Monthly archives: March, 2019

The 2019 Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools

Ryan, Christopher and Frye, Brian L., The 2019 Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools (March 15, 2019). Belmont Law Review (forthcoming 2019).. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract= “In 2017, we published A Revealed-Preferences Ranking of Law Schools, which presented the first (intentionally) objective ranking of law schools. Other law school rankings are subjective because their purpose is …

Subjects: Education, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Marketing

The European Copyright Directive: What Is It, and Why Has It Drawn More Controversy Than Any Other Directive In EU History?

EFF: “During the week of March 25, the European Parliament will hold the final vote on the Copyright Directive, the first update to EU copyright rules since 2001; normally this would be a technical affair watched only by a handful of copyright wonks and industry figures, but the Directive has become the most controversial issue …

Subjects: Copyright, Economy, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research

How the NYPD is using machine learning to spot crime patterns

Statescoop: Civilian analysts and officers within the New York City Police Department are using a unique computational tool to spot patterns in crime data that is closing cases. A collection of machine-learning models, which the department calls Patternizr, was first deployed in December 2016, but the department only revealed the system last month when its …

Subjects: AI, Legal Research

Commentary – Scientific publishing needs to change

University Affairs – While our existing scientific publication system has limited value in this world, the scholarly peer review process is more important than ever. “…For starters, the purpose of a scientific journal today should not be to publish research – there is no dearth of specialty platforms to publish scientific findings. Instead, what if …

Subjects: Education, Knowledge Management

AI Needs Better Data, Not Just More Data

Center for Data Innovation: “AI has a data quality problem. In a survey of 179 data scientists, over half identified addressing issues related to data quality as the biggest bottleneck in successful AI projects. Big data is so often improperly formatted, lacking metadata, or “dirty,” meaning incomplete, incorrect, or inconsistent, that data scientists typically spend …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Education, Financial System, Knowledge Management

The Sentencing Project 2018 Annual Report

“Criminal justice reform is a challenging undertaking, but if we take the long view we can recognize that success is possible, even if incremental at times. This was the story of reform in 2018, a year in which we saw significant gains in sentencing policy and public understanding of mass incarceration.Most prominent, of course, was …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Federal Prosecutors Are Cracking Down on Domestic Abusers With Guns

Slate: “…A woman is shot to death by a current or former romantic partner every 16 hours, according to FBI and state crime data analyzed by the Associated Press. Domestic violence claims the lives of children, innocent bystanders, and police officers called to help; it sometimes escalates to mass shootings. Abused women are five times …

Subjects: Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research

EWG’s 2019 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce

Over Half of Samples of Kale Tainted With Possible Cancer-Causing Chemical [this is an extensive article that covers dozens of fruits and vegetables] – “Nearly 70 percent of the produce sold in the U.S. comes with pesticide residues, according to EWG’s analysis of test data from the Department of Agriculture for our 2019 Shopper’s Guide …

Subjects: Environmental Law, Government Documents, Health Care

The Experimental Congress.gov Browser Extension has been Updated

In Custodia Legis – LC: “The experimental Congress.gov browser extension created by Syed Tanveer has been updated so the current legislation feature now defaults to the 116th Congress. Also, the drop-down menu can now search for text that you highlight in CRS Reports, the U.S. Code, and the eCFR. The browser extension does two things. …

Subjects: Congress, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation, Libraries