The words "New Jersey" rarely conjure thoughts of environmental leadership. In fact, the state's reputation gives rise to visions better described by "industrial wasteland" or "toxic miasma."
Think again. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has recently proposed a major expansion of its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a regulation requiring utilities to buy renewable energy.
...Emissions from electricity generation are not only the single largest cause of global warming, but also toxic to human health, killing over 30,000 Americans a year, according to a recent study by Abt Associates.
Santiago. — The firms that compose the M Group consortium were selected by the sponsoring entities of the "Comply and Win" project, to launch the labor webpage www.leylaboral.com to be funded by the US Department of Labor.
This project is implemented by the Foundation for Peace and Democracy (FUNPADEM), in association with Abt Associates Inc., and the collaboration of the Dominican Labor Ministry.
… Three types of JTPA activities were evaluated by Abt Associates, one of the world's largest for-profit government and business research and consulting firms, in a 1996 study: classroom training, on-the-job training, and job-search assistance…
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ — Abt Associates was recognized as a top workplace in Consulting Magazine's Best Firms to Work For, 2005 survey. The survey is conducted annually by Consulting Magazine and rates top consulting firms in the United States. This year approximately 5000 consultants participated in the survey in which they rated their firm in categories ranging from leadership to work-life attributes.
Cambridge, Mass., October 31, 2005 — Abt Associates announced that Dr. Richard Kulka has joined Abt Associates as Senior Vice President of Strategic Business Development. He will report to President and CEO Wendell J. Knox and play a major role in helping the Company accelerate its growth in key markets. He will also join the Company's Management Committee and be actively involved in the Company's strategic and business planning activities.
Boston, MA (October 19, 2005)— Today, New England's Best Workplaces for CommutersSM Coalition, a group of transportation, environmental, health, and planning organizations, released the third annual list of New England's Best Workplaces for CommutersSM. The list recognizes leading, innovative employers committed to improving their communities by reducing traffic congestion and air pollution and improving the health and quality of life for thousands of commuters in the region.
Abt Associates has appointed Mark Spranca PhD, an expert in behavioral science, and Carol Simon PhD, a health economics expert, to its Health Policy and Clinical Research Division. Both are also members of the Abt Associates Fellows, and Spranca will lead the company's Research Methods and Analytics Group.
Spranca previously spent 10 years with RAND Corporation, managing more than 200 scientists and other professionals in RAND's behavioral and social sciences group. His career has involved conducting research in health policy, teaching health and psychology, and helping start-up enterprises to commercialise health services research. He has PhD and MA degrees in social psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
CMS has released its Draft Quality Standards for Suppliers of Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS), developed with Abt Associates. The recommended quality standards can also be viewed under Advocacy Priorities / Restrictive Contracting at http://www.aahomecare.org.
As the Milford Housing Authority embarks on long-awaited renovations to Foran Towers, officials are also contemplating expanding the senior housing complex to create new revenue. Housing Authority Executive Director Anthony Vasiliou said he will discuss the feasibility of expanding Foran Towers on High Street with the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. The idea needs to be explored to create new revenue to help the agency keep on top of maintenance and modernization of its buildings…
Two Massachusetts companies were named advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency's new Water Security Division.
Abt Associates Inc. said it is a primary subcontractor on an $86 million contract the EPA awarded Computer Sciences Corp. (NYSE: CSC) to protect the nation's drinking water supply from terrorist attacks.
Abt, based in Cambridge, will provide economic and regulatory analysis, develop surveys, and assess health risks.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ — Under a new $86 million contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Abt Associates will support the EPA in its efforts to protect the nation's drinking water supply
from terrorist attacks. As part of the contract awarded to a team of companies led by Computer Sciences Corporation, Abt Associates will join CH2M Hill and several smaller companies in providing comprehensive services to the new Water
Security Division in EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ — Abt Associates announced that Dr. Tessie San Martin has joined the company as its new Vice President for International Development effective September 6, 2005. She will work as deputy to Group Vice President for International Development Janet Ballantyne, and have substantial involvement in all aspects of new business and program development, as well as implementation and administration of the rapidly growing international programs of the company.
New Richmond - Tanya Whaley and James Oberle readily admit that they have reached the lowest points of their lives. Prison has a way of driving that realization home.
…"Boot camps generally had positive effects on the attitudes, perceptions, behavior and skills of inmates during their confinement," according to the study by Dale G. Parent, a senior associate with Abt Associates Inc., a private research firm in several states.
