“The Bank of England today launched its Strategic Plan, following a six month exercise led by the Executive Committee of the Bank. The Plan, to be implemented over the next three years, provides an ambitious agenda to transform the institution to take full advantage of the Bank’s expanded policy responsibilities. It will create a single, unified institution – One… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Rankings, Institutional Behavior, and College and University Choice
“A new ACE issue brief finds that college rankings often have detrimental effects on institutions and that students—particularly low-income students—do not use them when choosing among their higher education options. The ACE Center for Policy, Research & Strategy’s Rankings, Institutional Behavior, and College and University Choice is intended to add research-based context to the Obama administration’s plan to… Continue Reading
Research – Plastic shopping bags make a fine diesel fuel
Brajendra K. Sharma, Bryan R. Moser, Karl E. Vermillion, Kenneth M. Doll, Nandakishore Rajagopalan. Production, characterization and fuel properties of alternative diesel fuel from pyrolysis of waste plastic grocery bags. Fuel Processing Technology, 2014; 122: 79 DOI: 10.1016/j.fuproc.2014.01.019: “Plastic shopping bags, an abundant source of litter on land and at sea, can be converted into diesel, natural gas… Continue Reading
Private Health Insurance Market Reforms in the Affordable Care Act
CRS – Private Health Insurance Market Reforms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Annie L. Mach, Analyst in Health Care Financing; Bernadette Fernandez, Specialist in Health Care Financing. March 13, 2014 “The Affordable Care Act (ACA, P.L. 111-148, as amended) includes reforms of the health insurance market that impose requirements on private health insurance plans. Such reforms relate to… Continue Reading
GSA Should Clarify Its Reporting on Executives’ Use of Aircraft for Nonmission Purposes
GAO-14-151: “Published: Feb 28, 2014. Publicly Released: Mar 20, 2014. “The exemption in General Services Administration (GSA) regulations that allows intelligence agencies not to report unclassified data on senior federal official travel for nonmission purposes is not consistent with executive branch requirements, and GSA has not provided a basis for deviating from these requirements. Specifically, executive… Continue Reading
Latest Comprehensive Information About Federal Tax Enforcement
“Recent and very extensive information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about tax returns, audits and its own criminal enforcement actions are now available on the public web site of the Transactional Records Access Records (TRAC). See TRAC’s IRS Data Tools and Applications page. TRAC’s tools let you explore newly released data from the IRS about… Continue Reading
New Field Guide Explores Open Data Innovations in Disaster Risk and Resilience
World Bank: “From Indonesia to Bangladesh to Nepal, community members armed with smartphones and GPS systems are contributing to some of the most extensive and versatile maps ever created, helping inform policy and better prepare their communities for disaster risk. In Jakarta, more than 500 community members have been trained to collect data on thousands of… Continue Reading
Yellen and the Fed, a WSJ Briefing
“The stories in our e-book on Ms. Yellen — based on decades of Wall Street Journal reporting about the economy, the central bank and national policy makers — form the first in-depth portrait of the woman with the levers of the global financial system at her fingertips.” To download the full e-book for free, go… Continue Reading
New Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Hearing
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board – “Committed to the protection of civil liberties and privacy in the nation’s efforts against terrorism” 19 March Hearing – Agenda, Witness Testimony Now Available See also ComputerWorld: “A U.S. National Security Agency surveillance program focused on overseas telephone and email communications is targeted and narrow, and not the bulk collection… Continue Reading
White House Launches Climate Data Initiative
News release: “…we are launching the Climate Data Initiative, an ambitious new effort bringing together extensive open government data and design competitions with commitments from the private and philanthropic sectors to develop data-driven planning and resilience tools for local communities. This effort will help give communities across America the information and tools they need to… Continue Reading
Analysis: The FCC’s Remand Docket sets right legal and policy direction to preserve Open Internet
“The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) released a report today analyzing the decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to rewrite its Open Internet Order under the Section 706 authority established in recent ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the District Of Columbia Circuit. Applying principles derived from a number of well-known… Continue Reading
EPIC – Google Admits to Data-Mining Student Emails
“In a sworn statement filed with a federal court, Google has admitted to scanning student emails to serve students targeted advertisements. Although Google does not display ads in Apps for Education, Google “does scan [student] email” to “compile keywords for advertising” on Google sites. Google has gained access to student emails pursuant to the Education Department’s recently revised… Continue Reading
