Careconnect Health Insurance Group Review: Your Daylight Savings Time Survival Guide

At 2 a.m. this Sunday, your clocks will “spring forward” an hour, kicking off Daylight Saving Time. The upside: You’ll get some extra sunlight in the evening for the next several months. The downside: You’ll almost certainly lose an hour of sleep Sunday night. And depending on how early you have to get up in the morning, it may be pitch black when you rise for a couple of weeks.

For most people, adjusting to the change isn’t hard. “It’s like flying from Chicago to New York,” says Saul Rothenberg, PhD, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist at Northwell Health. “Good sleepers may not even notice a difference.” But if you’re sensitive to time changes or sleep disruptions, you could have trouble falling asleep at night or waking up in the morning, at least for the first few days. If that’s the case, here are some dos and don’ts that can help.

Don’t sleep in on Sunday. You may have a habit of grabbing a little extra sleep on Sundays, especially if you stay up late Saturday night. But the time change makes it easy to overdo it. Say you don’t set your alarm—it’s Sunday, after all—and let yourself wake up naturally when your body feels like it’s about 9 am. With the time change, it’s actually already 10 am! Suddenly, you’ve slept so late that you may find it hard come evening to get to bed at your usual time. To make sure you’re rested for work on Monday, it’s best to lose that hour of sleep right away on Saturday night.

Don’t nap. Biologically, your bedtime just became an hour earlier than you’re used to. So it’s normal to not feel as tired as you normally would at, say, 10 pm. Napping on Sunday afternoon may make it even harder to fall asleep when you’re supposed to. Instead of a mid-day snooze, fit in a good workout or a long walk: Daytime exercise has been shown to improve sleep quality at night.

Do listen to your body. If you’re not tired at your regular bedtime for the first few nights after the time change, don’t force yourself to lie in bed awake. “Just go to bed a little bit later for a day or two,” says Rothenberg. “Humans are very good in the short-run at compensating for an hour less sleep. Over a couple of days, that sleep loss will translate into getting sleepier at night, so it’s easier to get back on track.”

Do get some morning light. You’re temporarily getting up an hour earlier than you’re used to, so it’s normal to feel extra sleepy when your alarm goes off. The best way to acclimate your body to its new schedule is to get natural light as early as possible. (Sunlight shuts down the brain’s production of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin.) Throw open your bedroom curtains as the sun comes up, eat breakfast by a sunny window or spend a few minutes walking outside before work.

Don’t fret. Follow these simple steps and you should breeze through the time change with minimal disruption. “The key here is not to worry,” says Rothenberg, “because worrying can have a bigger effect on your sleeping than the change in your clock.” And if you do experience sleep problems that last more than a few weeks—after the time change or at any time during the year—talk to your doctor about healthy ways to make things right.

Careconnect Health Insurance Group Review: 5 Numbers to Know for National Wear Red Day

If you’re seeing red today, it’s probably because some of your friends and acquaintances are using a splash of color to draw attention to the fight against heart disease in women. And with good reason: While coronary heart disease is recognized as a major threat to American men, a lot of people aren’t aware that it’s also the #1 killer of women.

Here are a few other numbers worth pondering in honor of National Wear Red Day:

80

80 percent of women between the ages of 40 and 60 have at least one risk factor for heart disease.

35

Take out a tape measure—if your waist is more than 35 inches, you’re at increased risk of heart disease.

30

You can protect your heart by getting as little as 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days. Exercising every day is even better.

82

If you’re at increased risk for heart disease, here’s a reassuring thought: Women can lower their risk by as much as 82 percent just by making healthy lifestyle changes.

Careconnect Health Insurance Group Review: 3 New Year’s Resolutions You Shouldn’t Make

January is a time for new beginnings, and a time for promises to ourselves that this year will be better, happier and healthier than the last. But why are we so often right back where we started by the time February rolls around?

“Research shows that about 50 percent of the population makes resolutions, and of those people about 50 percent or less stick with them,” says Robert Graham, MD, director of Integrative Health & Wellness at Northwell Health (formerly North Shore-LIJ Health System). “So, at best, only about 25 percent of us are making lasting changes.”

Often, that’s because we make resolutions that are unreasonable. “If you don’t have a realistic target, it’s going to be that much harder to achieve it, and frustrating when you fall short,” he says. So in the spirit of “New Year, New You,” here are three common mistakes not to make when thinking about resolutions -- and a few simple tweaks that will make your goals more attainable.

Wrong resolution: “I want to lose 50 pounds in three months.”

Make it right: Aim for 5 to 10 percent of your body weight.

A restrictive diet may help you shed pounds quickly at first, but is it something you can stick with for several months -- let alone the rest of your life? If not, you may find yourself gaining the weight back before you know it. Instead of making such a drastic change, says Graham, aim to lose 5 percent of your body weight within 6 to 8 weeks, and 10 percent within three months.

