Author archives

2016 Pre-election Poll of African American Voters

November 4, 2016 – 2016 African American Voter Poll. Slides By: Ray Block Jr. and Jonathan E. Collins “Background on Poll Methodology: The poll [consists] of 1200 completed surveys. The national segment of the survey will contain a sample size of 300 completed surveys, with additional state-specific segments with 900 completes (300 completed surveys in …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Government Documents, Legal Research

Monthly record-warm streak ends, September 2nd warmest on record for globe

NOAA: “August’s warmth spread into September, contributing to the warmest year to date for the globe, but not enough to continue the recent 16-month streak of record warmth. Even so, September 2016 ranked as the second warmest September on record.    September was 1.60 degrees F above the 20th-century average, missing last year’s record for the month by just 0.07 degrees, according to scientists …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Government Documents

NYT – There Are Many Ways to Map Election Results. We’ve Tried Most of Them

By Alicia Parlapiano, November 1, 2016: “Tuesday’s print edition of The New York Times has the most detailed election map we’ve ever produced: ZIP-code level results for the 2012 presidential race spread across four pages, using data from Catalist. The map is part of a special election section that aims to help explain the political …

Subjects: Government Documents, Knowledge Management

Aggregating and Representing Collections in the Digital Public Library of America

“The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs), and makes them freely available to the world. LAMs share much in common, but can differ widely in description practices. Archives, in particular, differ from the other two in the use of hierarchical description that situates materials …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Libraries

CRS – Recent State Election Law Challenges: In Brief

Via FAS – this CRS report – Recent State Election Law Challenges: In Brief, L. Paige Whitaker, Legislative Attorney. November 2, 2016. “During the final months and weeks leading up to the November 8, 2016, presidential election, courts across the country have ruled in numerous challenges to state election laws. For example, there have been …

Subjects: Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research

DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms as of 15 October 2016 “PREFACE – The DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (or DOD Dictionary) sets forth standard US military and associated terminology to encompass the joint activity of the Armed Forces of the United States. These military and associated terms, together with their definitions, …

Subjects: Defense, Education, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

Books students at top US colleges are required to read

Quartz: “The leaders of tomorrow will be well versed in dead philosophers, according to a new database of college syllabi.The Open Syllabus Project, a collection of over 1 million curricula from English-language colleges and universities over the past 15 years, released its data on Friday (Jan. 22, 2016). Plato, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Aristotle overwhelmingly dominate …

Subjects: Education, Knowledge Management, Libraries

Open Knowledge Maps – A visual interface to the world’s scientific knowledge

An Open Knowledge Maps visualization presents you with a topical overview for your search term. It is based on the most relevant papers in the chosen library. [currently includes over 28 million articles]   We use text similarity to create the knowledge maps. The algorithm groups those papers together that have many words in common. …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management

Report – Android Captures Record 88 Percent Share of Global Smartphone Shipments in Q3 2016

News release: “According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments reached 375 million units in the third quarter of 2016. The Android operating system captured a record 88 percent global marketshare, squeezing Apple iOS and others. Linda Sui, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Global smartphone shipments grew 6 percent annually from 354.2 …

Subjects: Economy, Internet

Report – The Color of Wealth in the Nation’s Capital

Urban Institute, Kilolo Kijakazi, Rachel Marie Brooks Atkins, Mark Paul, Anne Price, Darrick Hamilton, William A. Darity Jr. November 1, 2016: “The Great Recession and housing crisis erased approximately half of Black and Latino households’ wealth, while Asians suffered the largest absolute loss in wealth. But the dramatic wealth disparities between White communities and communities …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Housing

The Fragile Menagerie: Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, and the Law

Chen, James Ming, The Fragile Menagerie: Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, and the Law (November 2, 2016). Available  for download at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2862882 “The greatest vectors of biodiversity loss in the Anthropocene epoch are climate change, habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, population, and overkill. Perversely enough, the legal understanding of extinction mechanisms remains frozen in time, …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Legal Research