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Daily Archives: January 1, 2016

New Report and Interactive Maps Explore Potential Impact of Evenwel v. Abbott on Redistricting

Via Social Explorer: “Population equality is the main criteria for creating legislative districts in the US, but a proposed change could drastically alter how people are counted and how districts are drawn.  On December 8, 2015, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Evenwel v. Abbott, whose plaintiffs argue that legislative districts should be based upon the number of voters or potential voters in each district instead of all residents. Professor Andrew Beveridge analyzes the effects of such a change in the report The Threat to Representation for Children and Non-Citizens: An Analysis of the Potential Impact of Evenwel v. Abbott on Redistricting, which is available for download (pdf). The award winning data visualization website Social Explorer (Beveridge is the co-founder and president) also developed a companion interactive tool (available at http://www.socialexplorer.com/evenwel) to visualize how state legislative and congressional districts would need to change and which groups would be affected.  Explore the maps to see the impact nationwide and zoom in for a close up on your local community…”

The Public Domain Review Class of 2016

“Founded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.  In particular, as our name sugggests, the focus is on works which have now fallen into the public domain, that vast commons of out-of-copyright… Continue Reading

The Search Engine for Medicine

“At MedNexus [beta] we believe having access to the right medical information can change someone’s life. Exciting new research developments are happening every day but patients (and doctors) are inundated with information and cannot keep up with the latest evidence. MedNexus is a medical search engine for patients – think “Google for Medicine”. Through our… Continue Reading

Study – Police Killings and Police Deaths Are Public Health Data and Can Be Counted

Krieger N, Chen JT, Waterman PD, Kiang MV, Feldman J (2015) Police Killings and Police Deaths Are Public Health Data and Can Be Counted. PLoS Med 12(12): e1001915. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001915 “Summary Points During the past year, the United States has experienced major controversies—and civil unrest—regarding the endemic problem of police violence and police deaths. Although deaths… Continue Reading

Measuring Privacy: Using Context to Expose Confounding Variables

Martin, Kirsten E. and Nissenbaum, Helen, Measuring Privacy: Using Context to Expose Confounding Variables (December 31, 2015). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2709584 “Past privacy surveys often omit important contextual factors and yield cloudy, potentially misleading results about how people understand and value privacy. We revisit two historically influential measurements of privacy that have shaped… Continue Reading

2015 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary

Chief Justice John Roberts – 2015 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary“…The 2015 civil rules amendments are a major stride toward a better federal court system. But they will achieve the goal of Rule 1—“the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding” — only if the entire legal community, including the bench,… Continue Reading