Author: SeniorWomenWeb

  • United States Immigration Services: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: Response to January 2018 Preliminary Injunction

    Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: Response to January 2018 Preliminary InjunctionStatue of Liberty

    Jan. 13, 2018, Update:  Due to a federal court order, USCIS has resumed accepting requests to renew a grant of deferred action under DACA.  Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017. 

    Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, Wikipedia 

    Individuals who were previously granted deferred action under DACA may request renewal by filing Form I-821D (PDF)Form I-765 (PDF), and Form I-765 Worksheet (PDF), with the appropriate fee or approved fee exemption request, at the USCIS designated filing location, and in accordance with the instructions to the Form I-821D (PDF) and Form I-765 (PDF).  USCIS is not accepting requests from individuals who have never before been granted deferred action under DACA.  USCIS will not accept or approve advance parole requests from DACA recipients. 

    If you previously received DACA and your DACA expired on or after Sept. 5, 2016, you may still file your DACA request as a renewal request.  Please list the date your prior DACA ended in the appropriate box on Part 1 of the Form I-821D.

    If you previously received DACA and your DACA expired before Sept. 5, 2016, or your DACA was previously terminated at any time, you cannot request DACA as a renewal (because renewal requests typically must be submitted within one year of the expiration date of your last period of deferred action approved under DACA), but may nonetheless file a new initial DACA request in accordance with the Form I-821D and Form I-765 instructions. To assist USCIS with reviewing your DACA request for acceptance, if you are filing a new initial DACA request because your DACA expired before Sept. 5, 2016, or because it was terminated at any time, please list the date your prior DACA expired or was terminated on Part 1 of the Form I-821D, if available.

    Deferred action is a discretionary determination to defer a removal action of an individual as an act of prosecutorial discretion.  Further, deferred action under DACA does not confer legal status upon an individual and may be terminated at any time, with or without a Notice of Intent to Terminate, at DHS’s discretion.  DACA requests will be adjudicated under the guidelines set forth in the June 15, 2012 DACA memo (PDF)

    Additional information will be forthcoming.

    Editor’s Note: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Humanitarian/Deferred%20Action%20for%20Childhood%20Arrivals/234_Order_Entering_Preliminary_Injunction.pdf

    INTRODUCTION In these challenges to the government’s rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, plaintiffs move for provisional relief while the government moves to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. For the reasons below, dismissal is DENIED and some provisional relief is GRANTED. STATEMENT In 2012, the United States Department of Homeland Security adopted a program to postpone deportation of undocumented immigrants brought to America as children and, pending action in their cases, to assign them work permits allowing them to obtain social security numbers, pay taxes, and become part of the mainstream economy. This program received the Case 3:17-cv-05211-WHA Document 234 Filed 01/09/18 Page 1 of 49 United States District Court For the Northern District of California 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 title “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” — DACA for short. In 2017, however, after the national election and change in administrations, the agency eventually reversed itself and began a phase-out of DACA. All agree that a new administration is entitled to replace old policies with new policies so long as they comply with the law. One question presented in these related actions is whether the new administration terminated DACA based on a mistake of law rather than in compliance with the law.

  • The Gender Gap in Economics: Swarthmore’s Amanda Bayer Discusses Sexism in the Profession and What To Do About It

    Diversity in the economics profession was among the issues discussed at the 2017 AEA Annual Meeting in Chicago. Photo collage by Chris Fleisher

    The economics profession has a diversity problem.  It’s not a new problem. Yet, the profession’s gender imbalance has been a topic of intense debate lately.

    A Berkeley undergraduate’s thesis on sexism in economics drew widespread media attention amidbroader conversation about the obstacles women face in male-dominated industries like high tech.

    Swarthmore professor Amanda Bayer has worked much of her career addressing diversity in economics. She has published papers about it, served on the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession, and co-organized a national summit on the topic with the Federal Reserve.  She is also the creator and editor of Diversifying Economic Quality, a widely read online resource that promotes inclusive, innovative, and evidence-based teaching practices in economics.

    She recently spoke with Chris Fleisher and Diana Schoder of the American Economic Association about the severity of the gender gap in economics, why addressing it is more than an issue of fairness, and her own experiences as she advanced her career.  An edited transcript follows and the fuller length interview can be heard by clicking on the media player below.

    https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5316

    Chris Fleisher: How significant is the gender gap in the economics profession?

    Amanda Bayer: The gender disparities in the economics profession are striking. They start at the undergraduate level if not before, continue through Ph.D. programs and into the professorate. Well, let me have you guess. What percentage of econ majors at the undergraduate level do you think are female?

