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A new system to identify developmental problems including disability in premature infants has shown promise. The new system, called the Preterm-Targeted Screening and Surveillance Program, has successfully identified cerebral palsy, developmental and intellectual delays, blindness and deafness in a trial group of 202 premature babies throughout Queensland. [click link for full article] |
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The leading national advocacy group, People With Disabilities, has launched a plan which it says will address better access to mainstream services and reduce the need for institutionalised care. |
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Got a note today from a group working through the US Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment that I thought I'd share. |
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The group behind the controversial redevelopment of a Sydney disability home has promised to accommodate its most profoundly disabled residents, NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor says. |
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(InfoWorld) - The debate over use of the open document format among U.S. states appears to have hit a wall as experts representing both sides of the issue offered few new insights into the subject at a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL).
During a conference session in Boston on Monday, where the NCSL is holding its annual meetings, representatives supporting adoption of ODF -- a non-proprietary electronic document file format -- and those who oppose such efforts injected few new details or considerations into the ongoing discussion over whether or not states should adopt such a standard in the name of reducing their reliance on vendor-driven technologies.
At the heart of the debate lies the belief by some experts that states could dramatically lower their IT overhead and guarantee access to older file formats by moving away from proprietary technologies, such as Microsoft's Office productivity suite, and instead adopting cheaper technologies, including open-source products.
By sticking to Microsoft file formats, ODF proponents maintain, states are also ceding too much control to the software giant by forcing future software upgrades in order to keep their records accessible by the latest technologies. In shifting to an ODF model, backers say, the states could retain access to current document files long after the timeframe when Microsoft and other vendors typically end support for their individual products.
However, legislators in Massachusetts, which in 2005 first required that all agencies would be forced to store public documents in non-proprietary formats like HTML or PDF, admitted in the discussion that they have not yet been able to provide tangible evidence that moving to an ODF system would deliver the financial savings some backers of the movement envision.
After years of research, the state is only just preparing to publish its first detailed audit into the cost savings that could be appreciated by pursuing ODF further, according to Senator Mark R. Pacheco, who serves as chairman of the senate's Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which has been tasked with investigating the issue.
In a series of presentations and a question-and-answer session with representatives from several state legislatures, the only point that was repeatedly reinforced by the NCSL panel was that the ODF issue remains very much in flux as supporters work to build evidence that the technology will ultimately prove beneficial and detractors question the necessity of making a change in the immediate future.
Despite the apparent lack of progress, some experts still maintain that the fact that legislators are even considering such a swap proves that the ODF push has merit and may soon have the support it needs to move forward.
"The fact that we have full session dedicated to ODF at this show is significant in its own right as it illustrates the groundswell of support for ODF on both the state level and nationally," said Marino Marcich, managing director of the Open Document Format Alliance (ODFA), a consortium dedicated to forwarding the use of ODF-approved technologies.
"People have recognized that this is an issue of control, access, and choice and that they can also save a lot of money," he said. "What started out in Massachusetts in 2005 has taken off and become a worldwide phenomenon."
However, despite the fact that Massachusetts legislators initiated the debate by pushing ODF into the spotlight with their initial requirement, said Pacheco -- a Democrat who represents the towns of Bristol and Plymouth -- the state is still trying to determine whether or not it can save money and support all of its constituents by adopting the document formats.
In addition to the issue of cost, which his committee expects to learn more about in the next few weeks with the publishing of a new, more thorough analysis, Pacheco cited the issues the state faces in supporting members of the disabled community who have vehemently opposed the move to ODF based on a perceived lack of available technologies that would allow such people to interact with the records.
One of the primary reasons the state has been forced to throttle back its push toward the use of ODF-complaint technologies -- along with uncertainties of costs and savings related to such a move -- is because representatives of the disabled community have actually threatened to sue the state if it does so without finding a way to accommodate their concerns.
"It's important how we go about this process because at the end of the day, any outcome has to work for all people," said Pacheco, who has served in the state's senate since 1993. "When we convened hearings on this proposal, we got the impression that a group in the executive branch was moving forward at lightening speed and not paying attention to what was being talked about by people in the disabled community; others promised savings we just couldn't justify."
The state senator pointed to Massachusetts' recent approval of Microsoft's own Open Office XML (OOXML) file format -- proposed by the company as an answer to the issues raised about its technologies by ODF supporters -- as proof that progress is being made in finding common ground for both sides of the issue. However, many supporters of more open file formats, including Marcich, contend that the software maker's format doesn't completely meet their specifications.
In extrapolating the dangers posed by the continued use of Microsoft's formats the expert cited issues that rescue workers faced in accessing records maintained by local government entities when aiding in the relief of victims of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, in which an estimated 300,000 people were killed,.
"We feel that Massachusetts, by recognizing OOXML, will not get the principle benefits of the policy it adopted in 2005, the objective of which was to ensure that IT products are interoperable and to encourage user friendly interaction with the public," said Marcich. "These documents we're talking about belong to the states, and people and shouldn't be locked up as to prevent access by using closed software."
Further clouding the issue are ongoing considerations by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) over whether or not it will accept OOXML as an open document format. Such validation could hurt arguments contrary to the fact, according to some onlookers, including Pacheco.
