May 2010

Bloggers Ponder the Meaning of Life

Bloggers often seem more interested in scientific discoveries than the traditional press. And last week, one such scientific achievement led the online conversation despite receiving very little coverage in the mainstream media.

For the week of May 17-21, fully 20% of the news links on blogs were about the American scientists who developed the first living cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The nuanced discussion of so-called "artificial life" centered on three major themes: the importance and potential of the breakthrough; whether the act of creating synthetic cells is ethical; and the significance of the achievement in our understanding of God and religion.

CBO Scores DISCLOSE Act

The Congressional Budget Office has completed a cost estimate for the DISCLOSE Act (H.R. 5175).

The bill would amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require that additional campaign-spending information be reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and that additional information be made available to the public. In addition, the legislation would extend or create new prohibitions on political spending by certain government contractors, recipients of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and companies controlled by foreign nationals.

CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 5175 would cost $2 million in fiscal year 2011 and about $10 million over the 2011-2015 period, subject to appropriation of the necessary funds. Those amounts would cover additional administrative costs for the FEC to ensure compliance with the bill. Enacting H.R. 5175 could increase revenues and direct spending from the collection of civil and criminal penalties; therefore, pay-as-you go procedures would apply. However, CBO estimates that the net budgetary effect of any additional penalty collections would be negligible for each year.

Public Broadcasters Angered Over Orszag's Description of Grant Programs

Public broadcasters took aim at the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday (May 26) over a blog posting by OMB Director Peter Orszag that described a pair of technology grant programs as "duplicative and wasteful."

The Commerce Department's Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP) and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Service Digital Transition Grant Program have been in the administration's sights as part of a budget-cutting effort in which it was proposing zeroing out the funding -- $25 million combined -- for programs it said were primarily about the already-completed transition to digital. The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS counter that the two programs are essential.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Cable Technology But Were Afraid To Ask

Acronyms, nested acronyms, spoken acronyms. Wideband, IP, QAMs. Cable tech jargon has a beginning (the late 1940s), but it has no end. For that reason, we've put together this roundup of tech "translatables" -- to answer the unasked questions, and, at the least, to make you a capable tech-conversationalist.

Recovery Act's Data Reports Improving, States Say

States are becoming increasingly comfortable with the process for reporting data related to the Recovery Act, although it remains imperfect, according to an oversight report.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said this spring's quarterly reporting period for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act saw better data quality and that states reported the necessary information in "a relatively smooth fashion." "Overall, we're finding that the process is beginning, in a sense, to settle down and smooth out; that is, both federal agencies and, more importantly, recipients are getting far more comfortable, far more understanding of the requirements and the responsibilities to report under," said Chris Mihm, the GAO's managing director of strategic issues, in a podcast Wednesday. "So we're seeing less nonreporting recipients, better data that's in the system -- notwithstanding that there are still some issues, some significant issues, that need to be addressed in terms of inconsistencies in the data and data quality."

Health data exchange build starts this summer

By early July, the Office of the National Coordinator will announce the winners of 11 contracts for developing a health information exchange framework based on a model originated by federal homeland security agencies for sharing sensitive information over the Internet.

The National Information Exchange Model, or NIEM, is a technical approach to information sharing that federal agencies developed during the last decade, prompted by the need to share homeland security information quickly and securely. It is based on XML standards. Doug Fridsma, acting director of ONC's Office of Standards and Interoperability, told members of the Health IT Standards Committee Wednesday that vendors have been chosen for eight of the 11 contracts, but none will be announced until all 11 are chosen.

EU sets major investments in health IT, telemedicine

The European Commission is proposing ambitious, wide-ranging public investments in digital technologies that will allow it to tackle looming challenges, including the support of an aging population and limiting health care costs.

As part of a decade-long action plan, the EC has proposed establishing a number of major pilots throughout the European Union that will lead to all Europeans having secure, online access to their medical health data by 2015. The plan also calls for widespread deployment of telemedicine services by 2020. As the precursor to all of this, the EC is also proposing that a minimum, common set of patient data be defined that will allow patient records to be accessed or exchanged electronically across all of the EU's 27 member states by 2012.

ONC adds round of 'Beacon' community awards

The Office of National Coordinator (ONC) on Wednesday announced a new round of two additional "Beacon" awards totaling $30.3 million.

Earlier this month the ONC announced awards of $220 million to 15 Beacon communities across the nation from Maine to Hawaii that will serve as models for the broad use of healthcare information technology. The awardees will use health IT resources within their community as a foundation for bringing doctors, hospitals, community health programs, federal programs and patients together to design new ways of improving quality and efficiency to benefit patients and taxpayers. Officials said the additional awards will be made in the form of cooperative agreements to two qualified non-profit organizations or government entities representing geographic healthcare communities. According to the grant criteria selected communities must already be national leaders in the advancement of health IT, workflow redesign and care coordination, or quality monitoring and feedback. In addition, successful communities must have advanced rates of electronic health record adoption and health information exchange, and the readiness to incorporate health IT to advance community-level care coordination and quality monitoring and feedback. Cooperative agreement recipients will evolve and advance their existing competencies in these three areas over a 36-month performance period.

Can Local Television Afford Investigations?

An investigative unit is something of an anomaly in local television these days. In-depth investigative reporting is under siege on every platform in journalism and particularly in local television, where the majority of Americans still get their daily news.

Such reporting is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, not to mention potential fodder for lawsuits. It is also indispensable to a democratic society, shining a bright light on issues, injustices, and problems that otherwise remain hidden from public view. Still, it is difficult to measure the return on investment from investigative reporting in dollars or ratings. As audiences and revenues continue to decline in an increasingly fragmented news landscape, even stations committed to quality investigative work must continually ask: Can we still afford it? Here's how one station makes that calculation.

6 smart grid hurdles ahead

In a report, PricewaterhouseCoopers sees six growing pains for smart grids ahead even though pilots are underway in 33 states:

Capital expenses. 62 percent of utilities cited smart grid projects as the reason for increasing capital spending and 64 percent see expenditures increasing in 2011. The rub: the utility industry expects overall capital spending to hit $75 billion in 2010, double levels in 2004.
Consumer adoption and rates. Given the costs of deploying the smart grid, 66 shareholder owned utilities asked for rate increases in 2009. That's the highest tally in two decades. And through February, 83 U.S. electricity or gas retail rate cases were being considered. Meanwhile, 68 percent of Americans have never heard of the smart grid.
Smart grid returns. PricewaterhouseCoopers says analyzing the cost-benefit equation for the smart grid is "a prickly endeavor." Estimates for costs savings are plentiful, but the actual deployments and ROI theories may not line up.
Security. Smart grids will be networked and that means cyberattacks are possible.
Data management. With a smart grid, utilities will have a never-ending stream of data. This data could be used to optimize the grid or just overwhelm utilities.
Complicated partnerships. PricewaterhouseCoopers says that utilities will increasingly be seen as a clean energy systems integrator. Merging smart grid infrastructure with legacy grids will be challenging. In other words, the proof of concept days are over.

Benton

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