Engineering, procurement, and construction agreements, commonly known as “EPC agreements,” are used for the construction of facilities intended to carry out a process, with the potential process being anything from manufacturing a product to generating electricity to treating wastewater.  An EPC agreement is similar to a design-build contract where the owner engages one entity to design and construct the desired facility, except an EPC agreement goes one step further in that the contractor must not only design and build the desired facility but also must design and build the facility so that it produces some guaranteed level of output. View Full Post
Leveraging Cloud Technology In this installment of our cloud blog series, we’ll discuss some of the ways that firms can leverage technologies of various cloud providers. This post intends to build on initial information from my previous post entitled What is “The Cloud.” If you have not yet seen that post, I urge you give it a read first to help better understand the terms used in this post. View Full Post
On April 16, newly confirmed member John Ring was sworn in as the fifth member and Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, establishing a Republican-controlled Board.   While all has been relatively quiet with regard to rulings from the Board,  we will likely see a rise in activity now that the NLRB (with a  newly-minted majority) is poised to roll back some of the Obama-era rulings. View Full Post
If a proposed law is enacted by the New York City Council, employers would be prohibited from requiring employees to check and respond to email or other electronic communications during non-work hours. The bill allows for exceptions in “cases of emergency” and would require employers to publish a written policy governing work-related communications during non-work hours.  View Full Post
These days especially in view of “Arbeiten 4.0”, the so called fourth industrial revolution in Germany, digitalization pervades the whole working world and is reflected in a vast number of different phenomena. As one of them artificial intelligence can complement – and in some cases even replace – manpower as we can see in the automotive industry. View Full Post
Scientist creates faster way to fingerprint foodborne pathogens University of Georgia food scientist Xiangyu Deng has created a system that can identify subtypes of foodborne pathogens in a fraction of the time taken by traditional methods. Quick detection and pathogen fingerprinting can save lives by helping to identify foodborne illness outbreaks and their victims, thereby making it easier to contain outbreaks. View Full Post
In the wake of the 48th anniversary of Earth Day yesterday, among the hottest environmental issues of the day appears to be criminalizing the plastic drinking straw. The import of the “war on drinking straws” must be true because this week there is a viral video viewed on YouTube more than 5.5 million times of a 2015 incident where a Texas A&M University research team in Costa Rica found a plastic straw stuck in the nose of a sea turtle. View Full Post
This month both the State of New York and New York City have passed separate legislation designed to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Both laws require employers to conduct mandatory sexual harassment training for all employees. view full post » View Full Post
Machine Learning and Human Values: Can They Be Reconciled? Above the Law explores the conversation at the recent Global Privacy Summit regarding the increasing need for ethical guidance as machine learning technology advances. Perspectives raised in this discussion include those of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIAA), through SVP Mark McCarthy, which has released a set of ethical principles for artificial intelligence and data analytics. View Full Post
The Food and Drug Administration requested comments in a notice published in the Federal Register on April 9, 2018 concerning the “abuse potential, actual abuse, medical usefulness, trafficking, and impact of scheduling changes on availability for medical use” of five marijuana-related substances: cannabis plant and resin; extracts and tinctures of cannabis; delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); stereoisomers of THC; and cannabidiol (CBD).  View Full Post
Inogen, which manufactures portable oxygen devices, has alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission in a recent filing that it is notifying 30,000 individuals that their personal information was compromised when a hacker gained access to one of its employees’ email accounts through a phishing scheme. View Full Post
The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States caught many pundits and prognosticators off guard. President Trump’s victory also instilled a level of uncertainty in America’s burgeoning state-legal cannabis industry. During the presidential campaign, Trump routinely professed his adherence to states’ rights when it comes to cannabis legalization (at least for medical cannabis activities). View Full Post
The Juul looks like a computer flash drive but it is a vaping device. It’s sleek, it’s discrete, and it’s becoming very popular with underage nicotine users. Juul, the company that manufactures the device, states it targets only adults; however, the nicotine liquid flavors include “virginia tobacco, cool mint, fruit medley, creme brulee & mango,” which are arguably appealing to children. View Full Post