Toothless HIPAA: Searching for a Private Right of Action to Remedy Privacy Rule Violations

A Midwestern banker, who also served as a member of his county\u27s health board, cross-referenced a health board\u27s list of patients suffering from various diseases with a list of the bank\u27s customers. He then called due the mortgages of anyone suffering from cancer. In Oregon, computer disks containing the medical records of 365,000 patients were stolen from a car. Along with personal medical information, the records also contained the patients\u27 names, addresses, and Social Security numbers. A Maryland school board member\u27s medical records, revealing that he had been treated for depression, were sent to school officials along with an anonymous note that read, Is this the kind of person we want on the School Board? These are just a few of the many recent incidents confirming that breaches of medical privacy occur on a disturbingly regular basis. The nature of the information contained in medical records and the potentially devastating results of improper disclosures make medical privacy violations abhorrent. Medical records contain highly sensitive information, including intimate details about the patient\u27s illnesses, sexually transmitted diseases, genetic abnormalities, drug and alcohol addictions, and mental or psychological disorders. These records also often include information about the patient\u27s financial status, social behaviors, and personal relationships, as well as identifying information like Social Security numbers. Improper disclosure of such sensitive information may subject patients to social isolation, discrimination by employers, or denial of insurance coverage

Vibrationally Elastic Scattering Of Electrons By Hcl

Results of close-coupling calculations are reported, in which several models of the interaction potential are investigated. Cross sections for rotational transitions involving the lowest ten levels are obtained in the first detailed application of the MEAN approximation. The results are subject to a strong cooperative effect involving exchange and polarization. Rotationally elastic transitions are shown to be quite important at thermal energies and to dominate the total cross section above 4.0 eV. Transitions for which the angular momentum changes by two are found to be responsible for a broad resonance at 2.5 eV. No structure indicative of a resonance or virtual state at very low energies is, however, obtained. Total differential, momentum-transfer, and integrated cross sections are in satisfactory agreement with measured values. © 1983 The American Physical Society.27114114

Immunisation against gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) reduces agonistic behaviours in male rangeland goats

Rangeland goat bucks were used to evaluate the efficacy of a commercially available anti-gonadotrophin-releasing hormone vaccine, Improvac (Zoetis Australia, West Ryde, NSW, Australia). The hypothesis tested was that immunisation would suppress testosterone secretion by the testis and agonistic behaviour between male goats. We also compared intervals of 2 and 4 weeks between primary and booster immunisations and monitored responses over a 2-month period. The 45 goats were split into three groups (n = 15): one group receiving the vaccination booster on Day 14, one group receiving the vaccination booster on Day 28, and the Control group receiving sterile saline injections. Body mass, body condition score and scrotal circumference were measured fortnightly, and blood was collected at 2-week intervals and analysed for testosterone concentration. Behavioural interaction tests of 2-min duration were also conducted fortnightly. There was a significant decrease in paired testicular circumference (P < 0.05) and testosterone concentration (P < 0.01) in both vaccination groups by the end of the experiment at Day 60, compared with the Control group. Agonistic interactions measured at Day 60 were significantly reduced in both vaccination groups (P < 0.05) compared with the Control group. These results support the efficacy of Improvac in reducing agonistic behaviours in rangeland goat bucks and suggest that the use of the vaccine may assist in reducing social stress and possible injury in groups of confined male goats

Relations for classical communication capacity and entanglement capability of two-qubit operations

Bipartite operations underpin both classical communication and entanglement generation. Using a superposition of classical messages, we show that the capacity of a two-qubit operation for error-free entanglement-assisted bidirectional classical communication can not exceed twice the entanglement capability. In addition we show that any bipartite two-qubit operation can increase the communication that may be performed using an ensemble by twice the entanglement capability.Comment: 4 page

Animal welfare indicators for sheep during sea transport: The effect of voyage day and time of day