    Fleisher: I would say maybe fewer than one-fourth?

    Bayer: All right, so we do better than that. About 30 percent across all types of institutions of econ majors are female.

    Fleisher: The disparity is even huge compared to other social science disciplines. Why is economics any different from any other discipline?

    Bayer: That’s a huge question, but I think it bears some time in just noting the fact that it is different. The percentage female at the undergraduate level in economics is well below the percentage female in other social sciences, in business, in humanities and even below the percentage female in STEM fields. Economics is an outlier.

    Diana Schoder: A lot of people talk about math being a big obstacle to entering economics. But based on what you just said about economics sliding behind even STEM fields and other math-based or highly technical fields, why might economics have any differences?

    Bayer: There’s a huge misconception that it’s the math component of economics that’s keeping women away. And that’s actually not the situation. About 45 percent of math majors at the undergraduate level are women. So, women major in math at a higher rate than they do in economics. Other studies with regression evidence show that math isn’t the factor that explains the gap.

    Fleisher: Can you tell us a little bit more about how you came to the profession?

    Bayer: That’s a funny question. The summer before my first semester in college, I needed to sign up for four courses for the fall. And I selected economics as one of them. My father looked at my preliminary selections and said, “Oh, don’t take economics. That was the dullest, driest, most boring course I’ve ever encountered. I want you to start your college career off right with exciting topics.” So, I erased the economics selection and chose some philosophy course or something. I didn’t come back to economics until the spring of my sophomore year, so relatively late. But economics was a popular major at my college so it found me and once I was in that class, I was hooked.

  • Elaine Soloway’s Rookie Transplant Series: YMCA: Then and Now; Sleeping Around and Happy Holidays

    YMCA: Then and Now

    YMCA Then,Now

    I used a fingernail to lift the silver circle on the key ring. When there was enough of an opening, I pushed the hole in my new YMCA fob through the circle until it closed and sealed.

    That’s when I felt a tap on my shoulder, soft as a feather, but familiar.

    “Finally.” It was the voice of Tommy making himself heard in my head at the Hollywood-Wilshire YMCA.

    My response to my deceased husband was mental, rather than aloud, as I didn’t want those in earshot to think me loony. “I knew you’d show up at the Y,” I said, as I pictured Tommy in his tank top and shorts, his body trim with muscled biceps and calves.

    At once, the small chest of drawers that stood at his side of our bed appeared in my mind’s eye. Second drawer; that’s where his gym clothes lived. Neat piles of tank tops and shorts, most purchased from thrift shops, for my husband of 14 years was as slim in his spending as he was in body.

    I could see him choosing the outfit he appeared in during this imaginary visit. First, he’d have removed from the closet the gym bag he had used during his 40-year membership at Chicago’s Lakeview Y. His weathered shoes would already be stowed, along with a towel. Would he find the note I had left him?

    Tommy taught me that. At the beginning of our romance — both in our 60s at the time — he would write tender Post-its and hide them for me to find some time during my day. Imagine, at that mature age, being reminded there was this fellow who thought I walked on water.

    I hadn’t learned this sentimentality previously, but I leaped in, stowing my own notes to Tommy in one of his gym shoes, or in a drawer, surprises I knew would light his morning.

    Sadly, it’s not all mushy stuff when I recall my guy and his beloved Y. Much of that switched to spy games when in 2009,  he was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Degeneration and lost his ability to speak. To be certain I would be contacted if anything happened to him when he was not under my watch, I bought him a medical ID bracelet. The band’s metal plate was engraved with his name, his illness, and my cell phone number.

    But, my Tommy refused to wear the band. I didn’t pressure him because I figured the gym was his sanctuary, free of a hovering wife. It was the place where he didn’t have to talk; where he was proud of his three times a week attendance, and routine of 33 minutes on the elliptical, then 20 minutes of weight lifting. At the Y, he was a strongman, not someone needing a medical ID bracelet.

    “Hel-lo, are you still here?” It was my fictional Tommy waking me from a scene that he evidently didn’t want to revisit.

    “Sorry, honey,” I said, miffed at myself for clouding his drop in. “Were you surprised to see me here, signing up at a Y rather than some fancy health club?”

    “I knew you’d come around eventually,” he said. “Sure L.A.’s sunshine is great and the glitter is fun, but I knew you’d wind up in a place that felt comfortable, familiar. And affordable.”

