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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici

Profile of President Obama’s Second Term – The New Yorker

ANNALS OF THE PRESIDENCY – GOING THE DISTANCE. On and off the road with Barack Obama. By David Remick “The conventional wisdom is that a President’s second term is a matter of minimizing the damage and playing defense rather than playing offense,” Obama said in one of our conversations on the trip and at the White House. “But, as… Continue Reading

New Beginner’s Guide to Social Media

“Welcome to The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media. Whether you’re new to social media or just looking to close a few knowledge gaps, we’re glad you stopped by. By now, we’ve all heard how valuable—even essential—social media can be. Whether your current sentiment leans more toward enthusiasm or trepidation, there’s no way around the fact that… Continue Reading

Paper – National contributions to observed global warming

Environmental Research Letters Volume 9 Number 1. H Damon Matthews et al 2014 Environ. Res. Lett. 9 014010 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/1/014010. National contributions to observed global warming “There is considerable interest in identifying national contributions to global warming as a way of allocating historical responsibility for observed climate change. This task is made difficult by uncertainty associated with national estimates of historical emissions, as well as by… Continue Reading

Youth Perspectives on Tech in Schools: From Mobile Devices to Restrictions and Monitoring

Youth Perspectives on Tech in Schools: From Mobile Devices to Restrictions and Monitoring, Published January 15, 2014 “This research brief is a contribution by the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Center to its Student Privacy Initiative, which seeks to explore the opportunities and challenges that may arise as educational institutions adopt cloud computing technologies.… Continue Reading

PCWorld – How 3D printing could revolutionize manufacturing

Sharon Gaudin’s article [snipped]: “One day a 3D printer, using a mix of materials, will be able to create body armor for U.S. soldiers that is more lightweight and stronger than anything could be made with traditional manufacturing and materials today. That’s the word from researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who are working to revolutionize 3D… Continue Reading

Discount Window Stigma during the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis

Discount Window Stigma during the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis. by Olivier Armantier. Eric Ghysels, Asani Sarkar, and Jeffrey Shrader. January 2011  Number 483. Revised September 2013 “We provide empirical evidence for the existence, magnitude, and economic cost of stigma associated with banks borrowing from the Federal Reserve’s Discount Window (DW) during the 2007-08 financial crisis. We find that banks were willing to pay a premium… Continue Reading

New York Fed – Introducing the Business Leaders Survey

Jason Bram and Richard Deitz: “Today, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York begins releasing its monthly survey of regional business activity, called the Business Leaders Survey. This survey is a close cousin of our Empire State Manufacturing Survey, with some differences. The Business Leaders Survey covers the service sector rather than the manufacturing sector, and its respondents come from New York,… Continue Reading

Wells Fargo and US Bank End Bank Payday Lending

CFA Calls on Fifth Third Bank to Discontinue Deposit Advance Product: “In a positive step forward for consumers, three of the largest providers of bank payday loans announced that they would no longer offer high-cost loans to their checking account customers. Recent findings from a report issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that bank payday loans, commonly… Continue Reading

CDT – President Supports End to NSA Bulk Collection; Fails to Provide Clear Path Forward

News release: “Far more needs to be done to restore the faith of the American people and repair the damage done globally to the U.S. reputation as a defender of human rights on the Internet. We certainly welcome judicial review of metadata queries, the support for more transparency about surveillance, a voice for civil liberties… Continue Reading

Vancouver Sun – How to stop the digital dark age

DNA may be our only salvation from the relentless decay of data – BY ROGER HIGHFIELD, LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH JANUARY 8, 2014 “Are we sliding into a dark age of information? True, there are some three thousand billion billion bytes of recorded digital information on the planet, and the figure is rapidly rising. However, most of this will be… Continue Reading