Kaspersky’s director of global research & analysis, Costin Raiu, told Reuters on Wednesday that his team has gathered evidence that shows the same platform that was used to build Stuxnet and Duqu was also used to create at least three other pieces of malware.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/28/us-cybersecurity-stuxnet-idUSTRE7BR1EV20111228

NEW YORK – The US and Europe are trying to stopIran, the world’s third-biggest oil exporter, from selling crude. Iran’s response is to threaten to disrupt ..

US aircraft carrier sails through strategic Strait of Hormuz

US Navy Face-Off with Iran Speed Boats ACTUAL VIDEO … - YouTube
► 3:42► 3:42	www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNL6DyH_IfAJan 8, 2008 - 4 min - Uploaded by alio122000 The U.S. Navy released dramatic video and audio of stand-off with Iran. The video shows Iranian speedboats …

 

January 9, 2012 – The U.S. government has filed a $150 million complaint against a Michigan imaging company, charging it with allegedly violating federal Medicare rules requiring physician supervision of diagnostic tests, and with paying kickbacks to physicians for referrals.

AuntMinnieMobile is sponsored in part byGE.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan filed the complaint on January 6 against Universal Imaging of Ypsilanti, MI, and its current and former owners, Phillip J. Young and Mark Lauhoff. The complaint charges them with multiple violations of the federal False Claims Act, and alleges that they generated more than 90% of their business by paying kickbacks to physicians.

Qui tam whistleblower

The case originated in a complaint filed by radiologist Dr. Richard Chesbrough and his wife Kim Chesbrough, who formerly worked at Universal and who filed a qui tam whistleblower suit under the False Claims Act.

In 2005, Chesbrough, who had been hired to perform general supervision over all noncardiology tests conducted at Universal, resigned, but Universal did not notify Medicare of his departure. Chesbrough asked Universal to verify that it had informed Medicare of his resignation, but he discovered that it had not and therefore notified Medicare himself. In 2006, Medicare revoked Universal’s billing number based on the lack of physician supervision at the facility.

The government’s complaint alleges that although Universal was required under Michigan law to be organized as a nonprofit corporation to ensure the health and safety of patients, Universal surreptitiously continued to operate as a for-profit corporation by transferring its equipment to a for-profit entity, MRI Leasing, with the same owners. Universal then made “lease” payments to that for-profit entity for Universal’s equipment, circumventing the laws relating to Michigan nonprofits.

The federal complaint also alleges the following:

• Universal claimed that its business was limited to a few fixed facilities and mobile units, when in fact it had a substantial mobile ultrasound and nuclear stress test practice throughout southeastern Michigan.
• Universal allegedly billed Medicare for tests under billing codes it had not been authorized to perform, using equipment that had not been disclosed to Medicare.
• Universal allegedly paid physicians for referrals; many of the physicians paid by Universal in connection with test ordering were among the highest referrers of such tests in Michigan, compared with their peers.
• Universal allegedly created contracts that purported to pay rent to physicians to whom it was sending mobile equipment; these contracts were cover for unlawful fee splitting and were not commercially reasonable — many of the contracts had no fixed lessor or lessee.

Unnecessary dose

Also named in the complaint is Dr. Gwendolyn Washington, a primary care physician who allegedly received kickbacks for referrals from Universal and, as a result, ordered a high number of tests involving injection of radioactive materials into patients. Most of these tests were medically unnecessary, and each test exposed patients to radiation doses equivalent to 100 chest x-rays, according to the complaint.

Washington also allegedly ordered her staff to direct patients to come to her facility every three to four months for ultrasound tests, sending a driver to pick up the patients and keeping them at her facility all day, the complaint states. As a result, Washington ordered more ultrasound tests for a larger fraction of her patient population than any physician in the state of Michigan — 18 ultrasounds per patient per year for 76% of her Medicare patient population.

Washington is currently incarcerated; she was sentenced in November 2011 to 120 months in prison on charges of public corruption, healthcare fraud, and conspiring to illegally distribute prescription drugs.

At the same time that she announced the complaint against Universal, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade also announced settlements totaling $1.56 million with 14 physicians or physician groups who were paid for their referrals by Universal. The settling physicians include Dr. David Schaefer; Drs. Vladimir and Albert Klemptner; Dr. Corey Haber; Drs. John and Andrew Zazaian; Partners in Internal Medicine; Drs. Eric Straka, Sara Hashemian, and Peter Paul; Drs. Gregory Stevens and Teresa Wargovich-Stevens; Dr. Steven Hartz; Dr. David Leszkowitz; Dr. Alexander Vertkin; Dr. Keith Pierce; Dr. Corrine Adler; Dr. Namir Stephan; Dr. Carmen Bogdan; and Dr. James B. Hayner.

