Datasets:
Recag
/
C4_5

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
text
stringlengths
11
77k
Third, the authors seek to increase hospital competition by beefing up federal antitrust regulation. But the authors do not consider that antitrust regulations sometimes block efficiency-enhancing mergers, often at the behest of inefficient competitors. There are plenty of regulations that reduce hospital competition, and the authors do not discuss why more regulation would be preferable to less.
Finally, the authors propose federal funding for report cards that measure the quality of health-care providers. By all accounts, consumers lack sufficient information about the quality and cost of medical care. However, the private sector has begun to furnish such data, just as innovations like HSAs have given patients incentives to demand it. It would make sense to see what the private sector can do by itself once we get all the incentives right.
The authors note that their proposals are meant to be incremental and politically feasible steps to improve the functioning of health-care markets–not wholesale changes, or even their ideal choices for reform. The trouble with limiting oneself to what is politically feasible–rather than trying to expand what is politically feasible–is that most of the available options involve increasing federal power.
There’s always a constituency for that.
–Michael F. Cannon is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute and author of Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.
It's funny to think that just a year ago the T-Mobile G1 was the only Google Android device on the market. GSMA 2009 was a bit of a let down in that sense. We didn't see a large number of Android announcements, but it did produce the HTC Magic.
Though the Magic was only released in European markets, it eventually made its way to other parts of the world under different names, including the Google Ion and ultimately the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G here in the U.S. It wasn't a stark change from the G1, but it did offer a sleeker, sexier design as well as Android 1.5 and Microsoft Exchange support, which was a step in the right direction. The MyTouch 3G is still available from T-Mobile and a Limited Edition Fender model was just released for the carrier.
Of course, a lot has changed in a year and we've seen an explosion of Android devices from various manufacturers and with various carriers. As far as Android is concerned, we suspect that Mobile World Congress 2010 will be a very different story from last year.
In addition to the Magic, HTC introduced the Touch Pro2 and Touch Diamond2 at GSMA 2009. As the successor to the popular business device, the Touch Pro2 brought such enhancements as a larger touch screen, improved QWERTY keyboard, and the addition of HTC's Straight Talk technology for better speakerphone quality and call management.
The Touch Pro2 eventually made the rounds to the four major carriers--T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and AT&T--where it continues to live up its reputation as a powerful business smartphone.
For reasons we don't understand, the HTC Touch Diamond2 didn't get as much love as the Touch Pro2. When we reviewed the unlocked version, we absolutely fell in love with the high-quality design, improved interface, and solid performance and couldn't wait for it to hit the U.S. carriers.
Sadly, it only hit AT&T and it was mostly a miss. Renamed the HTC Pure, the smartphone went through a slight makeover that took it from extraordinary to ordinary.
The LG Arena was one of the most popular devices announced at GSMA 2009, and it's not hard to see why given the sleek S-Class 3D interface, 3-inch WVGA touch screen, and advanced multimedia features. Unfortunately, it never made its way Stateside, though you can buy it unlocked for around $300.
LG also announced at GSMA its commitment to Windows Mobile as the primary operating system for its smartphones, and we did see the arrival of the LG Incite and the LG Expo this year, both for AT&T.
First debuting at GSMA 2009, the Samsung i890 Omnia HD turned heads with its gorgeous touch screen and high-end multimedia features. It never came to the U.S., but Samsung kindly provided us with an unlocked version of the device to try out, and now, we kind of wish they hadn't.
With its awesome 3.7-inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen, 8-megapixel camera with HD video recording and playback, smartphone capabilities, heaps of storage, and a much improved TouchWiz interface, it was hard for us to send this puppy back and we don't exactly have an extra $700 lying around to get one of our own.
The Sony Ericsson Satio (previously known as the Idou) was just a concept phone when it debuted at GSMA 2009, but we were able to get a brief look at its design and user interface and came away with a favorable impression. We never got a chance to check out the final product, but the user reviews don't seem so favorable.
Sometimes, it's the little things that count. The Sony Ericsson W995a debuted at GSMA 2009 and it wasn't so much its 8.1-megapixel camera and a Walkman player that excited us but rather the fact that it had a 3.5mm headset jack and a kickstand. Keep in mind that before the w995a, Sony Ericsson subjected its users to a proprietary headset jack and you'll understand our joy, too.
Like a lot of the phones in this collection, the W995a was released unlocked, which is great in terms of carrier freedom, but not so much for your wallet. It's available through Sony Style stores and online for as low as $380. For the money, you get a pretty full-featured music phone but it also come with some design and performance issues.
