Via Urban Institute: “The nation’s second-busiest heavy rail transit system, the Washington, DC area’s Metro, is in crisis. This is a long-term crisis, occasionally punctuated by national headlines, like when smoke filled a train killing one passenger in January 2015, or when nine people died in a crash in June 2009. In both cases, the… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: March 2016
NYT – Ethereum, a Virtual Currency, Enables Transactions That Rival Bitcoin’s
New York Times: “A new virtual gold rush is underway. Even as Bitcoin, riven by internal divisions, has struggled, a rival virtual currency — known as Ethereum — has soared in value, climbing 1,000 percent over the last three months. Beyond the price spike, Ethereum is also attracting attention from giants in finance and technology,… Continue Reading
LC – Laws on Extradition of Citizens
“This chart covers extradition rules for citizens in 157 jurisdictions. Note that many countries will not extradite anyone for political crimes or will not extradite an individual to a country that imposes capital punishment. Those two restrictions were not considered in the making of this chart, as they generally apply to requests to extradite both… Continue Reading
UK Report – Cycling infrastructure: framework for evaluating economic and social impacts
Technopolis Group on behalf of the UK Department for Transport “This report presents the results of a study to research the options for robustly evaluating the economic and social impacts of investments in new or improved cycling infrastructure, in a mixture of different types of urban and rural areas. The report has been written for evaluation practitioners and commissioners, and while it attempts to avoid… Continue Reading
NYC population reaches milestone level of 8.5 miliion
Via Social Explorer: “New York City has officially reached over 8.5 million in population growth–a new milestone–according to newly released Census Bureau estimates, with Queens and the Bronx especially driving the growth. NY1 reporter Michael Scotto reports on changes across the city and interviews Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge about the numbers, which also reveal large… Continue Reading
NYPL – Photographers’ Identities Catalog
“Photographers’ Identities Catalog (PIC) is an experimental interface to a collection of biographical data describing photographers, studios, manufacturers, and others involved in the production of photographic images. Consisting of names, nationalities, dates, locations and more, PIC is a vast and growing resource for the historian, student, genealogist, or any lover of photography’s history. The information… Continue Reading
US Geological Survey Science Data Catalog
“The USGS Science Data Catalog provides seamless access to USGS research and monitoring data from across the nation. Users have the ability to search, browse, or use a map-based interface to discover data.” See also Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Data Source: Core Science Analytics and Synthesis. Begin Date: Unknown. Mission Area: Core Science SystemsEnd Date: 12/31/2015. ITIS is an easily accessible database… Continue Reading
Article – Ancient Rome dependent upon maritime insurance to sustain economy
Via Priceonomics: “In Ancient Rome, shipping was a very big deal. Sea voyages were a major economic activity—and a risky one. Ships sank, ran afoul of piracy, suffered delays due to weather, or arrived to find that prices were unexpectedly low. This made insuring and financing voyages the high finance of the time. Before there were… Continue Reading
Eastern Monarch Butterflies at Risk of Extinction Unless Numbers Increase
Via USGS – “Long-term declines in the overwintering Eastern population of North American monarch butterflies are significantly increasing their likelihood of becoming extinct over the next two decades, according to Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and U.S. Geological Survey research published today. The new study, available in the journal Scientific Reports, found… Continue Reading
Paper – Web Data Knowledge Extraction
Web Data Knowledge Extraction. Juan M. Tirado, Ovidiu Serban, Qiang Guo, and Eiko Yoneki, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, Cambridge, United Kingdom. March 24, 2016. “A constantly growing amount of information is available through the web. Unfortunately, extracting useful content from this massive amount of data still remains an open issue. The lack of standard… Continue Reading
Paper – Birdsong dialect patterns explained using magnetic domains
Birdsong dialect patterns explained using magnetic domains, James Burridge, Steven Kenney (Submitted on 12 Mar 2016). “The songs and calls of many bird species, like human speech, form distinct regional dialects. We suggest that the process of dialect formation is analogous to the physical process of magnetic domain formation. We take the coastal breeding grounds… Continue Reading
Paper – Revealing the Hidden Patterns of News Photos
Revealing the Hidden Patterns of News Photos: Analysis of Millions of News Photos Using GDELT and Deep Learning-based Vision APIs Haewoon Kwak, Jisun An (Submitted on 15 Mar 2016 (v1), last revised 24 Mar 2016 (this version, v2)). arXiv:1603.04531v2 [cs.CY] for this version) “In this work, we analyze more than two million news photos published… Continue Reading