    Ah yes, there was my budget-minded buddy reminding me of my, um, tendency to fudge finances. “Have you been keeping an eye on me since I landed in California? Were you worried I’d be living on credit cards and wishful thinking?”

    “Well, I can’t say it hadn’t entered my mind,” he said. “But, it’s more than the low membership fee that makes me happy to see you here. It reminds me of the days we’d go to the Y together. Remember when we first married, the time I took you on a tour and showed you how to operate each machine?”

    “Of course I remember,” I said, as the slideshow slipped across my vision. Before then, Tommy had been a long-time bachelor, and I felt his pride as he paused in his instructions to introduce me to all of his gym pals.

    “My wife,” he’d say, puffed as if he had won the state’s lotto.

    “He’s the best,” his cronies would say.

    In real time, my Strength Class was about to begin, so I shook my head to tuck my spouse back to my brain. I entered the Women’s Locker Room and placed my belongings in an empty space. But before closing the lock, I rummaged through my gym bag to be certain I hadn’t left anything behind. My fingers probed each corner.

    Could a long-ago note be hiding somewhere? Nope, all gone.

  • Trump Administration Relaxes Financial Penalties Against Nursing Homes; Advocates for Nursing-home Residents Say the Revised Penalties are Weakening a Valuable Patient-safety Tool

     31, 2017

    The Trump administration — reversing guidelines put in place under President Barack Obama — is scaling back the use of fines against nursing homes that harm residents or place them in grave risk of injury. 

    Seema VernaMs. Seema Verma (right) was sworn in as the 15th Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on March 14, 2017

    The shift in the Medicare program’s penalty protocols was requested by the nursing home industry. The American Health Care Association, the industry’s main trade group, has complained that under Obama inspectors focused excessively on catching wrongdoing rather than helping nursing homes improve.

    “It is critical that we have relief,” Mark Parkinson, the group’s president, wrote in a letter to then-President-elect Donald Trump in December 2016.

    Since 2013, nearly 6,500 nursing homes — 4 of every 10 — have been cited at least once for a serious violation, federal records show. Medicare has fined two-thirds of those homes. Common citations include failing to protect residents from avoidable accidents, neglect, mistreatment and bedsores.

    The new guidelines discourage regulators from levying fines in some situations, even when they have resulted in a resident’s death. The guidelines will also probably result in lower fines for many facilities.

    The change in policy aligns with Trump’s promise to reduce bureaucracy, regulation and government intervention in business.

    “Rather than spending quality time with their patients, the providers are spending time complying with regulations that get in the way of caring for their patients and doesn’t increase the quality of care they provide,” Goodrich said.

    But advocates for nursing-home residents say the revised penalties are weakening a valuable patient-safety tool.

    “They’ve pretty much emasculated enforcement, which was already weak,” said Toby Edelman, a senior attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

    Medicare has different ways of applying penalties. It can impose a specific fine for a particular violation. It can assess a fine for each day that a nursing home was in violation. Or it can deny payments for new admissions.

    The average fine in recent years has been $33,453, but 531 nursing homes amassed combined federal fines above $100,000, records show. In 2016, Congress increased the fines to factor in several years of inflation that had not been accounted for previously.

    The new rules have been instituted gradually throughout the year.

    In October, CMS discouraged its regional offices from levying fines, even in the most serious health violations, if the error was a “one-time mistake.” The centers said that intentional disregard for residents’ health and safety or systemic errors should still merit fines.

    July memo from CMS discouraged the directors of state agencies that survey nursing homes from issuing daily fines for violations that began before an inspection, favoring one-time fines instead. Daily fines remain the recommended approach for major violations discovered during an inspection.

  • Sally Yates, a “Truly Noble, Heroic Figure”, a Woman of the Year

    Editor’s Note: We thought about Sally Yates again today when journalist and commentator Mike Barnicle, on Morning Joe, referred to the former Acting Attorney General as a “truly noble, heroic figure” (expanded upon by Justice and Security Analyst Matthew Miller) and so decided to rerun the article on her Harvard Law School’s Class Day ceremony speech to the graduating class. 

    Sally Yates

    [Sally] Yates said that as lawyers, the graduates “not only have the unique opportunity and ability but also the attendant responsibility to foster justice in this world, to reveal truth, to stand up for the voiceless.”

    “You have to decide what you believe is worth fighting for,” Yates said. She said her own list of causes includes promoting criminal justice reform, respecting law enforcement officers, holding accountable corporate executives “who lie, cheat, and steal,” and defending same-sex marriage, and she urged the students to come up with their own lists.”