“Doctors should be aware that we are scrutinizing records and detecting fraud and kickbacks,” McQuade said in a statement. “We hope that our aggressive enforcement will deter doctors from cheating the taxpayers and endangering patients.”

Report finds ‘questionable’ Medicare bills for portable x-ray, December 29, 2011

GE to settle $30M Medicare fraud lawsuit, December 29, 2011

Teleradiology firm exec headed to jail, December 9, 2011

Medical records of 4.9M exposed in Texas breach, September 30, 2011

Ga. radiologic technologist’s trial delayed, July 22, 2011

Copyright © 2012 AuntMinnie.com

The knowledge base for safety in the MRI suite suffers from a number of profound disparities. The types of risks and potential accidents for persons in the MR suite are well known to clinical and technical MR personnel, but the rates at which these accidents occur on a national basis are obscured by profound under-reporting. And though many experienced MR staffers understand the risks, it is likely that the incidental personnel—such as housekeeping, engineering, transport—who may regularly serve the area know little of the breadth of risks to which they may be exposed (or to which they may be exposing others). 2007, however, has already seen the introduction of new tools and standards, which will help improve safety in the MR suite and also may work to narrow the dangerous gaps in our knowledge and promote enhanced standards of care.

Chief among these resources is the new American College of Radiology (ACR) Guidance Document for Safe MR Practices: 2007, which supersedes the two previous ACR safety documents published in 2002 and 2004 under the title of the White Paper on MR Safety. The new document was recently published in the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), though, through a special arrangement, the text has been circulating in electronic format since early this spring. Because of the importance of this document and the pressing safety issues it addressed, the ACR and AJRagreed to provide the document on both organizations’ web sites for free download as soon as the final manuscript was accepted for publication.

The arrival of this new document came not a moment too soon as the FDA’s Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) Database recorded a 140% increase in reported MRI accidents for the 12-month period ending in mid 2006. Though Emanuel Kanal, MD, chair of the ACR’s MR Safety Committee, and other MR safety experts believe that accidents reported to the FDA represent less than 10% of the actual number of incidents that occur (some, including John Gosbee, MD, formerly of the VA’s National Center for Patient Safety, have speculated that reporting of MRI accidents is near 1%), this recent dramatic increase is suspected to be the result of compounding increases in risk more than a significant shift in reporting.

Factors such as increasing magnet strength, greater utilization for emergent/trauma cases, wider patient dependence on medical devices or implants that may be contraindicated for MR exams, larger numbers of sedation/general anesthesia patients, and interventional applications from image-guided biopsies to intraoperative imaging are all perceived to ratchet up the opportunities for mishaps.

These increasing risk factors, perhaps statistically insignificant individually, compound in many facilities, and, when multiplied by the estimated 20,000,000 MRI exams performed annually in the United States alone, can be the source for dramatic increases in rates of accidents. If all of these factors combined to create only 1/100th of 1% likelihood of an MR accident resulting in a serious injury, statistics would suggest that we would see an increase of 2,000 serious MR injuries, some potentially even fatalities, in any given year. For a modality with an unparalleled safety record, this sort of accident frequency would be abhorrent, particularly given the fact that the vast majority of MR accidents are completely avoidable.

At the present time, there are no specific MR safety standards at the site level that are a part of payor credentialing, national provider accreditation programs, or even state or federal regulations. The absence of professional regulations, however, is on the brink of changing.

MR safety issues are currently under scrutiny by groups as varied as the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the committee that writes the building code for hospitals and health care facilities, the VA health care system, The Joint Commission, and the ACR’s Committee on MR Accreditation. These examples highlight the disconnects that have plagued concerted efforts to standardize MR safety issues, namely, the absence of unified professional standards. The ACR’s MR accreditation program, however, has worked to bridge this gap and references ACR’s MR safety guidance as a recommendation for those seeking accreditation. But soon sites seeking MR accreditation from the ACR may face new questions and scrutiny about safety provisions as a part of that process. Source

A six year old boy undergoing an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan was killed by a ferromagnetic oxygen tank that was pulled into the MR scanner. Although MRI can provide important diagnostic information, medical practitioners and patients should be aware that there are several hazards associated with MRI.

