“In this business report, MIT Technology Review explores a big question: how are data and the analytical tools to manipulate it changing decision making today? On Nasdaq, trading bots exchange a billion shares a day. Online, advertisers bid on hundreds of thousands of keywords a minute, in deals greased by heuristic solutions and optimization models rather than two-martini… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
New GAO Reports – Army Corps of Engineers, Flood Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare
ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS – Cost Increases in Flood Control Projects and Improving Communication with Nonfederal Sponsors, GAO-14-35, Dec 20, 2013 FLOOD INSURANCE – Strategies for Increasing Private Sector Involvement, GAO-14-127, Jan 22, 2014 MEDICAID PRESCRIPTION DRUGS – CMS Should Implement Revised Federal Upper Limits and Monitor Their Relationship to Retail Pharmacy Acquisition Costs, GAO-14-68, Dec 19, 2013 MEDICARE ADVANTAGE – 2011… Continue Reading
A Reporter’s Guide to the Millennium Development Goals
Editor’s Note/Global Investigative Journalism Network: “For the next two weeks, GIJN is running a series drawn from the newly released Reporter’s Guide to the Millennium Development Goals: Covering Development Commitments for 2015 and Beyond, published by the International Press Institute. Agreed to in 2000, the UN Millennium Goals comprise an ambitious agenda to improve quality of life around the world,… Continue Reading
TRAC – Surprising Variability in Immigration Detainer Trends by Gender, Nationality
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “Very recent government data reveal that while the number of detainers issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials has dropped by nearly a quarter (23 percent) since fiscal year 2012, there are striking differences in the trends when viewed by the gender and nationality of the individuals involved. Also, there are… Continue Reading
Staying Safer in Cyberspace: Cloud Security on the Horizon
Staying Safer in Cyberspace: Cloud Security on the Horizon, January 2014. Karen S. Evans, Julie M. Anderson, Brian D. Shevenaug. “Cloud computing brings with it both risks and rewards. In recent years, senior Federal officials from the Secretary of Defense to the Director of National Intelligence and even the President have stressed that securing our information systems and computer networks is a… Continue Reading
New Report on Liberal Arts Majors and Employment
“The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) released today a new report on earnings and long-term career paths for college graduates with different undergraduate majors. In How Liberal Arts and Sciences Majors Fare in Employment, authors Debra Humphreys and Patrick Kelly analyze data from the 2010-11 US Census Bureau’s American… Continue Reading
CDT – Verizon Transparency Report Sets Industry Standard
“Today Verizon released its first transparency report, which detailed the number of government demands it received in 2013 for disclosure of customer data. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) welcomes Verizon’s report and believes it should set a precedent for greater transparency in the industry. CDT released the following statement in response to the report:… Continue Reading
EPIC Files Appeal, Challenging Secrecy of Presidential Directives
“EPIC has filed a Statement of the Issue Presented with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. EPIC is appealing a lower court decision that NSPD 54 — a Presidential Directive setting out the scope of the NSA’s authority over computer networks in the United States — is not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. EPIC sought… Continue Reading
NYT – How Inactivity Changes the Brain
Grethen Reynolds: “A number of studies have shown that exercise can remodel the brain by prompting the creation of new brain cells and inducing other changes. Now it appears that inactivity, too, can remodel the brain, according to a notable new report. The study, [see below] which was conducted in rats but likely has implications for people… Continue Reading
New Open Data Tool Helps Countries Compare Progress on Education
“The World Bank Group today launched a new open data tool that provides in-depth, comparative, and easily accessible data on education policies around the world. The Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) web tool helps countries collect and analyze information on their education policies, benchmark themselves against other countries, and prioritize areas for reform,… Continue Reading
NOAA Product Highlight: U.S. Climate Extremes Index
“The U.S. Climate Extremes Index or USCEI brings together several climate indicators to illustrate the occurrence of specific extreme events in the contiguous United States from 1910 to the present. These climate indicators include extremes in average monthly maximum and minimum temperatures, heavy one-day precipitation events, drought severity, the number of days with and without precipitation, and… Continue Reading
New Study – Made in China for us: Air pollution as well as exports
News release: “Chinese air pollution blowing across the Pacific Ocean is often caused by the manufacturing of goods for export to the U.S. and Europe, according to findings by UC Irvine and other researchers published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [see China’s international trade and air pollution in the United States]. The study is… Continue Reading
