All liaisons are dangerous when all your friends are known to us

Online Social Networks (OSNs) are used by millions of users worldwide. Academically speaking, there is little doubt about the usefulness of demographic studies conducted on OSNs and, hence, methods to label unknown users from small labeled samples are very useful. However, from the general public point of view, this can be a serious privacy concern. Thus, both topics are tackled in this paper: First, a new algorithm to perform user profiling in social networks is described, and its performance is reported and discussed. Secondly, the experiments --conducted on information usually considered sensitive-- reveal that by just publicizing one's contacts privacy is at risk and, thus, measures to minimize privacy leaks due to social graph data mining are outlined.Comment: 10 pages, 5 table

Hidden in Plain Sight: Homeless Students In America's Public Schools

Student homelessness is on the rise, with more than 1.3 million homeless students identified during the 2013-14 school year. This is a 7 percent increase from the previous year and more than double the number of homeless students in 2006-07. As high as these numbers seem, they are almost certainly undercounts.Despite increasing numbers, these students - as well as the school liaisons and state coordinators who support them - report that student homelessness remains an invisible and extremely disruptive problem.Students experiencing homelessness struggle to stay in school, to perform well, and to form meaningful connections with peers and adults. Ultimately, they are much more likely to fall off track and eventually drop out of school more often than their non-homeless peers.This study:provides an overview of existing research on homeless students,sheds light on the challenges homeless students face and the supports they say they need to succeed,reports on the challenges adults - local liaisons and state coordinators - face in trying to help homeless students, andrecommends changes in policy and practice at the school, community, state and national level to help homeless students get on a path to adult success.This is a critical and timely topic. The recent reauthorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides many new and stronger provisions for homeless students (effective Oct. 1, 2016); requires states, district and schools for the first time to report graduation rates for homeless students (effective beginning with the 2016-17 school year); and affirms the urgency and importance of dealing with homelessness so that all children can succeed

The Challenge Of Absent Presence

“Let your home know where your heart is.” (Billboard advertisement for cellular phone) The setting is a retirement home for the elderly. Wilfred enters the veranda in search of two close friends. He is in luck, they are both present. But alas, one is lost to her Walkman and the other is engrossed in his book. Neither notices Wilfred\u27s presence. Frustrated, Wilfred is left to stare silently into space. Such is the beginning of Ronald Harwood\u27s London play, Quartet. Young or old, we instantly identify with the scene. How often do we enter a room to find family, friends or colleagues absorbed by their computer screen, television, CDs, telephone, newspaper, or even a book? Perhaps they welcome us without hesitation; but sometimes there is a pause, accompanied even by a look of slight irritation. And at times our presence may go completely unacknowledged. We are present but simultaneously rendered absent; we have been erased by an absent presence. It is the twentieth-century expansion of absent presence that I wish to explore in what follows. My concern is with the growing domain of diverted or divided consciousness invited by communication technology, and most particularly the mobile telephone. One is physically present but is absorbed by a technologically mediated world of elsewhere. Typically it is a world of relationships, both active and vicarious, within which domains of meaning are being created or sustained

Spartan Daily, March 24, 1999

Volume 112, Issue 40https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9397/thumbnail.jp

Maine CDC Extreme Temperature Community Resilience Guidebook

The purpose of this guidebook is to help community leaders, public health departments, municipalities, and state and local emergency planning agencies prepare for extreme temperature events in Maine. The Environmental and Occupational Health Program at the Maine Center Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed this Extreme Temperature Community Resilience Guidebook using existing best practices and strategies to adapt to the changing climate and to address community needs during extreme temperature events. Because extreme temperature events are becoming more frequent, local leaders must work in collaboration with private and public community partners to prepare and respond to the impact of such public health events. Community partners should use this guidebook to advance health equity by addressing needs experienced by disadvantaged communities and vulnerable populations

La Casita center: an accompaniment based approach to social justice and social service.

La Casita Center is a Louisville based nonprofit organization that accompanies Latinx immigrants in the Louisville Metro area. and that is led and staffed by Latina immigrants. In this thesis, I investigate how employees of this Latinx-immigrant led nonprofit organization, navigate challenges to both administer service and build community using the model of accompaniment. Organizations like La Casita are critically important for Latinx newcomer communities in the United States and as neoliberal and nativist-inspired policiescontinue to oppress and marginalize, La Casita provides a model for what it means to center inclusion, belonging, community, and solidarity. In a global landscape of market-orientation, how can an alternative based on accompaniment depart from mainstream expectations of social service provision