Thursday, December 19, 2013

Nuclear Regulatory Commision. 2014 Events. 1st & 2nd Quarter 2014

Upcoming Events of Interest to the EP Community

    National Evacuation Conference: January 7‐10, 2014 in New Orleans, LA


    National Emergency Management Associate Conference: March 9‐14, 2014 in Alexandria, VA


    Regulatory Information Conference: March 11‐13, 2014 in Rockville, MD


    National Radiological Emergency Preparedness Conference: April 7‐10, 2014 in Salt Lake City, UT

Mental Health: 43.7 Million Americans Experienced Mental Illness in 2012

SAMHSA


43.7 Million Americans Experienced Mental Illness in 2012
$31 Million Announced To Improve Mental Health Services for Young People
Nearly one in five American adults, or 43.7 million people, experienced a diagnosable mental illness in 2012 according to SAMHSA. These results are consistent with 2011 findings.
Top Three Reasons Adults Did Not Get Mental Health Treatment in 2012
  • They worried about affording the cost.
  • They thought they could handle the problem without treatment.
  • They did not know where to receive services.
"The President and Vice President have made clear that mental illness should no longer be treated by our society—or covered by insurance companies—differently from other illnesses," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "The Affordable Care Act and new parity protections are expanding mental and substance use disorder benefits for 62 million Americans. This historic expansion will help make treatment more affordable and accessible."
New NSDUH Findings
The new findings come from SAMHSA's 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). In the survey, mental illness among adults age 18 or older is defined as having had a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder (excluding developmental and substance use disorders) in the past year based on criteria specified in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), published by the American Psychiatric Association.
In this survey, serious mental illness is defined as mental illness that resulted in serious functional impairment, which substantially interfered with or limited one or more major life activities. A major depressive episode is defined as a period of at least 2 weeks when a person experienced a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities and had at least four of seven additional symptoms reflecting the criteria as described in DSM-IV.


Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Beating Malaria: We Must Win This Fight

http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2013/12/11/beating-malaria-we-must-win-fight


Beating Malaria: We Must Win This Fight

POSTED BY JOHN KERRY
DECEMBER 11, 2013
Children Smile From Beneath Mosquito Netting

It’s important to mark milestones of great progress both because they remind us that disciplined and determined efforts can be successful in meeting great challenges – but also because they underscore something Nelson Mandela once told us: ““It always seems impossible until it is done.”
Today, the World Health Organization released a report that confirms what many of us have long believed: we’re knocking on the door of doing what many fifteen years ago deemed impossible. The bottom line: we can beat malaria, one of the most intransigent diseases on the planet.  By bringing together governments, business leaders, philanthropists, donor agencies and citizens in malaria endemic countries to end deaths from this preventable and treatable disease, we’re making tremendous, unparalleled progress.
Just unpack the statistics in this new report, and the reality is compelling. Globally, malaria mortality has fallen 51 percent among children under the age of 5; in sub-Saharan Africa, by 54 percent. We crossed an important threshold in 2012 -- for the first time, fewer than 500,000 children died of malaria.  Our efforts saved approximately 3.3 million lives between 2000 and 2012.
It’s not just that we are beating back malaria in and of itself; the ripple effect is dramatic. Just connect the dots. President Obama has insisted we all focus on his big, bold vision of ending preventable child and maternal deaths by 2035, and helping relieve extreme poverty.  If you beat malaria, you’ve taken dramatic steps in that direction.
The gains we’re witnessing also depict a powerful model of global cooperation among all kinds of stakeholders – and that’s a reflection of President Obama’s larger vision as well. When you pull people together, you benefit from the multiplier effect. The result is a shared success. Collective efforts of national governments, international donors, including the United States, the U.K., the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, The World Bank, foundations, the private sector, non-governmental and faith-based organizations, local leaders, civil society, philanthropists, companies, and many others are making a difference.  Our own efforts accelerated in 2005 when President George W. Bush announced the launch of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), an initiative Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer has led with incredible results since its inception.
What are the results?  Since 2006, 12 of the original 15 PMI focus countries have had reductions in childhood mortality rates, ranging from 16 to 50 percent. Since 2008, President Obama has expanded PMI to include 19 focus countries in Africa and one regional program in the Greater Mekong Subregion.  And we have a lot to show for our collective efforts.  In 2012, PMI protected over 50 million people with a prevention measure (insecticide-treated nets and/or indoor residual spraying) and distributed more than 43 million treatments of life-saving drugs to targeted populations.
For the United States, the fight has been a truly whole of government effort, led by USAID and implemented together with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and including the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Defense.
 But we can't rest on our laurels.  The last mile is the toughest and we have to remain committed.  Despite the tremendous progress against a disease that has plagued humanity since the beginning of recorded history, challenges remain. Over 3 billion people remain at risk of malaria today.  Malaria is still a drain on families, keeping children out of school and people out of work. Eliminating this disease will have economic payoffs – and promote stability and peace. In order to eliminate not only child deaths but also the disease itself, we must continue to deliver the existing, proven tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat malaria.  But we must also work to develop a vaccine, improve national health systems, deploy innovative disease surveillance and response technologies, and keep ahead of threats like insecticide and drug resistance.
Last week, we hosted a replenishment conference in Washington, D.C. to finance the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB, and Malaria from 2014 to 2016. There, President Obama announced that the United States will provide one dollar for every two dollars contributed by the rest of the world, up to $5 billion by 2016.  This bipartisan commitment in Congress, spanning two administrations, will remain critical to not just to making history on malaria, but of effectively retiring malaria to the history books, right where it belongs.  And we're looking for our partners to do the same.
Today’s report is a timely reminder of the incredible progress that can be made when we harness public and private resources from around the world to tackle a global health challenge.  But it is also an invitation for us to do more.  We can and must win this fight. Onwards!
About the Author: John Kerry serves as the 68th Secretary of State.
- See more at: http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2013/12/11/beating-malaria-we-must-win-fight#sthash.AsvYHVyU.dpuf


