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News release: “The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art, will release their entire collections online Jan. 1, 2015, providing unprecedented access to one of the world’s most important holdings of Asian and American art. The vast majority of the 40,000 artworks have never before been seen …
Via PLOS ONE – Marcus Eriksen, Laurent C. M. Lebreton, Henry S. Carson, Martin Thiel, Charles J. Moore, Jose C. Borerro, Francois Galgani, Peter G. Ryan, Julia Reisser. Published: December 10, 2014. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0111913 “Plastic pollution is ubiquitous throughout the marine environment, yet estimates of the global abundance and weight of floating plastics have lacked data, particularly from the Southern Hemisphere and remote regions. Here …
“LexisNexis® Risk Solutions announced the findings of its annual analysis of mortgage fraud in the U.S., revealing that despite improving economic conditions, mortgage fraud is still a national problem. In fact, mortgage application fraud and misrepresentation has grown for the past three years. Seventy-four percent of loans reported in 2013 involved some kind of fraud …
CRS – Legislation to Facilitate Cybersecurity Information Sharing: Economic Analysis. N. Eric Weiss, Specialist in Financial Economics. December 11, 2014. “Data breaches, such as those at Target, Home Depot, Neiman Marcus, and JPMorgan Chase, affecting financial records of tens of millions of households seem to occur regularly. Companies typically respond by trying to increase their cybersecurity by hiring consultants and purchasing new …
“The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) makes available the official and authentic digital and print versions of the Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, together with a forward by Chairman Feinstein and Additional and Minority Views (Senate Report 113-288). This document comprises the declassified Executive Summary …
CNN: “Tucked inside the defense authorization bill that the Senate passed Friday was an unrelated public lands package that’s set to bring the biggest expansion to the National Park Service in decades. Despite some conservative opposition—a chorus that skewered the legislation as a pork-barrel land grab—the measure also establishes thousands of acres of new wilderness areas. …
“Buss, Adrian and Uppal , Raman and Vilkov, Grigory, Where Experience Matters: Asset Allocation and Asset Pricing with Opaque and Illiquid Assets (December 15, 2014). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2538381 “Alternative assets, such as private equity, hedge funds, and real assets, are illiquid and opaque, thus posing a challenge to traditional models of asset allocation. …
“Therapeutic interventions that incorporate training in mindfulness meditation have become increasingly popular, but to date, little is known about neural mechanisms associated with these interventions. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), one of the most widely used mindfulness training programs, has been reported to produce positive effects on psychological well-being and to ameliorate symptoms of a number …
EIA: “The U.S. average retail price per gallon of regular motor gasoline has fallen 28% from its 2014 peak of $3.70 per gallon on June 23, to $2.68 per gallon on December 8. However, this price decline may not have much effect on automobile travel, and in turn, gasoline consumption. Gasoline is a relatively inelastic …
“The Department of Defense (DoD) submitted the Navy’s 2015 shipbuilding plan, which covers fiscal years 2015 to 2044, to the Congress in July 2014. The total costs of carrying out the 2015 plan—an average of about $21 billion in 2014 dollars per year over the next 30 years—would be one-third higher than the funding amounts …
