Tidbits on December 11, 2012
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Set 1 of My All Time Favorite Photographs
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Favorites/Set01/FavoritesSet01.htm 

 

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

 

Tidbits on December 11, 2012
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.


Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   


Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

The Cult of Statistical Significance: How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

How Accountics Scientists Should Change: 
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm 

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy --- http://plato.stanford.edu/




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

A Poignant, Elegant Tribute to the Mars Rover Curiosity ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/a_poignant_tribute_to_the_mars_rover_icuriosityi.html

Life Can Be Rough --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/ByGSMmenPDM?rel=0

Filming a Sprinting Cheetah at 1,200 Frames Per Second ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/filming_a_sprinting_cheetah_at_1200_frames_per_second.html

Behavioral Finance: Herding Video --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXR2PrULyW0
Thank you Jim Mahar for the heads up.

The Whale Story --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/EBYPlcSD490?rel=0

Old Radio Shows --- http://radiolovers.com/

Sir Anthony Hopkins Reads Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2011/05/anthony_hopkins_reads_dylan_thomas.html

Richard Burton Reads ‘Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait’ and 14 Other Poems by Dylan Thomas ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/richard_burton_reads_ballad_of_the_long-legged_bait_and_14_other_poems_by_dylan_thomas.html

From the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum:  Webcast Archive ---
http://airandspace.si.edu/webcasts/archive.cfm

Richard Burton Reads ‘Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait’ and 14 Other Poems by Dylan Thomas ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/richard_burton_reads_ballad_of_the_long-legged_bait_and_14_other_poems_by_dylan_thomas.html

MedlinePlus: Videos and Cool Tools --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/videosandcooltools.html


Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Remembering Jazz Legend Dave Brubeck (RIP) with a Very Touching Musical Moment ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/remembering_jazz_legend_dave_brubeck_rip_with_a_poignant_musical_moment.html

Christmas Flash Mob --- http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/y2/r/5l8_EVv_jyW.swf?v=10152261051100043&ev=0

Leonard Bernstein’s First “Young People’s Concert” at Carnegie Hall Asks, “What Does Music Mean?” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/leonard_bernsteins_first_young_peoples_concert_at_carnegie_hall_asks_what_does_music_mean.

Gustavo Dudamel Leads The Simon Bolivar Symphony ---
http://www.npr.org/event/music/166188244/gustavo-dudamel-leads-the-simon-bolivar-symphony-at-carnegie-hall

Holiday Treats: Violinist Ray Chen Plays Sweet Sounds At LPR ---
http://www.npr.org/event/music/165675894/holiday-treats-violinist-ray-chen-plays-sweet-sounds-at-lpr

Kennedy Center's New Organ No Longer A Pipe Dream ---
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/27/163468916/kennedy-centers-new-organ-no-longer-a-pipe-dream

Romanian Carols Page --- http://dan.somnea.free.fr/TOUR/Rocarols.html

Schoolhouse Rock at 40: Revisit a Collection of Nostalgia-Inducing Educational Videos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/schoolhouse_rock_at_40_still_fabulous_and_rocking_on.html

Sing About Science & Math: Lesson Plans (oceanography sing along) --- http://singaboutscience.org/wp/lesson-plans/

Web outfits like Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2

TheRadio (my favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.slacker.com/

Gerald Trites likes this international radio site --- http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:  Search for a song or band and play the selection --- http://songza.com/
Also try Jango --- http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) --- http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live --- http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note
U.S. Army Band recordings --- http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp

Bob Jensen listens to music free online (and no commercials) --- http://www.slacker.com/ 


Photographs and Art

Incredible Raw Image of Saturn’s Swirling North Pole ---
http://www.universetoday.com/98667/incredible-raw-image-of-saturns-swirling-north-pole/

1934 Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog ---
http://olbroad.com/2012/01/12/the-good-ol-days/
Note the $2.69 Gasoline-fired iron for ironing clothes at home

Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan --- http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=arts&col_id=443

PingMag (arts and crafts from Japan) ---  http://www.pingmag.jp/

The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (creative ideas in writing, art, and photography) ---  http://www.salt.edu/

Penn Museum: Educator's Guides (Anthropology and Archaeology) --- http://www.penn.museum/program-resources.html

British Museum: Chinese Jade --- http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/asia/chinese_jade/chinese_jade.aspx

Hawaii Quadrangles --- http://magis.manoa.hawaii.edu/maps/digital/quads.html

Middle Eastern Film Posters Digitization Initiative --- http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0100

Grassroots Feminist Political Posters in India ---
http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/grassroots-feminist-political-posters-in-india

Tokyo: 1955-1970 (Modern Art) --- http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/tokyo/

The Best Art Books of 2012 (not all are free),  by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, November 22, 2012
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/26/best-art-books-2012/

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History


Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Not Free:  The Best Books of 2012: Lists by The New York Times, NPR, The Guardian and a Call for Your Favorites --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/the_best_books_of_2012_lists_by_the_new_york_times_npr_the_guardian_and_a_call_for_your_favorites.html

Sir Anthony Hopkins Reads Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2011/05/anthony_hopkins_reads_dylan_thomas.html

Richard Burton Reads ‘Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait’ and 14 Other Poems by Dylan Thomas ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/richard_burton_reads_ballad_of_the_long-legged_bait_and_14_other_poems_by_dylan_thomas.html

 

Free Electronic Literature --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI




Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on December 11, 2012
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2012/TidbitsQuotations121112.htm      

U.S. National Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Also see http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Peter G. Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/

Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm




I found this to be a really interesting, and very sad, article on the complexities of learning and the virtual impossibility of medication magic bullets without bad side effects
"Dream Map to a Mind Seized," by Amy Leal, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 3, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Dream-Map-to-a-Mind-Seized/135966/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en


Reverend Bayes Famous Theorem --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

History of Thomas Bayes and Bayes’s Theorem ---
http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2012/12/thomas-bayes-and-bayess-theorem/

 
"An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem:  Bayes' Theorem for the curious and bewildered; an excruciatingly gentle introduction," by Eliezer S., Yudkowsky, August 2009 --- http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

Your friends and colleagues are talking about something called "Bayes' Theorem" or "Bayes' Rule", or something called Bayesian reasoning. They sound really enthusiastic about it, too, so you google and find a webpage about Bayes' Theorem and...

It's this equation. That's all. Just one equation. The page you found gives a definition of it, but it doesn't say what it is, or why it's useful, or why your friends would be interested in it. It looks like this random statistics thing.

So you came here. Maybe you don't understand what the equation says. Maybe you understand it in theory, but every time you try to apply it in practice you get mixed up trying to remember the difference between p(a|x) and p(x|a), and whether p(a)*p(x|a) belongs in the numerator or the denominator. Maybe you see the theorem, and you understand the theorem, and you can use the theorem, but you can't understand why your friends and/or research colleagues seem to think it's the secret of the universe. Maybe your friends are all wearing Bayes' Theorem T-shirts, and you're feeling left out. Maybe you're a girl looking for a boyfriend, but the boy you're interested in refuses to date anyone who "isn't Bayesian". What matters is that Bayes is cool, and if you don't know Bayes, you aren't cool.

Why does a mathematical concept generate this strange enthusiasm in its students? What is the so-called Bayesian Revolution now sweeping through the sciences, which claims to subsume even the experimental method itself as a special case? What is the secret that the adherents of Bayes know? What is the light that they have seen?

Soon you will know. Soon you will be one of us.

While there are a few existing online explanations of Bayes' Theorem, my experience with trying to introduce people to Bayesian reasoning is that the existing online explanations are too abstract. Bayesian reasoning is very counterintuitive. People do not employ Bayesian reasoning intuitively, find it very difficult to learn Bayesian reasoning when tutored, and rapidly forget Bayesian methods once the tutoring is over. This holds equally true for novice students and highly trained professionals in a field. Bayesian reasoning is apparently one of those things which, like quantum mechanics or the Wason Selection Test, is inherently difficult for humans to grasp with our built-in mental faculties.

Or so they claim. Here you will find an attempt to offer an intuitive explanation of Bayesian reasoning - an excruciatingly gentle introduction that invokes all the human ways of grasping numbers, from natural frequencies to spatial visualization. The intent is to convey, not abstract rules for manipulating numbers, but what the numbers mean, and why the rules are what they are (and cannot possibly be anything else). When you are finished reading this page, you will see Bayesian problems in your dreams.

And let's begin.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a story problem about a situation that doctors often encounter:

1% of women at age forty who participate in routine screening have breast cancer. 80% of women with breast cancer will get positive mammographies. 9.6% of women without breast cancer will also get positive mammographies. A woman in this age group had a positive mammography in a routine screening. What is the probability that she actually has breast cancer?

What do you think the answer is? If you haven't encountered this kind of problem before, please take a moment to come up with your own answer before continuing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next, suppose I told you that most doctors get the same wrong answer on this problem - usually, only around 15% of doctors get it right. ("Really? 15%? Is that a real number, or an urban legend based on an Internet poll?" It's a real number. See Casscells, Schoenberger, and Grayboys 1978; Eddy 1982; Gigerenzer and Hoffrage 1995; and many other studies. It's a surprising result which is easy to replicate, so it's been extensively replicated.)

Do you want to think about your answer again? Here's a Javascript calculator if you need one. This calculator has the usual precedence rules; multiplication before addition and so on. If you're not sure, I suggest using parentheses.

Continued in article

"A History of Bayes' Theorem," LessWrong, August 29, 2011 ---
http://lesswrong.com/lw/774/a_history_of_bayes_theorem/

JUDEA PEARL BAYESIANISM AND CAUSALITY, OR, WHY I AM ONLY A HALF-BAYESIAN
From:  "Bayesianism and Causality, or, Why I am Only a Half-Bayesian"  by Judea Pearl, , In D. Corfield and J. Williamson (Eds.) Foundations of Bayesianism,  Applied Logic Series Volume 24, Kluwer Academic Publishers, the Netherlands, 19--36, 2001.
http://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/stat_ser/r284-reprint.pdf
Thank you Jagdish Gangolly for the heads up.

 

Jensen Comment
Some of the classic Bayesian statistics books in business education came out of Harvard in the 1950s, I was weaned on Robert Schlaifer's classic ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schlaifer

Business education has gone through various cycles of academic fad. A lot of us in the 1960s pinned our hopes on the Bayesian revolution that proved to be just that --- a passing fad in many ways while most accountics statistical analysis is still rooted in classical inference works of earlier history. Reverend Bayes disappeared from The Accounting Review about the time that case studies and field studies went by the boards, or should I say under the Boards.

The Cult of Statistical Significance:  How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives, by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey (Ann Arbor:  University of Michigan Press, ISBN-13: 978-472-05007-9, 2007)
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

Page 206
The textbooks are wrong. The teaching is wrong. The seminar you just attended is wrong. The most prestigious journal in your scientific field is wrong.

You are searching, we know, for ways to avoid being wrong. Science, as Jeffreys said, is mainly a series of approximations to discovering the sources of error. Science is a systematic way of reducing wrongs or can be. Perhaps you feel frustrated by the random epistemology of the mainstream and don't know what to do. Perhaps you've been sedated by significance and lulled into silence. Perhaps you sense that the power of a Roghamsted test against a plausible Dublin alternative is statistically speaking low but you feel oppressed by the instrumental variable one should dare not to wield. Perhaps you feel frazzled by what Morris Altman (2004) called the "social psychology rhetoric of fear," the deeply embedded path dependency that keeps the abuse of significance in circulation. You want to come out of it. But perhaps you are cowed by the prestige of Fisherian dogma. Or, worse thought, perhaps you are cynically willing to be corrupted if it will keep a nice job

 

In Accountics Science R2 = 0.0004 = (-.02)(-.02) Can Be Deemed a Statistically Significant Linear Relationship ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

 

December 5, 2012 reply from David Johnstone

Dear Bob,

One think that always amazes me is that people see Bayeian and “conventional” methods as alternatives where we are free to choose the one we like.

Bayesian methods are just the laws of probability, and if you want to make inferences that are consistent with the laws of probability, you have no choice but to obey those laws and hence be Bayesian.

Classical conventional methods sometimes pass this test and sometimes stop short. For example, a significance level is the probability of seeing some result x that is “more inconsistent” with H0 than the x actually observed. That’s fine if this is the probability you (really) want. But what if you want the probability of H0 given that observed x. Then you must do Bayesian calculations. You cant have your cake and eat it too.

The current Bayesian movement, emerging in non-inculcated fields like computer science and many sciences (e.g. forensic science), is the world awakening to the fundamental logical inevitability and beauty of Bayesian reasoning. Significance tests are not beautiful and have so many logical flaws that they have been derided for decades by people who have thought hard about them, in multiple different fields.

You are of course right that there was a Bayesian awareness in the 60s in Accounting but that is not widely so now. Harvard was the home of Bayesian logic under Savage, Pratt, Schlaifer etc.  Markowitz has written many times that the probabilities in portfolio theory are meant to be subjective Bayesian, and that he was convinced by Savage.

In the end Bayesian reasoning has one big advantage. It follows the laws of probability.

Indeed the only requirement to be Bayesian is to be “coherent” (i.e. to hold beliefs that are not inconsistent with one another by the laws of probability)

Lastly, don’t expect that Bayes will solve everything. There is still the problem of garbage in, garbage out. E.g. if my model or priors are not “accurate”, and I have little relevant observed data, I can’t expect Bayes theorem to fix all this for me.