Public health officials and emergency response teams now have information available to help them reopen former (shuttered) hospitals to care for survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The information includes lists of supplies and medications needed by stable medical/surgical patients and checklists to assess facility readiness, staffing needs and levels, and patient transport readiness.
…The report was prepared under contract to AHRQ by Abt Associates, Inc. AHRQ is working with the American Hospital Association and other groups to disseminate this important new resource...
"CSC Wins $86 Million EPA Contract to Provide Scientific and Technical Expertise:
Effort Supports Agency's Mission to Protect Nation's Water Supplies" PR Newswire, August 29, 2005
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Aug. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Computer Sciences
Corporation (NYSE: CSC) announced today that it has won a contract to provide
comprehensive mission support services to the new Water Security Division
within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Water. The
division was established to address water security and infrastructure
protection issues in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. CSC
estimates the value of the contract, which has one base year and four one-year options, to be approximately $86 million if all options are exercised.
...Among those teaming with CSC are CH2M Hill of Englewood, Colo.; Emergint Technologies of Louisville, Ky; Abt Associates of Cambridge, Mass.; Protection Strategies Inc. of Arlington, Va; Richard Brady & Associates of San Diego, Calif.; the International City/County Management Association of Washington, D.C.; and the Horsley Witten Group of Sandwich, Mass.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Abt Associates Inc. announced that at the Company's July 28, 2005 Board of Directors' meeting John A. Shane was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors succeeding Company founder and Chairman Clark C. Abt, who was designated Chairman Emeritus.
A cum laude graduate of Princeton University in economics and a graduate, with distinction, of the Harvard Business School, Shane has been active in the venture capital industry since 1961, financing over 100 companies and serving on over 30 boards ranging from start-ups to New York Stock Exchange listed corporations. He has been a director of Abt Associates since 1967 and most recently served as Chairman of both its Audit and Compensation Committees.
APHA's annual election of officers to be held at 133rd Annual Meeting in New Orleans in November
FOLLOWING are biographical sketches and personal statements from the candidates for APHA president-elect. The member elected by the Governing Council will become president-elect at the close of the 2005 Annual Meeting and assume presidency at the close of the 2006 Annual Meeting.
... DEBORAH KLEIN WALKER, EdD, is principal associate at Abt Associates, an adjunct professor at Boston University School of Public Health and a lecturer at the Harvard University School of Public Health. Her professional career has ranged from special consultant to the Office of the Assistant secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to associate commissioner for programs and prevention at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
The Northeast SAS Users Group Conference, a comprehensive program on SAS software programming and applications, will be held in Portland, Maine from September 11 to 14. Conference content will include presentations and hands-on workshops in the following areas:
Data analysis and presentation
Applications development
Coding tips and techniques
Importing/exporting data between SAS and other applications
Administrative and support functions
... NESUG 2005 is sponsored in part by Westat, an employee-owned research corporation, Abt Associates, Inc., ASG, Inc., icrunchdata.com, SGI, KFORCE, and Smith Hanley.
CMS Administrator Mark McClellan in a letter to two House Republicans "detailed his agency's plans" to implement a pay-for-performance system for Medicare providers, ... CQ HealthBeat reports. House Ways and Means Committee Chair Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) and Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) in a June 16 letter to McClellan requested help with efforts to move Medicare toward a pay-for-performance system. ... McClellan said that CMS has contracted with ABT Associates to create a pay-for-performance demonstration project for skilled nursing facilities.
FAIRFAX, Va., June 27 PRNewswire — The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and Merck & Co., Inc., today celebrated the 10th anniversary of a ground- breaking science initiative to expand the pool of African-American scientists in the United States by releasing results of an external evaluation of the partnership showing that progress has been made. Merck also announced a five- year renewal of its commitment to UNCF with a $13 million grant from The Merck Company Foundation and Merck Research Laboratories.
...An external evaluation of the UNCF-Merck Science Initiative by Abt Associates Inc. found that the Fellowship awards and program — including Fellows Day, mentoring by Merck scientists and internships at Merck Research Laboratories — provided significant benefits to all Fellows and their institutions.
The long process to raze Lincoln Park and build a new style of public housing has started.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the Springfield Metropolitan Housing Authority a $20 million HOPE VI grant for the project.
...The SMHA board also approved two resolutions at their meeting Tuesday, one to extend its contract with consultant Abt Associates.
The city presented seven businesses with GoGreen awards Tuesday to commend their environmentally conscious attitudes.
