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FILE - In this July 11, 2012 file photo, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings attends the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. Netflix Inc. is facing scrutiny from government regulators for a Facebook post by Hastings in July that may have boosted the online video company s stock price. Neflix said Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012, that the Securities and Exchange Commission informed it that its staff is recommending civil action be brought against the company and Hastings. The reason: Hastings July 3 post in which he said Netflix s online video viewing exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June.
NEW YORK?Netflix Inc. is facing scrutiny from government regulators for a Facebook post by its CEO in July that may have boosted the online video company's stock price. Neflix said Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission informed it that its staff is recommending civil action be brought against the company and CEO Reed Hastings. The reason: Hastings' July 3 post in which he said Netflix's online video viewing "exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June."
The SEC says posting on Facebook doesn't amount to fair public disclosure of information that is material to investors.
Shares in Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, Calif., rose more than 6 percent on the day of Hastings' Facebook post. On the first day of trading following the July 4 holiday, its shares rose another 13 percent.
Hastings used Facebook again Thursday to comment on the investigation, which he called a "fascinating social media story." He argued that the information was not material to the stock price, had been disclosed and reported on earlier and that because he had 200,000 followers at the time, it was widely disseminated.
Hastings has been on the board of directors of Facebook Inc. since June 2011 and as of Nov. 14 owned 72,639 Facebook shares.
"We think posting to over 200,000 people is very public, especially because many of my subscribers are reporters and bloggers," he said in his post Thursday.
The SEC says Hastings' July post contained material investor information that must be disclosed in a regulatory filing or news release.
But Hastings said similar information was disclosed on the company blog in June.
On June 4, the blog states that Netflix's online customers were "enjoying nearly a billion hours per month" of streaming video. That announcement also was not put in a press release or an SEC filing.
It's not the first time a CEO from an Internet company has run into trouble with securities authorities for promoting their company through digital means.
In August 2011, Groupon Inc. CEO Andrew Mason got in hot water for sending a long email to thousands of employees explaining "why I'm so excited" about the company's then-upcoming initial public offering of stock, including a discussion of the company's use of controversial financial metrics.
Mason's email went out after the company had already filed IPO papers with the SEC, after which executives are not allowed to further promote the stock to investors. That episode was resolved and Groupon stock began trading publicly on Nov. 4, 2011.
Netflix shares rose $2.80, or 3.4 percent, to $86.17 on Thursday, a day after the company announced a multi-year licensing deal with Disney. The stock fell $1.06, or 1.2 percent, to $85.11 in after-hours trading.
Source: http://www.scsun-news.com/silver_city-business/ci_22140237?source=rss
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Subrogation is one of the oldest legal concepts in jurisprudence with roots that trace back to Roman law under the reign of Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 177?A.D. 138). First established in English common law with the Magna Carta in 1215 A.D., subrogation is now part of the fabric of both our insurance industry and the American economy. Subrogation today works hand-in-hand with the concept of insurance and indemnity to ensure both economic justice and individual responsibility, and is favored under the laws of every state.
Workers? compensation subrogation remains one of our last lines of defense to keep premiums in check and ensure the affordability of insurance for employers, large and small, across the country.
Workers? compensation subrogation is much different than other forms of subrogation, and should be treated as such. Workers? compensation legislation first came into being in 1911 when Wisconsin became the first state to adopt workers? compensation legislation. By 1948, every state had some form of ?workmen?s compensation.? Such legislation had its roots in socialism and is a social contract in which employers are mandated by law to pay unlimited medical expenses and lost wages when employees are injured while working ? even if the employer is absolutely without fault. In exchange for this social safety net, workers? compensation becomes a worker?s exclusive remedy as against their employer, and the employer is given immunity from liability. As part of the contract, the employer (or its insurance carrier) is also entitled to be reimbursed for any benefits paid whenever a third-party tortfeasor (somebody other than the employer or employee) is responsible for the injury or death. Unfortunately, courts and legislatures have begun eroding away the employers? end of the bargain, rendering them liable both when they are at fault, and when they are not. At the same time, their rights of reimbursement have also been assailed.