 

Bob Jensen's threads on tutorials for mathematics and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics


An Accounting Review Article is Retracted

One of the article that Dan mentions has been retracted, according to
http://aaajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2308/accr-10326?af=R 

Retraction: A Field Experiment Comparing the Outcomes of Three Fraud Brainstorming Procedures: Nominal Group, Round Robin, and Open Discussion

James E. Hunton, Anna Gold Bentley University and Erasmus University Erasmus University This article was originally published in 2010 in The Accounting Review 85 (3) 911–935; DOI: 10/2308/accr.2010.85.3.911.

The authors confirmed a misstatement in the article and were unable to provide supporting information requested by the editor and publisher. Accordingly, the article has been retracted.

 

November 15, 2012 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Richard,

 
Is this the first example of a retracted TAR, JAR, and JAE article in since the 1960s?
 
 
Thank you for the heads up on the Hinton and Gold article. This is sad, because Steve Kachelmeier pointed out this article to me last year as an example of where the researchers used real-world experimentation data using subjects from a large CPA firm as opposed to students. Another factor that surprised me was was sample size of  supposedly 2,614 auditors.
 
 
Bob Kaplan wrote the following in
"Accounting Scholarship that Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice," AAA Presidential Scholar Address by Robert S. Kaplan, The Accounting Review, March 2011, pp. 372-373

 
Some scholars in public health schools also intervene in practice by conducting large-scale field experiments on real people in their natural habitats to assess the efficacy of new health and safety practices, such as the use of designated drivers to reduce alcohol-influenced accidents. Few academic accounting scholars, in contrast, conduct field experiments on real professionals working in their actual jobs (Hunton and Gold [2010] is an exception). The large-scale statistical studies and field experiments about health and sickness are invaluable, but, unlike in accounting scholarship, they represent only one component in the research repertoire of faculty employed in professional schools of medicine and health sciences.  
 
 
One thing I note is that the article has not been removed from the TAR database. The article still exists with a large "Retracted" stamp that appears over every page of the article
http://aaajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.2308/accr.2010.85.3.911
 
 
I attached the picture of a sample page.
 
 
Would the Techies on the AECM explain this:
The "Retracted" stamp is transparent in terms of copying any passage or table in the article. In other words, the article can be quoted as easily by copy and paste as text without any interference from the "Retracted Stamp." It cannot, however, be copied as a picture without interference from the "Retracted Stamp." 

 
Is this the first example of a retracted TAR, JAR, and JAE article in since the 1960s
 
 
Years ago Les Livingstone was the first person to detect a plagiarized article in TAR (back in the 1960s when we were both doctoral students at Stanford). This was long before digital versions articles could be downloaded. The TAR editor published an apology to the original authors in the next edition of TAR. The article first appeared in Management Science and was plagiarized in total for TAR by a Norwegian (sigh).
 
 
Not much can be done to warn readers about hard copy articles if they are subsequently "retracted." One thing that can be done these days is to have an AAA Website that lists retracted publications in all AAA journals. The Hunton and Gold article may be the only one since the 1960s.
 


Respectfully,
Bob Jensen

 

November 28, 2012 forward from Dan Stone

Anna Gold sent me the following statement and also indicated that she had no objections to my posting it on AECM:

Explanation of Retraction (Hunton & Gold 2010)

On November 9, 2012, The Accounting Review published an early-view version of the voluntary retraction of Hunton & Gold (2010). The retraction will be printed in the January 2013 issue with the following wording:

“The authors confirmed a misstatement in the article and were unable to provide supporting information requested by the editor and publisher. Accordingly, the article has been retracted.”

The following statement explains the reason for the authors’ voluntary retraction. In the retracted article, the authors reported that the 150 offices of the participating CPA firm on which the study was based were located in the United States. In May 2012, the lead author learned from the coordinating partner of the participating CPA firm that the 150 offices included both domestic and international offices of the firm. The authors apologize for the inadvertently inaccurate description of the sample frame.

The Editor and the Chairperson of the Publications Committee of the American Accounting Association subsequently requested more information about the study and the participating CPA firm. Unfortunately, the information they requested is subject to a confidentiality agreement between the lead author and the participating firm; thus, the lead author has a contractual obligation not to disclose the information requested by the Editor and the Chairperson. The second author was neither involved in administering the experiment nor in receiving the data from the CPA firm. The second author does not know the identity of the CPA firm or the coordinating partner at the CPA firm. The second author is not a party to the confidentiality agreement between the lead author and the CPA firm.

The authors offered to print a correction of the inaccurate description of the sample frame; however, the Editor and the Chairperson rejected that offer. Consequently, in spite of the authors' belief that the inaccurate description of the sample does not materially impact either the internal validity of the study or the conclusions set forth in the Article, the authors consider it appropriate to voluntarily withdraw the Article from The Accounting Review at this time. Should the participating CPA firm change its position on releasing the requested information in the future, the authors will request that the Editor and the Chairperson consider reinstating the paper.

Signed:

James Hunton Anna Gold

References: Hunton, J. E. and Gold, A. (2010), “A field experiment comprising the outcomes of three fraud brainstorming procedures: Nominal group, round robin, and open discussions,” The Accounting Review 85(3): 911-935.

 

December 1, 2012 reply from Harry Markopolos <notreallyharry@outlook.com

Harry Markopolos <notreallyharry@outlook.com>

The explanation provided by the Hunton and Gold regarding the recent TAR retraction seems to provide more questions than answers. Some of those questions raise serious concerns about the validity of the study.

1. In the paper, the audit clients are described as publically listed (p. 919), and since the paper describes SAS 99 as being applicable to these clients, they would presumably be listed in the U.S. However, according to Audit Analytics, for fiscal year 2007, the Big Four auditor with the greatest number of worldwide offices with at least one SEC registrant was PwC, with 134 offices (the remaining firms each had 130 offices). How can you take a random sample of 150 offices from a population of (at most) 134?

Further, the authors state that only clients from the retail, manufacturing, and service industries with at least $1 billion in gross revenues with a December 31, 2007 fiscal year-end were considered (p. 919). This restriction further limits the number of offices with eligible clients. For example, the Big Four auditor with the greatest number of offices with at least one SEC registrant with at least $1 billion in gross revenues with a December 31, 2007 fiscal year end was Ernst & Young, with 102 offices (followed by PwC, Deloitte and KPMG, with 94, 86, and 83 offices, respectively). Limiting by industry would further reduce the pool of offices with eligible clients (this would probably be the most limiting factor, since most industries tend to be concentrated primarily within a handful of offices).

2. Why the firm would use a random sample of their worldwide offices in the first place, especially a sample including foreign affiliates of the firm? Why not use every US office (or every worldwide office with SEC registrants)? The design further limited participation to one randomly selected client per office (p. 919). This design decision is especially odd. If the firm chose to sample from the applicable population of offices, why not use a smaller sample of offices and a greater number of clients per office? Also, why wouldn’t the firm just sample from the pool of eligible clients? Finally, would the firm really expect its foreign affiliates to be happy to participate just because the US firm is asking them to do so? Would it not be much simpler and more effective to focus on US offices and get large numbers of clients from the largest US Offices (e.g., New York, Chicago, LA) and fill in the remaining clients needed to reach 150 clients from smaller offices?

3. Given the current hesitancy of the Big Four to allow any meaningful access to data, why would the international offices be consistently willing to participate in the study, especially since each national affiliate of the Big Four is a distinct legal entity? The coordination of this study across the firm’s international offices seems like a herculean effort, at least. Further, even if the authors were not aware that the population of offices included international offices, the lead author was presumably aware of the identity of the partner coordinating the study for the firm. Footnote 4 of the paper and discussion on page 919 suggest that the US national office coordinated the study. It seems quite implausible that the US national office alone would be able to coordinate the study internationally.

4. In the statement that has been circulated among the accounting research community, the authors state:

“The second author was neither involved in administering the experiment nor in receiving the data from the CPA firm. The second author does not know the identity of the CPA firm or the coordinating partner at the CPA firm. The second author is not a party to the confidentiality agreement between the lead author and the CPA firm.”

However, this statement is inconsistent with language in the paper suggesting that both authors had access to the data and were involved in discussions with the firm regarding the design of the study (e.g. Footnote 17). Also, isn’t this kind of arrangement quite odd, at best? Not even the second author could verify the data. We are left with only the first author’s word that this study actually took place with no way for anyone (not even the second author or the journal editor) to obtain any kind of assurance on the matter. Why wouldn’t the firm be willing to allow Anna or Harry Evans to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to obtain some kind of independent verification? If the firm was willing to allow the study in the first place, it seems quite unreasonable for them to be unwilling to allow a reputable third party (e.g. Harry) to obtain verification of the legitimacy of the study. In addition, assuming the firm is this extremely vigilant in not allowing Harry or Anna to know about the firm, does it seem odd that the firm failed to read the paper before publication and, therefore, note the errors in the paper, including the claim that is made in multiple places in the paper that the data came from a random sample of the firm’s US offices?

5. Why do the authors state that the paper is being voluntarily withdrawn if the authors don’t believe that the validity of the paper is in any way questioned? The retraction doesn’t really seem voluntary. If the authors did actually offer to retract the study that implies that the errors in the paper are not simply innocent mistakes.

Given that most, if not all US offices would have had to be participants in the study (based on the discussion above), it wouldn’t be too hard to obtain some additional information from individuals at the firms to verify whether or not the study actually took place. In particular, if we were to locate a handful of partners from each of the Big Four who were office-managing partners in 2008, we could ask them if their office participated in the study. If none of those partners recall their office having participated in the study, the reported data would appear to be quite suspect.

Sincerely,

Harry Markopolos

 


"Psychopathy, Academic Accountants’ Attitudes towards Ethical Research Practices, and Publication Success," by Charles D. Bailey, SSRN, December 8, 2012 ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2186902

Abstract:
Psychopathy is one of the “Dark Triad” of personality variables, along with Machiavellianism and narcissism. It has received no attention, to my knowledge, in accounting literature, yet it has powerful implications for fraud in many areas. Psychopathy is characterized by deficits of conscience and empathy, rendering the rationalization of fraud easy or completely moot. Empirical research is an area in which two sides of the “Fraud Triangle,” motive and opportunity, are in place, awaiting only rationalization. Widespread fraud has been uncovered in scientific research, and studies indicate that accounting is not exempt. Using a sample of 545 accounting faculty who have published in leading accounting research journals, I find a positive effect of psychopathy on publication count. The effect is fully mediated (via an indirect-only mediation) through the influence of psychopathy on attitudes about the ethicality of questionable or blatantly unethical acts in the research and publication process. Implications and limitations are discussed.


From CBS Sixty Minutes
Goldman Sachs VP explains why he quit --- http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50133578n&tag=api
You might also note the wide-ranging comments that follow --- comments to please all sides of the political spectrum

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


Question
If the Feds should take 50% (as in the U.K.) and the states take 50% what would be left as an incentive to invest and work for a wage?

"Top Marginal Effective Tax Rates by State and by Source of Income, 2012 Tax Law vs. 2013 Scheduled Tax Law," by Gerald T. Prante and Austin John, SSRN, November 15, 2012 ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2176526

Abstract:     
This paper compares state-by-state estimates of the top marginal effective tax rates (METRs) on wages, interest, dividends, capital gains, and business income for tax year 2012 to the rates scheduled for 2013 under scheduled law. Scheduled tax law for 2013 assumes the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and the new PPACA taxes. Overall, the average top METR on wage income is scheduled to increase by approximately six percentage points (41.8 percent to 47.8 perent), while taxes on dividends would increase the greatest (19.0 percent to 47.9 percent). The top METRs on wages, dividends, interest, and partnership/sole proprietor income would exceed 50 percent in California, Hawaii, and New York City.


"Ex-IndyMac Executives Found Liable for Negligent Loans," by Edvard Pettersson, Bloomberg News, December 8, 2012 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-08/indymac-executives-found-liable-for-negligent-loans.html

Three former IndyMac Bancorp Inc. executives must pay $169 million in damages to federal regulators for making negligent loans to homebuilders as the real estate market was deteriorating, a jury decided.

The federal court jury in Los Angeles issued the verdict against Scott Van Dellen, the former chief executive officer of IndyMac’s Homebuilder Division; Richard Koon, the unit’s former chief lending officer; and Kenneth Shellem, the former chief credit officer. Jurors yesterday found them liable for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

The jury awarded the damages to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which brought the lawsuit in 2010.

The FDIC, which took over the failed subprime mortgage lender in 2008, alleged the men caused $500 million in losses at the homebuilders unit by continuing to push for growth in loan production without regard for credit quality and despite being aware a downturn in the real estate market was imminent.

The agency said the executives made loans to homebuilders that weren’t creditworthy or didn’t provide sufficient collateral.

“Today’s verdict is the result of a deliberate effort by the government to scapegoat a few men for the impact that the unforeseen and unprecedented housing collapse in 2007 had at IndyMac,” Kirby Behre, a lawyer for Shellem and Koon, said in an e-mailed statement after yesterday’s verdict.

“Mr. Shellem and Mr. Koon used the utmost care in making loan decisions, and there is no doubt that all of the loans at issue would have been repaid except for the housing crash,” Behre said.