That may not be the dramatic makeover you’ve been dreaming about, but research shows that losing just 5 to 10 percent of your body weight can lower your risk for heart disease and other chronic conditions. What’s more, a slow-but-steady approach is one you can keep up all year, allowing you to continue to lose.

Graham also recommends enlisting the help of nutritionist and/or a personal trainer, especially if you want to lose more than a few pounds. “It can be hard to do on your own, especially when you’re trying to create lasting change.”

Wrong resolution: “I want to finally get in shape … by jumping into a super-challenging workout program.”

Make it right: Start with 30 minutes of (any) exercise a day.

“So many patients tell me, ‘I’m going to start this crazy P90X workout’ or ‘I’m going to run a marathon in two months,’ when they were a total couch potato all year,” says Graham. “That’s great, but as we learned from being a kid: You need to learn how to crawl, then walk, then run.” If you start an exercise program that’s too challenging or that moves too quickly, you could quickly fall behind—or, worse, injure yourself.

It’s fine to have a lofty goal, like completing a race or becoming expert in a trendy new approach to exercise. But if you’re starting from scratch, set your sights lower to start: Just pledge to get 30 minutes of aerobic activity at least five days a week. That activity can include brisk walking and other forms of moderate exercise.

If you can keep that up for a few months and are feeling good, you may want to start increasing the duration or intensity of your workouts, says Graham. But always talk to your doctor before starting a new program that’s physically demanding.

Wrong resolution: “I smoked my last cigarette December 31.”

Make it right: Make a plan, set a date and make yourself accountable.

The decision to quit smoking is a big one, and it’s one of the best things you can do for your health. (So congrats!) Now you’ve got to actually make it happen. If you know you want to quit smoking in 2016 but haven’t given much thought to the specifics of how you’re going to do it, going cold turkey may not give you the best chance at success.

First, talk with your doctor about strategies that might make quitting easier; he or she may recommend nicotine patches, gum, or medicines that can reduce your urge to smoke. Northwell Health also hosts support groups, workshops and educational programs for people who want to quit; the Center for Tobacco Control in Great Neck, for example, has one of the highest success rates in the country for smoking cessation.

Next, set a date to have your last cigarette. “I’m a big fan of Mondays,” says Graham. “Every Monday is chance to reset your life, and research shows that most people search online for help quitting on Mondays.” Once you’ve picked a date, tell your doctor and your friends. “The more people you tell, the more you can be held accountable. And the more accountable you are, the more likely you’ll be to follow through.”

Good luck with whatever your wellness goals are for 2016, and remember: Even small steps can make a big difference. From all of us here at CareConnect, have a happy, healthy new year!

Cyber Security: Machine Learning and Big Data Know It Wasn’t You Who Just Swiped Your Credit Card

You’re sitting at home minding your own business when you get a call from your credit card’s fraud detection unit asking if you’ve just made a purchase at a department store in your city. It wasn’t you who bought expensive electronics using your credit card – in fact, it’s been in your pocket all afternoon. So how did the bank know to flag this single purchase as most likely fraudulent?

Credit card companies have a vested interest in identifying financial transactions that are illegitimate and criminal in nature. The stakes are high. According to the Federal Reserve Payments Study, Americans used credit cards to pay for 26.2 billion purchases in 2012. The estimated loss due to unauthorized transactions that year was US$6.1 billion. The federal Fair Credit Billing Act limits the maximum liability of a credit card owner to $50 for unauthorized transactions, leaving credit card companies on the hook for the balance. Obviously fraudulent payments can have a big effect on the companies’ bottom lines. The industry requires any vendors that process credit cards to go through security audits every year. But that doesn’t stop all fraud.

In the banking industry, measuring risk is critical. The overall goal is to figure out what’s fraudulent and what’s not as quickly as possible, before too much financial damage has been done. So how does it all work? And who’s winning in the arms race between the thieves and the financial institutions?

Gathering the troops

From the consumer perspective, fraud detection can seem magical. The process appears instantaneous, with no human beings in sight. This apparently seamless and instant action involves a number of sophisticated technologies in areas ranging from finance and economics to law to information sciences.

Of course, there are some relatively straightforward and simple detection mechanisms that don’t require advanced reasoning. For example, one good indicator of fraud can be an inability to provide the correct zip code affiliated with a credit card when it’s used at an unusual location. But fraudsters are adept at bypassing this kind of routine check – after all, finding out a victim’s zip code could be as simple as doing a Google search.

Traditionally, detecting fraud relied on data analysis techniques that required significant human involvement. An algorithm would flag suspicious cases to be closely reviewed ultimately by human investigators who may even have called the affected cardholders to ask if they’d actually made the charges. Nowadays the companies are dealing with a constant deluge of so many transactions that they need to rely on big data analytics for help. Emerging technologies such as machine learning and cloud computing are stepping up the detection game.