The term ?subrogation? might be a misnomer when it comes to workers? compensation, because the carrier?s right is more appropriately one of ?statutory reimbursement.? The Wisconsin Court of Appeals has correctly observed that ?the rights granted by the statute are distinct from subrogation.? Campion v. Montgomery Elevator Co., 493 N.W.2d 244 (Wis. App. 1992). Rather, they are a defined set of rules for honoring our social contract with employers by safeguarding reimbursement, placing the responsibility for the loss on the backs of the wrongdoers, and holding down employers? insurance premiums. Unlike traditional subrogation, the carrier here is not subrogated to the rights of its insured ? but rather, is statutorily given the right to press the claim of or receive reimbursement from the injured worker, a stranger to the insurance contract.
Judges and legal scholars agree that subrogation recoveries are an important component in calculating premiums. An insurance company sets its rates based on historical net costs. One legal scholar at the University of Chicago explained how subrogation impacts insurance premiums. See Jeffrey A. Greenblatt, Insurance and Subrogation: Where the Pie Isn?t Big Enough, Who Eats Last?, 64 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1337 (1997), citing Harry L. Sutton, Jr. and Allen J. Sorbo, Actuarial Issues in the Fee-For-Service/Prepaid Medical Group, 46 Center for Research in Ambulatory Healthcare Admin., 2d ed., 1993. (?An adjustment to estimated total HMO expenses?should be included to project the impact of coordination of benefits, workers? compensation, and subrogation?), and author?s phone interview and letter from Dean K. Lam, senior actuary for Allstate Insurance Company to Jeffrey A. Greenblatt, Jan. 30, 1997 (?Lamb letter?) (on file with U. Chi L. Rev.). ?An insurance company sets its rates based on historical net costs. Thus, if the insurer had 100 policyholders in the experience period, and experienced a total of $20,000 in claim costs, it will set its actuarial premiums at $200 per policyholder. If, on the other hand, the insurance company experienced $20,000 in claim costs and received $5,000 in subrogation, it will set its actuarial premiums at $150 per policyholder.? Id. at 1355. Similarly, another writer explained how subrogation recoveries figure into an insurer?s premium calculations:
Revenue gained by the insurer, whether through subrogation collection or otherwise, is applied toward responding to the actual risk that is required to be paid by the insurer under the terms of the contract or policy?As a source of revenue, subrogation operates to reduce the actual past cost total used in the calculation of probable future insurable risk or loss on which future premiums will be based. F. Joseph Du Bray, A Response to the Anti-Subrogation Argument: What really emerged from Pandora?s Box, 41 S.D.L. Rev. 264 (1996).
Courts throughout the country agree that subrogation benefits society by lowering insurance costs and preventing double recoveries. See Brooks v. A.M.F., Inc., 278 N.W.2d 310, 313 (Minn. 1979). Subrogation along all lines of insurance serves the vital function of helping to keep premiums low for billions of insureds worldwide and should be protected at all costs. This is especially true with workers? compensation insurance where the laws of some states require reimbursements to be considered in calculating premiums.
The complicated calculation of workers? compensation premiums necessarily involves the concept known as the Experience Modification Factor. The Experience Modification Factor (also known as an Experience Modification Rating, EMR, Experience Modifier, or just the Mod) is an adjustment that is made to the Workers? Compensation insurance premium of American employers. This means that the calculation of insurance premiums for an employer takes into consideration a number of factors, including prior years? payroll, loss history, and subrogation recoveries.
In 2005, the Workers? Compensation Subcommittee of the American Academy of Actuaries reported to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the dangers and economic harm associated with efforts to limit subrogation rights in the workers? compensation arena, acknowledging that insurance premiums for employers are generally determined in the process of underwriting taking into consideration and counting on the fact that subrogation rights will apply. The role subrogation plays in holding down workers? compensation premiums is even much more pronounced than in some lines of insurance because when the employee makes a successful third-party recovery, the workers? compensation carrier not only has a right to recover past benefits it has paid, but in most states, it has the right to take a credit in the amount of the worker?s net recovery toward any future benefit payments it might owe. This combination of subrogation and future credit plays a large role in erasing negative loss histories, positively affecting risk modifiers, and helping to hold down insurance premiums for one of the key operating costs for American businesses large and small ? workers? compensation insurance.
