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How people pay is critically important to consumers and businesses alike. Many consumers are choosing to pay for goods and services from an increasing number of options. Tech‐savvy urbanites buy coffee by tapping their phone on a reader. Parents returning from a night out use peer‐to‐peer payment apps, such as Venmo, to pay the sitter. The recent explosion of financial innovations promises faster, more efficient, and cheaper transactions. These increasing digital payment options coincide with decreased number and volume of cash transactions. However, vulnerable populations face more constrained payment choices and often rely exclusively on cash. Without experience, devices, or acceptable credit histories, vulnerable populations may have little access to digital transactions. The advantages of falling digital costs and other benefits thus accrue to the digitally connected. At the same time, those who must transact in coins and paper money are likely to find their relative costs increasing. This paper highlights payment trends and the potential impact on vulnerable populations in the United States as we move toward a cashless society. This paper should stimulate discussions of public policy initiatives to mitigate digital payment issues for vulnerable people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Hawaiian groups' resistance to globalization. Rebellion begins when youth started to fight for the environment and their rights. Community members opposed the construction of golf courses, luxury condominiums, hotels and resorts. Local residents fought the construction of a geothermal power plant in Puna and the missile-launching in Ka'Ü district. In 1997, Stephen Yamashiro wanted to lease 4, 400 acres of Hawaii's Island to Oji Paper Ltd. Several organizations opposed the plan and in November, 1997, State Board of Land and Natural Resources rejected it. The author states that these events indicate the emergence of a more democratic politics on Hawaii Island and illustrates how local communities can set their own parameters for economic development.

The article discusses potential developments involving kinship care policies and practices which were addressed at the Kinship Summit event in Albany, New York in September 2016, and it mentions collaborative partnerships, the needs of children, youth, and families, and gaps involving child welfare services in America. Continuity in kinship care is examined, along with kinship caregivers, the U.S. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, and Voluntary Placement Agreements.

The article examines the laws concerning electronic voting machines in the U.S. Topics discussed include voting rights, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in cases concerning voting;' the government efforts for organizing secure and fair elections act; women's suffrage laws in the country; and the electronic voting machine.

In 2006, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiated the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) as part of the NIH Roadmap Initiative, in order to improve the conduct and impact of NIH's clinical and translational research portfolio. The CTSA program is intended not only to transform the training programs and research infrastructure at individual academic institutions, but also to create a nation-wide collaborative consortium to transform the biomedical research enterprise. In January 2009, the NIH CTSA National Consortium adopted Strategic Goals to maximize the CTSAs' impact on the Nation's healthcare and health. Of these, the CTSA Strategic Goal 4 is to promote the translation of the results of clinical and translational research into practice and public policy. To advance this goal, a committee was constituted to focus on the organization and development of the CTSA Consortium's comparative effectiveness research (CER) capacity, an increasingly important component of research translation into practice and policy. This Committee's Workgroups took on a number of deliverables in service of this objective, including producing this White Paper on how the CTSA Consortium might best facilitate CER, for NIH's Institutes and Centers (ICs), other Federal agencies, outside stakeholders, and the healthcare system overall. This White Paper offers some specific suggestions for how the CTSA Consortium might support this emerging and crucial national effort to generate, synthesize, and disseminate CER in order to improve healthcare decision-making and health outcomes. Important points of reference for this White Paper are two Congressionally mandated reports on CER released at the end of June 2009, one by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and another by the Federal Coordinating Council for CER (FCC-CER). The definitions of CER by each report, and their recommendations for the CER enterprise, are highly germane to the purpose of this CTSA Consortium White Paper. The CER definition used in the IOM Report was, "The generation and synthesis of evidence that compares the benefits and harms of alternative methods to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor a clinical condition or to improve the delivery of care. The purpose of CER is to assist patients, clinicians, purchasers, policy makers, and the public to make informed decisions that will improve health care at both the individual and population levels."… [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

