* *CHWIL
WILS 08/20/95
WILSON LIBRARY
N C COLLECTION
UNC-CH
CHAPEL HILL
a (Times
IME 92 - NUMBER 40
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2013
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30
tales resist, build nascent insurance markets
y Emery P. Dalesio
.EIGH (AP) - With new
lealth insurance exchang-
o launch Oct. 1, consum-
nany Southern and Plains
vill have to look harder
mnation on how the mar
es work than their coun-
i elsewhere.
Republican-led states
pose the federal Afford-
are Act, the strategy has
from largely ignoring the
overhaul to encouraging
ts not to sign up and even
; it harder for nonprofit
nations to provide infor-
about the exchanges.
1th care experts worry that
ely consumers in these
could end up confused
the exchanges, and the
rollout of the law could
Lered.
v. William Barber
Durham
Branch
Freedom
nd Banquet
Set
s Durham Branch
CP’s 39th Freedom
Banquet will be held,
1 at p.m. at the Dur-
Yrrnory, 220 Foster St.
s Honorees are: Mrs.
aret Keller and John
keepie” Scarborough,
pecial Recognition to:
obert J. Lefkowitz,
eynote Speaker: Rev.
Villiam J. Barber II,
lent, NC NAACP.
sr of Ceremonies Rev.
s Gatewood, HKonJ
tion Leader, NC
CP.
or ticket information
19- 682-4930
ficiais identify
n shot at North
rolina campus
^) - Officials have released
ime of the man shot to
by campus police at North
na Central University in
m.
icials said Sept. 26 that the
was 22-year-old Tracy
in Bost of Charlotte.
icials say he was not a stu-
estigators say Bost was
pursued by Durham po-
vestigating a break-in late
ay when he entered the
1 campus. Investigators say
Banged gunfire with cam-
ficers and was killed.
ree campus police officers
jeen placed on administra-
save while the State Bu-
f Investigation reviews the
hg.
'Without the shared planning
and the cooperation of the state
government, it’s much harder for
them to be ready to implement
this complicated law,” said Ra
chel Grob of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, who has
studied differences in how states
are implementing segments of
the law.
Several of the 14 Northeast,
Midwest and Western states
running their own insurance ex
changes have spent weeks on
marketing and advertising cam
paigns to help residents get ready
to buy health insurance. At least
$684 million will be spent on
publicity explaining what people
need to do next and persuading
the doubtful to sign up for cover
age, according to data compiled
The Associated Press.
By contrast, most states
across the South have declined
federal grants to advertise the
exchanges and ceded the right
to run the marketplaces them
selves. And early Sept. 29, the
Republican-led U.S. House add
ed to legislation that would avert
a partial government shutdown
a one-year delay of the creation
of the marketplaces. Democrats
have said delaying the health
care law would sink the bill,
and the White House promised
a veto.
Governors from the Carolinas
to Kansas have decried the ex
changes and the rest of the law,
which was passed by Congress
in 2010 and many argue reaf
firmed when voters re-elected
President Obama in 2012. The
Supreme Court in 2012 upheld
the constitutionality of most of
the law; a piece of the Medicaid
expansion was an exception.
"When it came to Obam
acare, we didn’t just say 'no,’
we said never,’” South Caro
lina Gov. Nikki Haley said last
month alongside U.S. Sen. Tim
Scott, whom she appointed last
December when Jim DeMint
resigned. "And we’re going to
keep on fighting until we get
people like Sen. Scott and every
body else in Congress to defund
Obamacare.”
Others have gone beyond fi
ery rhetoric.
Missouri’s lieutenant gover
nor urged residents to refuse to
sign up for federal health insur
ance, while Kansas legislators
and the state’s governor enacted
a law symbolically declaring that
residents can’t be forced to buy
health insurance.
In Florida, state officials or
dered county health departments
to bar from their property navi
gators hired under federal grants
to explain the plan’s complexi
ties. Broward County commis
sioners last week ignored that
ban and voted to allow naviga
tors and other counselors into
county offices, including health
departments.
'We’ve encountered many,
many issues with this, and this is
a breakthrough for us to be able
to go into the libraries, the health
departments,” said Jerson Dulis,
who was trained to help enroll
people in the state exchange. He
works for Broward Community
& Family Health Centers Inc.,
which received a federal grant to
provide consumers understand
and enroll in health insurance
plans.