Local business owners, city employees and residents were on hand for the ceremony at City Hall. In addition to the presentation of awards, the attendees were addressed by eco-tourism pioneer Tedd Saunders, president of Ecological Solutions and Saunders Hotel Group.
The honorees included Abt Associates, Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge Savings Bank, GreenFuel Technologies Corporation, Homeowner's Rehab Inc., Petali Fresh Flowers and ZipCar.
The Health and Human Services Department recently unveiled a Web-based application allowing state, regional, and local health care officials to inventory their medical resources and personnel in preparation of a future emergency.
...
The agency funded Abt Associates, a Cambridge, Mass., company that conducts research and consulting concerning social policy, at a cost of $483,000 to develop the application in partnership with Geisinger Health System, a large health care provider in Pennsylvania with six hospitals in the area and about 40 outpatient clinics.
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 25, 2005--Hythiam, Inc. (NASDAQ:HYTM - News), a healthcare services management company that delivers to treatment providers both proprietary administrative services and physiological protocols designed to treat substance dependence, today published its annual letter to shareholders for the fiscal 2004 year ending December 31, 2004.
Source: Hythiam, Inc.
Dear Fellow Stakeholders:
...As promised, Hythiam also moved ahead with our commitment to the creation and disclosure of clinical data and outcomes. Towards this end we entered into an agreement with Abt Associates Clinical Trials, a leading full-service contract research organization, to establish a Clinical Outcomes Registry for the monitoring and evaluation of patients undergoing Hythiam's HANDS Protocols(TM) at commercial licensee locations.
PRINCETON, N.J. (May 23, 2005) — Nearly 80 percent of nurses caring for patients with diabetes reported experiencing at least one needlestick injury (NI), according to a new study published in the current edition of Current Medical Research and Opinion. The study, 'Needlestick injury in acute care nurses caring for patients with diabetes mellitus: a retrospective study,' is the first to quantify NIs in nurses caring for patients with diabetes.
...
Study author Chris L. Pashos, Ph.D., from HERQuLES — Abt Associates Inc., Lexington, Mass. said, "Not only do these injuries have potential health consequences; the emotional distress and resulting missed work days affect healthcare services and resources. Clearly, there is much room for improvement in protecting healthcare workers from injury with needle devices, particularly for nurses caring for patients with diabetes."
WASHINGTON, May 23 U.S. Newswire — HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality today released the Emergency Preparedness Resource Inventory, a new Web-based tool to help local, regional, and state planners compile customized inventories of health care and emergency resources. The tool allows communities to assess their regional supply of critical resources, prepare for incident response, estimate gaps, and support future resource investment decisions.
The new resource inventory helps first responders figure out where emergency equipment and medicines are located, how much is available, and whom to contact to obtain those resources. Developed by Abt Associates and Geisinger Health System for AHRQ's Bioterrorism and Emergency Preparedness Program, the Web-based tool has been pilot tested in an eight-county region of rural Pennsylvania with the support of county commissioners and emergency management coordinators.
After completing a specialized military education program, a team of healthcare and international professionals from Abt Associates traveled to Iraq last month to work with Iraq's health ministry and begin a post-conflict assessment of the country's healthcare system needs.
Federal housing officials awarded Allentown a highly coveted $20 million grant Tuesday to help rebuild Hanover Acres and Riverview Terrace, two of the nation's oldest public housing complexes.
While housing officials in Allentown celebrated, those on the other side of the Lehigh Valley dealt with disappointment. For the second year, HUD rejected the Easton Housing Authority's application for $17 million to rebuild Delaware Terrace on the South Side.
...
The Housing Authority used Abt Associates, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting agency, to help prepare its application.
The Somerville Homeless Coalition will hold its annual meeting Wednesday, May 25, at 6 p.m. at the Aidekman Arts Center on the campus of Tufts University.
...
The SHC will recognize some of its longtime supporters for their contributions to the organization and to the city. This year's event recognizes Central Bank, Goodwin Proctor LLP, Abt Associates, the Linden and Clipper Ship Foundations, Community Action Partners, Mike Dovidio with a distinguished volunteer award, and Theresa Elliot, case manager of the Sobriety and Stability Program.
AMMAN (Petra) — The US Congress agreed to appropriate $100 million in additional assistance to Jordan for the year 2005, Planning and International Cooperation Minister Suhair Al-Ali announced on Monday.
