“This is the web site of the International DOI Foundation (IDF), a not-for-profit membership organization that is the governance and management body for the federation of Registration Agencies providing Digital Object Identifier (DOI) services and registration, and is the registration authority for the ISO standard (ISO 26324) for the DOI system. The DOI system provides… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: February 2016
More than 60 million people became refugees in 2015
OUPBlog, Andreas Schloenhardt – “In 2015, more people fled from persecution, war, human rights violations, discrimination, and other hardship than at any other time since World War II. UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, estimates that worldwide more than 60 million people, or one in every 122, have been forced to flee their homes. The… Continue Reading
Paper – Four billion people facing severe water scarcity
Science Advances 12 Feb 2016: Vol. 2, no. 2, e1500323 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500323 “Freshwater scarcity is increasingly perceived as a global systemic risk. Previous global water scarcity assessments, measuring water scarcity annually, have underestimated experienced water scarcity by failing to capture the seasonal fluctuations in water consumption and availability. We assess blue water scarcity globally at… Continue Reading
Paper – ‘BPA-free’ plastic accelerates embryonic development, disrupts reproductive system
Via Science Daily – February 1, 2016 . University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences: “Companies advertise “BPA-free” as a safer version of plastic products ranging from water bottles to sippy cups to toys. Many manufacturers stopped used Bisphenol A to strengthen plastic after animal studies linked it to early puberty and a rise… Continue Reading
Transition Report 2015-16 Rebalancing finance
“The EBRD [European Bank for Reconstruction and Development] is owned by 65 countries, the European Union and the European Investment Bank. The EBRD President is currently Sir Suma Chakrabarti, who took office in 2012. Each shareholder is represented on the Board of Governors, which has overall authority over the EBRD. Under the guidance of the Board of Directors, the President manages… Continue Reading
Why the US Needs a New, Tech-driven Growth Strategy
Gregory Tassey, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, February 8, 2016 “The most important measure of long-term economic growth is the rate at which we increase productivity, because that is what drives long-term wage growth, writes Gregory Tassey in the Christian Science Monitor. Yet by this metric, the prospects for resurgent growth in the U.S. economy… Continue Reading
Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of the President, Judiciary Committee, and Senate
Follow up to posting – Longest-serving member of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies see Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of the President, Judiciary Committee, and Senate. Denis Steven Rutkus, Specialist on the Federal Judiciary. February 19, 2010. “The appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is an event of major significance in American politics. Each… Continue Reading
Wikipedia at 15: Millions of readers in scores of languages
Pew Factank: “Wikipedia turn[ed] 15 on Friday [January 15, 2016]. A key element in its creators’ vision of a user-generated online encyclopedia was to make it a repository of information serving audiences in multiple languages. The first non-English versions launched shortly after the Wikipedia’s founding in 2001, with offerings in six languages – German, Catalan, Swedish, French, Spanish and… Continue Reading
After Google Spain and Charlie Hebdo: The Continuing Evolution of European Union Data Privacy Law in a Time of Change
Voss, W. Gregory, After Google Spain and Charlie Hebdo: The Continuing Evolution of European Union Data Privacy Law in a Time of Change (January 6, 2016). Business Lawyer, Vol. 71, No. 1, 2015/2016. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2711996 “This article investigates various developments over that year that helped (or are helping) reshape European Union… Continue Reading
Pew – What voters want in a president today
FactTank: “The presidential nomination contests are heating up and both parties’ 2016 fields have narrowed. And since it’s also Presidents Day weekend, it’s a good time to consider what voters want in a president, regardless of which candidate they may support.” Continue Reading
Kickstarter seeks to make CIA Records Search Tool accessible to researchers
Michael Franco – cnet: “Currently, more than 11 million pages of declassified CIA documents are publicly available via an electronic database called CREST, or the CIA Records Search Tool. While some of these documents — like a batch of UFO related files the CIA cleverly calls its X-Files — are available online, many can only… Continue Reading
Longest-serving member of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies
New York Times: “Justice Scalia, whose legal theories, vivid writing and outsize personality made him a conservative leader on the Supreme Court, was found dead in Texas [at the age of 79].” New York Times: Battle Begins Over Naming Next Justice Politico: Obama’s Supreme Court short list – The president has a chance to make… Continue Reading