    [Sally] Yates said that as lawyers, the graduates “not only have the unique opportunity and ability but also the attendant responsibility to foster justice in this world, to reveal truth, to stand up for the voiceless.”As bright, talented, and driven as all of you are right now, you need to give yourself the space to develop into great lawyers.”

    She also advised that “the safest course is not always the best course.”

    “Being bold, taking a risk and owning it, isn’t easy to do, and the instinct for self-preservation may continually draw you to the safe, risk-free course,” she said. “But I urge you to resist that instinct. Not only is a life of hedging your bets unsatisfying, but it means you’re unlikely to make much of a difference.”

    Read the rest of the article: http://www.seniorwomen.com/news/index.php/p3239

  • A Welcome to Public Domain Day by Duke’s Law School; What is Entering Public Domain in the US? Not a Single Published Work

     

    Public Domain Day 2017       

    Public Domain Day: January 1, 2018

    Rene Magritte, Ceci n'est pas un domaine publicPublic Domain Day is January 1st of every year. If you live in Canada or New Zealand, January 1st 2018 would be the day when the works of René MagritteLangston HughesDorothy ParkerJean ToomerEdward Hopper, and Alice B. Toklas enter the public domain.1 So would the musical compositions of John ColtraneBilly StrayhornPaul WhitemanOtis Redding, and Woody Guthrie. Canadians can now add a wealth of books, poems, paintings, and musical works by these authors to online archives, without asking permission or violating the law. And in Europe, the works of Hugh Lofting (the Doctor DoLittle books), William Moulton Marston (creator of Wonder Woman!), and Emma Orczy (the Scarlet Pimpernel series) will emerge into the public domain, where anyone can use them in their own books or movies. (You can find a great celebration of some of these authors here.)

    Woody Guthrie, This book is your book, This song is my song, This work was made from you and me...  ...But only if it's from before 1923!
    Is “This Land Is Your Land” in the public domain? It’s complicated, and there’s a pending lawsuit on the subject—you can read more about it here.

    What is entering the public domain in the United States? Not a single published work. Once again, no published works are entering our public domain this year.2 (Happily, works published in 1923 will finally begin to enter our public domain next year.) The only works that are clearly in the US public domain now are those published before 1923. But what about works published after that date? Does that mean that they’re still under copyright? Well, maybe. Citizens of the United States have to live with a frustrating lack of clarity about what older works they can use. Did the author comply with registration or renewal requirements when those were mandatory?3 The records are fragmentary and confused, the copyright holders hard to find. Perhaps some post-1923 works by the authors above are in the public domain. Perhaps they are still copyrighted. We have to live in a fog of uncertainty, uncertainty that benefits no one. By contrast, in Canada and the EU, the public will know on January 1 that all works by these authors are in the public domain.

    When the first copyright law was written in the United States, copyright lasted 14 years, renewable for another 14 years if the author wished. Jefferson or Madison could look at the books written by their contemporaries and confidently expect them to be in the public domain within a decade or two. Now? In the United States, as in much of the world, copyright lasts for the author’s lifetime, plus another 70 years. You might think, therefore, that works whose authors died in 1947 would be freely available on January 1, 2018. Sadly, no. When Congress changed the law, it applied the term extension retrospectively to existing works, and gave all in-copyright works published between 1923 and 1977 a term of 95 years. The result? None of those works will enter the public domain until 2019, and works from 1961, whose arrival we might otherwise be expecting January 1, 2018, will not enter the public domain until 2057. In addition to lengthening the term, Congress also changed the law so that every creative work is automatically copyrighted, even if the author does nothing.

    What do these laws mean to you? As you can read in our analysis here, they impose great (and in many cases unnecessary) costs on creativity, on libraries and archives, on education and on scholarship. More broadly, they impose costs on our collective culture. We have little reason to celebrate on Public Domain Day because our public domain has been shrinking, not growing.

  • Dreams of the Kings: A Jade Suit for Eternity; “Humankind’s Dream of Eternal Life is Enduring”

     Jade and Gold Burial Suit at Nelson-Atkins

     Jade burial suit bound with gold wire excavated from the tomb of a King of Chu at Shizishan, Xuzhou. Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE), first half of second century BCE. L. 176 cm (69.29 in)

    In ancient China, death was believed to be such a continuation of life that burial tombs were plotted as elaborate afterlife arenas, complete with large security forces made of clay, horse-drawn chariots, precious stones and jade figures. Dreams of the Kings: A Jade Suit for Eternity has opened at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art* in Kansas City and offers a remarkable window into ancient Chinese burial rituals following the discovery of nearly 100 tombs in the mid-20th century onwards in northern Jiangsu Province.