Nokia's E series of business phones always impressed us and the Nokia E75 was no different. In this day and age where touch-screen devices and slate QWERTY messaging phones dominate the market, the E75's design was a refreshing change. And it's not just about the looks; the smartphone offers a robust e-mail experience and productivity tools. Originally priced at around $530, you can now find it online for around $200.
After announcing the new E series devices on the opening day of GSMA 2009, we thought we had heard the last from Nokia but the company had one more trick up its sleeve: the Nokia N86 8MP.
Oh, what a bumpy road it's been for Garmin. After numerous delays and being relegated to seeing the Nuvifone from behind a glass case the first year, we finally got some hands-on time with the GPS manufacturer's first smartphone at GSMA 2009. Though still in the testing stage at that point, we were impressed with the user interface and features and walked away with high hopes. Boy, were we wrong.
The Garmin Nuvifone G60 was finally released on October 4, 2009, through AT&T and though it passed as a navigator, it absolutely failed as a smartphone. It had limited capabilities, not to mention a confusing user interface and temperamental accelerometer, which made us wonder if the company would be better off designing an app for smartphones rather than coming out with its own hardware.
New Zealand artist Jude Rae.
Faced with Jude Rae's paintings of bottles and vases, the cursory observer might drop the M word: Morandi. More rewarding may be to ask why they are not like the work of the Italian master of the still life.
"I am much more attached to describing than Morandi was," says Rae, back briefly to open the show from her base in Sydney. "I would not presume to have the extraordinary ability Morandi had of combining description with something that is more to do with the way paint sits on canvas in a sort of abstract, non-figurative way.
"I flail about at the descriptive end of things and I would love to be more in command of what I am doing but then I don't want to be Morandi either. He is as much of a touchstone for me as Chardin, or Cezanne."
It was Morandi who declared, "Nothing is more abstract than reality," something that resonates with where Rae has gone. Most of her work is still life, although there is the occasional exquisitely rendered figure.
She describes still life as "the lab rat of genres" - which is why it was so important at the turn of the 20th century when painters were coming to terms with the impact of new technologies like photography.
"Still life is not just about formal relationships. To me it is about the ability to sit there and question my perceptions in a very quiet sort of frame and the obvious comparison is when I substitute objects like bottles for a person and that is an entirely different experience.
"It nudges philosophical and existential questions in a very practical way - there is another person in the room, and that is a very confronting and complicated situation and I find it sort of horrifying and fascinating at the same time."
Assembling elements for a still life is the starting point for a painting, not the end point. It's about making choices, but also setting limits. "The interesting thing about working in a representational or realist idiom is that it sort of mucks up the formal perfection of your own little world, you can't just do what you want to do. There are elements of chance. There are other considerations, such as me wanting to neutralise a lot of the suggestive or symbolic freight that certain objects carry with them, that tends to bleed through to a lot of still lifes, so there may be a nostalgia or there are readings attached to an object."
The latest work has more colour than other recent shows, something Rae thinks is cyclical in her work.
"It comes and goes. I think I am getting more confidence," she says at the age of 56. "I don't have to worry so much about what I do and that brings me more engagement with the palette. I think it is pretty arbitrary, it just happens to be the framework I work in. I just want a reason to put a cool blue against a warm French blue and I'm referring to the background and the tabletop, but it sort of doesn't matter."
She occasionally leaves underpainting exposed, in particular a translucent burnt sienna.
"Most of the paintings are cool, so the red functions to enliven a primarily cool palette," she says. "I used it strictly as underpainting for a long time. Then I started contriving to reveal it in ways that were a self conscious allusion of the constructedness of the technique."
That is part of Rae's broader agenda as a figurative painter to use elements from the 20th century abstract tradition.
"Having looked a lot at Robert Ryman and other painters who approach painting as object, I am sorting my way around. I suppose it's part of my attempt to understand painting for myself.
"It articulates for me the growing certainty that there is no such thing as representational painting, all painting is abstract, and painters since time immemorial have approached painting as object, but the foregrounding of that in the 20th century caused a chasm to develop between painters."
Rae says her painting is a dialogue with her father, a gifted painter who was unable to pursue his passion.
"He studied at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney which was like this 19th century colonial outpost of the Slade and he came of age just at the point after the war when the finer points of figurative painting weren't exactly in the forefront of anyone's mind ... As one inherits from one's parents, I grew up with his sense of disappointment. I also now realise he wasn't actually fitted to operate in the art world, he was too internally tumultuous and contradictory."
Rae herself earned a diploma in drawing and painting from the Julian Ashton school before completing a bachelors degree in art history.