Security and Risk Online: 5 frauds you need to beware of

The recent demonetisation move in India has pushed us to move to a cash-free economy. This shift, which would have otherwise taken three years, is now expected to take just three to six months. Digital payments have also recently hit record transactions.

With digital payments witnessing record transactions and more and more people joining the cashless bandwagon, there is an obvious question on everyone's mind: are digital transactions safe? The pace of the development and integration of new technologies is much faster than the pace at which security protocols and defence mechanisms are implemented. This is what makes these technologies vulnerable to cyber-fraud. For example, 3.2 million card details were stolen in October in India - making the theft India's biggest data breach.

Members of India's new digital economy need to be aware of the vulnerabilities in the digital and mobile payment systems. Here are the key ways in which digital payments can be breached.

1. Key Logger: Just like tap dancers are strongly aware of how and when their tap shoes strike the floor, a key logger is a software that records the key-strokes made by the user on the keyboard. Static passwords like 3D PINs or banking passwords, that are entered regularly, are vulnerable to cyber-fraud through a key logger, as it can record regularly typed in passwords without the user's knowledge. Using a dynamic PIN is a smart solution to the breach caused by key loggers. It is also beneficial to use apps that have an in-app secure swipe instead of the ones that require the keying in of an OTP.

2. Social Engineering: Those calls that seem to come from the bank might not really be from the bank itself. Credit and debit cards are used at many online merchants and marketplaces. Even if these online transaction use OTPs and CVVs, someone may call the cardholder and pretend to be a representative of the bank, acting as if an online transaction needs to be confirmed, and subsequently ask the cardholder to share the the received OTP. When the OTP is disclosed by the cardholder, a fraudulent transaction can take place.

3. OTP Pop-Ups: As One Time Passwords have limited time validity (in minutes), they are believed to be secure. Although OTPs mostly appear as pop-up notifications on mobile phones. These pop-up messages are clearly visible, even if the mobile phone is locked. This means that the OTP can be easily accessed without the permission of the user, making the transaction open to being breached.

4. OTP Accessibility: Although an OTP is essential, the medium through which it is delivered is of utmost importance. Most of the times, a One Time Password is sent as an SMS. The problem with this is that many apps can read SMS messages. This means that if an app is malicious it can misuse the OTP that has been received. Therefore, users should be aware of what privileges they give to the apps on their smartphone and also look at reviews and number of downloads of the apps they choose.

5. EDC Machines: Even with a second-step PIN verification, swiping a card on an EDC machine is not as safe as it seems. EDC machines are susceptible to breach and a compromised machine can copy the details of the cards when swiped. Most debit and credit cards have a static PIN, and even these PINs can be stored in compromised EDC machines. A breach like this can give easy access to the personal data of cardholders to fraudulent groups. A dynamic PIN for physical credit or debit cards could be a strong safeguard against compromised EDC machines.

As there are many threats and vulnerabilities with digital payment systems, we need a system that goes much further than regular security standards. This digital payment system should have more than two layers of security so that it is virtually impenetrable. The system should be planned in such a way that each layer both independently stands by itself and also smartly integrates with the overall security structure. From requiring a password just to access the digital payment system to not needing to key in a PIN, this system should have multiple security checkpoints so that only the authorised user can successfully, yet easily, make payments through it.

GAC Group Singapore: Innovation News

PIC SCHEME

Enhanced Tax Deductions: Compute your PIC claims for ECI

Businesses have to submit their Estimated Chargeable Income (ECI) to IRAS no later than 3 months after the end of the financial year (ie. 31th March 2016 if they follow the calendar year). The PIC Enhanced Tax Deductions claim can be included along with the submission to enjoy the associated benefits. Feel free to contact us for more details!

Cash payout: Status of application and treatment of the queries for PIC by IRAS

After the submission of a cash payout claim, businesses can call the IRAS hotline or login to the IRAS E-service system to check the status of their application (quickest and most convenient way recommended by IRAS).

For applications selected for audit by IRAS, further details and supporting documents will be requested for review. IRAS will then revert to businesses within 3 months from receiving the complete information. The processing time may take up to six months, depending on the complexity of each case.

PUBLIC FUNDING IN SINGAPORE

New services launched for international development

The Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) grant and the Double Tax Deduction (DTD) are 2 public funding managed by IE Singapore that support the overseas expansion of local SMEs.

The MRA grant is designed to accelerate the international expansion of Singapore SMEs by covering up to 70% of eligible costs. These could range from overseas market set-up, identification of business partners, and overseas market promotion.

As for the DTD, it allows companies to deduct against their taxable income, twice the qualifying expenses incurred for eligible activities when carrying out market expansion and investment for their overseas development.