Some experts believe that the issues raised by groups representing disabled users could also be appeased with some convincing about the availability of existing accessibility tools that mesh with the ODF standards. Many such groups were opposed to the launch of Microsoft's seminal Windows 95 set of products in 1995 based on concerns of incompatibility with disability-assisting technologies based on DOS, said Doug Johnson, program manager for standards strategy in the chief technology office at Sun.
As in that case, proving to disabled users that they will have options if ODF is adopted more broadly by states will be necessary for the effort to succeed, he said.
"A lot of the technologies used to provide access to the disabled community today are actually very fragile as they are different tools pieced together to provide for these users," he said. "There are actually a number of freely-available technologies out there today that are more robust than those tools and some are free, so, in terms of this part of the debate, there does seem like there's room for progress to be made." |
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* <b>John Wadham</b> has joined the <b>Commission for Equality and Human Rights</b>
(CEHR) as its legal director. The former director of Liberty, the campaign
group, takes up the role just as the commission - which was created under
last year’s Equality Act - prepares to assume its full powers in October. The
CEHR will take over the work of the Commission for Racial Equality, the
Disability Rights Commission and Equal Opportunities Commission, and will
act as the independent advocate for equality and human rights in Britain. Wadham
has spent the past four years in the full-time role of deputy chairman of
the Independent Police Complaints Commission. IPCC chair Nick Hardwick says:
“John was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the IPCC and all
our work is, to some extent, the product of his vision. The loss to the IPCC
will be the gain of the CEHR and I, with the rest of the organisation, wish
John the best of luck in his new role.” |
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... said Susan Lessack, a partner with the law firm's labor and employment group. Pepper Hamilton offers these tips to employers who want to defuse disability-related legal issues: * Inform employees of ADA's guidelines. Though firms aren't ... |
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(InfoWorld) - A coalition of voting rights groups on Monday called on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation that would require electronic voting machines to have printers attached as a way to audit the touch-screen results.
But the lack of a paper trail for many e-voting machines was only one problem among many during the 2006 U.S. elections, said speakers at the Elections: Looking Forward conference, sponsored by Common Cause, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and other groups. Many of the problems attributed to e-voting machines were caused by a lack of training for poll workers or administrative mistakes, said Efrain Escobedo, director of voter engagement at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
Poll workers observed by his group didn't know how to change the paper in machines with paper trails or didn't know how to reboot machines, he said.
Participants in the event also described several other problems not related to e-voting: poll workers demanding photo identification when it wasn't required by law, polling places lacking voting materials in languages other than English, polling places inaccessible to disabled people, and long lines.
But several speakers called on Congress to pass the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which would require paper trail printouts with touch-screen e-voting machines. Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, introduced the bill Feb. 5, after a similar piece of legislation failed to pass during the 2005-06 congressional session. The Holt bill has 183 cosponsors, close to half of the House of Representatives.
Congress needs to act in the next six to eight months for the legislation to affect the 2008 elections, said Ralph Neas, president and chief executive officer of People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group. Neas pointed to the 2006 vote in Sarasota Country, Florida, where e-voting machines did not record a vote from more than 18,000 people in a congressional race decided by less than 400 votes.
"Sarasota was a disgrace," Neas said. "Eighteen thousand votes ... inexplicably disappeared into cyberspace. But it's a teachable moment. We've got 18,000 faces now that we can put on the problem."
Not all speakers agreed that Congress should move ahead immediately with paper trails. Many visually impaired voters were able to vote without assistance on touch-screen machines for the first time in 2006, said Christina Galindo-Walsh, senior staff attorney with the National Disability Rights Network. Paper trail printouts would again create a two-tier voting system in which some disabled people don't have access to the same information as other voters, she said.
Galindo-Walsh and Jim Dickson, vice president for government affairs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, also said it was too late for Congress to mandate paper trail ballots by the 2008 presidential election. E-voting machine vendors wouldn't be able to produce enough printers by 2008, Galindo-Walsh said.
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in 2002, mandated standards for voting machines, and those standards are just being completed now, Dickson added. Those standards still need to be tested, and new machines meeting those standards need to be built, he said.
"Either you lower the standards for the election equipment, or you live with the timeline that looks like 2010," he said. "You cannot have it both ways."
But many voters now question e-voting systems, added Melanie Campbell, executive director and CEO of the Coalition for Black Civic Participation. "The reality is voters are losing confidence in the system," she said. |
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The big winner of Prime Minister’s Questions was Vince Cable. Yes, Vince! Not
Gordon Brown, the man who has launched a thousand inquiries but often
doesn’t seem to know right from wrong. Not David Cameron, the boy wonder who
is mastering the art of fighting dirty. But Vince - the man who escaped from
a Dickens novel only to find himself cast in the role of acting leader of
the Lib Dems. |
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A group of 14 African nations raised the stakes yesterday before next week’s
EU-Africa summit by threatening to pull out unless European leaders agreed
not to single out Zimbabwe for criticism. Officials in Brussels, however,
said there was no way that President Mugabe could escape a lecture on the
dire straits of his countrymen if he turned up to the meeting in Lisbon. |
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