There are many competing standards out there for how to publish datasets with due credit to the author and publisher. Rich, structured metadata and interoperable standards for data identification are rapidly developing, but it's not clear which standard is going to win the day or which search engines will successfully organize all that data.

Californians are scratching their heads trying to figure out why their government has run out of cash. Some blame the constitution. Some blame the governor. Some blame the lobbyists. Let's run a few numbers.

Food Not Bombs continues to be a very interesting experience in York. Far from feeding lots of homeless people (though Big Issue vendors are always thankful) we seem to be finding ourselves in a very different struggle: proving that there is such a thing as a free lunch, something that isn't easy in a city where many residents seem to proud not to spend money on lunch.

We investigate the use, determinants, and earnings effects of special purpose vehicles. Based on a proxy of SPV activity that can be applied to a broad cross-section of firms over time, we find a two-and-a-half fold monotonic increase in the percentage of firms using at least one SPV during the eight-year period from 1997 through 2004.

There is much Republicans and Democrats disagree on when it comes to health care, energy legislation, immigration, etc, ad infinitum. But in the midst of the partisan-driven health care reform "debate", a sliver of bipartisan agreement has arose. Why are we doing this so quickly?

One-third of all people over 65 suffer falls in their home, a problem that affects both the physical and emotional well-being of the elderly. As many as 25 percent of people 75 or over restrict the activities they undertake because of fear of falling, according to a 1996 study by Colorado State University professors K.R. Tremblay Jr. and C.E. Barber.

The results of experiments comparing the virulence in animals of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus with seasonal strains have spawned the headline "Study Suggests H1N1 Virus More Dangerous Than Suspected." In my view, the best experiment is now being done in humans: infection of millions with the pandemic virus. The results show that the virus is no more virulent than last season's pandemic strain.

Though I haven't been extremely busy on Wikipedia lately, I've been an administrator there for 3 years. I'm always glad when medical professionals come to edit articles, improve the quality and insert proper references into the medical entries.

Democrats in Washington are dead-set on the "sexy issues" that Barack Obama focused on during his campaign: providing health care to every American and passing "historic" climate legislation. Reforming health care would give Democrats the satisfaction of "solving" the health care crisis that has loomed over the United States for decades. Climate legislation would give them green street cred with their environmental supporters, in addition to most of Europe. So while Congress has spent endless amounts of hours on these two issues, the White House has essentially thrown a tremendously important issue to the wayside: the transportation infrastructure of the country.

Back in June, I wrote a note here about the recovery from a Ghana scrap market, by some researchers from PBS, of a disk drive containing information about US Government security contracts. Today's Washington Post has an article about the Agbogbloshie market in Accra, Ghana -- the same market where the disk drive was purchased. It sounds like a pretty grim place, not one we would think of as a suitable place for an 11-year-old to spend his time.

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