Robert Corbin, a lawyer for Van Dellen, didn’t immediately return a call to his office yesterday after regular business hours seeking comment on the verdict.

The verdict was reported earlier by the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

The case is FDIC v. Van Dellen, 10-04915, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).

 

Jensen Comment
Over 1,000 banks failed in 2008 due to reckless lending practices. The real causes of the subprime mortgage scandals are explained at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Causes

To read about the sleaze go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Sleaze


Lloyd Shapley --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Shapley

One of the most cited articles in mathematics
Nobel Laureate Lloyd Shapley's Early Work on Deferred Acceptance Algorithms
College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage --- http://www.maa.org/pubs/monthly_jan1962-StabilityofMarriage.html

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2012 was awarded jointly to economist Alvin E. Roth (Harvard University) and mathematician Lloyd S. Shapley (University of California, Los Angeles) for their work on market design and matching theory, which relate to how people and companies find and select one another in everything from marriage to school choice to jobs to organ donations.

According to the Nobel Prize offical press release, "The prize rewards two scholars who have answered these questions on a journey from abstract theory on stable allocations to practical design of market institutions."

Shapley first worked on the theoretical framework for analyzing resource allocation in a paper co-authored with David Gale. In the paper, titled “College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage", they devised the deferred acceptance algorithm for finding a stable matching.

This article was published in the January 1962 issue of The American Mathematical Monthly and, to this day, is one of the journal's most frequently cited articles.

Read the full article (pdf) ---
http://www.maa.org/pubs/monthly_jan1962-StabilityofMarriage.pdf

Jensen Comment
Professor Shapley won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics without ever once having taken a course in economics. It is somewhat common for mathematicians to become Nobel Laureates via this route since there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics.


"The World’s Most and Least Livable Cities," 2417 Wall Street, December 6, 2012 ---
http://247wallst.com/2012/12/06/the-best-and-worst-cities-to-live-in-the-world/
 

Jensen Comment
There's something asymmetric in this ranking. The ranks for the worst cities are probably the same for rich and poor alike, except where those least-livable cities allow the wealthy to live untaxed like kings on the hill with teams of affordable servants and armed guards.

But the ranks for the "most livable" cities are definitely misleading for most people. For example, Honolulu may be the "most livable" city for very wealthy people. But Honolulu quickly becomes less livable as wealth declines because living costs in virtually all categories (especially real estate) are among the highest in the world. For example, a retirement income of $50,000 a year goes a long ways in Temple, Texas but retirees fare little better than street people on $50,000 a year in Honolulu. The same can be said for any city in Switzerland.

Hence, "livable cities" are like people --- beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

In fairness this study also links to cities ranked by housing prices where some California cities are high on the list. Note that Proposition 13 in California makes some of these homes affordable to people who have lived in them for decades. Newer buyers, however, will get hammered with unbelievable property taxes. It may be better to rent with an option to buy from a long-time owner.


Visualizing of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time ---
https://googledrive.com/host/0B_n1OLMaOursZUwxSUpsX1JFb1E/
This takes a bit of practice. Winter season contributes to both births and deaths where I live.
Jensen Comment
It may be more useful to examine net population changes in a county of interest. For example I live in Grafton County, NH where net changes tend to be less than one percent each year. But the County is growing thanks mostly to Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center about 90 miles south of where I live. Growth is negligible in the northern part of the County --- which is fine with me since I don't own a business in my retirement.
https://www.plymouth.edu/center-for-rural-partnerships/files/2012/03/Grafton-County-NH-Economic-Assessment-2010_Update-2012-PSU.pdf


"Flipping the Curriculum: Introductory Courses Should Be Just as Good as the Capstone Experience," by Jeff Selingo, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 2, 2012 --- Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2012/12/02/flipping-the-curriculum-introductory-courses-should-be-just-as-good-as-the-capstone-experience/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

. . .

“It’s about rejiggering the freshman curriculum to create excitement for learning,” Kelly said. “The senior capstone course shouldn’t just be one of 12 courses students take. It should be seven or eight of the courses they take. Students could become much better learners right from the start.”

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
I think this is an entirely naive article.

Firstly, the big lecture courses in disciplines like accounting often begin in the sophomore year rather than the freshman year. And the introductory accounting courses are generally for students majoring in various disciplines (accounting, economics, finance, management, marketing, management science, etc.) It is very hard to provide a senior capstone type course for what are often thousands of students in basic courses. Often the ploy used is to have small recitation sections as part of a large lecture course, where the recitation courses are manned with low-cost graduate students. This of course adds to variability of quality between recitation sections.

Secondly, the senior capstone course is mainly a designed for majors. In many disciplines the numbers of majors shrink dramatically. For example, in chemistry or classics may shrink to a mere handful. In fact one of the main problem in the turf wars is that some disciplines have so few majors. Large base courses in the general education curriculum justify having a relatively large specialized faculty for only a few number of majors.


2012-2013 PayScale College (Alumni) Salary Report  --- http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013

Jensen Comment
I've repeated my knee-jerk reactions to salary rankings so often that I would elaborate on the full monte. Firstly, when making such comparisons it's best to also have data on kurtosis and standard deviations. Secondly, there are gaps in any university's degree offerings. For example, Princeton has no undergraduate business school. Cornell has an undergraduate and graduate business school. Harvard and Stanford have only graduate business programs.

As the old saying goes, size matters --- but not always in a good way. For example, Harvey Mudd College can hardly be compared with the University of Texas in any meaningful way because of the enormous difference in the size of each graduating class.

Lastly, and most importantly these surveys are based on averages that have little bearing on individual cases. It's analogous to statistics showing that having a college degree is worth an added $20,000 per year. There are too many individual cases where this is just not the case. I have one son and his wife who still owe over $50,000 in student loans on top of financial demands of raising four children. His degree in Business Administration and her degree in Criminology have thus far not done them much good when the only jobs they can find in California do not even require a college diploma.


Undercover Reporting (an excellent NYU Library review of muck raking in modern times by investigative reporters/journalists) ---
http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/

Where Journalists Risk Their Lives to Report, Journalism.org ---
http://www.journalism.org/numbers_report/rank_syria_among_deadliest_places_journalists_2012

Project for Excellence in Journalism: Numbers --- http://www.journalism.org/by_the_numbers


Question
If the Feds should take 50% (as in the U.K.) and the states take 50% what would be left as an incentive to invest and work for a wage?

"Top Marginal Effective Tax Rates by State and by Source of Income, 2012 Tax Law vs. 2013 Scheduled Tax Law," by Gerald T. Prante and Austin John, SSRN, November 15, 2012 ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2176526

Abstract:     
This paper compares state-by-state estimates of the top marginal effective tax rates (METRs) on wages, interest, dividends, capital gains, and business income for tax year 2012 to the rates scheduled for 2013 under scheduled law. Scheduled tax law for 2013 assumes the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and the new PPACA taxes. Overall, the average top METR on wage income is scheduled to increase by approximately six percentage points (41.8 percent to 47.8 perent), while taxes on dividends would increase the greatest (19.0 percent to 47.9 percent). The top METRs on wages, dividends, interest, and partnership/sole proprietor income would exceed 50 percent in California, Hawaii, and New York City.

Jensen Question
This also raises a question about comparing top marginal rates across nations. If the sizable income tax take from states is not added to the U.S. Federal Income Tax, are we comparing apples and oranges when we compare marginal tax rates of the U.S. with most other nations.

Marginal Tax Rate Declines in the Rest of the World ---
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MarginalTaxRates.html

 


Table 1 Maximum Marginal Tax Rates on Individual Income
*. Hong Kong�s maximum tax (the �standard rate�) has normally been 15 percent, effectively capping the marginal rate at high income levels (in exchange for no personal exemptions).
**. The highest U.S. tax rate of 39.6 percent after 1993 was reduced to 38.6 percent in 2002 and to 35 percent in 2003.

  1979 1990 2002
Argentina 45 30 35
Australia 62 48 47
Austria 62 50 50
Belgium 76 55 52
Bolivia 48 10 13
Botswana 75 50 25
Brazil 55 25 28
Canada (Ontario) 58 47 46
Chile 60 50 43
Colombia 56 30 35
Denmark 73 68 59
Egypt 80 65 40
Finland 71 43 37
France 60 52 50
Germany 56 53 49
Greece 60 50 40
Guatemala 40 34 31
Hong Kong 25* 25 16
Hungary 60 50 40
India 60 50 30
Indonesia 50 35 35
Iran 90 75 35
Ireland 65 56 42
Israel 66 48 50
Italy 72 50 52
Jamaica 58 33 25
Japan 75 50 50
South Korea 89 50 36
Malaysia 60 45 28
Mauritius 50 35 25
Mexico 55 35 40
Netherlands 72 60 52
New Zealand 60 33 39
Norway 75 54 48
Pakistan 55 45 35
Philippines 70 35 32
Portugal 84 40 40
Puerto Rico 79 43 33
Russia NA 60 13
Singapore 55 33 26
Spain 66 56 48
Sweden 87 65 56
Thailand 60 55 37
Trinidad and Tobago 70 35 35
Turkey 75 50 45
United Kingdom 83 40 40
United States 70 33 39**

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers; International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation.

*. Hong Kong�s maximum tax (the �standard rate�) has normally been 15 percent, effectively capping the marginal rate at high income levels (in exchange for no personal exemptions).
**. The highest U.S. tax rate of 39.6 percent after 1993 was reduced to 38.6 percent in 2002 and to 35 percent in 2003.

Case Studies in Gaming the Income Tax Laws ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/TaxNoTax.htm

 


We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Attributed to Aesop

Congress is our only native criminal class.
Mark Twain --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Attributed to Aesop

 

"Profitable not-for-profits," New York Post, December 7, 2012 ---
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/profitable_not_for_profits_6tIH1u57fmmFSAW1SPJkMN

. . .

* Shirley Huntley, a state senator from Queens, founded an empty-shell nonprofit called The Parents Network right before she took office in 2006. She steered $30,000 in taxpayer money to her niece, who ran the group, and tried to send even more before she was arrested this year.

* Larry Seabrook, a former city councilman from Brooklyn, was convicted of funneling $1.5 million in taxpayer funds to his mistress, his sister, two brothers and other pals through a network of nonprofit groups he controlled. He faces up to 180 years in prison.

* Pedro Espada, the former state senator from The Bronx, was convicted of looting $545,000 from his federally funded nonprofit health clinic to pay for vacations, lavish birthday parties and theater tickets. He then tapped the nonprofit for another $1 million to cover his legal fees.

* Brian McLaughlin, a former Queens assemblyman and powerful labor leader, steered $95,000 meant for a local nonprofit Little League to pals of his, just one piece of the $3.1 million he stole from public and private enterprises. He got 10 years in prison for his crimes.

Weberman, of course, holds no elective office — but he is a leader in his community and has abused its trust.

Just like the others.

Happily, Gov. Cuomo has noticed the pattern, promoting legislation that would cap the often sky-high salaries at nonprofits that benefit from state funds.

But that won’t solve the whole problem.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has pursued abusers like Huntley, but since religious charities don’t have to register with the state, Weberman’s nonprofit wasn’t on the AG’s radar before this week.

That needs to change — fast.

Time to get cracking, Albany.

Feeling cynical?
They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings.
Steal a little and they throw you in jail,
Steal a lot and they make you king.
There's only one step down from here, baby,
It's called the land of permanent bliss. 
What's a sweetheart like you doin' in a dump like this?

Lyrics of a Bob Dylan song forwarded by Amian Gadal [DGADAL@CI.SANTA-BARBARA.CA.US

If the law passes in its current form, insider trading by Congress will not become illegal.
"Congress's Phony Insider-Trading Reform:  The denizens of Capitol Hill are remarkable investors. A new law meant to curb abuses would only make their shenanigans easier," by Jonathan Macey, The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2011 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577088881987346976.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t

Members of Congress already get better health insurance and retirement benefits than other Americans. They are about to get better insider trading laws as well.

Several academic studies show that the investment portfolios of congressmen and senators consistently outperform stock indices like the Dow and the S&P 500, as well as the portfolios of virtually all professional investors. Congressmen do better to an extent that is statistically significant, according to studies including a 2004 article about "abnormal" Senate returns by Alan J. Ziobrowski, Ping Cheng, James W. Boyd and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski in the Journal of Financial and Qualitative Analysis. The authors published a similar study of the House this year.

Democrats' portfolios outperform the market by a whopping 9%. Republicans do well, though not quite as well. And the trading is widespread, although a higher percentage of senators than representatives trade—which is not surprising because senators outperform the market by an astonishing 12% on an annual basis.

These results are not due to luck or the financial acumen of elected officials. They can be explained only by insider trading based on the nonpublic information that politicians obtain in the course of their official duties.

Strangely, while insider trading by corporate insiders has long been the white collar crime equivalent of a major felony, the Securities and Exchange Commission has determined that insider trading laws do not apply to members of Congress or their staff. That is because, according to the SEC at least, these public officials do not owe the same legal duty of confidentiality that makes insider trading illegal by nonpoliticians.

The embarrassing inconsistency was ignored for years. All of this changed on Nov. 13, 2011, after insider trading on Capitol Hill was the focus of CBS's "60 Minutes." The previously moribund "Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act" (H.R. 1148), first introduced in 2006, was pulled off the shelf and reintroduced. The bill suddenly had more than 140 sponsors, up from a mere nine before the show.