She moved New Zealand in 1990, doing a fine art masters at Ilam in Christchurch. She says the shift was the best thing she could have done. "It got me out of the place [where my father was] and allowed me to invent myself.
"From that distance I was able to embrace the idea that has pretty much pushed me along, that it must be possible to find a contemporary articulation for the sorts of values that informed the best of his painting and the best of the painting that came out of the 19th century."
NEW YORK – A police officer who was shot in the heart early Monday during a car chase ignored the wound and helped try to catch the gunman before dying later at a hospital, authorities said.
Dillon Stewart, 35, died despite wearing a bulletproof vest. One round entered his left armpit, missing the protective plating "by no more than a quarter of an inch," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Stewart, who was married with two children, "showed remarkable tenacity and courage in pursuing his assailant," Kelly said.
The suspect, Allan Cameron, 27, also was picked out of a lineup Monday in connection with the robbery and shooting of officer Wiener Philippe on Nov. 19, police Sgt. Mary Christine Doherty said Monday.
Philippe was returning to his home at about 6 a.m. when a gunman hopped out of a car and demanded his wallet, watch and jewelry, police said.
Cameron was facing charges including first-degree murder and attempted murder in the two cases, Doherty said. Cameron was being processed early Tuesday, and information was not immediately available on whether he had a lawyer.
A handgun believed to be the homicide weapon was found outside an apartment building where Cameron was captured after a massive manhunt, police said.
Authorities said the suspected shooter, who surrendered peacefully, was given three years of probation in 2003 after pleading guilty to various traffic violations.
The chase began when Stewart and his partner spotted a car with stolen New Jersey license plates speeding through a red light, police said. Stewart made a U-turn and pursued the car with lights and sirens on.
At one point, the police car pulled alongside the other vehicle on its passenger side. That's when the driver leaned over and began shooting, police said.
With Stewart still in pursuit, the suspect sped to a basement garage about two blocks away before disappearing. Stewart left his car, realized he had been shot but remained conscious as other officers rushed him to the hospital, the commissioner said.
Following surgery, Stewart's heart stopped beating.
He was the first officer killed in the city in the line of duty this year, police said.
Kimberly Perry has tied the knot.
The Band Perry singer married Texas Rangers catcher J.P. Arencibia on Thursday in Greeneville, Tennessee, her rep confirms to PEOPLE.
The couple, who announced their engagement last October, exchanged vows at the First Presbyterian Church, WJHL reports.
Carrie Underwood and her husband, Mike Fisher, Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton were reportedly among the guests at the wedding, along with her brothers and band mates Neil and Reid Perry.
Perry, 30, first met her new husband in February 2012 at the Florida Strawberry Festival, after the baseball player used some connections to arrange a meeting.
Arencibia, 28, popped the question last fall with a 3.3 carat ring, underneath an oak tree in the backyard of her parents’ home.
DALLAS, Jan. 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Syndiant Inc.
Pacific Future Technology, a specialist in AI and AR hardware and software, revealed at CES 2019 their AMglass augmented reality glasses based on Syndiant's SYL2271 high definition microdisplay and free-form binocular optical engine.
Pacific Future AMglass provides a comprehensive hardware and software platform for augmented reality developers. Acclaimed by CES attendees for style and comfort, the system integrates spatial tracking and advanced camera image processing for a highly-responsive AR experience. AMglass is currently used at amusement parks and popular cultural heritage tourist sites including Malacca, Malaysia. "At this point we are just scratching the surface," said Kien Lee, Pacific Future CEO. The company has achieved remarkable breakthrough in several industries with its AR and AI technologies; AMglass is powered by Syndiant's microdisplay technology to realize excellent user experiences such as outstanding 3D image quality. The two companies have planned to continuously drive for superior user experiences in the upcoming next generation of AMglass based on Syndiant's 1080p FHD solution.
"Syndiant is pleased to feature Pacific Future AMglass at CES. Responses from attendees have been extremely positive, and we look forward to achieving further success with our strong partnership." said Daniel Wong, CEO. Syndiant and Pacific Future are demonstrating AMglass from January 8 – 11, LVCC South Hall 1 – booth 22045.
You probably would not expect to hear Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name" played intensely on bass clarinet and marimba. Or Michael Jackson's hit "Man In The Mirror" performed like a jazz standard. But those are just two examples of how The Rita Collective turns genres upside down. The band, inspired by a Tunisian oud player, creates its own breed of world music. At Lovin' Cup, Dean Keller (bass clarinet), Kristen Shiner McGuire (marimba), Kyle Vock (bass), and Matt Bevan-Perkins (percussion) will be joined by guest trumpeter Mark Collins.
