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Daily Archives: August 10, 2010

News Consumption 2010: A portrait of "local news enthusiasts"

Understanding the Participatory News Consumer: Local News Enthusiasts – presentation by Kristen Purcell, Associate Director, Research/Pew Internet

  • “Roughly four in ten adults say there is currently not enough news coverage of their neighborhood or local community (38%) or that there is not enough coverage of their state (39%). These “local news enthusiasts” are slightly younger and more mobile than other adults, and are more engaged in social network site use and in commenting on and sharing news they find online.”
  • Joint Release/Agencies Issue Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Alternatives to the Use of Credit Ratings in the Regulatory Capital Guidelines

    Agencies Issue Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Alternatives to the Use of Credit Ratings in the Regulatory Capital Guidelines, August 10, 2010 “The federal banking agencies (agencies) today have agreed to publish an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (advance notice) regarding alternatives to the use of credit ratings in their risk-based capital rules (capital… Continue Reading

    National Security Letter Recipient Can Speak Out For First Time Since FBI Demanded Customer Records From Him

    Follow up to previous postings on National Security Letters, this news release: “The FBI has partially lifted a gag it imposed on American Civil Liberties Union client Nicholas Merrill in 2004 that prevented him from disclosing to anyone that he received a national security letter (NSL) demanding private customer records. Merrill, who received the NSL… Continue Reading

    Federal Reserve Federal Open Market Committee Statement – Recovery Has Slowed

    FOMC Statement, August 10, 2010: “Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June indicates that the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months. Household spending is increasing gradually, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment… Continue Reading

    BLS – Productivity and Costs, Second Quarter 2010, Preliminary

    Productivity and Costs, Second Quarter 2010, Preliminary: “Nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased at a 0.9 percent annual rate during the second quarter of 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, with output and hours rising 2.6 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual… Continue Reading

    Rand: Analyzing the Operation of Performance-Based Accountability Systems for Public Services

    Analyzing the Operation of Performance-Based Accountability Systems for Public Services, by Frank Camm, Brian M. Stecher “Empirical evidence of the effects of performance-based public management is scarce. This report describes a framework used to organize available empirical information on one form of performance-based management, a performance-based accountability system (PBAS). Such a system identifies individuals or… Continue Reading

    Statement Regarding Reinvestment of Principal Payments on Agency Debt and Agency MBS

    News release: “On August 10, 2010, the Federal Open Market Committee directed the Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to keep constant the Federal Reserve’s holdings of securities at their current level by reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities (agency MBS) in longer-term… Continue Reading

    Reports Reveal Colleges with the Biggest, Smallest Gaps in Minority Graduation Rates in the U.S.

    News release: “Two reports released by The Education Trust – Big Gaps, Small Gaps: Some Colleges and Universities Do Better Than Others in Graduating African-American Students and Big Gaps, Small Gaps: Some Colleges and Universities Do Better Than Others in Graduating Hispanic Students — dig beneath national college-graduation averages and examine disaggregated six-year graduation rates… Continue Reading

    Google Algorithm Estimates Number of World's Books to be Around 129,864,880

    Inside Google Books: “We collect metadata from many providers (more than 150 and counting) that include libraries, WorldCat, national union catalogs and commercial providers. At the moment we have close to a billion unique raw records. We then further analyze these records to reduce the level of duplication within each provider, bringing us down to… Continue Reading