    “Humankind’s dream of eternal life is enduring,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell CEO & Director of the Nelson-Atkins. “The finest quality jade suit excavated to date, showcased in this exhibition, along with the other burial objects on display, reveal the dreams of the elegant kings of Chu.”the head of the suit

    The centerpiece of Dreams of the Kings is a 2,000-year-old, life-sized jade and gold burial suit, meticulously assembled from more than 4,000 pieces of jade linked together with gold wire. Jade is China’s most precious material and has been exalted in that country since the Neolithic period as having deep spiritual significance associated with the afterlife. It was only during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E –220 C.E.) that it was used to completely encase the corpse to reflect the belief that the body would not decay if encased in jade. Jade burial suits were extremely expensive to produce and encouraged tomb looters, prompting a late Han ruler to prohibit jade burial suits. None dating later than Han have ever been found, and the jade suit in this exhibition is the finest to have survived from ancient China.

    Earthenware figure of a dancer excavated from the tomb of the King of Chu at Tuolanshan, H. 52 cm (20.47 in); W. 40 cm(15.74 in).

    In 201 B.C.E, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty appointed his younger brother as the first king of the Chu Kingdom, which was centered in what is now Xuzhou, halfway between Beijing and Shanghai. Elites in this kingdom enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, and 12 generations of kings were buried in monumental tombs carved into the rocky hills nearby. The excavation of these tombs yielded an astonishing number of sumptuous objects which are now on view in this exhibition.

    “The stunning jades in this exhibition, shown for the first time in the United States, demonstrate why jade is China’s most precious material,” said Colin Mackenzie, Senior Curator of East Asian Art. “Visitors will be amazed by the workmanship and the dramatic ambience of their display in our world-famous Chinese Temple.”

    Dreams of the Kings is divided into three sections: Court Ceremony, Feasting, Dance, and Ritual; Warfare and Authority; and Jade for Eternity. The first section displays a remarkable selection of ceramic figures of dancers and musicians, including an elegant, swaying dancer throwing her long sleeves in wild abandon, as well as a huge gilt bronze basin that reflects the importance of personal hygiene in ancient China. Warfare and Authority features a full suit of iron armor, along with miniature versions of the famous Terracotta Warriors, jade sword fittings, and a group of gold, silver and bronze seals of Chu rulers and officials. Jade for Eternity explores the roles of China’s most precious material, particularly jade’s moral symbolism and its efficacy in preserving the body in burial.

    The Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City is recognized nationally and internationally as one of America’s finest art museums. The museum, which strives to be the place where the power of art engages the spirit of community, opens its doors free of charge to people of all backgrounds. The museum is an institution that both challenges and comforts, that both inspires and soothes, and it is a destination for inspiration, reflection and connecting with others.

    The Nelson-Atkins serves the community by providing access to its renowned collection of nearly 40,000 art objects and is best known for its Asian art, European and American paintings, photography, modern sculpture, and new American Indian and Egyptian galleries. Housing a major art research library and the Ford Learning Center, the Museum is a key educational resource for the region. In 2017, the Nelson-Atkins celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the Bloch Building, a critically acclaimed addition to the original 1933 Nelson-Atkins Building.

    *A Museum Map of the museum: https://www.nelson-atkins.org/museum-map/

  • “Robots Can Learn a Range of Visual Object Manipulation Skills Entirely on Their Own”

    image of vestri

     

    Berkeley researchers have programmed the robot, Vestri, to complete tasks like a baby would – by playing with objects and then imagining how to get the task done. (UC Berkeley video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally)

    UC Berkeley researchers have developed a robotic learning technology that enables robots to imagine the future of their actions so they can figure out how to manipulate objects they have never encountered before. In the future, this technology could help self-driving cars anticipate future events on the road and produce more intelligent robotic assistants in homes, but the initial prototype focuses on learning simple manual skills entirely from autonomous play.

    Using this technology, called visual foresight, the robots can predict what their cameras will see if they perform a particular sequence of movements. These robotic imaginations are still relatively simple for now – predictions made only several seconds into the future – but they are enough for the robot to figure out how to move objects around on a table without disturbing obstacles. Crucially, the robot can learn to perform these tasks without any help from humans or prior knowledge about physics, its environment or what the objects are. That’s because the visual imagination is learned entirely from scratch from unattended and unsupervised exploration, where the robot plays with objects on a table. After this play phase, the robot builds a predictive model of the world, and can use this model to manipulate new objects that it has not seen before.