The Rita Collective performs Sunday, March 1, at Lovin' Cup, 300 Park Point Drive. 7 p.m. $10. 292-9940; lovincup.com; ritacollective.com.
Announcing the final results of the long awaited poll, the Consitutional Court said Tshisekedi had won by a simple majority, paving the way for him to take over from longterm leader Joseph Kabila in an official ceremony on Tuesday.
Runner-up Martin Fayulu immediately called on the international community to reject the results, after the court said his appeal was “unfounded”.
Tshisekedi’s victory was first announced earlier this month based on provisional results by the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) but it was challenged both at home and abroad, with the African Union appealing for the final results to be delayed.
On Sunday, the Consitutional Court said Fayulu had failed to prove any inaccuracies.
The election commission announced on January 10 that Tshisekedi had provisionally won with 38.57 percent of the vote against Fayulu’s 34.8 percent.
Fayulu denounced the figures as an “electoral coup” forged by Tshisekedi and Kabila, and filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court.
At a summit on Thursday, AU leaders said there were “serious doubts” about the vote’s provisional results and called for the announcement of the final results to be suspended.
The AU also announced that its commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, currently the AU chairman, were expected to fly to DR Congo on Monday.
Comic Dawn French has landed a role in the third Harry Potter movie, just a few weeks after her TV spoof of the films for charity Comic Relief.
French will play a character called the Fat Lady in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, on which filming recently begun.
In the BBC's Comic Relief fundraising marathon on 14 March, French played the boy wizard in a send-up of the first two films in the series.
Christopher Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter movies and co-producer of the third, told BBC Three's Liquid News: "Yes, Dawn French is playing the Fat Lady.
"I think she's incredibly funny and her Harry Potter spoof for Comic Relief was pretty amazing."
The Fat Lady will feature in a number of scenes in the film as a talking painting.
French is known best as a TV comedy star, particularly for her work with Jennifer Saunders and in the BBC One sitcom The Vicar of Dibley.
But she has also taken more dramatic roles in the TV series Murder in Mind and Ted and Alice.
The Harry Potter movies are based on the best-selling books by JK Rowling.
The second film, the Chamber of Secrets, took £53m at the UK box office when it was released shortly before Christmas last year.
The DVD, released worldwide on 11 April, looks set to become one of the biggest sellers of all time.
Pre-orders in the UK have exceeded half a million.
Since 1913 when they came to Hawthorne and started a flower farm, the Satow family has watched Moneta Gardens change. In the decades before World War II, the Satows gazed across acres and acres of Japanese truck farms, and their neighbors were the Rapela orchid farm and the Bodger Seed Co.
When the war came and workers flocking to round-the-clock defense plants needed places to live, the Satows watched as the fields of Moneta began sprouting houses in place of crops.
And during the 1960s, when a series of annexations plucked Moneta from the county and brought it within Hawthorne city limits, they watched as apartment buildings began going up on the large parcels.
"The chickens and pigs went out and the apartment boys came in," said 66-year-old Henry Satow, who, along with his four brothers, continues to run the family nursery at El Segundo Boulevard and Kornblum Avenue.
The apartment and condominium trend has yet to exhaust itself and today, Moneta Gardens--a 30-block chunk of southeastern Hawthorne bounded by Prairie Avenue, El Segundo and Crenshaw boulevards and Rosecrans Avenue--has the greatest concentration of residential building in the city.
During 1984, the city processed plans for 795 new units in the area, although not all of them have been built. By contrast, there were plans for fewer than 200 units in the rest of Hawthorne.
The changing face of Moneta Gardens has left it a mishmash of land uses and visual images.
One block may contain a crumbling frame house with litter on the lawn, a brand-new apartment building, an aging trailer park, and a row of neatly kept, 1950s-era stucco homes. Rambling nurseries continue to dot the area, and driving on narrow streets--laid out for an earlier era--is sometimes a matter of snaking through traffic in lanes hemmed-in by parked cars.
A 1977 study of Moneta Gardens by a consultant said the neighborhood had "the classic characteristics" of land-use conflict: "noise, congestion, deteriorating structures, poorly maintained premises, nondescript image, lower levels of public improvements and a 'feeling' of neglect . . . . "
While officials say development since 1977 has improved the situation--notably through the replacement of old, dilapidated structures with many new buildings--city Planning Director Jim Marquez said clashing land uses continue to spell trouble in Moneta Gardens.
"The densities of the area create traffic and noise, and because of a lack of buffers, low-profile quadruplexes are totally overshadowed by three-story, 50-unit apartment houses," he said, adding that park land is inadequate and clusters of single-family homes have become isolated on cul-de-sac streets.