The assistance will raise US aid to Jordan to $350 million, an amount equal to that extended to the Kingdom in 2004, the minister indicated.
...In April, the US Agency for International Development awarded a new project for Health Systems Strengthening to the US-based company Abt Associates as part of its support for the health sector in Jordan, a statement by the US embassy in Amman said.
AMMAN — On April 1, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Jordan awarded a new project for Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) to the U.S.-based company Abt Associates as part of its support for the health sector in Jordan. This new 5-year $45 million project will work in partnership with the Government of Jordan, and other private and NGO partners to further improve and institutionalize a responsive, quality-oriented public health care system in Jordan.
ATLANTA, April 25 U.S. Newswire — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently launched a study of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and related illnesses in 14 metropolitan, urban and rural areas in Georgia. The study is designed to gather information about key features of the little-understood illness and the number of people it affects in specific population groups.
...As a part of the study, CDC has contracted with Abt Associates Inc. of Chicago, to conduct a telephone survey of 17,000 randomly selected Georgia households.
Hard copy available on request.
Action for West Africa Region Reproductive Health and Child Survival Project — a five-year, USAID-sponsored health improvement project that began in 2003 — has launched its new Web site. EngenderHealth manages the project and collaborates with Abt Associates, the Academy for Educational Development and Management Sciences for Health.
At Pittsburgh's Jefferson Elementary School, which overlooks the dark gray plumes from two electric power plants, there are so many children with asthma the school nurse alphabetizes the inhalers. On warm, humid days, heavy air traps the ozone and other toxic chemicals produced by the region's eleven coal-burning power plants. In the adjacent county, nearly all 40,000 residents face a pollution-related cancer risk greater than 100 times the goal set by federal clean-air policy. "On the bad pollution days we just don't go outside and play," says Lisa Graves-Marcucci, whose two sons, both asthmatics, attended Jefferson Elementary.
...Electric power plants, the country's single largest source of air pollution, spew soot — tiny particles of toxic chemicals such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides — causing 554,000 asthma attacks and 38,200 heart attacks annually, according to Abt Associates, a consulting firm that does work for the EPA.
New York state residents suffer worse health effects from diesel emissions than any other state in the country, according to a report issued Tuesday.
The report from the Clean Air Task Force, based in Boston, estimated that diesel emissions cause the premature deaths of 21,000 people nationwide a year, with more than 2,000 of those deaths in New York State.
The Clean Air Task Force ... used the same researches, Abt Associates, and methods that have been used the U.S. Environemntal Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board. Hard copy available on request.
After three hectic years, a U.S.-financed initiative to involve Central Asian young people in healthy team sports is coming to an end. The Central Asia Sport and Health Education Program has brought some 22,000 school pupils, both boys and girls, into contact with such games as soccer (eds: football), volleyball and basketball. The scheme was designed to give a constructive leisure time activity to young people who might otherwise fall into crime or other difficulties.
Prague, 23 February 2005 (RFE/RL) — Growing up was never easy. But rarely was the world so full of dangers for youngsters as today. In Central Asia, poverty combined with boredom leaves many youths open to temptations like alcoholism, drug taking or drug dealing, crime of all sorts, and political extremism.
With this in mind, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been financing a $2.5 million program to involve youngsters in sports activities.
...Originally, the sport idea was seen as a measure to foster conflict prevention in the volatile Ferghana region. Abt Associates, the American consultancy which was running a local health-improvement program, suggested sports as a good way to keep young people out of trouble. Abt today runs the combined sport and health program.
A new study just released by the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) concludes that diesel fine particle emissions (PM2.5) from the US fleet directly contribute to the premature deaths of some 21,000 people in the US every year.
CATF commissioned the report, Diesel and Health in America: The Lingering Threat, from Abt Associations, which used methodology approved by the EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) to reach its conclusions.
MEXICO CITY — When Mexican army security is breached by the enemy, the incident is coded as a "Broken Arrow," which signals that the commander in chief could at any moment fall into enemy hands.
To the head of the presidential staff, Gen. Jose Armando Tamayo, the order immediately sprang to mind when high intelligence officials from the Attorney General's office notified him that the director of the Office of Coordination of Presidential Tours, Nahum Acosta Lugo, was under suspicion of passing presidential travel information to drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva.
...According to studies by Boston's Abt Associates consulting company, whose studies are used by the White House and the DEA, current U.S. consumption of cocaine is now estimated at $30 billion annually.
