James Cottone

I think the most important takeaway from this semester is how influential visualizing data can be for establishing relationships between variables. Familiarity with tableau and access to a user license for the rest of my time at Temple was an added bonus. I am excited to be able to continue to work with open sourced data from local municipalities…[Read more]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/16/15657512/cambridge-analytica-trump-kushner-flynn-russia

Here is an explanation of how Cambridge Analytica used ‘big data’ to influence the 2016 US presidential election.
if the Department of Justice can prove that the Trump Campaign colluded with Russian Hackers and that Cambridge Analytica…[Read more]

The KPI that I use every day is “Precipitation %”; provided by the weather application “Weather Underground”. The application displays a line graph which visualizes the “Precipitation %” by hour within a day or by day within a week. The likelihood of rainfall is a specif aspect of weather conditions, it is measurable as it can be expressed as a…[Read more]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/11/politicians-take-a-negative-view-on-trade-deals-even-the-ones-they-voted-for/?utm_term=.867d92dca0c8

I found this article, (written by a Temple Political Science Professor), to be of interest. According to the data compiled by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, presidential/mid-term…[Read more]

In my opinion, data science/analytics will greatly influence education policy by creating new insights between students and teachers, teachers and administrators, and administrators and policy makers. I major in political science and I believe the largest area of transformation in my field will be how research is conducted. The hope is that the…[Read more]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/graham-cassidy-bill-would-cut-funding-to-34-states-new-report-shows/2017/09/20/48741d92-9d58-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.3426fdd5c498

Avalere Health, a Washington-based health-policy consulting firm, released a report last week which predicts that the new Senate…[Read more]

One example of conventional wisdom is that it is a better investment to buy a house rather than to rent one. To test this theory I would calculate the average costs for first time homeowners in Philadelphia in 2017 (downpayment, mortgage rates, tax deductions, property taxes, closing costs, and maintenance fees) and I would compare with the…[Read more]