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Daily Archives: October 25, 2013

140 Characters or Less: An Experiment in Legal Research

140 Characters or Less: An Experiment in Legal ResearchPatrick M. Ellis – Michigan State University College of Law – October 1, 2013

“In 1995, Robert Ambrogi, former columnist for Legal Technology News, wrote about the Internet’s potential to revolutionize the accessibility and delivery of legal information. Almost 20 years later, Ambrogi now describes his initial optimism as a “pipe dream.” Perhaps one of the greatest problems facing the legal industry today is the sheer inaccessibility of legal information. Not only does this inaccessibility prevent millions of Americans from obtaining reliable legal information, but it also prevents many attorneys from adequately providing legal services to their clients. Whether locked behind government paywalls or corporate cash registers, legal information is simply not efficiently and affordably attainable through traditional means. There may, however, be an answer. Although the legal industry appears to just be warming up to social media for marketing purposes, social media platforms, like Twitter, may have the untapped potential to help solve the accessibility problem. This Note attempts to prove that assertion by showing an iteration of social media’s potential alternative use, as an effective and free information sharing mechanism for legal professionals and the communities and clients they serve. Generally speaking, law review editors and other academicians demand that authors support every claim with a citation, or, at the very least, require extensive research to support claims or theses. This Note seeks to fulfill this requirement, with a variation on conventional legal scholarship. Almost all of the sources in this Note were obtained via Twitter. Thus, this somewhat experimental piece should demonstrate social media’s potential as an emerging and legitimate source of legal information. By perceiving and using social media as something more than a marketing tool, lawyers, law schools, and, most importantly, clients, may be able to tap into a more diverse and more accessible well of information. This redistribution of information accessibility may not only solve some of the problems facing the legal industry, but also has the capability to improve society at large.”

 

CDC Survey – Total and High-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Adults

Total and High-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Adults: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2011–2012 “Key findings – Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2011–2012 In 2011–2012, an estimated 12.9% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over (11.1% of men and 14.4% of women) had high total cholesterol, which is unchanged since 2009–2010. Approximately… Continue Reading

Commentary – The Decline of Wikipedia

Tom Simonite – MIT Technology Review: “The sixth most widely used website in the world is not run anything like the others in the top 10. It is not operated by a sophisticated corporation but by a leaderless collection of volunteers who generally work under pseudonyms and habitually bicker with each other. It rarely tries… Continue Reading

CFPB – Making regulations easier to use

“We write rules to protect consumers, but what actually protects consumers is people: advocates knowing what rights people have, government agencies’ supervision and enforcement staff having a clear view of what potential violations to look out for; and responsible industry employees following the rules…we’re releasing a new open source tool we built, eRegulations, to help… Continue Reading

New GAO Reports – Electronic Health Records, Federal Real Property, Joint Military Education, FHFA

ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS – Number and Characteristics of Providers Awarded Medicare Incentive Payments for 2011-2012, GAO-14-21R, Oct 24, 2013 FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY – Greater Transparency and Strategic Focus Needed for High-Value GSA Leases, GAO-13-744, Sep 19, 2013 JOINT MILITARY EDUCATION – Actions Needed to Implement DOD Recommendations for Enhancing Leadership Development, GAO-14-29, Oct 23, 2013 FEDERAL HOUSING ADMINISTRATION – Analysis of Options… Continue Reading

Mapping the Expansion of Google’s Serving Infrastructure

Mapping the Expansion of Google’s Serving Infrastructure – Matt Calder, University of Southern California; Xun Fan, USC/ISI; Zi Hu, USC/ISI; Ethan Katz-Bassett, University of Southern California; John Heidemann, USC/ISI; Ramesh Govindan; University of Southern California “Modern content-distribution networks both provide bulk content and act as “serving infrastructure” for web services in order to reduce user-perceived latency. Serving infrastructures such as Google’s are now critical to the online economy,… Continue Reading

Women, Men and Working Conditions in Europe

Women, Men and Working Conditions in Europe – A report based on the fifth European Working Conditions Survey – October 24, 2013. Smith, Mark; Piasna, Agnieszka; Burchell, Brendan; Rubery, Jill; Rafferty, Anthony; Rose, Janna; Carter, Laura “Despite much legislative progress in gender equality over the past 40 years, there are still gender gaps across many aspects of… Continue Reading

TRAC – Immigration Court Backlog Up 85% From Five Years Ago

“The number of cases awaiting resolution before the Immigration Courts climbed to 344,230 by the end of fiscal year 2013, according to very timely government enforcement data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. The case backlog, which has risen 5.9 percent since September 2012, is now 85 percent higher than… Continue Reading