Allowing insurers a right of subrogation will not increase the amount of lawsuits. In fact, it will have the opposite effect of reducing lawsuits. For example, without subrogation many plaintiffs are free to bring a lawsuit without concern for whether he or she must repay their subrogated carrier. If plaintiffs were forced to repay their health insurers after a third-party recovery, many doubtful or borderline cases would not be brought.
Source: http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2012/12/06/218682.htm
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Kobe Bryant grinned and uttered the word "irony" as he considered the fact that the team that drafted him nearly 17 years ago was his opponent on the night he eclipsed a scoring milestone to join an exclusive club of NBA greats.
It's easy to forget that it was the Hornets who drafted and then traded Bryant away back in 1996.
In the years since, the Hornets have changed cities, from Charlotte to New Orleans, and Bryant has become one of five players in NBA history to score 30,000 points, surpassing the mark with a 29-point performance that helped the Lakers to a 103-87 triumph Wednesday night.
"It's funny how sports always seems to kind of have that connectivity, in some shape, form or fashion," Bryant said. "It just always seems to come full circle."
Bryant entered the game needing 13 points to make history and no one doubted he would get it. NBA Commissioner David Stern, who happened to be making a scheduled visit with new Hornets owner Tom Benson, offered Bryant a congratulatory hand shake before tip-off.
Bryant had 17 points by halftime, eclipsing the 30,000-mark with a short jumper in the paint over Robin Lopez late in the first half. That might have been the least spectacular of his baskets, which included the usual array of soaring dunks, demoralizing transition 3-pointers and twisting, off-balance jumpers.
The only other players to score more than 30,000 are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain.
"It's pretty awesome," Bryant said. "These are players I respect tremendously and obviously grew up idolizing and watching and learned a great deal from."
When Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni was asked before tipoff about Bryant's impending milestone, the coach joked, "That just means he is old."
In fact, at 34, Bryant is younger than the other four were when they hit the mark, but Bryant also turned pro at 18, and is in his 17th season.
"Honestly, I don't know why I'm still working as hard as I am after 17 years," Bryant said. "That's the thing that I'm most proud of ? every year, every day working hard at it. It's a lot of years, a lot of work."
Dwight Howard added 18 points and five blocked shots for the Lakers, who trailed 48-47 at halftime, but seized control with a 13-0 run to open the third quarter, and the lead grew as large as 20 in the fourth.
Ryan Anderson scored 31 points, hitting 5 of 8 3-pointers for the Hornets, who were playing their ninth straight game without top overall draft choice Anthony Davis. Greivis Vasquez added 16 points, while Lopez scored 15 points and blocked five shots.
Antawn Jamison scored 15 and Metta World Peace 11, and Chris Duhon had 10 assists for Los Angeles, which is playing without Steve Nash and Pau Gasol and won for only the second time on the road this season. The Hornets fell to 3-7 at home and lost for the 10th time in 12 games overall.
The Hornets led from early in the first quarter until halftime, going up by as many as eight points when Al-Farouq Aminu slammed down an alley-oop lob from Vasquez, energizing the largest crowd of the season at the New Orleans Arena.
Bryant helped the Lakers trim their deficit after that, hitting five free throws and his milestone on 3-foot jumper in the last 2:15 of the second quarter.
Jamison opened the third-quarter onslaught with 3, Howard followed with a fast-break layup and Bryant had two straight fast-break dunks, one of which he created with a steal. Howard finished the surge with a layup.
"I just didn't think our defense was there, especially that first five or six minutes of the third quarter," Hornets coach Monty Williams said. "Our defense was really poor, and we can't afford those lapses."
After the game, Bryant sat in his locker, reflecting on the elite company he now keeps in NBA history, and the things he sees in younger, prolific scoring stars like Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant, whom the Lakers will face on Friday night, and who could very well join the 30,000-point club at the rate he's going.
One common characteristic, Bryant said, is an apparent immunity to both pressure and criticism.
"Scorers kind of have a fighter-pilot mentality. We're a different breed," he said. "But there are different positions. We scored in a myriad of ways. We all went about it differently in different situations. It's fun to see."