The "Stock" Act, as it is called, would make it illegal for members of Congress and staff to buy or sell securities based on certain nonpublic information. It would toughen disclosure obligations by requiring congressmen and their staffers to report securities trades of more than $1,000 to the clerk of the House (or the secretary of the Senate) within 90 days. And it would bring the new cottage industry in Washington, the so-called political intelligence consultants used by hedge funds, under the same rules that govern lobbyists. These political intelligence consultants are hired by professional investors to pry information out of Congress and staffers to guide trading decisions.

Publicly, House members echo bill sponsor Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y) in saying things like: "We want to remove any current ambiguity" about whether insider trading rules apply to Congress. Or as co-sponsor Rep. Timothy Walz (D., Minn.) put it: "We are trying to set the bar higher for members of Congress."

On closer examination, it appears that what Congress really wants is to keep making the big bucks that come from trading on inside information but to trick those outside of the Beltway into believing they are doing something about this corruption. For one thing, the rules proposed for Capitol Hill are not like those that apply to the rest of us. Ours are so broad and vague that prosecutors enjoy almost unfettered discretion in deciding when and whom to prosecute.

Congress's rules would be clear and precise. And not too broad; in fact they are too narrow. For example, the proposed rules in the Stock bill are directed only at information related to pending legislation. It would appear that inside information obtained by a congressman during a regulatory briefing, or in another context unrelated to pending legislation, would not be covered.

At a Dec. 6 House hearing, SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami opined that any new rules for Congress should not apply to ordinary citizens. He worried that legislators might "narrow current law and thereby make it more difficult to bring future insider trading actions against individuals outside of Congress."

This don't-rock-the-boat approach serves the interests of the SEC because it maximizes the commission's power and discretion, but it's not the best approach. The sensible thing to do would be to rationalize the rules by creating a clear definition of what constitutes insider trading, and then apply those rules to everyone on and outside Capitol Hill.

If the law passes in its current form, insider trading by Congress will not become illegal. I predict such trading will increase because the rules of the game will be clearer. Most significantly, the rule proposed for Congress would not involve the same murky inquiry into whether a trader owed or breached a "fiduciary duty" to the source of the information that required that he refrain from trading.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Rotten to the Core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


"Wellesley College Joins edX Effort for Free Online Courses," by Nick DeSantis, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 4, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/wellesley-college-joins-edx-effort-for-free-online-courses?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Wellesley College Joins edX Effort for Free Online Courses

The women’s college in Massachusetts is the first liberal-arts institution to join edX, the consortium offering free online courses that was founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The group’s other partners include the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Texas system, which joined in October.

Continued in article

"Georgetown U. Joins edX to Offer Free Courses Online," Chronicle of Higher Education, December 9, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/georgetown-u-joins-edx-to-offer-free-courses-online?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs, EdX, MITx, and other free online courses from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Forbes Top Ten Women's Colleges in the United States ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_colleges_in_the_United_States

In August 2009, Forbes Magazine offered their choice of the ten best women's colleges in the United States:

The leading men's colleges in the United States ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_colleges_in_the_United_States

 


Crapware:  It's probably a good idea to pay Microsoft another $99 for Signature
Windows 8 is not so much the problem as the "crapware" PC manufacturers pre-install into new computers.
 

"Same Crap, Different OS: Windows 8:  The scourge of crapware refuses to die, even on Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system, Windows 8," by Don Reisinger, MIT's Technology Review, November 27, 2012 --- Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/507931/same-crap-different-os-windows-8/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121128

. . .

Crapware has long been a thorn in the sides of Windows users. Consumers and enterprise users buy PCs under the faulty impression that they’ll be getting a completely clean computer when they break open the box. Instead, they find a PC that’s been loaded up with junk that they typically don’t need. What’s worse, all of that software slows down boot times and performance, since the programs are usually set to load automatically and typically run in the background.

But crapware’s most egregious impact on users might be what it represents. There was a time when PC makers believed that it was their responsibility to bundle software into their products because customers just didn’t know or understand what they needed. Customers relied on them to make their software decisions, PC makers reasoned, and it was their job to inform them.

But what those vendors failed to realize is that the average customer is informed and knows what he or she wants to use. Crapware isn’t useful; it’s insulting.

Why else might crapware still be hanging around? Blame it on the Almighty Dollar. By bundling trial versions of software, PC makers are enticing customers to buy full versions, thus lining company pockets. Simply put, it all comes back to squeezing every last dime out of an investment.

So, who is actually looking out for us? It’s tough to say. Microsoft is nice enough to offer a “Signature” experience to Windows shoppers that improves boot times and increases shut down speeds. Best of all, the company removes all trialware before shipping PCs to customers.

But like anything else in the land of crapware, there’s a catch: Microsoft charges $99 for Signature.


"The Most Dangerous Colleges In America,"Business Insider, November 20, 2012 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dangerous-colleges-in-america-2012-11?op=1 

We ranked the most dangerous colleges by averaging FBI crime data per capita from 2008 to 2011 for schools with enrollment over 10,000. Schools were ranked based on a combination of violent crime rank and property crime rank, with violent crime weighted four times higher.

  1. UCLA
  2. UC-Berkeley
  3. Duke
  4. Florida A&M
  5. Vanderbilt
  6. San Diego State
  7. New Mexico
  8. South Alabama
  9. LSU
  10. Georgia Tech
  11. Ball State
  12. Indiana State
  13. Cincinnati
  14. Southern Illinois
  15. MIT
  16. Northern Arizona
  17. New Mexico State
  18. Rutgers-Newark
  19. California State-Fresno
  20. Western Illinois
  21. North Carolina A&T
  22. SUNY-Buffalo
  23. Arkansas State
  24. UC-Riverside
  25. Florida State

Jensen Comment
It appears that some of the most prestigious universities in the U.S. also have some unwanted baggage. What is not clear is why MIT is so much more dangerous than Harvard. Or why is UCLA so much more dangerous than USC given the more troublesome location of USC in Los Angeles? And given the Miami is one of the most notorious crime cities in the United States, why are Florida A&M and Florida State more dangerous than the various colleges and universities in Miami?

One factor might be the dangers of a sprawling urban campus. For example, Georgia Tech is purportedly more dangerous than Georgia State located in downtown Atlanta. But then, Georgia State is largely confined to one big tower rather than multiple buildings on a sprawling campus.

Size of the university seems to be less relevant than I imagined. For example, Vanderbilt and UC-Riverside are much smaller relative to the enormous universities like Ohio State, Texas, and Wisconsin.

But why is San Diego State more dangerous than San Francisco State?

I am really puzzled by this unwanted publicity by the above 25universities.


Nine-year Tracks to a Humanities Ph.D.
"The 5-Year Humanities Ph.D.," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, December 4, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/12/04/stanford-moves-ahead-plans-radically-change-humanities-doctoral-education

Complaints about doctoral education in the humanities -- it takes too long, it's not leading to jobs, it's disjointed -- are rampant. So too are periodic calls for radical reform.

But Stanford University is encouraging its humanities departments to redesign humanities doctoral programs so that students could finish in five years (down from the current average of seven at the university and much longer elsewhere), and so that the programs prepare students for careers in and out of academe. While the university is not forcing departments to change, it last week gave all humanities departments a request for proposals that offered a trade: departments that give concrete plans to cut time to degree and change the curriculum will be eligible for extra support -- in particular for year-round support for doctoral students (who currently aren't assured of summer support throughout their time as grad students). The plans would need to be measurable, and the support would disappear if plans aren't executed.

While some Stanford faculty members in the humanities have been speaking out about the need to reform humanities programs for some time, and while a few universities elsewhere have experimented with one or two programs, the Stanford initiative could shape up to be the broadest yet to encourage substantial change in humanities Ph.D. education.

And faculty members there say that by putting money on the table, the university has many thinking that a five-year Ph.D. is possible in the humanities -- and that it's worth the effort to try to make it work. Because Stanford is a top research university, faculty members there hope that their efforts could inspire other institutions to act -- or risk losing their best prospective graduate students. After all, five years in Palo Alto beats nine years (some of it building up debt) just about anywhere else.

"I think this is fantastic," said Jennifer Summit, a professor of English who is among the faculty members who have circulated papers on how to reform doctoral education. "Change comes slowly in the academy, but someone here said the other day that the way to herd cats is to move the cat food. This is a perfect example of that. There are few motivators more compelling to departments than the future of their graduate students, and we're at a point now where we are in agreement about the problem and the very high stakes, and need to move forward."

Cutting Time-to-Degree in Half

The discussions at Stanford have been closely connected to national debates about the humanities doctorate. Russell A. Berman, a professor of comparative literature and German studies at Stanford, used his address as Modern Language Association president in January to call for humanities Ph.D. programs to have their duration cut in half. "In light of the rate of educational debt carried by humanities doctoral recipients, twice that of their peers in sciences or engineering; in light of the lengthy time to degree in the humanities, reaching more than nine years; and in light of the dearth of opportunities on the job market, the system needs to be changed significantly," he said. The MLA has been studying the way dissertations are structured in languages and literature programs, and will be discussing the issue at its annual meeting in January. Berman also joined discussions back on his campus about how to promote change.

In response to these discussions, Stanford issued an RFP to humanities departments asking for proposals on specific issues. One is time to degree, and here Stanford said that a five-year Ph.D. "ought to be achievable."

The RFP outlined reasons why shorter completion times are needed. "Extended time to degree can represent a significant drain on institutional resources as well as major costs to students, both in the form of indebtedness and postponed entry onto a career path. We ask programs to examine the current structure of degree requirements in order to determine what reforms might expedite degree completion. The answer will likely vary across fields but might involve topics such as restructuring curricular offerings, revising course requirements, modifying examinations, improving the quality of mentoring, the clearer benchmarking of graduate student progress, and revising dissertation expectations."

The other major issue on which departments were asked to propose reforms was career preparation, and the RFP noted that not all humanities Ph.D.s seek or find academic careers. "While models will certainly vary across departments, possible responses might include enhanced mentoring to highlight career ranges, speaker series with representatives of different career paths, internships in different sectors, or integration of applied dimensions of humanities fields into the core curriculum. We also hope to see plans, on the departmental level, for robust career tracking of alumni, not only in terms of first placements but also with regard to longer-term career paths, e.g., tracking alumni 10 or 15 years post-degree."

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
It seems to me that more attention needs to be paid to why any Ph.D. program tends to average more than five years to completion above and beyond attaining and undergraduate or masters diploma. I suspect the main answer is that most students in Ph.D. programs are not really full-time students. The reason is largely economic. These students need part-time employment to pay family living expenses even if the tuition is free. Medical schools and law schools are exceptions. In those instances, the students generally have to be prepared for full time curriculum demands.

In most instances doctoral students apart from law and medicine are employed as adjunct instructors, teaching assistants, and research assistants. Some are also employed part time off campus. Exceptions are students having their own trust funds or students who can be supported by spouses or significant others. Those students who really go full-bore in a doctoral program probably do graduate in five years and often fewer years.

Full-time students who never taught courses or served as teaching assistants and research assistants probably are missing major components of a full doctoral program. But if these are factored into a five-year doctoral program something has to give in the curriculum. Some humanities faculty, especially modern language faculty, propose cutting back on the capstone thesis requirement.

There are possible compromises. In the 1960s, Carnegie-Mellon doctoral theses tended to be a compilation of term papers written in pevious doctoral courses. The idea was to start the program with a thesis proposal and then integrate the course term papers into that thesis along the way.

The problem is, that it really is tough to propose a thesis at the beginning of a doctoral program --- putting the cart before the horse.

"The Radical New Humanities Ph.D.," by Kaustuv Basu, Inside Higher Ed, May 16, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/16/rethinking-humanities-phd

The warning last year from Russell Berman, who at the time was president of the Modern Language Association, was apocalyptic: If doctoral programs in the humanities do not reduce the time taken to graduate, they will become unaffordable and face extinction.

Now, Berman has taken his ideas home. At Stanford University, where he is a professor of comparative literature and directs the German studies program, he and five other professors at the university have produced a paper that calls for a major rethinking at Stanford -- a reduction in the time taken to graduate by Ph.D. candidates in the humanities, and preparing them for careers within and beyond the academy. The professors at Stanford aren't just talking about shaving a year or so off doctoral education, but cutting it down to four or five years -- roughly half the current time for many humanities students.

The Stanford professors aren’t alone in pushing this kind of thinking. The Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, for example, is already testing some ideas, and so is the University of Minnesota. The initiatives at all three places, whether proposed or in its infancy, involve changing academic culture and university policies to refashion the humanities Ph.D. The University of Colorado at Boulder recently announced a four-year Ph.D. in German studies, consistent with the principles being discussed at Stanford, although the Colorado effort applies to one small program while the Stanford and Minnesota initiatives are much broader.

The Stanford document proposes a scenario where students decide on a career plan -- academic or nonacademic -- they want to embark on by the end of their second-year of graduate study, file the plan with their department, and then prepare projects and dissertation work that would support that career. Similarly, departments have to help students make realistic career choices at the end of the second year of graduate study, and advise students regularly. “…[T]hey should aim to balance academic training in a particular discipline and field with the provision of broader professional perspectives that may extend beyond the traditional academic setting,” the document said.

