher than this year because of short-term market uncertainty, according to a report the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released Thursday.

The analysis also found that enrollment in these marketplace plans will increase slightly, but will be limited by reduced federal advertising and outreach efforts, as well as the higher premiums.

The reduced federal outreach includes cuts of up to 98% for community groups that help people enroll in ACA plans. The organizations began receiving notice of their new budgets late Wednesday, about two weeks after their previous funding ran out, Vox reported.

Dive Insight:

The CBO report lends credence to the theory that efforts from President Donald Trump’s administration to hamstring the ACA are working as intended. Trump hasn't backed away from his plan of letting the individual market “implode” in order to gain a bargaining chip for future healthcare reform discussions.

At the beginning of the month, HHS said the overall advertising budget for the ACA was being cut by 90%. With massive budget cuts and the delay in receiving the funding, ACA navigator groups have been laying off employees and suspending some of their projects.

HHS argues the navigator groups are ineffective and have accounted for only a small number of enrollees each year. Advocates for the navigators say the numbers don’t tell the whole story. In addition to coaching ACA enrollment, the navigators help people access care after they obtains insurance and work with employers on ACA compliance. They also reach out to minority groups in their community to further knowledge of coverage options.

The CBO’s finding of premium increases because of likely market instability mirrors other analyses that show higher costs in early premium rate filings. The agency said one major cause for the instability is the uncertainty that payers will continue to receive cost-sharing reductions (CSR). Insurers have strongly urged future payments be assured, warning that otherwise they will have to leave the ACA marketplaces or substantially increase premiums. The CBO agrees.

There have been bipartisan talks in support of legislation to secure the future of CSR payments, but some Republicans instead continue to push for full ACA repeal. Meanwhile, 58 counties are at risk of having no ACA plan options next year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Output: Premiums in next year’s Affordable Care Act plans will be about 15% higher than this year because of short-term market uncertainty, according to a report the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released Thursday.


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One Little Medicaid Waiver Could Spell Big Changes
 WASHINGTON -- Medicaid may have escaped deep cuts this summer, after several repeal and replace bills foundered in the Senate, but the administration has another vehicle for implementing conservative-friendly changes on a state-by-state basis through the waiver process.

One particular waiver, crafted by Arkansas, if approved, could create a pathway for other "red" states to expand the program on their own terms by allowing a "partial expansion" of the program. In Arkansas's case, which already technically expanded Medicaid -- albeit in a nontraditional fashion -- the effect would actually be to disqualify some 60,000 current enrollees from the program.

The state's amended "Arkansas Works" waiver would roll back the income threshold for Medicaid eligibility from 138% of the federal poverty level to 100%. Those no longer qualifying could try to enroll in plans supported by federal tax credits or find employer-sponsored insurance. the state's Medicaid agency said.

Arkansas also wants a "work requirement" for enrollees ages 18-49 who are "able-bodied" with no dependents. They must find paying jobs, volunteer positions, or participate in work training programs for at least 20 hours a week, J.R. Davis, a spokesman for Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), told MedPage Today in a phone interview.

"If you want this coverage you have to be able to put some skin in the game," Davis said.

Those who do not meet the requirement, and who lack an exemption, will be dropped from the program and blocked from re-enrollment, the ARMedicaid website noted.

Arkansas Expansion

Arkansas initially expanded Medicaid under a different waiver under Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe in 2013. That waiver allowed the state to use Medicaid expansion dollars to provide private insurance. This was known as the "private option."

So instead of increasing Medicaid eligibility the state directed those federal dollars to would-be Medicaid recipients who could then choose plans on the exchanges, Nicholas Bagley, JD, of the University of Michigan, explained in The Incidental Economist.

For the 60,000 people who are expected to lose coverage by scaling back Medicaid expansion eligibility, Davis said the subsidies will allow them to access coverage, just as it does for those who are currently on the exchanges.

"With the limited amount of resources from the state, we want to focus those resources on those who need it most," Bagley wrote.

Medicaid is jointly run by the states and federal government. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion was intended to increase eligibility to most adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. The federal government would provide 100% of the funding for the expansion population, in the first few years, with that percentage tapering off after that.

The ACA allows states to seek waivers from some of its requirements. Several states contemplated expanding Medicaid eligibility only to those at 100% of the federal poverty level instead of the usual 138%, but that idea was soundly rejected by the Obama administration.

