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DOE Awards $53M to Cut Solar Cost

energymanagertoday.com - October 24th 2014

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is investing more than $53 million for 40 research and development projects to drive down the cost of solar energy, addressing key aspects of technology development in order to bring innovative ideas to the market more quickly. These awards upport the development of next-generation PV solar technologies and advanced manufacturing processes and address both hardware and non-hardware “soft” costs of solar installation.

DOE is awarding more than $14 million to 10 research institutions to improve the performance, efficiency and durability of solar PV devices.

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Lack of federal authority makes fashioning coherent national Ebola policy difficult

Discussion of conflicting quarantine guidelines

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWSWIRE                     Oct. 30, 1014
Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) issued new guidelines on how states should deal with travelers from Ebola-stricken regions, but a lack of federal authority to mandate such guidelines has led to conflicting strategies, varying from state to state, which includes mandatory at-home quarantine for some travelers. Under current U.S. law, the states have the authority to issue quarantine or isolation policies, and they also control the enforcement of these policies within their territories.

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http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141030-lack-of-federal-authority-makes-fashioning-coherent-national-ebola-policy-difficult

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Amid Assurances on Ebola, Obama Is Said to Seethe

NEW YORK TIMES                                                 Oct. 18, 2014

By and

WASHINGTON — Beneath the calming reassurance that President Obama has repeatedly offered during the Ebola crisis, there is a deepening frustration, even anger, with how the government has handled key elements of the response.

Those frustrations spilled over when Mr. Obama convened his top aides in the Cabinet room after canceling his schedule on Wednesday. Medical officials were providing information that later turned out to be wrong. Guidance to local health teams was not adequate. It was unclear which Ebola patients belonged in which threat categories.

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Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director

HUFFINGTON POST

By Sam Stein                                                              Updated Oct. 13 ,2014

BETHESDA, Md. -- As the federal government frantically works to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and as it responds to a second diagnosis of the disease at home, one of the country's top health officials says a vaccine likely would have already been discovered were it not for budget cuts.

Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, said that a decade of stagnant spending has "slowed down" research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe.

"NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'" Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready."

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U.S. ne dispose pas d'une norme unique pour Ebola réponse

USA aujourd'hui 12 octobre 2014

par Larry Copeland

ATLANTA — famille de comme Thomas Eric Duncan pleure la mort de virus Ebola première des États-Unis à Dallas, une question se répercute sur une série de faux-pas apparentes dans le cas: Qui est responsable de la réponse au virus Ebola?

La réponse semble être : il n'est pas vraiment une personne ou un organisme. Il n'y a pas une seule réponse nationale.

Basé à Atlanta the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a émergé comme le porte-drapeau — et parfois le bouc émissaire — sur Ebola.

Santé publique est du ressort des États, et que la nation prévoit plusieurs cas de virus Ebola, certains experts disent la façon dont les États-Unis gère la santé publique n'est pas à la hauteur de la tâche.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/12/examining-the-nations-ebola-response/17059283/

travailleurs CDC analysent les informations d'Ebola dans le Centre des opérations d'urgence de la CDC à Atlanta. (Photo : David Tulis pour USA TODAY)


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Obama: U.S. Vous Musclez aéroport projections pour Ebola

mise à jour avec des informations supplémentaires (défilement ci-dessous).

Temps

De Zeke J. Miller le 6 oct. 2014 17:24

Le Président Barack Obama a déclaré lundi que les Etats-Unis travaille sur des projections de passager supplémentaire pour les passagers aériens battant de l'Afrique de l'Ouest frappé par Ebola, deux semaines après un homme libérien infecté par la maladie sont entrés dans le pays.

Fonctionnaires « vont travailler sur les protocoles de faire des projections de passager supplémentaire à la fois source et ici aux Etats-Unis, » Obama a déclaré, adressage des journalistes après une réunion d'information sur la réponse de son administration à l'épidémie en Afrique et au maintien de la maladie ne se propage aux Etats-Unis "toutes ces choses me font confiant qu'ici aux États-Unis au moins les chances d'une éclosiond'une épidémie ici sont extraordinairement faibles. "

Le Président n'a pas donné de détails sur les nouvelles mesures de dépistage, et Dr. Tom Frieden, directeur des Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a refusé de préciser plus en détail dans une interview avec CNN, après la réunion.

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Ebola Victim's Air Journey shows weak spots in screening.

NEW YORK TIMES              October 3, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — The arrival in the United States of a Liberian man infected with the Ebola virus shows how difficult it is to control or restrict the disease from spreading, and how porous current procedures are in a world of globalized air travel.

Liberian officials said on Thursday that they planned to prosecute the passenger, Thomas E. Duncan, for lying on an airport questionnaire about not having contact with a person infected with Ebola before his travel — a pivotal part of the country’s screening process.

Mr. Duncan took three planes as he flew from Monrovia, the Liberian capital, to Dallas last month, connecting in Brussels and Washington.

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USG expected to announce within days procedures for handling Ebola patents' medical waste

                                                    October 2, 2014

Reuters reports that the U.S.Government expects to settle within days the critical question of how hospitals should handle and dispose of medical waste from Ebola patients.

Experts have warned that conflicting U.S. regulations over how such waste should be transported could make it very difficult for U.S. hospitals to safely care for patients with Ebola, a messy disease that causes diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases, bleeding from the eyes and ears.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/02/us-health-ebola-waste-idUSKCN0HR07T20141002

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Overview of U.S.Defense Department activities against Ebola, including testing vaccine candidate

By Cheryl Pellerin

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2014 – The Defense Department has made critical contributions to the fight against the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and today Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel described additional ways the Pentagon is helping in the broader battle against infectious disease outbreaks of the future.

He spoke at a gathering of top government and military officials and infectious disease experts from 44 countries here to attend the Global Health Security Agenda, or GHSA, Summit hosted by President Barack Obama.

Hagel said ...the department also is accelerating the manufacture of potential treatments and starting clinical trials for a vaccine candidate and it has received approval to begin safety testing for one [Ebola] vaccine candidate that will be conducted at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.”

...The DoD Cooperative Threat Reduction Program is providing unique resources and expertise to enhance detection and surveillance, Hagel said, and all department assets will help civilian responders contain Ebola's spread and mitigate its economic, social and political fallout.

For fuller description of the Defense Department's activities to counter Ebola see link to the full article:

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How Can a City Measure Its Happiness?

Santa Monica will begin to survey residents about their well-being next month. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow | Next City | August 19, 2014

At one time, questionnaires about well-being were the province of mental health professionals. But in recent years, a growing number of city governments have been getting into the game. Last year, Santa Monica, California won a Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors’ Challenge grant to create a “Local Well-Being Index,” based in part on a survey it plans to administer next month. Other cities, including Seattle and Nevada City, Calif., are at various stages of implementing the idea as well (with different levels of direct municipal involvement). All share a goal that some see as unsuitable for government and others consider its fundamental task: to make citizens happier.

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/happiest-cities-well-being-survey-policy

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