OBJECTIVE: To describe relationships between tobacco-related environments and disparities in smoking by sexual orientation. METHODS: We examined three aspects of state-level tobacco environments, which were derived from the ImpacTeen State Level Tobacco Control Policy and Prevalence Database: (1) tobacco price and tax data and tobacco control funding; (2) tobacco control policies and (3) tobacco prevalence and norms data. This information was linked to individual-level data on sexual orientation, tobacco use and nicotine dependence in Wave 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (N=34 653; 577 LGB respondents), a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey of adults in the USA. RESULTS: Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults in states with more restrictive tobacco environments were less likely to have ever smoked (AOR=0.78, 95% CI 0.62 to 1.00) and to currently smoke (AOR=0.77, 95% CI 0.60 to 0.99) than LGB adults in more permissive tobacco environments. Further, sexual orientation disparities in past and current smoking, as well as in current nicotine dependence, were lower in states with the most restrictive tobacco environments. Results were robust to adjustment for confounders at the individual and state levels. CONCLUSIONS: Restrictive state-level tobacco environments are correlates of smoking behaviours among LGB adults in the USA; such environments could potentially reduce social inequalities in smoking based on sexual orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on legality of metadata collection in the U.S. under the U.S PATRIOT Act. Topics include the legal justification for the investigation of Americans' private telephone records, the data collection program implemented by the U.S. National Security Administration under U.S. President Barack Obama, and if such practices are a violation of privacy.

The article focuses on the guidelines released by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), which demonstrates the flexibility and willingness of the department to engage regulated entities in the U.S. It provides specific definitions for source documentation and direct data entry, and recommendations on how to use computerized systems in clinical investigations. It also includes advice for clinical sites, analytical laboratories, and central laboratories. INSET: FDA Regulations vs Guidances.

Background: The United States' first National Physical Activity Plan is now under development. This plan follows the release of new physical activity guidelines and seeks to address the nation's ongoing physical inactivity and obesity crisis. For this plan to be successful, all facets of American culture need to unify behind its recommendations and action steps. Guidance for this plan involves active participation from a variety of sectors, including the park, recreation, fitness, and sport (PRFS) sector. Purpose: In this white paper, we discuss the potential of the PRFS sector in addressing America's physical inactivity. Specifically, we provide a brief description, history, and scope of the PRFS sector; present evidence concerning linkages between this sector and physical activity; and discuss existing challenges and emerging opportunities for promoting physical activity. We conclude by suggesting PRFS recommendations to promote physical activity based on anticipated effectiveness, reach, scope, and sustainability. Methods: Academic articles, professional reports, and physical activity plans were reviewed to summarize the evidence concerning PRFS sector strategies for increasing physical activity. Recommendations: Based on our review, we propose several sector-specific proximity, place, program, partnership, promotion, people, policy, and performance indicator recommendations for improving physical activity in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on an article by John Harte on the challenges in the adoption of land use policies in the United States to prevent biodiversity decline. Importance of managing all land; Aspects of biodiversity loss that distinguish it from other problems; Reason for the reluctance to criticize the Endangered Species Act.

States that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set effluent limits of dioxin based on the pulp processing technology in issuing rules to control the pulp and paper industry's combined air and water discharges. Details on the final rule; Comments from the EPA; Information on the amount pulp the United States pulp industry produces.

We examined the relationship between the tobacco industry and the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology (RTP) using the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library and internet sources. We determined the funding relationships, and categorised the conclusions of all 52 RTP papers on tobacco or nicotine between January 2013 and June 2015, as "positive", "negative" or "neutral" for the tobacco industry. RTP's editor, 57% (4/7) of associate editors and 37% (14/38) of editorial board members had worked or consulted for tobacco companies. Almost all (96%, 50/52) of the papers had authors with tobacco industry ties. Seventy-six percent (38/50) of these papers drew conclusions positive for industry; none drew negative conclusions. The two papers by authors not related to the tobacco industry reached conclusions negative to the industry (p < .001). These results call into question the confidence that members of the scientific community and tobacco product regulators worldwide can have in the conclusions of papers published in RTP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the white paper on electricity storage issued by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers' Government Relations Committee (GRC). The government report was made because AIChE's GRC believe that an intermittent and highly variable renewable energy needs massive storage to convert it to steady power. Bernard Lee and David Gushee, authors of the white paper, suggests development and commercialization of massive electricity storage (MES) technology. Among the actions taken by the GRC to move forward the report include working with representatives of other organization, writing to the chair of the Senate Committee on health, Education, Labor and Pensions, writing to the Congress, and asking funds for the implementation of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.