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Daily Archives: April 10, 2017

Now free: citation data from 14 million papers

Via Science – Dalmeet Singh Chawla – “…the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC), a project aiming to make citation data free to all, formally announced today by six organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation, publisher Public Library of Science, and the open-access journal eLife. So far, the initiative has partnered with 29 journal publishers to enable anyone to access citation data from about 14 million papers indexed by Crossref, a nonprofit collaboration that promotes the sharing of scholarly information. And more publishers are likely to sign on, says Mark Patterson, executive director of eLife, in Cambridge, U.K. Conversations about opening up citation data initially took place this past September at the eighth Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing, in response to a report that found that just 3% of almost a thousand publishers depositing data on Crossref were making citation data open. In practice, that meant that citation data were available for just 1% of the roughly 35 million papers on Crossref, says Dario Taraborelli, head of research at the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, California…”

CRS – Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate

Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate, Valerie Heitshusen, Specialist on Congress and the Legislative Process; Richard S. Beth, Specialist on Congress and the Legislative Process. April 7, 2017 [via FAS]: “The filibuster is widely viewed as one of the Senate’s most characteristic procedural features. Filibustering includes any use of dilatory or obstructive tactics to block… Continue Reading

U.S. Climate Change Regulation and Litigation: Selected Legal Issues

CRS Report – U.S. Climate Change Regulation and Litigation: Selected Legal Issues, Linda Tsang, Legislative Attorney. April 3, 2017 [via FAS] : “On March 28, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order to encourage and promote energy development by modifying climate change policies. As the Trump Administration implements its environmental policies, various legal challenges to… Continue Reading

Pew – wider partisan and ideological gap between younger, older generations

Pew Research Center: “The generation gap in American politics is dividing two younger age groups, Millennials and Generation X, from the two older groups, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation. In 2016, as in recent years, Millennials and Gen Xers were the most Democratic generations. And both groups had relatively large – and growing –… Continue Reading

The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity and Fake News Online

Pew Report – “Many experts fear uncivil and manipulative behaviors on the internet will persist – and may get worse. This will lead to a splintering of social media into AI-patrolled and regulated ‘safe spaces’ separated from free-for-all zones. Some worry this will hurt the open exchange of ideas and compromise privacy..Since the early 2000s,… Continue Reading

Trump Visitor Logs Subject to FOIA Lawsuit

“The National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), are filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for the release of the White House visitor logs today, April 10, in the federal District… Continue Reading

Paper – Copyright: The immoveable barrier that open access advocates underestimated

Copyright: The immoveable barrier that open access advocates underestimated, Richard Poynder, 20 February 2017. “In calling for research papers to be made freely available open access advocates promised that doing so would lead to a simpler, less costly, more democratic, and more effective scholarly communication system. To achieve their objectives they proposed two different ways… Continue Reading

SEC: Payments for Bullish Articles on Stocks Must Be Disclosed to Investors

News release: “The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced enforcement actions against 27 individuals and entities behind various alleged stock promotion schemes that left investors with the impression they were reading independent, unbiased analyses on investing websites while writers were being secretly compensated for touting company stocks. SEC investigations uncovered scenarios in which public companies… Continue Reading

Will the US have enough workers to help an aging population?

GAO WatchBlog: “More than 12 million Americans need assistance with routine daily activities, such as eating, dressing, bathing, and making meals. Direct care workers—home health aides, psychiatric aides, nursing assistants, and personal care aides—are the primary paid providers of the long-term care they need. As the baby boomers age, there are concerns that there may… Continue Reading