Ensuring the well-being of animals during transport is becoming an increasingly important societal concern. The Australian livestock export industry recognises the need for comprehensive monitoring and reporting on animal welfare during sea transport. It is predicted that pen-side assessments of sheep can be used to monitor environmental conditions, resource access, and animal health and behavioural outcomes throughout a sea voyage. Pen-side assessments by observation are non-invasive and practical to apply in an industry setting. This study monitored sheep using a pilot list of welfare indicators during two sea voyages from Australia to the Middle East, in contrasting seasons. Sheep behaviour, environment and resources were recorded three times daily via pen-side observations of six pens of Merino wethers (castrated males), repeated over three decks for each voyage. Behavioural outcomes were examined for the effect of sampling frequency on group assessments. The number of behavioural measures were reduced via Principal Component (PC) analysis. The primary three PC factors were tested against the time of sampling and pen location after accounting for the effect of environmental- and resource-based predictor variables. PC 1 (24.0 % of the total variance) described activity levels, with sheep on Voyage B being more active in the morning and resting or recumbent in the middle of the afternoon and evening. PC 2 (14.7 %) reflected heat responses with the majority of the variation in these data accounted for by changes in Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) and manure pad moisture. The heat responses described by PC 2 also varied by voyage day (p < 0.001) and time point (p < 0.001). PC 3 scores (9.5 %) reflected flight distances and feeding behaviour and strongly correlated to WBGT and pellet consumption per head per day. Feeding behaviour generally became more competitive, and flight distances reduced as both voyages progressed. Results indicate that a comprehensive welfare monitoring protocol requires repeated daily sampling throughout a voyage. The findings of this study are pertinent for developing a sampling strategy to assess sheep welfare during sea transport

The contribution of qualitative behavioural assessment to appraisal of livestock welfare

Animal welfare is increasingly important for the Australian livestock industries, to maintain social licence to practice as well as ensuring market share overseas. Improvement of animal welfare in the livestock industries requires several important key steps. Paramount among these, objective measures are needed for welfare assessment that will enable comparison and contrast of welfare implications of husbandry procedures or housing options. Such measures need to be versatile (can be applied under a wide range of on- and off-farm situations), relevant (reveal aspects of the animal’s affective or physiological state that is relevant to their welfare), reliable (can be repeated with confidence in the results), relatively economic to apply, and they need to have broad acceptance by all stakeholders. Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA) is an integrated measure that characterises behaviour as a dynamic, expressive body language. QBA is a versatile tool requiring little specialist equipment suiting application to in situ assessments that enables comparative, hypothesis-driven evaluation of various industry-relevant practices. QBA is being increasingly used as part of animal welfare assessments in Europe, and although most other welfare assessment methods record ‘problems’ (e.g. lameness, injury scores, and so on), QBA can capture positive aspects of animal welfare (e.g. positively engaged with their environment, playfulness). In this viewpoint, we review the outcomes of recent QBA studies and discuss the potential application of QBA, in combination with other methods, as a welfare assessment tool for the Australian livestock industries

Analyzing Power Measurements for 13-C(p,p') at 120 MeV

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 81-14339 and by Indiana Universit

135 MeV Proton Scattering from 13-C

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 78-22774 A02 & A03 and by Indiana Universit

Review of livestock welfare indicators relevant for the Australian live export industry

Animal welfare is an important issue for the live export industry (LEI), in terms of economic returns, community attitudes and international socio-political relations. Mortality has traditionally been the main welfare measure recorded within the LEI; however, high mortality incidents are usually acted upon after adverse events occur, reducing the scope for proactive welfare enhancement. We reviewed 71 potential animal welfare measures, identifying those measures that would be appropriate for use throughout the LEI for feeder and slaughter livestock species, and categorised these as animal-, environment- and resource-based. We divided the live export supply chain into three sectors: (1) Australian facilities, (2) vessel and (3) destination country facilities. After reviewing the relevant regulations for each sector of the industry, we identified 38 (sector 1), 35 (sector 2) and 26 (sector 3) measures already being collected under current practice. These could be used to form a ‘welfare information dashboard’: a LEI-specific online interface for collecting data that could contribute towards standardised industry reporting. We identified another 20, 25 and 28 measures that are relevant to each LEI sector (sectors 1, 2, 3, respectively), and that could be developed and integrated into a benchmarking system in the future