The new administration under Trump may take a rosier view of similar proposals.

If "red" states needed a sign, Seema Verma, the new administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), helped craft Indiana's "Republican-friendly [Medicaid] expansion." Indiana's program required Medicaid recipients to make small monthly payments or lose coverage.

Reactions

If the new Arkansas waiver is approved it could have a trickle-down effect on states that had resisted expansion in the past, said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

"I think it would certainly send a signal to the Rick Scotts and the Greg Abbotts to say ... 'Potentially we could do this,'" Salo told MedPage Today, referring to the Republican governors of Florida and Texas, respectively.

While some states may choose to expand eligibility to 138% of federal poverty level, the right cut-off for others may be 100% or even 75%.

But expansion, even on a lesser scale, is still a win for the enrollees in most states, he said.

"People, single adults, between 0% and 100% of poverty are uninsured. If Florida does an expansion up to 70% or 80%, that's a whole bunch of people who would have coverage who didn't before," Salo said.

Marquita Little, health policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children, is skeptical that people will easily transition to a marketplace plan and receive comparable coverage at comparable costs using tax credits. She noted the uncertainty surrounding the exchange marketplaces given the atmosphere in Washington.

The state doesn't have a good track record for smooth transitions, she added, pointing to a a renewal process in 2015 that left some people not realizing their coverage had lapsed until they showed up for doctor's appointments.

Waivers are intended to pursue the objective of the Medicaid program, observed Joan Alker, executive director for the Center for Children and Families.

"Taking coverage away from people ... unless you're 100% certain everybody's going to get coverage and they're going to get just as good coverage," doesn't meet that objective, she argued.

Davis, the governor's spokesman, insisted the transition wouldn't be a problem.

"There's facts versus fiction. The facts are they will be able to go onto the exchange and we have staff at the Department of Health and Human Services who will be able to help them," he said.

'On CMS Time'

Bagley told MedPage Today in an email that advocacy groups "can and probably will bring lawsuits," but there are credible arguments on both sides.

"On the one hand, it's a little awkward to say that restricting Medicaid eligibility advances the objectives of the program," he said. But, he added, "Arkansas might be able to argue that the 100-to-138 expansion population will have more choices if they can use premium tax credits to shop for coverage instead of Medicaid dollars."

The courts generally defer to HHS on waivers, but will "definitely put the agency through its paces," he wrote.

Four other states -- Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, and Massachusetts -- currently have Medicaid expansion waivers pending with CMS, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. All but the Bay State's include a work requirement, and Indiana and Kentucky would lock out enrollees if they fail to renew eligibility by certain deadlines.

As for when a decision on Arkansas's application is expected, William Golden, MD, medical director for Arkansas Department of Human Services/Medicaid, said in an email that he expected to have a decision by now but heard it had been delayed by the recent hurricanes.

"We are on CMS time," he wrote.

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Output: Medicaid may have escaped deep cuts this summer, after several repeal and replace bills foundered in the Senate, but the administration has another vehicle for implementing conservative-friendly changes on a state-by-state basis through the waiver process.


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Buried Inside Bernie Sanders’s Bill: A Fallback Plan
 The Bernie Sanders “Medicare for All” plan promises rapid, sweeping change to the American health care system, with the elimination of all private insurance and the creation of a costly new government insurance program that will cover everyone and nearly every medical service.

But deep in its back pages is a more modest fallback plan.

The bill, introduced this week, has attracted the endorsement of 15 Democratic senators, including several of the party’s most ambitious liberals. But many more Democrats this week said they’d like to pursue more limited steps to expand health insurance coverage and the government’s role in the system. It turns out that the Sanders bill also has provisions along those lines. Taken together, the bill encapsulates much of the coming Democratic debate about the direction of health care.

In the statements of the bill’s co-sponsors, one can detect an openness to less transformational approaches to health reform. “This bill is aspirational, and I’m hopeful that it can serve as a starting point for where we need to go as a country,” Senator Al Franken of Minnesota wrote in a Facebook post. He described the bill as a “marker” and “one way to achieve universal coverage.”

Parts of the Sanders bill help establish a road map for what some other strategies might look like.