NOTES: Before attending the game, Stern toured the headquarters of the New Orleans Saints, also owned by Benson, and saw how Benson's plans for the NBA franchise were taking shape. New construction has begun on additions that will also accommodate Hornets offices and practice courts. .... Stern said he was pleased to be able to also see Bryant surpass the 30,000-point mark in person. "As a talent, a competitor, I think that he is up there on the pedestal with Michael Jordan," Stern said. "He is one of the greatest." ... Stern also discussed the possibility of a team name change for New Orleans, something Benson has said he wants since buying the club last spring. Stern says the club has not yet applied for a name change but that the league would likely accept whatever name the Hornets want and expedite the transition.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bryant-eclipses-30-000-lakers-beat-hornets-103-032437040--spt.html
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2012) ? It's the least understood organ in the human body: the brain, a massive network of electrically excitable neurons, all communicating with one another via receptors on their tree-like dendrites. Somehow these cells work together to enable great feats of human learning and memory. But how?
Researchers know dendritic spines play a vital role. These tiny membranous structures protrude from dendrites' branches; spread across the entire dendritic tree, the spines on one neuron collect signals from an average of 1,000 others. But more than a century after they were discovered, their function still remains only partially understood.
A Northwestern University researcher, working in collaboration with scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Janelia Farm Research Campus, has recently added an important piece of the puzzle of how neurons "talk" to one another. The researchers have demonstrated that spines serve as electrical compartments in the neuron, isolating and amplifying electrical signals received at the synapses, the sites at which neurons connect to one another.
The key to this discovery is the result of innovative experiments at the Janelia Farm Research Campus and computer simulations performed at Northwestern University that can measure electrical responses on spines throughout the dendrites.
"This research conclusively shows that dendritic spines respond to and process synaptic inputs not just chemically, but also electrically," said William Kath, professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, professor of neurobiology at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and one of the paper's authors.
Dendritic spines come in a variety of shapes, but typically consist of a bulbous spine head at the end of a thin tube, or neck. Each spine head contains one or more synapses and is located in very close proximity to an axon coming from another neuron.
Scientists have gained insight into the chemical properties of dendritic spines: receptors on their surface are known to respond to a number of neurotransmitters, such as glutamate and glycine, released by other neurons. But because of the spines' incredibly small size -- roughly 1/100 the diameter of a human hair -- their electrical properties have been harder to study
In this study, researchers at the HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus used three experimental techniques to assess the electrical properties of dendritic spines in rats' hippocampi, a part of the brain that plays an important role in memory and spatial navigation. First, the researchers used two miniature electrodes to administer current and measure its voltage response at different sites throughout the dendrites.
They also used a technique called "glutamate uncaging," a process that involves releasing glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter, to evoke electrical responses from specific synapses, as if the synapse had just received a signal from a neighboring neuron. A third process utilized a calcium-sensitive dye -- calcium is a chemical indicator of a synaptic event -- injected into the neuron to provide an optical representation of voltage changes within the spine.
At Northwestern, researchers used computational models of real neurons -- reconstructed from the same type of rat neurons -- to build a 3D representation of the neuron with accurate information about each dendrites' placement, diameter, and electrical properties. The computer simulations, in concert with the experiments, indicated that spines' electrical resistance is consistent throughout the dendrites, regardless of where on the dendritic tree they are located.
While much research is still needed to gain a full understanding of the brain, knowledge about spines' electrical processing could lead to advances in the treatment of diseases like Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases.
"The brain is much more complicated than any computer we've ever built, and understanding how it works could lead to advances not just in medicine, but in areas we haven't considered yet," Kath said. "We could learn how to process information in ways we can only guess at now."
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/8cMhtaZXnw0/121205132429.htm
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Courtesy of Nolan Preece The Constantina Fire burning in Long Valley, Calif., in 2010, likely started in cheatgrass.
Cheatgrass is about as western as cowboy boots and sagebrush. It grows in yellowish clumps, about knee high to a horse, and likes arid land.
One thing cheatgrass does is burn ? in fact, more easily than anyone realized. That's the conclusion from a new study that says cheatgrass is making western wildfires worse.