This would represent a dramatic shift from the current norm, whereby many humanities grad students say that their entire program is designed for an academic career, and that they only start to consider other options when they are going on the job market -- a bit late to shape their preparation for nonacademic options.

According to the document, one way to speed up time to degree would be to include “four-quarter” support for students instead of unfunded summers, currently the standard for many humanities Ph.D. programs. Gabriella Safran, a professor of Slavic languages and literature at Stanford, who also worked with Berman to create the proposal, said the key might be to anticipate when Ph.D. candidates are getting bogged down and respond to the issue earlier. “A better use of time might be to use the summers more effectively. Right now, I think there are too many unfunded summers when students don’t make progress,” she said.

Berman, who said that the recent document was mostly an effort directed at administrators to “reform degree trajectories," believes that time to degree can be reduced to four or five years. “The study of the humanities need to be accessible and cheap. And we have to become more transparent about our placement records,” he said.

The document said that departments should have suitable plans in terms of curriculum, examination schedule, and dissertation that will help speed up time to degree. “Scholarly fields have widened, and added a lot of expectations,” Berman said.

He emphasized the need to amplify success stories of students who have ventured beyond the academic world. “We should be telling all their stories,” said Berman, who is also chairing a MLA task-force on the future of the doctorate in the languages and literature.

David Damrosch, a professor of comparative literature at Harvard University, said that Ph.D. students and professors in his department have been thinking more carefully about coursework. “Very often, students drift for extended periods,” he said. Frequent meetings with dissertation committee members are helpful, he said. “All this result in fewer incompletes in coursework … and more consistent progress in the dissertations,” said Damrosch.

“In anthropological terms, academia is more of a shame culture than a guilt culture: you may feel some private guilt at letting a chapter go unread for two or three months, but a much stronger force would be the public shame you'd feel at coming unprepared to a meeting with two of your colleagues,” he said. “It’s also ultimately a labor-saving device for the faculty as well as the student, as the dissertation can proceed sooner to completion and with less wasted effort for all concerned….” With frequent meetings, the students doesn’t lose time on “unproductive lines of inquiry” or “tangential suggestions tossed out by a single adviser,” Damrosch said.

A two-hour oral exam, meetings each semester with “dissertation-stage” students and their committee members, and clearer feedback for students are part of the graduate program in the comparative literature department now. “We also introduced a monthly forum for students to share and discuss their own work; and an ambitious series of professional development talks, on everything from article submission to dissertation planning to alternative careers,” Damrosch said.

The University of Minnesota is also taking a fresh look at its Ph.D. programs. Henning Schroeder, vice provost and dean of the graduate school at the university, said that professors and administrators have been discussing how to give the Ph.D. a narrower focus. “How much coursework do students need before they engage in scholarly research?” he asked.

Getting students into a “research mode” earlier helps save time, Schroeder said. “The question is also, what can we do at the administrative level?” he said. The university has promoted discussion on best practices on advising, and also how the “prelim-oral” -- a test students take before writing their dissertations – can delay research. The university now lets students get credit for research work before the oral examination, in an effort to allow for more flexibility in curriculums and to reduce time to degree.

Debra Satz, senior associate dean for the humanities at Stanford and a professor of philosophy, said that too many students end up spending six to eight years in the Ph.D. program. “There is no correlation between taking a longer time to degree and getting a job in an academic humanities department,” she said. And ultimately, she said, how can the length of time taken by a Ph.D. be justified if the person has to reinvent or retool at the end to be employed?

The discussions should not only be about new career paths and the time taken to graduate, but about how to implement change without affecting the quality of the programs, Satz said. “Many ideas have been floated: creating paths for our humanities Ph.D.s to high school teaching, creating paths to the high technology industry, thinking about careers in public history, and so on,” she said.

And while it is too early to see definite results from these institutions, many believe that the timing is right.

Anaïs Saint-Jude, director of the BiblioTech program – which seeks to bridge the gulf between doctoral humanities candidates at Stanford and jobs outside academe, including those in the tech world -- believes that all this is happening because this is a pivotal moment in higher education. “It was kindling that was ready to be ignited…. We started talking about it, and it created such momentum that we were able to create a veritable program,” Saint-Jude said, referring to the BiblioTech program that began in 2011. Part of the program’s vision includes trying to change the mindset of academics and non-academics alike. “It is about garnering the trust of industry leaders, and trying to break apart and think differently,” she said. The program’s annual conference last week included venture capitalists as well as executives from Google and Overstock.com.

Continued in article

 

Bob Jensen's threads on proposals for radical changes in doctoral programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#DoctoralProgramChange

Some Things to Ponder When Choosing Between an Accounting Versus History PhD ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#HistoryVsAccountancy
 


Question
Did Stanford University create Silicon Valley, or did Silicon Valley make Stanford the top venture capital university in the world?

Answer
This is a chicken versus the egg question. I don't think there is one answer.

Especially note the graph
"One University To Rule Them All: Stanford Tops Startup List, by Tim Devaney and Tom Stein, ReadWriteWeb, December 3, 2012 ---
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/one-university-to-rule-them-all-stanford-tops-startup-list

203 Venture Capital Startups Rooted in Stanford, including Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and need I say more
112 Harvard
  90 UC Berkeley
  60 MIT
  48 NYU
  46 Penn
 

"Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money," by Dan Lyons, ReadWriteWeb, December 3, 2012 ---
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/lets-all-shed-tears-for-the-crappy-startups-that-cant-raise-any-more-money


"The Benefits of Poetry for Professionals," by John Coleman, Harvard Business Review Blog, November 27, 2012 ---
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/11/the_benefits_of_poetry_for_pro.html

Wallace Stevens was one of America's greatest poets. The author of "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" and "The Idea of Order at Key West" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955 and offered a prestigious faculty position at Harvard University. Stevens turned it down. He didn't want to give up his position as Vice President of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company.

This lyrically inclined insurance executive was far from alone in occupying the intersect of business and poetry. Dana Gioia, a poet, Stanford Business School grad, and former General Foods executive, notes that T.S. Eliot spent a decade at Lloyd's Bank of London; and many other poets including James Dickey, A.R. Ammons, and Edmund Clarence Stedman navigated stints in business.

I've written in the past about how business leaders should be readers, but even those of us prone to read avidly often restrict ourselves to contemporary nonfiction or novels. By doing so, we overlook a genre that could be valuable to our personal and professional development: poetry. Here's why we shouldn't.

For one, poetry teaches us to wrestle with and simplify complexity. Harman Industries founder Sidney Harman once told The New York Times, "I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand." Emily Dickinson, for example, masterfully simplified complex topics with poems like "Because I could not stop for Death," and many poets are similarly adept. Business leaders live in multifaceted, dynamic environments. Their challenge is to take that chaos and make it meaningful and understandable. Reading and writing poetry can exercise that capacity, improving one's ability to better conceptualize the world and communicate it — through presentations or writing — to others.

Poetry can also help users develop a more acute sense of empathy. In the poem "Celestial Music," for example, Louise Glück explores her feelings on heaven and mortality by seeing the issue through the eyes of a friend, and many poets focus intensely on understanding the people around them. In January of 2006, the Poetry Foundation released a landmark study, "Poetry in America," outlining trends in reading poetry and characteristics of poetry readers. The number one thematic benefit poetry users cited was "understanding" — of the world, the self, and others. They were even found to be more sociable than their non-poetry-using counterparts. And bevies of new research show that reading fiction and poetry more broadly develops empathy. Raymond Mar, for example, has conducted studies showing fiction reading is essential to developing empathy in young children (PDF) and empathy and theory of mind in adults (PDF). The program in Medical Humanities & Arts (PDF) even included poetry in their curriculum as a way of enhancing empathy and compassion in doctors, and the intense empathy developed by so many poets is a skill essential to those who occupy executive suites and regularly need to understand the feelings and motivations of board members, colleagues, customers, suppliers, community members, and employees.

Reading and writing poetry also develops creativity. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, the aforementioned Dana Gioia says, "As [I rose] in business ... I felt I had an enormous advantage over my colleagues because I had a background in imagination, in language and in literature." Noting that the Greek root for poetry means "maker," Dana emphasizes that senior executives need not just quantitative skills but "qualitative and creative" skills and "creative judgment," and feels reading and writing poetry is a route to developing those capabilities. Indeed, poetry may be an even better tool for developing creativity than conventional fiction. Clare Morgan, in her book What Poetry Brings to Business, cites a study showing that poems caused readers to generate nearly twice as many alternative meanings as "stories," and poetry readers further developed greater "self-monitoring" strategies that enhanced the efficacy of their thinking processes. These creative capabilities can help executives keep their organizations entrepreneurial, draw imaginative solutions, and navigate disruptive environments where data alone are insufficient to make progress.

Finally, poetry can teach us to infuse life with beauty and meaning. A challenge in modern management can be to keep ourselves and our colleagues invested with wonder and purpose. As Simon Sinek and others have documented, the best companies and people never lose a sense of why they do what they do. Neither do poets. In her Nobel lecture "The Poet and the World," Wislawa Szymborska writes:

The world — whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence ... is astonishing ...

 

Granted, in daily speech, where we don't stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like "the ordinary world," "ordinary life," "the ordinary course of events" ... But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world.

 

What if we professionals cultivated a similar outlook? We might find our colleagues more hopeful and purposeful and our work revitalized with more surprise, meaning, and beauty.

Continued in article

 

"Why Memorize a Poem?" by Catherine Robson, Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review, November 26, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Memorize-a-Poem-/135878/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
I suggest starting out by memorizing a relatively short metered poem such as a Shakespeare sonnet in iambic pentameter or a Robert Frost poem such as Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening in iambic tetrameter. I think it's so much harder to write metered poetry, and believe it when I say that I've seriously tried in vain to do so ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070905.htm

 

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

More at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070905.htm

The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (creative ideas in writing, art, and photography) ---  http://www.salt.edu/

Bob Jensen's helpers for writers  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries


A New US News Ranking of Universities:  This one is complicated because you can be a lousy school and still do better than what's expected of a lousy school
and Vice Versa

For example a kid with an IQ of 70 is doing great just to pass whereas a genius with an IQ of 160 is doing rotten if he/she earns an B+

"Which Ranked Universities Are Doing Better Than Their Academic Reputations?" by Robert Morse, US News, November 29, 2012 --- Click Here
http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2012/11/29/which-ranked-universities-are-doing-better-than-their-academic-reputations?s_cid=rss:college-rankings-blog:which-ranked-universities-are-doing-better-than-their-academic-reputations

My usual criticisms of rankings can be found in Bob Jensen's threads on ranking controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings
This is another one of those "vegetables" problems with multivariate aggregations.

 


December 1, 2012 message from popular Tax Prof Paul Caron ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/

Note that Case Western Law School's Dean concluded law school is still worth the money. This conclusion is widely disputed.

Criticism of Case Western Dean's NY Times op-ed, Law School Is Worth the Money

A number of critics have assailed the New York Times op-ed by Case Western Dean Lawrence Mitchell, Law School Is Worth the Money:

"The Shrinking Law School," by Mitch Smith, Inside Higher Ed, May 1, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/01/one-law-school-reduces-admissions-says-thats-future-legal-education

Garbage Statistics
How do law schools (read that lawyers) lie with statistics?
Why are so many lower ranking law school doing so much better in placing their graduates than the prestigious law schools?

"When True Numbers Mislead: 98% Employment "Not Fully Accurate Picture," ASU Dean Says," by Brian Tamanaha (Washington U.), Balkinization, April 2, 2012 ---
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2012/04/when-true-numbers-mislead-98-employment.html

Carnage in 2012 Law School Enrollments ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2012/09/carnage-.html

"'Brutal' Job Market for New Law Grads," Inside Higher Ed, June 8, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/06/08/brutal-job-market-new-law-grads

"'Brutal' Job Market for New Law Grads," Inside Higher Ed, June 8, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/06/08/brutal-job-market-new-law-grads

Bob Jensen's threads on law school advantages and disadvantages in the 21st Century ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools


MIT Media Lab: Demos and Downloads
http://www.media.mit.edu/research/demos-downloads
 


Question
How does one become a Professor of Pricing?

This is already starting to happen at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business, which now offers about a dozen full-time and part-time specialty master’s business programs. The school is introducing two new MS programs in January, one in pricing and another in business analytics. This year, seven students from the school’s MS programs went directly into the school’s MBA program, and about five others have indicated they have plans to do so in the future, says Simon School Dean Mark Zupan.
See below

 

"The Booming Market for Specialized Master’s Degrees," Bloomberg Business Week, November 21, 2012 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-21/the-booming-market-for-specialized-masters-degrees

About five years ago, the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business had an approach to one-year specialized master’s degrees that was fairly typical among business schools. It offered just one MS in Business program, a degree in accounting that helped students get specialized knowledge about the industry and a leg up in the job market. The program was so large and thriving that the school’s leadership soon started thinking about dipping its toe further into the marketplace, says Ken White, the school’s associate dean of MBA and MS programs.

First, in 2009 they created an MS program for students who wanted to specialize in finance. Buoyed by its success, the school added two new MS degrees to its roster in 2011, one in supply chain management and another in information systems. Today, there are 522 students enrolled in specialized master’s programs at Smith, and plans are in the works for a fifth program in marketing analytics, set to launch in the fall of 2013.