In places where state officials
have declined to disseminate
information, the work is left
to nonprofit organizations and
word-of-mouth among consum
ers.
North Carolina is among the
states that have left the running
of its exchange to the federal
government. This year, the state
refunded what remained of a $74
million federal grant that would
(Continued On Page 15)
NCCU graduate student Tierra Poteat works with the microscale 3-D printer in the laboratory of Dr. John Bang.
NCCU and Partners Receive Grant
for Nanoscale 3-D Printer
The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has awarded $200,000 to a group of scientists and engineers from North
Carolina Central University, Duke University and North Carolina State University to purchase a Dip Pen Nanolithog
raphy (DPN) unit, a device that functions as a 3-D printer at the molecular level and has a vast range of potential ap
plications.
John Bang, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor and interim chair of NCCU’s Department of Environmental, Earth and
Geospatial Sciences, who is one of the principal investigators, said the device has the ability to operate under ambient
conditions - without the need for a cleanroom - and deposit features with sub-cellular resolution. “The potential of
DPN
applications is beyond description,” Bang said. “For those with a focus on nanoscale research in biomedical, phar
maceutical and environmental fields, the DPN technique makes it possible to fabricate almost anything from pretty
much all types of materials.”
The device can print organic, inorganic and biological materials, including proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, hydrogels,
alkanethiols, silanes, polymers and nanoparticles, in complex user-defined patterns, he said. DPN can fabricate multi
plexed, customized patterns with feature sizes as small as 50 nanometers (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter) or
as big as 10 micrometers (a micrometer is 1 millionth of a meter) on a variety of substrates, including glass, plastic,
gold and silicon.
Bang believes groups working in a wide range of science and engineering fields - especially nanofabrication and
nanomaterials in analysis; cell biology and microenvironment; biomolecules; cell biology and microenvironment; bio-
molecules, biomaterials and biointerfaces; and sensor development’ can benefit from the technology, and he welcomes
their inquiries.
The device, manufactured by NanoInk of Skokie, Ill., will be housed at Duke University, where it will be available
for use by all the partners in the project. Delivery is expected later this fall. Sharing in the grant with Bang are Dr.
David Murdoch and Dr. Mark Walters at Duke and Dr. Jen Genzer at N.C. State.
Bang also recently acquired a microscale 3-D printer in his lab for both student training and scaffold generation in
the field of microstereolithography, for use in a National Science Foundation-funded project to develop technologi
cal solutions to water pollution. “These scaffold products will be used as platforms for testing photocatalytic hybrid
nanomaterials that four graduate students in my lab, Tierra Poteat, Shawn Muslim, Alexandra Valladares and Patri
cia Cline-Thomas, are working on,” Bang said. “As global markets become more competitive, helping our students
engage in and have hands-on experience in the most advanced laboratory techniques will be a key to their success.”
By using both 3-D printers at nano and microscale, Bang hopes to develop a reliable deposition and delivery meth
od for real-life applications in the fields of environmental, biomedical and manufacturing industries, especially for the
removal of chemical pollutants and biological contaminants.
Few changes in this year s SAT scores
By Kimberly Helling
WASHINGTON (AP) - Scores on the SAT college entrance exam were largely stagnant for a third year, although African-American stu
dents made slight gains, the College Board said Sept. 26.
Average scores in reading, math, and writing were the same in 2012 and 2013.
Students scored an average of 496 in reading, down one point from 2011. Average math scores have remained stuck at 514 over the last
three years. And the average writing score, 488, was down one point from 2011.
The top score possible on each section is 800, and the highest possible score is 2400. A perfect score was achieved in 2013 by 494 people
- less than a third of 1 percent of all test takers, according to the College Board, a nonprofit membership organization of schools and colleges
that owns the exam.
Men, on average, scored better in reading and math, while women on average did better in writing.
African-American students on average scored 431 in reading, 429 in math and 418 in writing. That’s slightly higher than in the previous
twoyears.
The average for all Hispanic students was 450 in reading, 461 in math, and 443 in in writing. On average, they did slightly better in reading
and writing this year than last, but math scores declined by one point.
For American Indian and Alaskan natives, scores have mostly decreased slightly since 2011. The average score in 2013 was 480 in read
ing, 486 in math and 461 in writing.
Asian students on average scored 521 in reading, 597 in math and 527 in writing. The scores in 2013 for this minority group were slightly
better in reading and math than the two years before, although in writing the score was one point less than the previous two years.