The references below give more information on safety in MR environments.

http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/ucm135362.htm

The ACR created a multidisciplinary blue ribbon panel to address critical issues in MR safety. Initially published in in theAmerican Journal of Roentgenology in June 2002, updated in May 2004, and then markedly expanded and updated in March of 2007 (for June, 2007 publication in the AJR), the ACR Guidance Document for Safe MR Practices: 2007″ addresses numerous MR safety related topics, such as:

Read More

“There are increasing numbers of MR scans and an increasing demand to scan patients with implants or accessory medical devices and other equipment. With the increased use, we are also seeing a number of preventable incidents,” said Sunder Rajan, PhD, of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health Division of Physics Biophysics Laboratory. “Given the new experience base, this is a good time for FDA to learn what MR practices are being used and what changes practitioners feel would improve safety to the MR environment.”

Is It Time For Regulation?

Industry leaders agree that you should have regular standards that provide for MRI safety. However, feelings around federal or state intervention are mixed.

“I’d love to see national guidelines, but I don’t know whether it needs to be federal regulation. Unequivocally, I’d like to see a set of objective standards applied to all MRI providers to ensure they offer a basic level of expertise and safety precautions in the MRI environment,” Gilk said. “Whether it’s federal regulation or an agreement between state licensing or accrediting agencies could help us take the needed steps toward preventing accidents.”
Kanal agreed that regulation is needed, but he said it needs to come from within the radiology community.

“We can either accept standards that we create and define, or we can wait for another terrible safety even to occur and be widely publicized throughout the world before pressure mounts on organized radiology to impose externally defined standards, guidelines, and practices upon us.”

Read more

MRI SAFETY.com

http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/NewsEvents/WorkshopsConferences/ucm270720.htm

http://coolmristuff.blogspot.com/view/classic

Vizio is targeting the two of the fastest-growing categories for PC makers: ultra-thin laptops and so-called all- in-ones — desktop machines with built-in monitors. Still, those areas is getting more crowded. Hewlett-Packard will introduce a new all-in-one PC for $1,200 at theConsumer Electronics Show, and other computer makers are unveiling slimmer laptops, a category known as ultrabooks.

Hewlett-Packard is betting that the ultrabook category will resemble other parts of the PC market, with consumers and businesses asking for different designs that meet their needs, said Page Murray, a marketing vice president.

“I don’t believe there’s a one-size-fits-all laptop out there, like some of our competitors might,” Murray said. Driving down prices isn’t a viable long-term strategy, he said.

“There’s always going to be somebody who wants to win a race to the bottom,” Murray said. “But you get what you pay for in many of those situations.”

Vizio, a closely held company based in Irvine, California, is vying with Samsung Electronics Co. for dominance of the U.S. television market. Most television makers lost money in the industry last year due to low prices and sluggish consumer demand. In December, Sony Corp. agreed to sell its stake in a venture with Samsung that makes liquid-crystal displays after predicting an eighth consecutive year of losses from TVs.

http://www.vizio.com/accessories/vtab1008.html#

This spring, Motorola Mobility, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) is helping you flaunt your individuality by adding two stylish and unique Android^™ 2.3 (Gingerbread) powered smartphones to its growing budget-friendly portfolio. MOTOLUXE is a hip, slim touchscreen device and Motorola DEFY MINI is dustproof and water-resistant, making it the ideal “life proof” phone for active users. And they come in different shapes, sizes and colors – so you can choose a phone that best reflects your personality.

No matter what device you choose, Motorola’s MotoSwitch user interface changes the way you manage your life. With MotoSwitch, your smartphone learns who you talk to and which apps you use and keeps all of that information front and center. The Social Graph feature gives you easy and fast access to the people who really matter. It learns who’s most important to you and uses that information to populate the home screen. The more frequently you communicate with someone, the bigger their icon becomes. The Activity Graph gives you quick and easy access to your favorite apps, automatically changing to reflect the apps you use the most. With Music Now you can easily play your favorite music while the Smart Gallery displays your favorite pictures as collections.

With Google Mobile^™ services you’ll be able to search for anything with Google Search^™, chat with your friends using Google Talk^™, or find your way anywhere you want to go with Google Maps^™ with navigation.

Strike While the Iron Is Hot

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/18/blue-microphones-yeti-pro-review/

DR. K. MSK cases has some excellent information to share with technologists!! make some time to visit this site. Below is an example:

Primary lymphoma of the bone accounts for approximately 3% of malignant bone neoplasms and comprises less than 5% of all extranodal non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. 
Diagnosis of primary bone lymphoma includes initial involvement of a single bone (most commonly a long bone)with no evidence of disease elsewhere for at least 6 months after diagnosis.
On conventional radiography, primary lymphomas of bone are characterized as “mottled” or “moth-eaten” radiolucencies, corresponding to regions of marrow and cortical replacement by lymphoma cells. Periosteal reaction has been reported in about 60% of cases. It is dark on T1, bright on T2 and enchances.

read more

http://www.mskcases.com/