“This is a new frontier for a lot of schools,” White says. “We’ve been surprised by how quickly these programs and the demand for these programs have grown. It has been almost extraordinary.”

The market for specialized master’s programs in accounting, management, finance, and a number of other business disciplines has never been stronger. A growing number of business schools, from the Smith School to Michigan State University’s Broad Graduate School of Management, are riding on that wave of interest. They’re creating a whole new suite of MS degrees, sometimes as many as half a dozen or more, in response to a new generation of students, the vast majority of whom are either straight out of college or just a year or two out of school. The MS students are hungry for the specialized knowledge these programs offer and are looking to distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive job market, administrators and recruiters say. Administrators are hoping some of them will build lasting relationships with the school, and consider them for other full-time degree programs down the road.

The surge in interest in these programs comes at a time when many business schools are at a crossroads, with their flagship MBA programs struggling to attract students. Nearly two-thirds of full-time, two-year MBA programs in the U.S., or 62 percent, are reporting a decline in applications this year, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s (GMAC) 2012 Application Trends Survey.

At the same time, specialized master’s programs in business are experiencing robust growth, making it a wise move for B-schools to invest in these programs. There were 160,500 GMAT score reports sent to U.S. specialized master’s programs in 2012, up 15 percent from last year, and 86 percent from five years ago, according to GMAC.

The surge in applications is being driven by several factors. Many applicants are international students looking for a degree from a U.S. school to help advance their careers back home. Others are seeking additional credit hours now required for a CPA credential in states such as New York and Massachusetts that have increased the requirements beyond what a typical bachelor’s degree provides. Many are simply doing the math and concluding that the five years of work experience required at most MBA programs is a luxury they can’t afford. Getting a one-year degree straight out of college is less expensive, results in no career disruption, and leads to higher immediate post-college earnings.

The most popular programs by far are accounting, finance, and business or management, but increasingly schools are expanding to other hot emerging fields, such as data analytics, information technology, supply chain management, and others, says Michelle Sparkman-Renz, GMAC’s director of research communications.

“It’s appealing for them because the relationship they begin with a candidate very early on is one that could possibly continue through MBA or executive MBA programs,” Sparkman-Renz says.

This is already starting to happen at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business, which now offers about a dozen full-time and part-time specialty master’s business programs. The school is introducing two new MS programs in January, one in pricing and another in business analytics. This year, seven students from the school’s MS programs went directly into the school’s MBA program, and about five others have indicated they have plans to do so in the future, says Simon School Dean Mark Zupan.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
In my opinion, these specialty programs are mostly attempts to bolster faltering conventional MBA programs. They are typical of business firms that offer newer products to bolster a declining product. But specialty programs have drawbacks as well as advantages. For example, if the Simon School offers a new MS program in Pricing, it may have to bolster faculty with some experts on pricing. And there are no Ph.D. graduates in "pricing." Prospective faculty in pricing are most likely economists, accountants, and production managers who have real-world experience in pricing. Students entering this program are expecting to graduate with knowledge of tools (including software) on pricing. The typical accountics scientis who has run some regression studies on the impacts of pricing on stock prices but has zero real-world experience in product pricing is not likely to be suited to what students are expecting from a MS in Pricing.

And the concept of "pricing" can become further specialized. For example, there's a world of difference when setting the price of Twinkies versus setting the price of a new structured financing product in a Wall Street investment bank. For one thing, Twinkies have millions of customers wanting low prices. Buyers of structured financing products are fewer in numbers and concerned more with return and risk as opposed to a quick sugar fix.


Wisconsin System's Competency-Based Degrees as of November 28, 2012 ---
http://www.wisconsin.edu/news/2012/r121128.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on competency-based programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge


Question
What recent WSJ article reminds us of Hillary Clinton's great luck in cattle futures trading when her husband was Governor of Arkansas?

Background Reading
Hillary Rodham cattle futures controversy ($1,000 down yields $100,000 rake in) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_cattle_futures_controversy

"Executives' Good Luck in Trading Own Stock," by Susan Pulliam and Rob Barry, The Wall Street Journal, Noember 27, 2012 ---
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444100404577641463717344178.html?mod=djemCFO_h

A timely share sale by two insiders at retailer Body Central Corp. BODY -1.44% this spring spared them a nearly $1.4 million drop in the value of their holdings in the chain.

Founder Jerrold Rosenbaum and chief merchandising officer Beth Angelo, his daughter, sold a combined $2.9 million of Body Central stock on May 1, May 2 and May 3. Later on May 3, after the market close, the company cut its 2012 earnings estimate. The next trading day, the stock plunged 48.5%.

A Body Central official said both executives' trades were part of preordained trading plans. The official said that Ms. Angelo set up a new plan for her father in March, a time when she wasn't aware of the trend that led to the lower estimate. The company wouldn't make either one available for an interview. Mr. Rosenbaum, who the company said is ailing, resigned from the board in May.

Corporate executives long have bought and sold shares of their own companies, and outside investors have long tracked such trades, in the belief that insiders have a particularly good feel for how companies are faring.

Executives can trade for entirely legitimate reasons, such as to raise money to meet a tax bill or simply to diversify. But of course they must avoid trading on nonpublic information, and that can lead to sticky situations, since executives do possess just such information much of the time.

Regulatory efforts to find a way around this conundrum and allow executives to trade, a Wall Street Journal analysis suggests, are so flawed they have left a confusing landscape that can both raise suspicions about trades that are innocent, and provide cover for others that are less so.

The Journal examined regulatory records on thousands of instances since 2004 when corporate executives made trades in their own company's stock during the five trading days before the company released material, potentially market-moving news.

Among 20,237 executives who traded their own company's stock during the week before their companies made news, 1,418 executives recorded average stock gains of 10% (or avoided 10% losses) within a week after their trades. This was close to double the 786 who saw the stock they traded move against them that much. Most executives have a mix of trades, some that look good in retrospect and others that do not.

The Journal also compared the trading of corporate executives who buy and sell their own companies' stock irregularly, dipping in and out, against executives who follow a consistent yearly pattern in their trading. It found that the former were much likelier to record quick gains.

Looking at executives' trading in the week before their companies made news, the Journal found that one of every 33 who dipped in and out posted average returns of more than 20% (or avoided 20% downturns) in the following week. By contrast, only one in 117 executives who traded in an annual pattern did that well.

"We've found a lot of evidence that these insiders do statistically much better than we'd expect," said Lauren Cohen, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard University who co-wrote a study published this year about the performance of insiders who time their trades. "The perch that they have—they not only have proximity to this private information, but they can actually affect the outcomes."

A Securities and Exchange Commission rule requires executives to report trades in their own company's stock within 48 hours. But getting a bead on trading by corporate executives has become more complicated, not less, in recent years, thanks to a proliferation of trading plans that provide for periodic buying or selling.

The arrangements, known as 10b5-1 plans, spell out certain times of the year, or certain target prices, when corporate executives intend to buy or sell shares of their own company. Executives who use such plans can trade even while they possess material nonpublic information about the company. And in the event they face suspicions of improper trading, having followed such a pre-established plan is a strong defense.

But the system has numerous shortcomings. Companies and executives don't have to file these trading plans with any federal agency. That means the plans aren't readily available for regulators, investors or anyone else to examine.

Moreover, once executives file such trading plans, they remain free to cancel or change them—and don't have to disclose that they have done so.

Finally, even when executives have such a preset plan, they are free to trade their companies' stock at other times, outside of it.

"Sometimes a 10b5-1 plan is legitimate and other times it's not, but there is no way of knowing because there is no disclosure of anything to investors," said a hedge-fund manager, David Berman of Berman Capital Management.

The SEC, asked for comment on the plans' limitations, cited the requirement for insiders to report trades within two days and added: "If the Commission were to consider requiring insiders to make disclosure ahead of trades, there would need to be careful consideration of the costs and benefits."

Continued in article

But the worst inside traders are in the U.S. House and Senate:

The Wonk (Professor) Who Slays Washington

Insider trading is an asymmetry of information between a buyer and a seller where one party can exploit relevant information that is withheld from the other party to the trade. It typically refers to a situation where only one party has access to secret information while the other party has access to only information released to the public. Financial markets and real estate markets are usually very efficient in that public information is impounded pricing the instant information is made public. Markets are highly inefficient if traders are allowed to trade on private information, which is why the SEC and Justice Department track corporate insider trades very closely in an attempt to punish those that violate the law. For example, the former wife of a partner in the auditing firm Deloitte & Touche was recently sentenced to 11 months exploiting inside information extracted from him about her husband's clients. He apparently did was not aware she was using this inside information illegally. In another recent case, hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years for insider trading.

Even more commonly traders who are damaged by insiders typically win enormous lawsuits later on for themselves and their attorneys, including enormous punitive damages. You can read more about insider trading at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading

Corporate executives like Bill Gates often announce future buying and selling of shares of their companies years in advance to avoid even a hint of scandal about exploiting current insider information that arises in the meantime. More resources of the SEC are spent in tracking possible insider information trades than any other activity of the SEC. Efforts are made to track trades of executive family and friends and whistle blowing is generously rewarded.

Question
Trading on insider information is against U.S. law for every segment of society except for one privileged segment that legally exploits investors for personal gains by trading on insider information. What is that privileged segment of U.S. society legally trades on inside information for personal gains?

Hints:
Congress is our only native criminal class.
Mark Twain --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Attributed to Aesop

Answer (Please share this with your students):
Over the years I've been a loyal viewer of the top news show on television --- CBS Sixty Minutes
On November 13, 2011 the show entitled "Insider" is the most depressing segment I've ever watched on television ---
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387951n&tag=contentMain;contentBody#ixzz1dfeq66Ok
Also see http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/congress-trading-stock-on-inside.html

Jensen Comment

Watch the "Insider" Video Now While It's Still Free ---
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7387951n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

"They have legislated themselves as untouchable as a political class . . . "
"The Wonk (Professor) Who Slays Washington," by Peter J. Boyer, Newsweek Magazine, November 21, 2011, pp. 32-37 ---
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/11/13/peter-schweizer-s-new-book-blasts-congressional-corruption.html

Jensen Comment
The recent legislation preventing our elected officials is a sham since it does not preclude family members from inside trading.


"How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation," by James Allworth, Harvard Business Review Blog, December 7, 2012 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/12/how_corruption_is_strangling_us_innovation.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date 


"Harvard Doctor Turns Felon After Lure of Insider Trading," by Bryan Gruley & David Voreacos, Bloomberg News, November 27, 2012 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-27/harvard-doctor-turns-felon-after-lure-of-insider-trading.html

From the age of six, Joseph F. “Chip” Skowron III aspired to be a doctor. At Yale, he earned both a medical degree and a doctorate in molecular and cellular biology, then qualified for Harvard’s elite, five-year residency program. Three years in, Skowron quit medicine for Wall Street. He and two partners started a group of health-care investment funds under the auspices of FrontPoint Partners LLC (MS), a hot new property in the exploding world of hedge funds.

Skowron was soon making millions of dollars a year. He built a gabled, 10,000-square-foot home on three acres in the nation’s hedge-fund capital, Greenwich, Connecticut. He assembled a small fleet of pricey cars, including a 2006 Aston Martin Vanquish and a 2009 Alfa Romeo Spider 8C. He also spent vacation time engaged in Third World humanitarian causes.

Today, Skowron, 43, is serving a five-year term for insider trading at the federal prison at Minersville, Pennsylvania. At FrontPoint, Skowron lied to his bosses and law enforcement authorities, cost more than 35 people their jobs and stooped to slipping envelopes of cash to an accomplice. FrontPoint is gone. Morgan Stanley, which once owned FrontPoint, is seeking more than $65 million from Skowron, whose net worth a year ago was $22 million. Until he’s a free man, his wife of 16 years will have to care for their four children and Rocky, their golden retriever, on her own.

Never Satisfied
“I always detected that he was reaching for something to gratify him,” said his half-sister, Cindi Kinney, in an interview. “It was always something else, whether it was going to medical school or learning the financial industry. He was always setting goals and reaching them -- and never being satisfied.”

Skowron himself told the judge who sentenced him in November 2011: “I was not aware of the changes that were happening in me that blurred the lines between right and wrong. They came very slowly, over many years.”

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

 


Question
What does Joe Hoyle mean by "Be the Stream and Not the Rock?"

Hint
He's not discussing the painful passing of a kidney stone.
The context is how perseverance prevails.

"BE THE STREAM AND NOT THE ROCK," by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, November 26, 2012 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2012/11/be-stream-and-not-rock.html


From the Scout Report on November 30, 2012

WhatRoute --- http://www.whatroute.net/ 

How does your data travel? It's a great question, and one that be answered via the use of WhatRoute. This application is a network diagnostic utility that allows users to see the geographical route of the paths that packets from your computer take as they traverse the Internet. The results can also be viewed via Google Earth, which is quite a dramatic experience. This version is compatible with computers running Mac OS X and newer.


Fruji --- http://start.fruji.com/ 

If you're looking for a basic Twitter analytics program, you'll want to check out Fruji. A basic subscription allows users to see up to 10 of their most popular followers, identify spam accounts, and track the growth of followers and tweets. Visitors can click on the "How it Works" link at the top to learn more about how the program uses your Twitter profile to offer up some simple, yet useful, analytics. This version is compatible with all operating systems.