The provisions are tucked into Title X of the bill and describe the four-year transition between current policy and the Sanders bill’s goal of a Medicare-for-all system. During that interim, some younger Americans would be able to buy access to the traditional Medicare program, which is now mainly for those 65 and up. The provisions would also establish an option for Americans to buy access to a Medicare-like government plan that would be sold on the Obamacare exchanges.

Output: The Bernie Sanders “Medicare for All” plan promises rapid, sweeping change to the American health care system, with the elimination of all private insurance and the creation of a costly new government insurance program that will cover everyone and nearly every medical service.


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How Trump Is Making Obamacare More Expensive
 President Trump’s threats and actions to undermine Obamacare come at a cost: In a report released Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office projects that premiums for benchmark silver plans will increase by an average of 15 percent next year.

The nonpartisan budget referee expects premiums for those plans to rise by 5 percent a year until 2027. But the projected jump for next year is much steeper, the CBO says, “largely because of short-term market uncertainty—in particular, insurers’ uncertainty about whether federal funding for certain subsidies that are currently available will continue to be provided— and an increase in the percentage of the population living in areas with only one insurer in the marketplace.”

The Trump administration has not yet said whether it will continue to pay roughly $7 billion a year for so-called cost-sharing reductions — subsidies that help reduce deductibles and co-pays for low-income enrollees. In the meantime, it has slashed spending on advertising and outreach, and shortened the enrollment period to six weeks from about three months. This week, the Department of Health and Human Services told groups that assist with Obamacare enrollments that their budgets will be cut, in some cases by more than 90 percent. (For more on the effects of these cuts, check out this piece at Vox by Lori Lodes, the former director of the office of communications at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.)

As a result of those cuts to programs driving signups and of the higher premiums it expects, CBO also projects future enrollment through Obamacare exchanges to be lower than it had previously forecast. A March 2016 CBO report projected that about 18 million Americans would be covered through the Obamacare marketplaces by 2018. The new report projects that enrollment will climb from 10 million this year to 11 million next year and then stabilize at around 12 million from 2019 through 2027.

CBO last month said that if President Trump followed through on his threat to cut federal cost-sharing subsidies, silver plan premiums would rise by an average of 20 percent next year and, as a result, the federal deficit would climb by $194 billion through 2026 as the cost of government tax credits increased along with the rising premiums.

Insurers have until September 27 to decide whether and how they will participate in Obamacare markets.

Output: President Trump’s threats and actions to undermine Obamacare come at a cost: In a report released Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office projects that premiums for benchmark silver plans will increase by an average of 15 percent next year.


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Windsor retirement community celebrates 80 years in Glendale
 Residents enjoyed a musical performance Wednesday by Ann Louise Christensen on piano and Jennifer Hall on the saxophone, at Windsor Retirement Community, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary.

Windsor, a continuing-care retirement community in Glendale, celebrated its 80th anniversary last week.

Elderly residents say frequent social activities are just part of living there.

The 3.5-acre facility invited its roughly 140 residents, as well as friends and family, to mark the occasion with food, dancing and live music.

Almost 200 attendees were joined by Councilwoman Paula Devine and representatives from Mayor Vartan Gharpetian’s and state Sen. Anthony Portantino’s offices to award a special commendation to Windsor.

“I truly commend your passion and dedication in providing excellent health and patient care services to our community,” Gharpetian wrote in the letter.

Opened in 1937 as a United Presbyterian home for Glendale seniors, the facility later became Windsor and is the only senior community that offers a residential retirement housing, assisted living and skilled nursing facility in one location.

Windsor is part of the nonprofit senior housing organization HumanGood.

Looking ahead, Leif Cameron, who joined Windsor as executive director a year and a half ago, said the community is transitioning from long-term custodial care to short-term stays.

He added that the community social outings will remain consistent.

“We allocated a little more money to [the anniversary] but we try and make all of our community events special,” Cameron said.

Barbara Estlow, 82, worked at Windsor as a type of do-all receptionist for 16 years before she decided to spend 14 years as a resident.

“There isn’t any resident here that I can’t eat a meal with,” Estlow said.

Roger Thisdell, 87, and Patricia Wayner, 81, met while living on the third floor. They’ve been in a relationship for almost a year.

Wayner arrived to Windsor about two years ago after her husband died. Her daughter, living near Windsor, recommended the community.

