News Briefs

+ LexisNexis to Integrate Business Contact Info From Jigsaw (Info Today NewsBreaks)

+ PC Magazine, a Flagship for Ziff Davis, Will Cease Printing a Paper Version (New York Times)

+ Cities Turn To Online Auctions In Bid For More Funds (AP, via TBO.com)

+ Bush’s exit to put new e-records system to the test (Computerworld)

NAS Announces Initiative to Connect Entertainment Industry With Top Experts

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced today the creation of “The Science and Entertainment Exchange,” an initiative designed to connect entertainment industry professionals with top scientists and engineers to help the creators of television shows, films, video games, and other productions incorporate science into their work. The Exchange represents the Academy’s first formal effort to reach out to the entertainment community and provide the creative minds of Hollywood with a direct connection to the creative minds of science.
…
Relying on the special connections available to the NAS, the Exchange can make introductions, schedule briefings, and arrange for consultations for anyone developing science-based entertainment content. Endorsed by the Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, the Entertainment Industry Foundation, and Women in Film, this new resource is being promoted to all levels of writers, directors, producers, and others in the entertainment industry. Professionals involved in the creative process may contact the Exchange to be connected with scientists, engineers, health professionals, and other experts for help with their productions and stories.

+ The Science and Entertainment Exchange

Source: National Academy of Sciences

FTC Announces Health Care Booklet and Web Site for Seniors

With all the sources of health information available - many of them online - it can be tough to tell fact from fiction, or useful products and services from those that don’t work or aren’t safe.

To help provide reliable sources of health information to seniors and their family members, caregivers, and friends, the Federal Trade Commission has developed a new booklet and Web site. Who Cares: Sources of Information About Health Care Products and Services, online at www.ftc.gov/whocares, urges older consumers to discuss their health-related decisions with doctors and other trusted health care providers. It also helps them:

• find links to agencies and organizations that provide reliable information about generic drugs, hormone therapy, caregiving, surgery to improve vision, alternative medicine, hearing aids, Medicare fraud, and medical ID theft;
• learn how to spot misleading and deceptive claims; and
• find out who they can contact to ask questions, enlist help, or raise a concern about a health product or service that isn’t living up to its promise.

Source: Federal Trade Commission

DoD launches national resource directory for wounded warriors

The Department of Defense today launched the National Resource Directory, a collaborative effort between the departments of Defense, Labor and Veterans Affairs.

The directory is a Web-based network of care coordinators, providers and support partners with resources for wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans, their families, families of the fallen and those who support them.

“The directory is the visible demonstration of our national will and commitment to As new links are added each day by providers and partners, coverage from coast to coast will grow even greater ensuring that no part of that journey will ever be made alone,” said Lynda C. Davis, Ph.D., deputy under secretary of defense for military community and family policy.

Located at www.nationalresourcedirectory.org/ , the directory offers more than 10,000 medical and non-medical services and resources to help service members and veterans achieve personal and professional goals along their journey from recovery through rehabilitation to community reintegration.

Source: National Guard

See also: DoD launches ‘Wounded Warrior Diaries’

European library site crashes hours after launch

European culture went digital — but it only lasted a day.

A massive online library and museum project crashed within 24 hours of its launch after millions sought to view treasures collected from museums, national libraries and archives, the European Union said Friday.

“We are doing our utmost to reopen Europeana in a more robust version as soon as possible,” the http://www.europeana.eu site said. “We will be back by mid-December.”

World’s Best Colleges and Universities

U.S. News & World Report is proud to publish our first ever World’s Best Colleges and Universities rankings. These rankings are based on data from the THE-QS World University Rankings, which were produced in association with QS Quacquarelli Symonds. QS Quacquarelli Symonds, one of the world’s leading networks for careers and education, has been publishing world rankings since 2004. These rankings have obtained increasing influence among academics worldwide and have a growing impact among prospective students and government policymakers.

The U.S. News World’s Best Colleges and Universities rankings enable our readers to understand more fully how well American institutions perform when compared with other institutions of higher learning around the world. The bottom line is that they perform very well: Nearly 60 schools in the Top 200 Universities Worldwide are in the United States.

1. Harvard University (United States)
2. Yale University (United States)
3. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
4. University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
5. California Institute of Technology (United States)

+ World’s Best Colleges and Universities: Top 200

Fair Use Economy Represents One-Sixth of U.S. GDP

Fair Use exceptions to U.S. copyright laws are responsible for more than $4.5 trillion in annual revenue for the United States, according to the findings of an unprecedented economic study released today. According to the study commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and conducted in accordance with a World Intellectual Property Organization methodology, companies benefiting from limitations on copyright-holders’ exclusive rights, such as “fair use” generate substantial revenue, employ millions of workers, and, in 2006, represented one-sixth of total U.S. GDP.