The U.S. program to protect ports from terror attacks is distributing its limited funds without a full understanding of which ports are most vulnerable and which projects are most important, a government report says.
...A 10- to 20-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated in a major seaport would kill 50,000 to 1 million people and cause property damage of $50 to $500 billion, losses due to trade disruption of $100 billion to $200 billion, and indirect costs of $300 billion to $1.4 trillion, according to a 2003 report from the U.S. Transportation Department by Abt Associates of Cambridge, Mass. Hard copy of this article available on request.
President Bush announces a $2.5 trillion budget for fiscal 2006 tomorrow that takes a hard line with domestic spending, slashing or eliminating more than 150 federal programs. But the administration's record last year does not promise much success.
A year ago the White House targeted 65 programs to save nearly $5 billion. But Congress agreed to ax only five of them — and restored a previously eliminated a trade-relations program with historic whaling partners, and the saving shrank to $292 million.
...The White House first tried to eliminate Even Start last year. The program, sponsored in 1989 by Rep. William F. Goodling (R-Pa.), who later was chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, had admirable, even compelling goals, administration officials said. Federal money would be directed to impoverished children at risk of illiteracy and their illiterate or semi-literate parents.
But three successive independent studies, commissioned by the Education Department, concluded that the program was not working. The final study in 2003, by consulting firm Abt Associates Inc., said children and parents in 18 different Even Start programs showed literacy gains no greater than a control group that did not attend the programs.
Memphis has dealt with urban pests before — rats, pigeons, blight. Now it seems our problem is storks.
At the city's strategic community and economic development planning session last week, a group of the area's movers and shakers discussed what the current and future Memphis does, and should, look like.
In something of a repeat performance, Marlin Mosby of Public Financial Management explained the area's current fiscal situation: Expenses are outgrowing revenues, and the city has a huge dependence on property taxes.
But the number that really surprised him was the age distribution of the city's population. School-aged children account for almost 23 percent of Memphis' population. In Knoxville, children are 19 percent of the population; in Nashville, is 18 percent. Statewide, children average about 20 percent of the population.
...At that strategic planning meeting, Gayle Epp of Abt Associates told the area's Who's Who that Memphis needs to pay attention to its competition.
"It reminds me of going camping in the woods," she said. "You don't necessarily have to run faster than the bear; you just have to run faster than the other campers."
As expected, the Allentown Housing Authority has applied for a $20 million federal grant that would fund a complete overhaul of the city's aging Hanover Acres and Riverview Terrace housing projects on the city's east side.
Now the hard part: winning the highly competitive battle for a shrinking pool of federal housing dollars.
...In Allentown, Pennrose Properties LLC of Philadelphia will develop the Hanover Acres/Riverview Terrace project. The grant application was completed by Abt Associates of Cambridge, Mass.
One contested Selectboard race, one newcomer and a long list of uncontested incumbents make up this year's elections in Randolph.
...
Tom Schersten and Phyllis Forbes are vying for a two-year Selectboard seat. Forbes is the incumbent.
...
Professionally, Forbes heas up the international education unit of an out-of-state consulting firm called Abt Associates.
Hard copy available on request.
...Of the consultants who filled out last year's Best Firms survey, 32 percent were women. We thought that it would be interesting to look at which firms had the largest percentage of female respondants. ... Abt Associates not only employs a lot of women, but places them in senior roles. [Abt Associates had the largest percentage of female respondents, at 75%] Hard copy available on request.
Americans spend slightly less than $70 billion annually to buy illegal drugs, according to a December 2000 report developed for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). For the past dozen years, the ONDCP has tracked drug use trends and costs. Cocaine, heroin and marijuana are the principal substances it studies.
The December 2000 report was the ONDCP's first effort to estimate methamphetamine usage rates and prices. Abt Associates Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., conducted the research under a contract with ONDCP. Abt Associates said they found methamphetamine purchases were difficult to track.
A 9,100-foot-deep hole in the ground in Mason County may hold some answers for making coal-powered energy cleaner.
Scientists with the non-profit, Columbus-based research group Battelle drilled the hole in 2003 outside the Mountaineer Power Plant near New Haven to determine whether carbon dioxide emissions from coal power plants can be stored deep underground.
The $5 million study, still under analysis, places West Virginia in the middle of President Bush’s effort to develop a coal-fired power plant that does not release emissions into the air.
...Another study by Abt Associates found Cabell County experienced a higher rate of hospitalizations due to smog-related respiratory ailments than in New York, Boston or Cincinnati.
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