Autonomous vehicles are driving new legislation across the nation and pilot tests are being rolled out. But for many citizens and legislators, the learning curve for autonomous vehicles (AVs) may still be quite steep and the desire to learn deep.

February 10-13, 2019
45th Annual Conference

A new analysis offers a preliminary look at Utilization Review and Independent Medical Review outcomes involving pharmaceutical requests for California injured workers since the state implemented a workers’ compensation formulary in January.

The analysis from the California Workers’ Compensation Institute issued on Friday shows that the proportion of UR decisions involving prescription drug requests fell from 44.5 percent in the pre-formulary period to 40.7 percent in the first five months of 2018.

The Ferguson wildfires have been spreading in Mariposa County, California on the western edge of Yosemite National Park for days, burning 27 square miles and taking the life of one firefighter.

The Mercury News reported that more than 1,400 firefighters have been on the scene trying to protect 100 nearby homes and businesses that are in the fire’s path as it moves south and east.

The fires began July 13 at about 8:30 p.m. and by July 15 had nearly doubled to 9,300 acres. On Wednesday it was at 17,319 acres and 5% contained. And while authorities have not declared an official cause, Colin Gannon, senior data analyst at Four Twenty Seven, which studies the economic risk of climate change, said weather and environmental conditions are certainly contributing factors.

One might consider the firewall the most significant invention in cybersecurity in the last 30 years. The firewall has certainly evolved since its inception in 1988 as simple packet filters, launching with stateful filters, then upgrading to its third-generation application layer firewall and more recently upgrading again to the next-generation firewall (NGFW).

While NGFW is certainly part of the cybersecurity stack, NGFW is no longer revolutionizing the way we protect our critical business assets.

Today’s cybersecurity strategies have been disrupted by two new models: the Zero Trust model and DevSecOps.

(TNS) — With high temperatures and steep, rugged terrain hampering firefighters, a deadly wildfire along the Merced River near Yosemite National Park quadrupled in size overnight and pushed closer to the park Sunday.

The Ferguson fire in Mariposa County had burned through 4,310 acres and was just 2 percent contained Sunday evening, fire officials said. Some 500 firefighters were working the blaze on the ground with support from aircraft.

No structures had burned but 108 were threatened as firefighters worked to protect structures along Highway 140 and prevent the blaze from crossing Ferguson Ridge.

(TNS) — The Marin County Sheriff’s Office is getting ready to launch a new “unmanned aerial systems” program.

Sheriff’s Capt. David Augustus steered away from using the word “drone” when talking about the program, set to begin in 60 to 90 days.

“I don’t like that word,” Augustus said. “Drones have an inference of military surveillance or weaponry. That’s not what these are.”

As blame for California’s wildfires rises over Sacramento like smoke from last year’s blazes, the state is being forced to confront the possibility that it’ll happen again in 2018.

California’s drought is worsening, and blazes have charred more acres in the first six months of this year than they did in the same period in 2017, a year that ultimately set records for destruction and deaths. The state is covered with dried-out brush and the skeletal branches of 129 million trees killed by a bark-beetle infestation. Hundreds of miles of electric transmission lines run through the dead forests and crisscross hills crowned with golden, dried grass.

Recovery of a region after disaster is measured by the return to normalization, and that is reliant, in large part, on the business community re-establishing itself.

It’s not always easy after a disaster, and many small businesses never recover. Dun & Bradstreet is well-quipped to use data and analysis to help cities and states develop resilience as demonstrated with its recent economic analysis after Hurricane Matthew.

The firm was approached by Michael Sprayberry, North Carolina’s director of emergency management, to conduct an economic impact analysis after the hurricane hit the region in 2016.