“Little by little, I found that this is a very good place to live,” she said.

Thisdell has lived in Glendale for 60 years and made the community his home after his wife died.

“There’s a lot of entertainment and mixing with all the other different people here,” Thisdell said.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

Output: Windsor, a continuing-care retirement community in Glendale, celebrated its 80th anniversary last week. Elderly residents say frequent social activities are just part of living there. The 3.5-acre facility invited its roughly 140 residents, as well as friends and family, to mark the occasion with food, dancing and live music.


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Talking to older adults about health prognosis may be helpful
 Prognosis is the term for the most likely outcome of a medical condition. When it comes to health care, talking about your prognosis can be difficult for you, your family/friends, and even your healthcare providers. However, many of us prefer to talk to our healthcare providers about the expected course of an illness and about our life expectancy when living with a chronic or terminal illness. This is according to new research on advanced care planning (the technical term for having early conversations with our healthcare providers about our care needs, preferences, and expectations).

In a new study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, researchers examined how older adults with disabilities later in life might react to learning their prognosis, and how they evaluated their own prognosis compared to "official" estimates.

The study participants were 35 adults 70-years-old and older from four geriatrics clinics in the San Francisco Bay area. All the participants required help with daily activities, and they all participated in a 45-minute interview as part of the study.

The researchers asked older adults questions about how they would want to receive information about their life expectancy. For example, did they prefer hearing or reading news about their prognosis? Would they prefer receiving information about their prognosis while at home by themselves?

Additionally, participants circled the shortest, longest, and most likely number of years they thought they might live on a scale from zero to 30 years. Researchers then offered to give the participants an estimate of life expectancy with a visual presentation using an estimate system created for people older than age 50. Next, participants were given the option to see their prognosis. If they chose to see it, they discussed their reactions with the researchers. Afterward, researchers asked the participants 10 questions about their feelings based on hearing about estimated life expectancy. The researchers called the participants two to four weeks later to check on their reactions as a follow-up.

Over the course of the study, the researchers learned that:

16 participants (46 percent) had life expectancy estimates that were within two years of the "most likely" estimate from a healthcare professional.

15 participants (43 percent) over-estimated their own life expectancy by more than two years compared to the "most likely" estimate.

4 participants (11 percent) under-estimated their own life expectancy by more than two years compared to the "most likely" estimate.

Overall, 30 participants (86 percent) estimated their life expectancy in a way that at least overlapped with the "official" estimated calculation.

The researchers concluded that most older adults wanted a health care practitioner to be present when discussing life expectancy. People in the study did not react with sadness or anxiety when they learned about life expectancies, though several disputed the calculated results.

"Health care practitioners may offer to discuss life expectancy with their older, disabled patients and expect the patients to tie the information into their own life narratives," said the researchers.

According to other research, key reasons for a healthcare professional's reluctance to have these discussions with their older adults may include:

Fear of taking away hope

Concern for a negative reaction

Time restraints

Poor training

Worry about giving someone a mistaken prognosis, leading to incorrect information about a person's future

Addressing these and other important concerns remains key to advance care planning, which has been shown to improve the quality of care we receive as we age.

More information: Theresa W. Wong et al, Prognosis Communication in Late-Life Disability: A Mixed Methods Study, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2017). DOI: 10.1111/jgs.15025 Journal information: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

Output: Prognosis is the term for the most likely outcome of a medical condition. When it comes to health care, talking about your prognosis can be difficult for you, your family/friends, and even your healthcare providers. However, many of us prefer to talk to our healthcare providers about the expected course of an illness and about our life expectancy when living with a chronic or terminal illness.


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Young Africans' professional development boosted by edtech
 Young Africans are honing their business leadership skills through online courses

Jens is an African edtech expert and founder of Apps-for-learning.com, a comparison site that presents the various e-learning and m-learning providers available in Africa and compares them in terms of their prices, and the type and quality of courses on offer.

The population of Africa is getting younger. Young people make up on average two thirds of the African population—and counting.

Drawing on these figures, the UN recently questioned whether Africa's increasingly youthful population is, ‘A Ticking Time Bomb Or An Opportunity?’

With old people traditionally occupying the roles of leaders simply due to their age, new models of leadership are needed to harness the power of Africa's growing numbers of young people.

