Author archives

CRS Report – FDA Regulation of Medical Devices

FDA Regulation of Medical Devices, Judith A. Johnson, Specialist in Biomedical Policy, September 14, 2016. “Prior to and since the passage of the Medical Device Amendments of 1976, Congress has debated how best to ensure that consumers have access, as quickly as possible, to new and improved medical devices and, at the same time, prevent …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Government Documents, Health Care

Advocacy Groups to Congress – Strengthen Congressional Oversight of Intelligence Community

September 13, 2016 via 33 organizations: “Dear Speaker Ryan and Minority Leader Pelosi, We write to express our concerns about congressional oversight of intelligence activities. Congress is responsible for authorizing and overseeing these programs. In recent years, experts and policymakers have expressed concern that congressional oversight efforts are falling short. Experts have put forth reform …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation

Corporate Tax Chartbook: How Corporations Rig the Rules to Dodge the Taxes They Owe

Economic Policy Institute Report By Frank Clemente, Hunter Blair, and Nick Trokel, September 16, 2016. “In recent years, corporate profits have reached record highs, and so too has the amount of untaxed profits U.S. corporations have stashed offshore: $2.4 trillion. And it is estimated corporations could owe as much as $700 billion on those profits. …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

CDC – More than 1 in 4 US adults over 50 do not engage in regular physical activity

“Despite the many benefits of moderate physical activity, 31 million Americans (28 percent) age 50 years and older are inactive – that is, they are not physically active beyond the basic movements needed for daily life activities. This finding comes from a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in …

Subjects: Government Documents, Health Care

Pew – The Parties on the Eve of the 2016 Election: Two Coalitions, Moving Further Apart

Pew Elections 2016 Report, Trends in voter party identification 1992-2016 – “Ahead of the presidential election, the demographic profiles of the Republican and Democratic parties are strikingly different. On key characteristics – especially race and ethnicity and religious affiliation – the two parties look less alike today than at any point over the last quarter-century. …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Knowledge Management

New on LLRX – Law Librarians Flinch At Change? Can’t Say That I Agree With You David

Via LLRX.com – Law Librarians Flinch At Change? Can’t Say That I Agree With You David – Greg Lambert eloquently gives voice to truth which has been delivered through action by many fellow professionals throughout the course of our respective (some decades long) careers – we are not “gatekeepers” nor do we impede the purchase …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Marketing

Vanity Fair – Welcome to the Dark Net

Welcome to the Dark Net, A Wilderness Where Invisible World Wars Are Fought and Hackers Roam Free “…Definitions. A vulnerability is a weakness in a network’s defenses. An exploit is a piece of software that takes advantage of a vulnerability. A zero-day exploit is a piece of software that takes advantage of a vulnerability that …

Subjects: Cybercrime, E-Commerce, E-Mail, E-Records, Economy, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

TorrentFreak – Elsevier Wants CloudFlare to Expose Pirate Sites

Follow up to previous posting, Controversy over free journal access database keeps Sci-Hub in legal and research spotlight – Via TorrentFreak –  PDF copy of Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiffs’ Application for Leave to Take Expedited Discovery – Elsevier Inc., Elsevier B.V., and Elsevier Ltd. v Sci-Hub d/b/a ww.sci-hub.org, The Library Genesis Project …

Subjects: Courts, Economy, Education, Intellectual Property, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

The Economic Impact of Conflicts and the Refugee Crisis in the Middle East and North Africa

World Bank, September 16, 2016: “In recent decades, the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) has experienced more frequent and severe conflicts than in any other region of the world, exacting a devastating human toll. The region now faces unprecedented challenges, including the emergence of violent non-state actors, significant destruction, and a refugee crisis …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents

Paper – Understanding Twitter’s Evolving Accessibility to Blind Users

Via Microsoft Research -“With most of it being pictures now, I rarely use it”: Understanding Twitter’s Evolving Accessibility to Blind Users “Social media is an increasingly important part of modern life. We investigate the use of and usability of Twitter by blind users, via a combination of surveys of blind Twitter users, large-scale analysis of …

Subjects: Blogs, Civil Liberties, Knowledge Management, Social Media

Paper – A Brief History of Marine Litter Research

Marine Anthropogenic Litter pp 1-25. 02 June 2015. A Brief History of Marine Litter Research. Peter G. Ryan. 10.1007/978-3-319-16510-3_1 “This chapter traces the history of marine litter research from anecdotal reports of entanglement and plastic ingestion in the 1960s to the current focus on microplastics and their role in the transfer of persistent organic pollutants to marine …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

Empathy Global Index

World Economic Forum – “When it comes to empathy and inclusion, which company department would you expect to see at the forefront? Your guess might be Human Resources – but bizarrely, you’d be wrong. In fact, according to many who work in the field of “soft skills” and workplace inclusion, HR departments are the least …

Subjects: Knowledge Management