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Canada?s Long-Form Census Could Be Re-Instated?
During the campaign, Canada?s Prime Minister-designate, Justin Trudeau, promised the return of the mandatory long-form census. Now researchers are pushing the incoming administration to restore the census as one of its first acts of governance. Experts believe that immediate restoration of the long-form census will allow its use in the 2016 census. Not only will the mandatory long-form census provide more reliable data, but will also be more cost effective than the voluntary National Household Survey.
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OMB Updating Federal Data Policy
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has published a draft of its proposed changes to the A-130 circular, which governs how the U.S. government manages information technology, which has not been updated since 2000. The new A-130 would require agencies to continue to make government data accessible to and usable by the public.
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Using Health Data Exchanges to Fight Cancer
Researchers at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego analyzed data from genomic and medical research databases to create a list of genes that contribute to the progression of cancer. The data is from the Cancer Genome Atlas, a U.S. government-funded research database, with data on 18,000 protein structures from the Protein Data Bank, an open source research database.
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How Big Data is Used in Crisis Response
Big data is now a tool for humanitarian aid and crisis response. Here are three ways that national organizations, regional institutions, and maybe even your local fire department are using big data.
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New & Updated Data Sources
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Shining a Light on Land Contracts
Columbia University and the World Bank have created OpenLandContracts.org to publish data on farmland purchase contracts between governments and investors around the world. The website contains data on 69 land contracts related to palm oil, biofuels, and other agricultural purposes in eight countries, including Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Liberia. The creators of the website say the private nature of these contracts has historically disadvantaged small-scale farmers, and that the lack of disclosure discourages larger firms from incorporating social investments such as sound environmental management practices.
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New Database Focuses on Children?s Health
Kidsdata.org, a program of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children?s Health, is a new database which promotes the health and well-being of children by making data easily accessible to policymakers, service providers, educators, and others who influence kids? lives. Data are available for every county, city, school district, and legislative district in California. The site allows users to track issues over time and make comparisons within and among regions. The 500+ indicators are compiled from more than 35 well-established public sources. Kidsdata.org also summarizes the significance of each topic, offers policy implications, and assembles links to key websites and research.
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Visualization of the Week
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Visualizing Progress to a Better World
The United Nations (UN) Statistics Division celebrated World Statistics Day on October 20, 2015, and hosted a data visualization competition to help provide insights about the information in its Millennium Development Goals database, which houses data about the UN?s efforts to combat extreme poverty and improve quality of life. The winning visualization, created by French graphic designer Jeremy Boy, is called ?Is the world a better place today?? (isWBPT) and provides users an interactive look at progress toward specific Millennium Development Goals for individual countries and regions.
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Notable Data Publications
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GOVERNMENT
NONPROFITS & FOUNDATIONS
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Did you work on a great report that you want your colleagues to know about? Just email us and we?ll include it here.
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APDU maintains a list of open calls for comment on proposed federal data collections. We periodically alert APDU members to newly added calls for comment. Over the last several weeks, calls for comment on the following proposed data collections were published in the Federal Register (with due date):
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Department of Agriculture
- Local Foods Survey (December 28, 2015)
Department of Commerce
- Streamlining Summary Level 070 Tables in the 5-Year American Community Survey ? December 10, 2015
Department of Education
- High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 Second Follow-Up Main Study and 2018 Panel Maintenance (November 27, 2015)
Small Business Administration
- Statement of Personal History (December 21, 2015)
Social Security Administration
- Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Request and Comment Request (December 21, 2015)
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