Young Africans can emerge as the global and national leaders of the future. But, adhering to traditional models of 'leadership through age' may make this difficult to achieve.

Young people in Africa are in need of educational technology—edtech—and strategies to develop their leadership skills. Learning technologies such as mobile apps and online courses are the way forward when it comes to inspiring and teaching a new generation of leaders in this continent.

Access

Inadequate infrastructure, poverty (and hence the need for young people to prioritise work over education), lack of trained teachers and a scarcity of schools are some of the key hurdles to education in Africa.

These problems are most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, though they are improving. Statistics show that net enrolment in primary school education right across Sub-Saharan Africa has grown from 58% in 1999 to 87% in the present day. This is promising as it demonstrates that there is a large appetite for education across Africa. The next generation of leaders is ready to spring into action.

This appetite needs to be met with appropriate learning resources. Online education is key here. In countries where infrastructure is poor, online education enables students to learn from their own homes. And, in big universities such as Cape Town or Kenyatta University, online courses can provide valuable supplements to classroom based studies.

Throughout Africa, both global and regional online course providers have sprung up, each with different approaches and pricing models.

Globally too, 100% online MBA and master’s programs—like Birmingham Business School’s AMBA-accredited Online MBA or Nottingham Business School’s Online MBA With Big Data Analytics—give Africans easy access to high-quality education from top tier institutions.

Bridging the skills gap

Far from being a nebulous concept, leadership is something that can (and should) be taught. Though to an extent good leaders may be said to be born, not made, anyone can be taught to grasp and apply leadership skills like clear communication, dispute resolution, managing teams and resources.

Providing young Africans with access to educational institutions which teach them leadership skills is crucial. However, as it stands, some countries (such as Kenya and South Africa) lead the way in terms of their density of schools and the quality of their universities. Other countries (such as Somalia) are lagging behind.

A leadership skills 'gap' is developing between students in countries with good quality education infrastructure and a high level of living standards, and students in countries with poorer living standards and an inadequate education infrastructure.

E-learning and m-learning, because they make learning available to all, help to bridge this skills gap. When you have access to online courses, you can study wherever you are.

Output: Online education is helping to provide young people in Africa with access to professional development in business and leadership. Regional providers of online courses have appeared throughout the continent, along with global institutions such as Birmingham Business School, which provides an online MBA. These may help to address a leadership skills gap that has opened up between countries with good educational provision, such as Kenya and South Africa, and others such as Somalia, which are lagging behind.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Payment platform Vindi secures $1.8m from Criatec2
 São Paulo, Brazil-based payment platform Vindi raised U$1.8M (R$ 5.8m) in funding.

Criatec2 fund, managed by Bozano Investimentos, made the investment.

The company intends to use the funds to move to new headquarters to accommodate around 80 employees, to make investments in technology, growth, and acquisitions of other fintechs.

Founded in 2013 by Rodrigo Dantas, CEO, Vindi provides is the leader in payment solutions in signatures, plans and monthly payments in Brazil targeting the retail and service sector. The company’s payment processing platform features more than hundreds of different integrations with banks, credit card acquirers and financial solutions.

Clients include Multiplus, Editora Abril, Thomson Reuters, VivaReal, Movile and some of the fastest growing startups in the country.

In four years, Vindi has has accumulated acquired Aceita Fácil (2016) and Smartbill.

SP

Tel.: (Vindi) +55 (11) 5904-7380

https://www.vindi.com.br | https://www.smartbill.com.br

Output: Brazilian payment platform Vindi has raised $1.8m in funding from the Criatec2 venture capital fund. Vindi's platform provides the retail and service sector with payment solutions from an array of banks and credit card acquirers. The new funds will be used to invest in technology, growth, and acquisitions, as well as enabling the company to move to a bigger headquarters.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Japan becomes dominant bitcoin market following Chinese bans
 Japan has once again become the largest Bitcoin exchange market with 50.75 percent market share of the global Bitcoin exchange market. Analysts including BitFury Vice Chairman George Kikvadze attributed the surge in the trading volume of the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market to the exit of Bitcoin traders in China.

Earlier this week, the Chinese government, local authorities and financial regulators officially requested Chinese Bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms to halt their services by the end of September. OKCoin and Huobi, the two largest exchanges in China, were granted leeway to operate until Oct. 30, considering the fact that they have not been involved in any initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the past.