The exhaustive report, released today at a briefing on Capitol Hill, quantifies for the first time ever the critical contributions of fair use to the U.S. economy. The timing proves particularly important as the debates over copyright law in the digital age move increasingly to center stage on Capitol Hill. As the report summarizes, in the past twenty years as digital technology has increased, so too has the importance of fair use. With more than $4.5 trillion in revenue generated by fair use dependent industries in 2006, a 31% increase since 2002, fair use industries are directly responsible for more than 18% of U.S. economic growth and nearly 11 million American jobs. In fact, nearly one out of every eight American jobs is in an industry that benefits from current limitations on copyright.

+ Full Report (PDF; 2.28 MB)

Source: Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA)

Top Ten Coast Guard Rescues (Word; 43 KB)
From press release:

The U.S. Coast Guard will announce during a ceremony Saturday in Grand Haven, Mich., that it has rescued more than one million persons since it was established in 1790.
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The number of lives saved was calculated by the Coast Guard historian’s office through research of logs and records from the Coast Guard, the Revenue Cutter Service, the US Life-Saving Service, the Lighthouse Service and other agencies that eventually became the modern Coast Guard. In addition to tallying the total number of lives saved, the historian’s office has compiled a list of the top ten rescues in the Coast Guard’s history. The list shows the breadth of the Coast Guard’s efforts to save lives in peril on the seas for over 217 years.

“While this top-ten list is subjective, it certainly conveys the heroism of our people conducting this vital mission,” said Rear Adm. Mary Landry, director of governmental and public affairs.
+ Coast Guard rescue videos

Assessing and Improving the Safety of Internet Search Engines (PDF; 519 KB)

In principle, search engines’ listing rules, ranking rules, and advertising policies might shield users from some bad practices, and users’ good judgment could protect them from others. But empirically, search engines often lead users to dangerous content. My analysis of search engine safety finds bad practices among approximately 5% of search results for popular keywords, or roughly one site per page of search results.

Source: The Power of Search Engines (via HBS Working Knowledge)

Credit Card Glossary: Terms and Definitions

Confused by credit card terms? CreditCards.com’s glossary of credit card definitions will help. From account holder to Regulation Z, we have defined the most-common and most-confusing credit card terms.

Source: CreditCards.com

Posted 20 November 2008 on DocuTicker:
+ Ginkgo biloba for Prevention of Dementia: A Randomized Controlled Trial (Journal of the American Medical Association)
+ New Study Shows Time Spent Online Important for Teen Development (American Anthropological Association/John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)
+ U.S. Tort Costs Up Slightly in 2007; Significant Increases Anticipated for 2008 (Towers Perrin)

North American Transportation Statistics
From Introduction:

Statistics On-Line Database presents information on transportation and transportation-related activities among Canada, the United States and Mexico, both within individual countries and between the countries. This database, presented in French, English, and Spanish is, accessible in table and time series formats, and covers twelve thematic areas, including transportation and the economy, transportation safety, transportation’s impact on energy and the environment, passenger and freight activity, and transportation and trade.

This On-Line Database currently contains 31 tables with additions planned for the future, and allows users to obtain both value data in any of the three national currencies and volume data in metric or U.S. measurement units via the time series function. Data in table or time series format can be printed or downloaded for further processing and analysis. For most tables, data are available for 1990, 1995 to 2004. The data will be updated on a regular basis, thus a few tables already contain more recent data.

The On-Line Database updates a subset of tables and figures from the North American Transportation in Figures report published in 2000. The report, also released in French, English and Spanish, includes data for 1990, 1995 and 1996, with value data reported only in current U.S. dollars and all measurement units in metric.

Source: Statistics Canada and Transport Canada from Canada; the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) (Ministry of Communications and Transportation), the Instituto Mexicano del Transporte (IMT) (Mexican Institute of Transportation) and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI) (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics) from Mexico; and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the U.S. Census Bureau from the United States.

From the article:

The British Library in London is among more than 1,000 cultural organisations making contributions to a European online library.

The free multimedia venture, Europeana, will also see input from the European Commission and the Louvre Museum.

Internet users will be able to access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archive documents, paintings and films.

These will be sourced from institutions across the EU’s member states.

Source: BBC

Direct to European Digital Library

See Also: Learn More About Europeana
Backround, contact info, and history.

Source: BBC

See also: France Dominates Europe’s Digital Library (New York Times)

Clustering Tags in Enterprise and Web Folksonomies

Tags lack organizational structure limiting their utility for navigation. We present two clustering algorithms that improve this by organizing tags automatically. We apply the algorithms to two very different datasets, visualize the results and propose future improvements. Publication Info: To be published and Presented at International Conference on Weblogs & Social Media, Seattle, March 31st, 2008

+ Full Paper (PDF; 231 KB)

Source: HP Labs

New Google Watching Service Launched by ArnoldIT.com

Blogger and technology expert Stephen Arnold has launched a free service (www.arnoldit.com/overflight) that aggregates the headlines from Google’s own blogs. Overflight, “An ArnoldIT.com Intelligence Service,” is an RSS aggregation service that aggregates the headlines from Google’s 74 weblogs. The most recent headlines are grouped using the same categories that Google favors. A fee-based service offers more bells and whistles.

SOurce: Information Today NewsBreaks