As the United States welcomes the president of Mexico, a reconsideration of the relationship between neighbors

Mexico's president-elect aims to focus on economy during U.S. visit
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/26/politics/mexico-president-us-visit/

Opinion: Mexico isn't a gangland gunbattle
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/25/mexico-obama-drugs-middle-class/1725841/

Won't You Be My Neighbor
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/won_t_you_be_my_neighbor

The Rise of Mexico
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21567081-america-needs-look-again-its-increasingly-important-neighbour-rise-mexico

Special Report: Mexico
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21566773-after-years-underachievement-and-rising-violence-mexico-last-beginning

Mexico: Brookings Institution
http://www.brookings.edu/research/topics/mexico

From the Scout Report on December 7, 2012

SmartSettings 1.2 --- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootuninstaller.settings 

Have you ever wanted to optimize and automate your device settings? Well, this process just got much simpler with this version of SmartSettings. Interested parties can use this tool to schedule meetings, save their battery, and set alarms and updates. This version is compatible with all devices Android 2.1 and newer.


MergePay --- https://mergepay.com/

At the end of the year, it can be a tremendous hassle to play catch-up with taking care of finances for one's business or personal life. MergePay allows users to track all of their expenses and bills in one handy location. Visitors just need to snap a quick receipt from their iPhone and they can forward their invoices to MergePay for a simple accounting of these items. Also, visitors can use MergePay to create a visual overview of what bills they need to pay during each month. This version is compatible with all operating systems


Despite economic troubles around the world, skyscrapers continue to
rise

Reaching for the sky: streets in the sky
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20526219

Skyscraper stories: Reaching for the sky
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20578262

London's Walkie-Talkie Skyscraper to be Fuel Cell Powered
http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/news-events/news-archive/2012/december/london’s-walkie-talkie-skyscraper-to-be-fuel-cell-powered

Why China's Sky City One is a Bad Idea?
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-chinas-sky-city-one-is-a-bad-idea-2012-11

Burlington's Lonely Skyscraper: 83 Years Young
http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/top-news/burlington-s-lonely-skyscraper-83-years-young-1.58413

Emporis
http://www.emporis.com/


"Is Microsoft Really A Hardware Company Now?  The company has made billions on software. But Steve Ballmer says its future is hardware.," by Don Reisinger, MIT's Technology Review, December 5, 2012 --- Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/508326/is-microsoft-really-a-hardware-company-now/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121206


Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

Not Free:  The Best Books of 2012: Lists by The New York Times, NPR, The Guardian and a Call for Your Favorites --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/the_best_books_of_2012_lists_by_the_new_york_times_npr_the_guardian_and_a_call_for_your_favorites.html


Education Tutorials

MIT Media Lab: Demos and Downloads --- http://www.media.mit.edu/research/demos-downloads

Aesthetics + Computation Group: MIT Media Laboratory --- http://acg.media.mit.edu/projects/

Philosophy with a Southern Drawl: Rick Roderick Teaches Derrida, Foucault, Sartre and Others --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/philosophy_with_a_southern_drawl_rick_roderick_teaches_derrida_foucault_sartre_and_others.html

Not Free:  The Best Books of 2012: Lists by The New York Times, NPR, The Guardian and a Call for Your Favorites --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/the_best_books_of_2012_lists_by_the_new_york_times_npr_the_guardian_and_a_call_for_your_favorites.html

Schoolhouse Rock at 40: Revisit a Collection of Nostalgia-Inducing Educational Videos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/schoolhouse_rock_at_40_still_fabulous_and_rocking_on.html

The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (creative ideas in writing, art, and photography) ---  http://www.salt.edu/

Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch


Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

Einstein Documentary Offers A Revealing Portrait of the Great 20th Century Scientist ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/einstein_documentary_offers_a_revealing_portrait_of_the_scientist_.html

A Poignant, Elegant Tribute to the Mars Rover Curiosity ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/a_poignant_tribute_to_the_mars_rover_icuriosityi.html

Smithsonian Science --- http://smithsonianscience.org/

From the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum:  Webcast Archive ---
http://airandspace.si.edu/webcasts/archive.cfm

Incredible Raw Image of Saturn’s Swirling North Pole ---
http://www.universetoday.com/98667/incredible-raw-image-of-saturns-swirling-north-pole/

MIT Media Lab: Demos and Downloads --- http://www.media.mit.edu/research/demos-downloads

Aesthetics + Computation Group: MIT Media Laboratory --- http://acg.media.mit.edu/projects/

University of Florida: Physics Department Demonstration Page --- http://www.phys.ufl.edu/demo/

Physics: Lesson Plans on the Internet --- http://www.csun.edu/science/ref/lessons/index.html

Sing About Science & Math: Lesson Plans (oceanography sing along) --- http://singaboutscience.org/wp/lesson-plans/

Center for Ocean Solutions --- http://centerforoceansolutions.org/

Teaching the Ocean System: Resources for Educators --- http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/ocean/ 

Ocean Data Viewer --- http://data.unep-wcmc.org/

AT&T Labs Research --- http://www.research.att.com/editions/2012_11_01_home.html?fbid=Bl2XNO8zkmA

Build a DNA Molecule --- http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/dna/builddna/

Model Organisms for Biomedical Research --- http://www.nih.gov/science/models/

MedlinePlus: Videos and Cool Tools --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/videosandcooltools.html

MedlinePlus: Diets --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/diets.html

Filming a Sprinting Cheetah at 1,200 Frames Per Second ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/filming_a_sprinting_cheetah_at_1200_frames_per_second.html

Dreaming the Skyline (architecture) ---  http://digital.library.unlv.edu/skyline

From the Scout Report on December 7, 2012

Despite economic troubles around the world, skyscrapers continue to
rise

Reaching for the sky: streets in the sky
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20526219

Skyscraper stories: Reaching for the sky
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20578262

London's Walkie-Talkie Skyscraper to be Fuel Cell Powered
http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/news-events/news-archive/2012/december/london’s-walkie-talkie-skyscraper-to-be-fuel-cell-powered

Why China's Sky City One is a Bad Idea?
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-chinas-sky-city-one-is-a-bad-idea-2012-11

Burlington's Lonely Skyscraper: 83 Years Young
http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/top-news/burlington-s-lonely-skyscraper-83-years-young-1.58413

Emporis
http://www.emporis.com/

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science


Social Science and Economics Tutorials

Visualizing of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time ---
https://googledrive.com/host/0B_n1OLMaOursZUwxSUpsX1JFb1E/
This takes a bit of practice. Winter season contributes to both births and deaths where I live.
Jensen Comment
It may be more useful to examine net population changes in a county of interest. For example I live in Grafton County, NH where net changes tend to be less than one percent each year. But the County is growing thanks mostly to Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center about 90 minutes south of where I live. Growth is negligible in the northern part of the County --- which is fine with me since I don't own a business in my retirement.
https://www.plymouth.edu/center-for-rural-partnerships/files/2012/03/Grafton-County-NH-Economic-Assessment-2010_Update-2012-PSU.pdf

National Bureau of Economic Research: Bulletin on Aging and Health --- http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/

Undercover Reporting (an excellent NYU Library review of muck raking in modern times by investigative reporters/journalists) ---
http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/

Where Journalists Risk Their Lives to Report, Journalism.org ---
http://www.journalism.org/numbers_report/rank_syria_among_deadliest_places_journalists_2012

Project for Excellence in Journalism: Numbers --- http://www.journalism.org/by_the_numbers

Penn Museum: Educator's Guides (Anthropology and Archaeology) --- http://www.penn.museum/program-resources.html

The Center for Native American Youth --- http://www.cnay.org/

Content, Context, and Capacity (history of African Americans at the University of North Carolina) ---
http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog?f%5Bispartof_facet%5B%5D=Content%2C%20Context%2C%20Capacity

The Douglas Oliver Collection (Hawaii People) --- http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/oliver/index.php?c=1

Hawaii Quadrangles --- http://magis.manoa.hawaii.edu/maps/digital/quads.html

Dakin Fire Insurance Maps (Hawaii) --- http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/maps/index.php

Virginia Tech Transportation Institute --- http://www.vtti.vt.edu/

Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center --- http://policy.rutgers.edu/vtc/

Content, Context, and Capacity (history of African Americans at the University of North Carolina) ---
http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog?f%5Bispartof_facet%5B%5D=Content%2C%20Context%2C%20Capacity

Shelby, North Carolina --- http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/shelby

Content, Context, and Capacity (history of African Americans at the University of North Carolina) ---
http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog?f%5Bispartof_facet%5B%5D=Content%2C%20Context%2C%20Capacity Official 1940 Census Website --- http://1940census.archives.gov/
Not indexed (at least not yet) for names of people
The search process is mainly geographic --- viewing a state, county, township, town, or lot within a town
There is a 1930s name search to help find where a person lived in 1940, but you have to know quite a lot about the person, including middle name and birth date.

The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project --- http://ptfs.library.cmu.edu/pjn/index.jsp

Pittsburgh and Beyond: The Experience of the Jewish Community --- http://digital.library.pitt.edu/n/ncjw/

From the Scout Report on November 30, 2012

As the United States welcomes the president of Mexico, a reconsideration of the relationship between neighbors

Mexico's president-elect aims to focus on economy during U.S. visit
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/26/politics/mexico-president-us-visit/

Opinion: Mexico isn't a gangland gunbattle
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/25/mexico-obama-drugs-middle-class/1725841/

Won't You Be My Neighbor
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/won_t_you_be_my_neighbor

The Rise of Mexico
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21567081-america-needs-look-again-its-increasingly-important-neighbour-rise-mexico

Special Report: Mexico
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21566773-after-years-underachievement-and-rising-violence-mexico-last-beginning

Mexico: Brookings Institution
http://www.brookings.edu/research/topics/mexico

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social


Law and Legal Studies

Undercover Reporting (an excellent NYU Library review of muck raking in modern times by investigative reporters/journalists) ---
http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/

Where Journalists Risk Their Lives to Report, Journalism.org ---
http://www.journalism.org/numbers_report/rank_syria_among_deadliest_places_journalists_2012

Project for Excellence in Journalism: Numbers --- http://www.journalism.org/by_the_numbers

 

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law


Math Tutorials

One of the most cited articles in mathematics
Nobel Laureate Lloyd Shapley's Early Work on Deferred Acceptance Algorithms
College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage --- http://www.maa.org/pubs/monthly_jan1962-StabilityofMarriage.html

Sing About Science & Math: Lesson Plans (oceanography sing along) --- http://singaboutscience.org/wp/lesson-plans/

Reverend Bayes Famous Theorem --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

History of Thomas Bayes and Bayes’s Theorem ---
http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2012/12/thomas-bayes-and-bayess-theorem/

 
"An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem:  Bayes' Theorem for the curious and bewildered; an excruciatingly gentle introduction," by Eliezer S., Yudkowsky, August 2009 --- http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

Your friends and colleagues are talking about something called "Bayes' Theorem" or "Bayes' Rule", or something called Bayesian reasoning. They sound really enthusiastic about it, too, so you google and find a webpage about Bayes' Theorem and...

It's this equation. That's all. Just one equation. The page you found gives a definition of it, but it doesn't say what it is, or why it's useful, or why your friends would be interested in it. It looks like this random statistics thing.

So you came here. Maybe you don't understand what the equation says. Maybe you understand it in theory, but every time you try to apply it in practice you get mixed up trying to remember the difference between p(a|x) and p(x|a), and whether p(a)*p(x|a) belongs in the numerator or the denominator. Maybe you see the theorem, and you understand the theorem, and you can use the theorem, but you can't understand why your friends and/or research colleagues seem to think it's the secret of the universe. Maybe your friends are all wearing Bayes' Theorem T-shirts, and you're feeling left out. Maybe you're a girl looking for a boyfriend, but the boy you're interested in refuses to date anyone who "isn't Bayesian". What matters is that Bayes is cool, and if you don't know Bayes, you aren't cool.

Why does a mathematical concept generate this strange enthusiasm in its students? What is the so-called Bayesian Revolution now sweeping through the sciences, which claims to subsume even the experimental method itself as a special case? What is the secret that the adherents of Bayes know? What is the light that they have seen?

Soon you will know. Soon you will be one of us.

While there are a few existing online explanations of Bayes' Theorem, my experience with trying to introduce people to Bayesian reasoning is that the existing online explanations are too abstract. Bayesian reasoning is very counterintuitive. People do not employ Bayesian reasoning intuitively, find it very difficult to learn Bayesian reasoning when tutored, and rapidly forget Bayesian methods once the tutoring is over. This holds equally true for novice students and highly trained professionals in a field. Bayesian reasoning is apparently one of those things which, like quantum mechanics or the Wason Selection Test, is inherently difficult for humans to grasp with our built-in mental faculties.

Or so they claim. Here you will find an attempt to offer an intuitive explanation of Bayesian reasoning - an excruciatingly gentle introduction that invokes all the human ways of grasping numbers, from natural frequencies to spatial visualization. The intent is to convey, not abstract rules for manipulating numbers, but what the numbers mean, and why the rules are what they are (and cannot possibly be anything else). When you are finished reading this page, you will see Bayesian problems in your dreams.