But, it seems as if traders are not willing to take any chances with the Chinese government and their unpredictable nature. The Chinese Bitcoin exchange market’s daily trading volume has halved within a period of three days, from 15 percent to less than seven percent.

According to various trusted Bitcoin market data providers such as CryptoCompare, China only accounts for 6.4 percent of global Bitcoin trades at the time of reporting.

CryptoCompare shows that Japan accounts for over 50% of all #bitcoin trades. Chinese traders have already moved to Japan. China less than 7% pic.twitter.com/t7YRaL5jv3 — Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) September 17, 2017

US market benefits

Prior to the nationwide Bitcoin exchange ban by China, the US exchange market had consistently secured its position as the largest market in the world.

However, almost immediately after the announcement of the country’s three largest Bitcoin exchanges, BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin, were released, traders moved over to the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market. The abrupt migration of traders led to the short-term surge in the trading volume of Japan, allowing the market to overtake the US by over 20 percent in global Bitcoin exchange market share.

Contrary to many negative reports, prominent developers, analysts, researchers and experts within the cryptocurrency and Blockchain sectors including Litecoin creator Charlie Lee and billionaire investor Tim Draper expressed their optimism toward the shutdown of the Chinese Bitcoin exchange market. Lee emphasized that the Chinese government will no longer be able to manipulate the market, as it had done since 2013.

Lee says:

“This is a good thing. China can no longer play with the markets by banning Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency cannot be killed by any country. One solution to centralized exchanges is decentralized ones. I hear the Decred Project team has something cooking that helps with that.”

Bitcoin stabilization

As Lee emphasized, the exit of the Chinese Bitcoin exchange market should really only have affected around 10 to 15 percent of traders in the global Bitcoin exchange market. Yet, speculators and impatient traders initiated a major sell-off as the Chinese government banned exchanges, leading to a major correction on Bitcoin price.

Over the next few weeks, the global Bitcoin exchange market will stabilize, as traders move from the Chinese market to South Korea and Japan, two markets that have developed significantly more efficient regulations, industry standards and policies for both cryptocurrency exchanges and users.

It is likely that as Lee and Draper noted, the closure of the Chinese Bitcoin exchange market could lead to the stabilization of the global Bitcoin exchange market, which may be beneficial for Bitcoin in the long run.

Output: Japan has overtaken the US to become the world's largest bitcoin exchange market. The move follows the Chinese authorities' order to bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms to cease trading by the end of September. Traders subsequently switched in huge numbers to the Japanese market, giving it a 20% greater market share than the US. Many see the Chinese ban as beneficial for the global bitcoin exchange market, as the Japanese and South Korean exchanges, with their improved regulations and increased standards, may bring stability to the sector.


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Californian biotech start-up aims to 3D print organs
 Startup of the week:

Who they are: Prellis Biologics

What they do: Make 3D-printed human organs

Why it’s cool: Every day, 20 people die waiting for an organ transplant, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The country is facing a massive organ shortage — there were more than 116,000 people on the national transplant waitlist as of last month, but in 2016 just 33,611 transplant surgeries were performed. That’s because it’s difficult to find usable organs. Patients have to wait for a willing donor who is a match.

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Oakland startup delivers lunch, pulls young people out of poverty Technology | Meet the startup that’s prevented 25 child and teen suicides so far To solve the supply shortage, San Francisco-based startup Prellis is working on building human organs using a unique 3D printing technology. If a patient needed a new liver, for example, doctors would take a biopsy from his or her existing liver, and the Prellis scientists would harvest those liver cells and cultivate them, allowing them to multiply until there were enough to create a new organ. Then the scientists would embed those cells into a collagen-based goo, and use a laser light to shape the mixture into a liver.

“We think we’re going to extend the lives of millions of people with this technology,” said Noelle Mullin, who co-founded the startup in 2016 with fellow scientist Melanie Matheu.

And unlike with traditional organ donation, there’s no danger of a patient rejecting one of Prellis’ organs, because the organ is made from the patient’s own cells. That means there’s no need for the patient to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of his or her life.

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The process would be relatively speedy — the founders estimate it would take between two and four months to print an organ. They anticipate making a kidney for about $80,000, which is roughly the same price as a donor kidney.

