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Daily Archives: August 28, 2011

Pew: 65% of online adults use social networking sites

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65% of online adults use social networking sites – Women maintain their foothold on SNS use and older Americans are still coming aboard. Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist, Kathryn Zickuhr, Research Specialist, 8/26/2011

  • “Two-thirds of adult internet users (65%) now say they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61% one year ago. That’s more than double the percentage that reported social networking site usage in 2008 (29%). And for the first time in Pew Internet surveys it means that half of all adults (50%) use social networking sites. The pace with which new users have flocked to social networking sites has been staggering; when we first asked about social networking sites in February of 2005, just 8% of internet users – or 5% of all adults – said they used them. Looking at usage on a typical day, 43% of online adults use social networking, up from 38% a year ago and just 13% in 2008. Out of all the “daily” online activities that we ask about, only email (which 61% of internet users access on a typical day) and search engines (which 59% use on a typical day) are used more frequently than social networking tools.”

    • USGS Releases New Assessment of Gas Resources in the Marcellus Shale, Appalachian Basin

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    Follow up to previous postings on the Marcellus Shale, this news: “The Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids according to a new assessment by the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS). These gas estimates are significantly more… Continue Reading

    Bloomberg Agrees to Buy Bureau of National Affairs for About $990 Million

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    via Bloomberg: “Bloomberg LP, the closely held news and financial information provider, agreed to buy The Bureau of National Affairs Inc. for about $990 million to add legal, tax and regulatory research and analysis. BNA shareholders, who are current and former employees, will get $39.50 a share in cash in a transaction that is projected… Continue Reading

    New GAO Report – Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans

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    Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans – Program Features, Early Enrollment and Spending Trends, and Federal Oversight Activities, GAO-11-662, July 27, 2011 “Individuals applying for health insurance are often denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act appropriated $5 billion to create a temporary pool–known as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan… Continue Reading

    Economic Indicators – June 2011, Council of Economic Advisers

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    Economic Indicators June 2011 (Includes data available as of July 8, 2011) Prepared for the Joint Economic Committee by the Council of Economic Advisers, GPO. “In the first quarter of 2011, according to revised estimates, current dollar gross domestic product (GDP) rose 4.0 percent (annual rate), real GDP in chained (2005) dollars rose 1.9 percent,… Continue Reading

    International Trade and Firm Performance: A Survey of Empirical Studies Since 2006

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    International Trade and Firm Performance: A Survey of Empirical Studies Since 2006. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5916. Joachim Wagner, University of Lueneburg – Institute of Economics. Posted August 28, 2011 “The literature on international trade and firm performance grows exponentially. This paper attempts to summarize what we learn from this literature to guide both future… Continue Reading

    The PII Problem: Privacy and a New Concept of Personally Identifiable Information

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    The PII Problem: Privacy and a New Concept of Personally Identifiable Information (July 8, 2011). New York University Law Review, Vol. 86, 2011. Paul M. Schwartz and Daniel J. Solove. Personally identifiable information (PII) is one of the most central concepts in information privacy regulation. The scope of privacy laws typically turns on whether PII… Continue Reading

    Report on OTC derivatives data reporting and aggregation requirements – consultative report

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    Report on OTC derivatives data reporting and aggregation requirements – consultative report, CPSS Publications No 96, August 2011 – Bank for International Settlements: “This consultation report is about the OTC derivatives data that should be collected, stored and disseminated by trade repositories (TRs). CPSS and IOSCO support the view that TRs, by collecting such data… Continue Reading

    Inside Higher Ed Reports on What Students Don't Know About Using the Web and Research

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    Inside Higher Ed: “The ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) project — a series of studies conducted at Illinois Wesleyan, DePaul University, and Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois’s Chicago and Springfield campuses — was a meta-exercise for the librarians in practicing the sort of deep research they champion. Instead of relying… Continue Reading