The Sovereign Wealth Fund Discount: Evidence from Public Equity Investments by Bernardo Bortolotti (Università di Torino) and Veljko Fotak (SUNY Buffalo) and William Megginson (University of Oklahoma) “Using a sample of 1,018 Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) equity investments in publicly traded firms and a control sample of 5,975 transactions by private-sector financial institutions over 1980-2012,… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
47 Prominent Technologists to NSA Review Panel: We Need Better Technical Oversight
EFF – “A group of prominent technologists submitted a letter today to the NSA Review Group, a body charged with conducting a review of NSA activities that does not currently have a technologist as a member. The letter urges the Review Group to seek assistance from independent technologists in order to conduct a thorough review,… Continue Reading
EPIC FOIA – FBI Says 20% Error Rate Okay for Facial Recognition
“EPIC’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has produced new documents about “Next Generation Identification” and the FBI’s plans for facial recognition. According to the document obtained by EPIC, “NGI shall return an incorrect candidate a maximum of 20% of the time.” That number is much greater than expected. Earlier this year, EPIC received documents from… Continue Reading
BBC News – Walking ‘cuts breast cancer risk’
“Post-menopausal women who walk for an hour a day can cut their chance of breast cancer significantly, a study has suggested. The report, which followed 73,000 women for 17 years, found walking for at least seven hours a week lowered the risk of the disease. The American Cancer Society team said this was the first time reduced risk… Continue Reading
Library of Congress has restored access to all its sites
News from the Library of Congress October 1, 2013 (REVISED October 3, 2013) Federal Government Shutdown “Due to the temporary shutdown of the federal government, all Library buildings are closed, all public events are canceled, and all inquiries and requests to the Library of Congress web-based services will not be received or responded to until the shutdown… Continue Reading
A dynamic guide to alternate research sources for use during the 2013 Federal Government shutdown
“Mississippi State University Libraries has created a LibGuide to finding government information during the shutdown. You can see it here: http://guides.library.msstate.edu/altgovsources. This was a team effort by our Reference Department (which now includes our Depository services and Christine Lea Fletcher).” Continue Reading
Social Explorer team opens up access to Social Explorer during gov’t shutdown
“The current shutdown in Washington is limiting the access that scholars and researchers have to vital materials, including the US Census website. To that end, Oxford University Press and the Social Explorer team will open up access to Social Explorer – the premier US Census demographics website – for the next two weeks. Social Explorer… Continue Reading
Georgetown Offers Free Classes to Furloughed Workers
NBC Washington: “If you are a furloughed worker looking for something to do during the shutdown, Georgetown University has something that will keep you busy. The School of Continuing Studies is offering six free courses to those who are out of work. The classes deal with everything from management skills to social media. Each class… Continue Reading
Report Analyzes Government Secrecy
[October 1, 2013] “release of the 2013 Secrecy Report, the 9th annual review and analysis of indicators of secrecy in the federal government by OpenTheGovernment.org, comes amid shocking revelations that cast doubt on the accuracy and the meaningfulness of the government’s statistics about surveillance. As is highlighted in the introduction to this report and in… Continue Reading
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Medline Plus Breast Cancer Resources: “Breast cancer affects one in eight women during their lives. Breast cancer kills more women in the United States than any cancer except lung cancer. No one knows why some women get breast cancer, but there are a number of risk factors. Risks that you cannot change include Age –… Continue Reading
UK Guardian faces financial hurdles in taking investigations global
A British newspaper wants to take its aggressive investigations global, but money is running out. by Ken Auletta, New Yorker, October 7, 2013. “Since June 5th, the Guardian had been publishing top-secret digital files provided by Edward Snowden, a former contract employee of the National Security Agency. In a series of articles, the paper revealed… Continue Reading
Asset Poverty and the Importance of Emergency Savings
Asset Poverty and the Importance of Emergency Savings, by Caroline Ratcliffe, Urban Institute, October 1, 2013 “What percent of families are asset poor—lack sufficient resources to live at the poverty line for three months —and why does asset poverty matter? A third of U.S. families are liquid asset poor and these families are disproportionately minority, young,… Continue Reading