Where they stand: Mullin and Matheu estimate they’ll be ready to print their first human organ in the next four to six years. In the meantime, they’re showcasing their technology by printing less complicated tissues. The scientists already have made working lymph nodes, which have successfully produced antibodies that Prellis can market to drug companies.

Next, the founders are going to try printing the cells that make insulin — called islet cells — which are found in the human pancreas. Those working cells can be implanted in a patient with diabetes, eliminating the need for insulin shots and daily blood sugar tests. Prellis hopes to start clinical trials with its islet cells by 2021.

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The company on Tuesday secured $1.8 million in seed funding, led by True Ventures.

To learn more, visit www.prellisbio.com.http://www.prellisbio.com

What will they think of next?

It’s a common scenario: you’re enjoying a day out and about in San Francisco, and you run into a problem — the city has very few public bathrooms. Even places like Starbucks won’t always let you use their facilities. Good2Go, an app that launched Thursday in San Francisco, hopes to help users find clean restrooms in nearby businesses. Once users enter a business that’s registered with the app, they join the virtual line for the bathroom, and the app notifies them when it’s their turn. The app even unlocks the bathroom door as they approach.

Users can download Good2Go free for a limited time. The app gives them access to restrooms in San Francisco at several Peet’s Coffee locations, Sextant Coffee Roasters and The Creamery. Additional locations soon will be available at Rigolo Cafe, Church Street Cafe, Cafe La Boheme, Fifty-Fifty Cafe and more.

To learn more or download the app, visit www.good2go.global.

Run the numbers:

More than half of young adults eschew traditional TV and instead watch most of their favorite shows online, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center. About 61 percent of U.S. adults ages 18 to 29 primarily use online streaming to watch TV, compared with 31 percent who use a cable or satellite subscription. But older Americans are less likely to turn to online streaming. Just 10 percent of adults ages 50 to 64 primarily watch TV online, as do 5 percent of adults 65 and older. The study highlights how the internet is changing the way we access entertainment, news and other information, and the growing threat online streaming poses for traditional cable and satellite providers.

Output: A US biotech start-up is developing a system for 3D printing human organs, which could ease the shortage of donor organs. San Francisco-based Prellis Biologics has raised $1.8m in seed funding for the project, in a round led by True Ventures. The process would use a patient's own cells to cultivate and grow the organs, eliminating the possibility of rejection. The scientists estimate it would take between two and four months and cost about $80,000 to make a kidney, which is similar to the price tag for a donor organ.


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Pioneer of key AI technique casts doubt on the technology's future
 In 1986, Geoffrey Hinton co-authored a paper that, three decades later, is central to the explosion of artificial intelligence. But Hinton says his breakthrough method should be dispensed with, and a new path to AI found.

Speaking with Axios on the sidelines of an AI conference in Toronto on Wednesday, Hinton, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and a Google researcher, said he is now "deeply suspicious" of back-propagation, the workhorse method that underlies most of the advances we are seeing in the AI field today, including the capacity to sort through photos and talk to Siri. "My view is throw it all away and start again," he said.

The bottom line: Other scientists at the conference said back-propagation still has a core role in AI's future. But Hinton said that, to push materially ahead, entirely new methods will probably have to be invented. "Max Planck said, 'Science progresses one funeral at a time.' The future depends on some graduate student who is deeply suspicious of everything I have said."

How it works: In back propagation, labels or "weights" are used to represent a photo or voice within a brain-like neural layer. The weights are then adjusted and readjusted, layer by layer, until the network can perform an intelligent function with the fewest possible errors.

But Hinton suggested that, to get to where neural networks are able to become intelligent on their own, what is known as "unsupervised learning," "I suspect that means getting rid of back-propagation."

"I don't think it's how the brain works," he said. "We clearly don't need all the labeled data."

Output: Geoffrey Hinton, co-author of the 1986 paper that brought the back-propagation neural network to the attention of the AI community, has said that the technique should now be jettisoned. Back-propogation uses labelled data to train a network, reweighting the calculations made by its artificial "neurons" repeatedly until the labels produced as outputs match the labels on the data used for the training inputs. Hinton now suggests that that this is not how the human brain works, and that back-propagation needs to be replaced with "unsupervised" learning methods to move AI forward.