GAC Group assists you to get for MRA and DTD while providing expert advice and application assistance. We provide a hassle free solution to get the additional funding your company needs to expand overseas.

New services launched for Capability Development Grant (CDG)

The Capability Development Grant (CDG) is a financial assistance program managed by SPRING Singapore. CDG supports local SMEs to upgrade their business capabilities through defraying up to 70% of qualifying costs on activities such as Technology innovation, Service excellence, Productivity improvement, IP & Franchising, HR development, Financial management, Quality & Standards, Business excellence & strategy, Brand & Marketing strategy.

Through our 14 years of experience with the public funding scene, we have the expertise to successfully assist local SMEs to get their CDG applications optimized and approved. To find out more about how this grant would benefit your company, do not hesitate to contact us!

GAC EXPERTISE

How to identify an eligible R&D project

The identification of an eligible R&D project within all the developments of a company is a challenging task. The term "R&D" is often misunderstood, as it is commonly used to refer to the technical developments in its broadest sense. However, the definition of R&D given by IRAS in its “R&D Tax Measures” is far closer to scientific research than technical development. This is inspired by the definition given by the OECD, in the Frascati Manual. This manual gives definitions for basic research, applied research, and experimental development. With a good comprehension of the definitions and a strong knowledge of the R&D activities, our team has the expertise to accurately identify your R&D projects. Our Group’s competency in both technical and financial aspects allows us to secure the claimed projects with, for example, a strong technical report, and a fully optimized associated amount.

GLOBAL NEWS AND EVENTS

Launch of TechSG

GAC Group has attended the launch of TechSG, a digital platform for Singapore's technology entrepreneurial ecosystem developed by NUS Enterprise and sponsored by IBM. It is an open and collaborative platform for the community to provide comprehensive information on key players in Singapore’s entrepreneurial ecosystem with analytical tools. The objective is to visualize and track the diversity, interdependency, growth dynamics and vibrancy of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Release of the RIE2020

The Government has announced a S$ 19 Bn budget to support Singapore’s R&D efforts over the next 5 years. This 6th roadmap represents an 18% increase compared to the precedent plan and is also the biggest in history.

The Research Innovation Enterprise 2020 plan (RIE2020) aims at supporting the transfer of research into solutions to address national challenges, to build up innovation and technology adoption among companies, and to drive economic growth through value creation.

Four primary technology sectors are emphasized to deepen the technology capabilities and competitiveness of Singapore and to raise productivity and meet national priorities:

• Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering
• Health and Biomedical Sciences
• Services and Digital Economy
• Urban Solutions and Sustainability

In the meantime, cross-cutting programmes will focus on excellent sciences, strong pipeline of manpower and value creation.

The funding will be more competitive in areas of relevance and importance for Singapore. The Government aims at encouraging collaboration of multiples stakeholders bringing together different expertise to address big issues. Thus, the Government wishes to encourage tech transfer from research to marketable solutions and public-private partnerships too.

To sum up, the Government is trying to capitalize on technologies with which the country has a competitive advantage and to build up capabilities in areas that are deemed to have great national needs.

JTC Innovation Grant Call

The JTC Innovation Grant Call has been set up to identify and provide funding for technology owners to undertake test-bed and pilot innovative solutions to promote sustainability. The areas of focus include:

• Resource Efficiency: Develop sustainable facility management solutions by reducing reliance on manpower.
• Sustainable Urban Solutions: Develop solutions that can mitigate urban challenges and cultivate green practices.
• Building Efficiency: Develop green buildings solutions by reducing water & energy consumption, allowing efficient waste treatment or harvesting green energy to reduce power consumption.

All enterprises and research institutions, both local and foreign including start-ups and incubators registered with the local authorities in their respective countries are eligible to participate.

Companies can obtain up to 500.000 SGD for qualifying costs: Manpower/Professional services, Equipment/software, and Intellectual Property.

GAC Group Singapore R&D International Consulting: Our Values

We have chosen to build our company’s foundations on 4 core values, represented by the 4 bricks of our logo. These values are:

Independence

We are a family business with a single shareholder that guarantees financial stability, independence and responsibility to our clients, our partners and the well-being of our employees.

Know-How and Show How

Historically developed from a leading professional training center, we offer more than standard services by transferring knowledge to our clients during all our missions. Our employees regularly benefit from internal trainings and develop deep expertise and desire to go further on every topics and products.

Commitment and Enthusiasm

We rely on and invest in our employees and our employees are committed to the success of the company. This win-win situation results in a faithful commitment and a strong work ethic leading to personal development while strengthening our expertise and growth.

Entrepreunarial Dynamics

Founded by a serial entrepreneur, GAC federates its teams and acquires its clients’ loyalty around a common entrepreneurial vision and an international sense of challenge.