Saturday, December 14, 2013

Webinar: January 14, 2014. Estate Planning for People with ID & DD and their Families.




DD Council BW MCDD logo  

The Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities and Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council present the following webinar:

Futures and Estate Planning for People with ID & DD and their Families

When
January 14, 2014
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Add to Calendar
  

Where
  
Webinar 
The webinar link and webinar call in information will be provided after registration has been completed. This information will be located on the registration confirmation page that will be emailed once you have registered.
Dear Charles,

The Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities and the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council present the webinar titled "Futures and Estate Planning for People with Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities and their Families." This informative webinar will be presented by Victoria Sulerzyski, an attorney with the law firm Ober|Kaler, and a member of MCDD's Consumer Advisory Council.

Victoria was also a contributor to the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council's Futures and Estate Planning Guide "Planning Now", which can be downloaded at www.md-council.org.

Please click on the "Get more information" link below for a more detailed outline of the webinar topics.
  
Sincerely,
  
The Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities and Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council
Aisha Mason, MCDD
443-923-9555

 

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Politicians’ Delay Means Climate Catastrophe for Malawi’s Poor

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/12/need-climate-change-policy-malawis-poor/




Politicians’ Delay Means Climate Catastrophe for Malawi’s Poor


Agnes Katete lights a fire in a make-shift camp. Behind her are the tents that she and those affected by the March flood in Malawi’s Kilipula Village now live in. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS
Agnes Katete lights a fire in a make-shift camp. Behind her are the tents that she and those affected by the March flood in Malawi’s Kilipula Village now live in. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