Jennifer Balch used to start fires in the southern Amazon to understand how they burn. Now she's turned her attention to the American west, where big wildfires are on the rise. Instead of lighting fires, though, she studies satellite photos of the Great Basin ? that bowl of arid land stretching from California to Utah and Wyoming.
It's cheatgrass central, and it burns a lot. But no one realized just how much until Balch started measuring those fires.
"What we found was that cheatgrass actually doubles the likelihood of fire; that it burns twice as much as any other vegetation type ? native vegetation type ? in the great basin," she says.
These cheatgrass fires are increasing partly because the climate is warmer and also because more people are living in cheatgrass country. More than half the fires Balch documented were started by people.
And cheatgrass spreads because it's hardier than many native plants, especially in dry regions. Once it's moved in, cheatgrass becomes a fire hazard. he plant sets down roots early in spring and grows fast, filling in areas between native juniper or pinyon trees or sagebrush. When it dies in the summer, it becomes fuel.
"So it creates, literally, a continuous carpet of fuels," Balch says. "So it's able to not only out-compete its neighbors but it literally is able to burn them out."
Enlarge Courtesy of Mike Pellant, Bureau of Land Management Between sagebrush, a continuous cover of cheatgrass fuels an intense fire in the Great Basin.
Courtesy of Mike Pellant, Bureau of Land ManagementBetween sagebrush, a continuous cover of cheatgrass fuels an intense fire in the Great Basin.
Balch, who's now at Penn State University, discovered that of the 50 biggest fires in the Great Basin over the past decade, 39 of them involved cheatgrass.
"They're more easily ignited, they spread faster, they tend to cover larger areas, and they occur more frequently. [It's] a huge management challenge," she says.
That's a challenge for people like Matt Brooks, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who has spent years in the Great Basin. His opinion of cheatgrass: "In a word, I would probably say 'bad.' "
Brooks says Balch's research, which appears in the journal Global Change Biology, confirms what he's seen.
"It's a disturbing thing to see because you end up losing the habitat for a wide range of species, and once it occurs, there's very little that restoration science can do to restore the previous conditions," Brooks says.
There are some things that can be done though, like planting green borders of less flammable vegetation around cheatgrass as a fire break. And there's a fungus that kills cheatgrass ? it's called the black fingers of death ? but introducing it could be biologically risky to other plants.
Jeanne Chambers of the U.S. Forest Service is another combatant in the war on cheatgrass. She says in Nevada, they're seeing fires burning as late as November and as early as January.
"That really has never happened in the past. When we have dry conditions and we have cheatgrass in the understory, we have fuels that can allow those fires to burn almost any time of the year."
And Chambers says a warming climate and an atmosphere with ever more carbon dioxide in it ? essentially plant food ? are just what cheatgrass likes.
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Want to watch movies on the day they're released from the comfort of your home? There's a way, with PRIMA Cinema. The elaborate home theater system knocks your current setup out of the park. A rack-mountable player and PRIMA Biometric Reader load up the films automatically delivered via broadband (a speedy Internet connection is required). Audio and video is output over HDMI (audio also has lossless PCM or Dolby TrueHD capability), with built-in 3D support. The company claims their tech provides "better clarity and deeper colors than current Blu-ray players." There's also a security system in place so you don't have to worry about your drunken movie-watching orgy spiraling out of control and accidentally downloading ALL THE MOVIES IN THE UNIVERSE, or someone trying to steal the latest Star Wars film.?
If you're worried about having some clunky, ugly system mucking up your movie sexability, fear not: "sleek contours of the exterior industrial design were crafted by BMW DesignWorksUSA in their California design studio for a unique yet classic look." The system fits into a?standard 19" rack cabinet and is designed to work with existing displays, but you may feel like an inadequate fool after you start to toy with the thing, compelling you to upgrade.
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What does all this cost you? The elite system runs a pretty penny ? $35,0000 ? with each film costing patrons $500 to download. Would you sell your kidneys to own this thing? If you're a tech geek, speak up: Does PRIMA deliver as far as the specs are concerned? Is this where the future of films is headed so we can rest easy and avoid psychotics on a killing spree and annoying mobile phone-loving moviegoers? Chime in with your thoughts, below. [Spotted via Uncrate]?
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1926381/news/1926381/
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