    “In the same way that we can imagine how our actions will move the objects in our environment, this method can enable a robot to visualize how different behaviors will affect the world around it,” said Sergey Levine, assistant professor in Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, whose lab developed the technology. “This can enable intelligent planning of highly flexible skills in complex real-world situations.”

    The research team [was scheduled] to perform a demonstration of the visual foresight technology at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference in Long Beach, California, on December 5.

    At the core of this system is a deep learning technology based on convolutional recurrent video prediction, or dynamic neural advection (DNA). DNA-based models predict how pixels in an image will move from one frame to the next based on the robot’s actions. Recent improvements to this class of models, as well as greatly improved planning capabilities, have enabled robotic control based on video prediction to perform increasingly complex tasks, such as sliding toys around obstacles and repositioning multiple objects.

  • The Strong Museum: Home to International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the World Video Game Hall of Fame

    About The StrongStrong Museum

    The Strong is the only collections-based museum in the world devoted solely to play. It is home to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the World Video Game Hall of Fame, the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, Woodbury School, and the American Journal of Play;  it houses the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play. Known widely as the nation’s museum of play, The Strong blends the best features of both history museums (extensive collections) and children’s museums (high interactivity) to explore the ways in which play encourages learning, creativity, and discovery and illuminates cultural history.

    Independent and not-for-profit, The Strong is situated in Rochester, New York, where it collects and cares for hundreds of thousands of objects including toys, dolls, board games, video games, other electronic games, and other objects that illuminate the meaning and importance of play. Together, these materials enable a multifaceted array of research, exhibition, and other interpretive activities that serve a diverse audience of adults, families, children, students, teachers, scholars, collectors, and others around the globe. Each programmatic element provides a unique framework through which The Strong develops, organizes, and delivers educational services.

    International Center for the History of Electronic Games

    The International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) collects, studies, and interprets video games, other electronic games, and related materials and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of geography and culture. At 60,000 objects and growing, ICHEG cares for one of the largest and most comprehensive public collections of video and electronic games and game-related historical materials in the world.

    National Toy Hall of Fame

    The National Toy Hall of Fame recognizes toys that have demonstrated popularity over multiple generations and thereby gained national significance in the world of play and imagination. Each year the hall inducts additional honorees and showcases both new and historic versions of the classic icons of play. Anyone can nominate a toy to the National Toy Hall of Fame. Final selections are made on the advice of a national selection committee comprised of historians, educators, and other individuals who exemplify learning, creativity, and discovery through their lives and careers.

    World Video Game Hall of Fame

    The World Video Game Hall of Fame recognizes individual electronic games of all types—arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile —that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general.

  • Kaiser Health News: Doing More Harm Than Good? Epidemic of Screening Burdens Nation’s Older Patients

    Overscreening illustration

    Elena Altemus is 89 and has dementia. She often forgets her children’s names, and sometimes can’t recall whether she lives in Maryland or Italy.

    Yet Elena, who entered a nursing home in November, was screened for breast cancer as recently as this summer. “If the screening is not too invasive, why not?” asked her daughter, Dorothy Altemus. “I want her to have the best quality of life possible.”

    But a growing chorus of geriatricians, cancer specialists and health system analysts are coming forth with a host of reasons: Such testing in the nation’s oldest patients is highly unlikely to detect lethal disease, hugely expensive and more likely to harm than help since any follow-up testing and treatment is often invasive.

    In this series, “Treatment Overkill,” Kaiser Health News investigates the causes and consequences of medical overtreatment, both for patients and the healthcare system.

    And yet such screening — some have labeled it “overdiagnosis” — is epidemic in the United States, the result of medical culture, aggressive awareness campaigns and financial incentives to doctors.

    By looking for cancers in people who are unlikely to benefit, “we find something that wasn’t going to hurt the patient, and then we hurt the patient,” said Dr. Sei Lee, an associate professor of geriatrics at the University of California-San Francisco.

    Nearly 1 in 5 women with severe cognitive impairment — including older patients like Elena Altemus — are still getting regular mammograms, according to the American Journal of Public Health — even though they’re not recommended for people with a limited life expectancy. And 55 percent of older men with a high risk of death over the next decade still get PSA tests for prostate cancer, according to a 2014 study in JAMA Internal Medicine.