LILONGWE, Dec 12 2013 (IPS) - Delays in finalising Malawi’s climate change policy, which has been in the making for the last three years, are affecting millions of families living in disaster-prone areas across this southern African nation, says the country’s minister of environment and climate change management Halima Daudi.
Daudi, who led the Malawian delegation to COP19 in Warsaw last month, tells IPS that the delay in drafting and making the policy operational comes at a cost to many of Malawi’s vulnerable.
“For example there is the GCF [Green Climate Finance] which needs us to come up with a governing instrument by establishing an authority designated to be the focal point to handle the funds and we cannot access that without a national policy on climate change,” she says.
For the last three years, the Malawian government, with the help of United Nations agencies, has been working on the National Climate Change Policy, a National Climate Change Investment Plan and a National Adaptation Plan to address medium- to long-term adaptation needs for Malawi.
William Chadza, executive director for the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local civil society grouping, explains that “as a country we cannot access financing for adaptation without a well-articulated national climate policy and a national adaptation plan which needs to establish a body to specifically handle climate funds.”
Daudi agrees. “It’s very difficult for us to access such funds for adaptation and mitigation, which in the end increases the vulnerability of so many families to [the impact of] climate change,” she says.
But she explained the delays were ”due to [a lack of] funding for holding consultative meetings, and mainly because we don’t want to rush this. It’s a very important policy that will define our resolve against climate change. We are taking time on it.
But Dora Marema, coordinator for GenderCC, a network of women and gender activists working for gender and climate justice, says that the delays in implementing the national climate policies in several African countries, including Malawi, is affecting hundreds of thousands of people reeling from the effects of climate change.
“It’s true that most countries are failing to access funds for adaptation because their policies are not in place and the impact is on the most vulnerable, especially women trying to recover from disasters associated with climate change,” Marema tells IPS.
And the longer it takes to implement Malawi’s climate change policy, the longer it will be before Agnes Katete and her family get back on their feet.
In March, a mountain of water came gushing through the only door in Katete’s dingy shack in the wee hours of the morning. The water swept away her house and 10 others in Kilipula Village in the lakeshore district of Karonga, which lies 600 km from the capital Lilongwe.
Katete, a mother of four, was lucky. She managed to escape unhurt with her children.
But like many others in her village, she lost her rice fields. And now, nine months after they lost everything; they are still unable to pull through.
Katete and many others from her village are still living in make shift homes set up by government and U.N. agencies, surviving on food handouts.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and my children because another rainy season has started and I still don’t have a house. I lost all my income and I have no food,” she tells IPS.
Over the last five years, persistent droughts, flash floods and erratic rainfall show how vulnerable the country has become. This year alone, according to the department for disaster affairs, floods have affected close to 12,877 households and wiped out entire crop fields mainly in the northern and southern parts of the country.
In March 2012, flooding caused by two weeks of torrential rains destroyed thousands of homes in eight districts, leaving an estimated 300,000 people destitute, eight people dead and several missing.
The largest impact of climate change could be on Malawi’s agriculture sector, which is heavily dependent on rain-fed cultivation. The country has three million hectares of arable land.
Evans Njewa, an environmental policy and planning officer, tells IPS that one of the adaptation methods that Malawi plans to promote and create awareness on is traditional soil conservation. He explains that conservation agriculture, which involves reduced tillage, permanent soil cover and crop rotation, can help adapt to climate change effects because it potentially increases productivity through better soils and helps farmers adapt to climate change through better water retention.
“Like many other African countries, we are looking at adaptation as a priority in the National Climate Policy,” Njewa says, because as “a less industrialised country” it is easier “to [be able to] concentrate on mitigation.”


IPS is an international communication institution with a global news agency at its core, raising the voices of the South 
and civil society on issues of development, globalisation, human rights and the environment 

Monday, December 9, 2013

Solicitation Opportunity: State of Delaware. Cyber Security

The State of Delaware will be posting a solicitation the beginning of January for Cyber Security and Disaster Recovery Staffing Services. 

The State of Delaware offers a free Vendor Subscription service which allows vendors to receive email notification when solicitations in specific areas of interest are available. 

Please take a moment to register for any area of business you may wish to receive notification on at: https://de.blackboardconnect.com/

This service complements our central solicitation website http://bids.delaware.gov that is a one stop shop for RFP’s, ITB’s and RFI’s for the State of Delaware. 

Registration will enable you to receive an alert for each solicitation posted of interest to your business at the time of posting.

December 11th...."Let's Rock". Think-Tank Panel Discussion with Beverly Bond.

Beverly Bond, founder of Black Girls Rock! will be hosting a think-tank panel discussion and town hall on race, gender and media messaging in the 21st century. 

The Black Girls Rock! panel will be held at the 
        Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, located in Harlem, N.Y., at 
        135th & Lenox on 
         Dec. 11, 2013, 
         5 to 9 p.m.  

For more information, please visit:www.eventbrite.com/e/the-black-girls-rock-think-tank-presents-checkin-our-fresh-registration-4449971986.

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