And let's begin.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a story problem about a situation that doctors often encounter:

1% of women at age forty who participate in routine screening have breast cancer. 80% of women with breast cancer will get positive mammographies. 9.6% of women without breast cancer will also get positive mammographies. A woman in this age group had a positive mammography in a routine screening. What is the probability that she actually has breast cancer?

What do you think the answer is? If you haven't encountered this kind of problem before, please take a moment to come up with your own answer before continuing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next, suppose I told you that most doctors get the same wrong answer on this problem - usually, only around 15% of doctors get it right. ("Really? 15%? Is that a real number, or an urban legend based on an Internet poll?" It's a real number. See Casscells, Schoenberger, and Grayboys 1978; Eddy 1982; Gigerenzer and Hoffrage 1995; and many other studies. It's a surprising result which is easy to replicate, so it's been extensively replicated.)

Do you want to think about your answer again? Here's a Javascript calculator if you need one. This calculator has the usual precedence rules; multiplication before addition and so on. If you're not sure, I suggest using parentheses.

Continued in article

 

Hawaii Quadrangles --- http://magis.manoa.hawaii.edu/maps/digital/quads.html

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics


History Tutorials

Einstein Documentary Offers A Revealing Portrait of the Great 20th Century Scientist ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/einstein_documentary_offers_a_revealing_portrait_of_the_scientist_.html

Penn Museum: Educator's Guides (Anthropology and Archaeology) --- http://www.penn.museum/program-resources.html

Reverend Bayes Famous Theorem --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

History of Thomas Bayes and Bayes’s Theorem ---
http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2012/12/thomas-bayes-and-bayess-theorem/

A Poignant, Elegant Tribute to the Mars Rover Curiosity ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/a_poignant_tribute_to_the_mars_rover_icuriosityi.html

Where Journalists Risk Their Lives to Report, Journalism.org ---
http://www.journalism.org/numbers_report/rank_syria_among_deadliest_places_journalists_2012

Project for Excellence in Journalism: Numbers --- http://www.journalism.org/by_the_numbers

Sir Anthony Hopkins Reads Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2011/05/anthony_hopkins_reads_dylan_thomas.html

From the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum:  Webcast Archive ---
http://airandspace.si.edu/webcasts/archive.cfm

Richard Burton Reads ‘Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait’ and 14 Other Poems by Dylan Thomas ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/richard_burton_reads_ballad_of_the_long-legged_bait_and_14_other_poems_by_dylan_thomas.html

Middle Eastern Film Posters Digitization Initiative --- http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0100

Schoolhouse Rock at 40: Revisit a Collection of Nostalgia-Inducing Educational Videos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/schoolhouse_rock_at_40_still_fabulous_and_rocking_on.html

British Museum: Chinese Jade --- http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/asia/chinese_jade/chinese_jade.aspx

Grassroots Feminist Political Posters in India ---
http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/grassroots-feminist-political-posters-in-india

Buffalo Bill Letters to George T. Beck --- http://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=wyu-ah09972.xml

Tokyo: 1955-1970 (Modern Art) --- http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/tokyo/

Virginia Tech Transportation Institute --- http://www.vtti.vt.edu/

Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center --- http://policy.rutgers.edu/vtc/

Shelby, North Carolina --- http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/shelby

Content, Context, and Capacity (history of African Americans at the University of North Carolina) ---
http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog?f%5Bispartof_facet%5B%5D=Content%2C%20Context%2C%20Capacity

The Tennessee Historical Society ---  http://www.tennesseehistory.org/

The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project --- http://ptfs.library.cmu.edu/pjn/index.jsp

Pittsburgh and Beyond: The Experience of the Jewish Community --- http://digital.library.pitt.edu/n/ncjw/

Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan --- http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=arts&col_id=443

PingMag (arts and crafts from Japan) ---  http://www.pingmag.jp/

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm  


Language Tutorials

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages


Music Tutorials

Leonard Bernstein’s First “Young People’s Concert” at Carnegie Hall Asks, “What Does Music Mean?” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/leonard_bernsteins_first_young_peoples_concert_at_carnegie_hall_asks_what_does_music_mean.html

Remembering Jazz Legend Dave Brubeck (RIP) with a Very Touching Musical Moment ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/remembering_jazz_legend_dave_brubeck_rip_with_a_poignant_musical_moment.html 

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music

Schoolhouse Rock at 40: Revisit a Collection of Nostalgia-Inducing Educational Videos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/schoolhouse_rock_at_40_still_fabulous_and_rocking_on.html

Sing About Science & Math: Lesson Plans (oceanography sing along) --- http://singaboutscience.org/wp/lesson-plans/

Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm


Writing Tutorials

University College Writing Centre --- http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/handouts.html

The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (creative ideas in writing, art, and photography) ---  http://www.salt.edu/

Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries


Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/

November 28, 2012

November 29, 2012

December 1, 2012

December 3, 2012

December 4, 2012

December 5, 2012

December 6, 2012

December 7, 2012

December 8, 2012

December 9, 2012

December 10, 2012


National Bureau of Economic Research: Bulletin on Aging and Health --- http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/


It is exceptionally difficult -- for all practical purposes, impossible," writes Eberstadt, "for a medical professional to disprove a patient's claim that he or she is suffering from sad feelings or back pain. In other words, many people are gaming or defrauding the system. This includes not only disability recipients but health care professionals, lawyers and others who run ads promising to get you disability benefits. Between 1996 and 2011, the private sector generated 8.8 million new jobs, and 4.1 million people entered the disability rolls.
Michael Barone, "Men Find Careers in Collecting Disability," --- Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2012/12/03/men_find_careers_in_collecting_disability?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
 
Jensen Comment
 Even after one or more spine surgeries it is virtually impossible to determine whether remaining pain is real or faked. I can claim first hand that after 15 spine surgeries and metal rods from neck to hip that my wife's suffering is real. However, I know of at least two instances where the disability careers are faked in order to get monthly lifetime disability payments and access to Medicare long prior to age 65. This seems to be one of the unsolvable problems in society that becomes even more problematic when a disability career is easier to enter than a job-like career.


I found this to be a really interesting, and very sad, article on the complexities of learning and the virtual impossibility of medication magic bullets without bad side effects
"Dream Map to a Mind Seized," by Amy Leal, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 3, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Dream-Map-to-a-Mind-Seized/135966/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en


"Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising," Stanford University, November 2012 ---
http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/index.php
Thank you Carolyn Becker for the heads up.

Jensen Comment
When I watch old movies on AMC it amazes me how the Tobacco industry impacted the prevalence of cigarette, cigar, and pipe smoking in virtually all the movies prior to the 1970s. I can't recall any film where smoking was depicted as something unhealthy or dirty.


Howard Hughes Medical Institute Bulletin --- https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hhmi-bulletin/id411540287?mt=8

MedlinePlus: Videos and Cool Tools --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/videosandcooltools.html

Medline Plus: Herbal Medicine --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/herbalmedicine.html#cat57

MedlinePlus: Diets --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/diets.html




Cell Phone Use in Church --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/D2_c81Nnsc0

The Darwin Awards:  Favorite Female Fatales --- http://www.darwinawards.com/

Darwin Award Archives --- http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/


Humor Video:  Accounting Updates for 2012 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgW3ATYW9F4&feature=youtu.be
Not so Funny Sidebar:  One of the biggest reasons 17% of employed taxpayers pay no income is the earned income credit
 

Also it's not clear why he has to yell into a microphone --- that is really tiresome in a comedy dialog.


Hilarious Video Proof: Your Ability to Make Realistic Sound Effects Is Gender-Based ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/12/hilarious_video_proof_your_ability_to_make_realistic_sound_effects_is_gender-based.html


"Parents Are Naming Babies After Apple Products," by Dana Rousmaniere, Harvard Business Review Blog, December 4, 2012 ---
Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2012/12/morning-advantage-parents-are.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Jensen Comment
Those families having two children (boys or girls) could have an Apple 1 and Apple 2.

One of the first products was the mouse that Apple copped from Xerox Parc. Can't you imagine a 300 lb tackle named Mouse or iPod instead of Moose.

I can see a girl being named iPad Mini or a little guy called MacMini.

As a guy I'd like to be named Quicktime Pro or OS X Lion most recently known as Mountain Lion.

MkLinux wouldn't be a bad name.

But I'd really rather be called Quicktime Pro.


Forwarded by Auntie Bev
I could not verify whether this is fact or fiction, but it makes a good story.

No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED. However, in a recent linguistic conference held in London, and attended by some of the best linguists in the world, Samsundar Balgobin, a Guyanese, was the clear winner. His final challenge was this: Some say there is no difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED. Please explain the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED in a way that is easy to understand.

Here is his astute answer: "When you marry the right woman, you are COMPLETE. But, when you marry the wrong woman, you are FINISHED. And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are COMPLETELY FINISHED!"

His answer was received with a standing ovation lasting over 5 minutes and it entitled him to receive an invitation to dine with the Queen, who decided to call him after the contest. He won a trip to travel around the world in style and a case of 25 year old Eldorado rum for his answer.

 


Forwarded by Gene and Joan

Punography
 
 
 When chemists die, they barium.
 
 Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
 
 I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.
 
 How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.
 I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.
 
 This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met
 herbivore.
 
 I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.
 
 I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.
 
 They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.
 
 PMS jokes aren't funny; period.
 Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.
 
 We're going on a class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there's no pop
 quiz.
 
 I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.
 
 Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she
 couldn't control her pupils?
 
 When you get a bladder infection urine trouble.
 Broken pencils are pointless.
 
 I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.
 
 What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.
 
 England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
 
 I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.
 
 I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.
 
 All the toilets in New York 's police stations have been stolen. The police have nothing to go on.
 
 I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.
 
 Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.
 
 Velcro - what a rip off!
 
 A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.
 
 Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!




Tidbits Archives --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/

Online Distance Education Training and Education --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone of Fraud  (College, Inc.) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

The Cult of Statistical Significance: How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

How Accountics Scientists Should Change: 
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm 

What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So

Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

 

World Clock --- http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/

Interesting Online Clock and Calendar --- http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones --- http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) --- http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
         Also see http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
        
Facts about population growth (video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth --- http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons --- http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

CPA Examination --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/

Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at http://iaed.wordpress.com/

Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials

Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting educators.
Any college may post a news item.

Accounting  and Taxation News Sites ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

 

For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for free) go to   http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
AECM (Educators) http://listserv.aaahq.org/cgi-bin/wa.exe?HOME
AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc.

Over the years the AECM has become the worldwide forum for accounting educators on all issues of accountancy and accounting education, including debates on accounting standards, managerial accounting, careers, fraud, forensic accounting, auditing, doctoral programs, and critical debates on academic (accountics) research, publication, replication, and validity testing.

 

CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/  (Closed Down)
CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.
Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.
AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1 
This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.
Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com 
This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM
FEI's Financial Reporting Blog
Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2008 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2008/smart_stops.htm
FINANCIAL REPORTING PORTAL
www.financialexecutives.org/blog

Find news highlights from the SEC, FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board on this financial reporting blog from Financial Executives International. The site, updated daily, compiles regulatory news, rulings and statements, comment letters on standards, and hot topics from the Web’s largest business and accounting publications and organizations. Look for continuing coverage of SOX requirements, fair value reporting and the Alternative Minimum Tax, plus emerging issues such as the subprime mortgage crisis, international convergence, and rules for tax return preparers.
The CAlCPA Tax Listserv

September 4, 2008 message from Scott Bonacker [lister@bonackers.com]
Scott has been a long-time contributor to the AECM listserv (he's a techie as well as a practicing CPA)

I found another listserve that is exceptional -

CalCPA maintains http://groups.yahoo.com/taxtalk/  and they let almost anyone join it.
Jim Counts, CPA is moderator.

There are several highly capable people that make frequent answers to tax questions posted there, and the answers are often in depth.

Scott

Scott forwarded the following message from Jim Counts

Yes you may mention info on your listserve about TaxTalk. As part of what you say please say [... any CPA or attorney or a member of the Calif Society of CPAs may join. It is possible to join without having a free Yahoo account but then they will not have access to the files and other items posted.

Once signed in on their Yahoo account go to http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxTalk/ and I believe in top right corner is Join Group. Click on it and answer the few questions and in the comment box say you are a CPA or attorney, whichever you are and I will get the request to join.

Be aware that we run on the average 30 or move emails per day. I encourage people to set up a folder for just the emails from this listserve and then via a rule or filter send them to that folder instead of having them be in your inbox. Thus you can read them when you want and it will not fill up the inbox when you are looking for client emails etc.

We currently have about 830 CPAs and attorneys nationwide but mainly in California.... ]

Please encourage your members to join our listserve.

If any questions let me know.

Jim Counts CPA.CITP CTFA
Hemet, CA
Moderator TaxTalk

 

 

 

 

Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) --- http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm

 

Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Some Accounting History Sites

Bob Jensen's Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
 

Accounting History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) --- http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
The above libraries include international accounting history.
The above libraries include film and video historical collections.

MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting --- http://maaw.info/

Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/

Sage Accounting History --- http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269

A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
"The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm 

A nice timeline of accounting history --- http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING

From Texas A&M University
Accounting History Outline --- http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html

Bob Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

History of Fraud in America --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

All my online pictures --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone:  603-823-8482 
Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu