PALS and Open Source

PALS has been working with open source technologies including an electronic resource management (ERM) system, an openURL link resolver, a discovery tool, and an integrated library system (ILS). While these tools provide benefits to your staff and patrons, there are challenges in the configuration and setup. In this session we will share our experiences with working in the open source community - both the obstacles and opportunities

Tempered Radicalism and Intersectionality: Scholar-Activism in the Neoliberal University

Using a collaborative critical personal narrative methodology grounded in intersectionality, we interrogated tensions in identifying ourselves as tempered radicals and scholar-activists who were involved in a local university-community activist organization. We assert the value of informal activist spaces within the university and identify issues related to the lack of recognition of scholar-activism as legitimate scholarship, including the paradox of universities as colonizing and liberatory spaces for community engagement and activism. Our themes highlight how mentorship affects scholar-activism and how activism transforms and disrupts the neoliberal university. Yet, activism is rendered invisible, making homeplaces for scholar-activism critical for students, faculty, staff, and the community to address structural inequalities within and outside of the university. We conclude with recommendations to improve mentorship for scholar-activists, to revise tenure and promotion policies to include scholar-activism, and to recognize spaces within the academy that honor scholar-activism as a critical form of praxis informed by intersectionality

New Mexico\u27s Nuclear Enchantment: Local Politics, National Imperatives, and Radioactive Waste Disposal in the Desert

The use of nuclear technologies has left an indelible mark on American society. The environmental, political, economic, and social costs of creating, producing, and utilizing technologies such as nuclear weapons and nuclear energy have left a legacy of radioactive waste. To date, there is no comprehensive path for disposing of the different kinds of waste produced by the nuclear industry, including spent nuclear fuel that is now held on site at nuclear power plants. The question of how to deal with nuclear waste has plagued the nuclear industry, governmental agencies, and the concerned public for most of the nuclear era. There is one permanent geologic repository in the U.S., called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located in the salt beds outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Presently, WIPP is only allowed to hold low-level transuranic waste produced by military installations during the Cold War. This project looks at the ways that federal attention has turned to this remote site in the Chihuahuan Desert as a potential solution for storing high-level nuclear waste as well. Using ethnographies, archival research, and the ideas expressed at numerous public meeting held in the region, this project shows how nuclear communities are framed in discourses surrounding nuclear waste through the concept of nuclearism, which posits that nuclear technologies are wholly beneficial to society. Specifically, this project examines how concepts involving the immutability of nature and science interact to form problematic assumptions regarding the behavior of the environment in relation to nuclear waste. Furthermore, conversations that focus solely on the production of sound science ignore the political and social consequences of creating and moving nuclear waste across the country, ensnaring more communities into the web of potential nuclear consequences. Nuclear issues also intersect different scales, troubling the idea of local consent, the idea of a homogenous public, and whether nuclear technologies can be tools of democracy. The events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011 underscored the delicate balance of technology and nature, and showed the inherent vulnerabilities of complex technological systems. By connecting the complex natures of the desert, salt, radiation, and time together with questions of political representation, this project looks at how the nuclear future is being shaped in the desert of New Mexico

Optical Readout in a Multi-Module System Test for the ATLAS Pixel Detector

The innermost part of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, CERN, will be a pixel detector. The command messages and the readout data of the detector are transmitted over an optical data path. The readout chain consists of many components which are produced at several locations around the world, and must work together in the pixel detector. To verify that these parts are working together as expected a system test has been built up. In this paper the system test setup and the operation of the readout chain is described. Also, some results of tests using the final pixel detector readout chain are given.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, Pixel 2005 proceedings preprin

The relationship between biographical information and managerial potential as assessed on a sales management assessment centre

Bibliography: pages 42-44.Research designed to add to the body of knowledge facilitating the effective management of the human resource in industry has become critical in South Africa at a time when the country is experiencing a shortage of skilled manpower. Assessment centres have long been in use in South Africa as a means of assessing managerial potential. Notwithstanding reports of their predictive validity the process is costly and research pertaining to how managerial potential could be identified at an early stage by less costly means is thus potentially valuable. One such means is biodata, or biographical information, upon which basis the selection of staff has traditionally occurred, in line with the truism that past behaviour is predictive of future success. This study was thus designed to identify the biographical characteristics which distinguish a high managerial potential group from a low managerial potential group, as assessed by an assessment centre

Is University Nursing Education in Canada Taking the Lead in a World Focused on Sustainable Development? / La formation universitaire au Canada est-elle à l’avant-plan dans un monde centré sur le développment durable?

Global Health is widely being adopted by universities and higher education institutions in Canada and around the world. The current global climate has given rise to an emphasis on the necessity of global health education for nurses. Nursing educators as well as nursing students are seeking guidance as they integrate global health as part of their learning, teaching, research and practice. In September 2015, the member states of the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): seventeen goals to end poverty, protect the environment, and ensure health and well-being for all. These seventeen goals will guide the world’s development agenda for the next 15 years. Canadian universities, especially nursing faculties/schools are uniquely placed to help implement the SDGs, particularly goals three and four which focus on good health and well-being and quality education. Little has been done in understanding universities and in particular nursing’s overall commitment to achieving these 17 goals. Nursing is the largest health care provider group and it is critical to understand our educational responsibilities in attaining the SDGs. The purpose of this paper is to share findings from a study which examined Canada’s largest nursing faculties’/schools of nursing’s mission statements and strategic plans, and to discuss how these mandates align with the achievement of the SDGs. Résumé La notion de « santé mondiale » est largement utilisée par les universités et les établissements d’enseignement supérieur au Canada et partout dans le monde. Le climat mondial actuel a fait naître le besoin de former les infirmières au domaine de la santé mondiale. Les professeures et les étudiantes en sciences infirmières sont à la recherche d’orientations alors qu’elles intègrent la santé mondiale à leur apprentissage/enseignement, recherche et pratique. En septembre 2015, les États membres de l’ONU ont adopté les Objectifs de développement durable (ODD) : dix-sept objectifs qui visent à mettre fin à la pauvreté, à protéger l’environnement et à garantir la santé et le bien-être pour tous. Au cours des 15 prochaines années, ces dix-sept objectifs vont guider le développement à l’échelle mondiale. Les universités canadiennes, et surtout les facultés de sciences infirmières, sont particulièrement bien placées pour contribuer à la mise en œuvre de ces ODD, plus spécifiquement les objectifs trois et quatre qui portent sur la santé et le bien-être et une éducation de qualité. Peu d’efforts ont été faits pour comprendre l’engagement des universités et surtout, celui des sciences infirmières, pour atteindre ces 17 objectifs. Les infirmières représentent le plus important groupe de prestataires de soins de santé au pays, et il est essentiel de comprendre nos responsabilités en matière de formation pour la réalisation des ODD de l’ONU. Le but de cet article est de faire part des résultats d’une étude qui portait sur les énoncés de mission les plans stratégiques des plus grandes facultés de sciences infirmières/école de sciences infirmières au Canada, et de discuter de la correspondance de ces mandats avec l’atteinte de ces ODD

Better Together: Engaging Stakeholders in Learning and Leadership to Guide Foundation Resources Toward Adaptive Systems Change

In 2014, the Kansas Health Foundation brought together a group of knowledgeable stakeholders from a multitude of specialties to focus on reducing tobacco use specifically among Kansans with mental illness. Over 15 months, the group and the foundation worked to learn deeply about the issue and inform action that could be taken on individual, organizational, and systemic levels. The wealth of knowledge and experience brought by each participant to the discussion and learning about this complex issue, together from a range of perspectives, resulted in a more productive dialogue. The model proved very effective, as evidenced by the group’s success in achieving a number of policy, system, and environmental changes — including expanding cessation benefits available under Medicaid in Kansas — and could be replicated by any foundation. The foundation continues to work collaboratively on this issue and discover more about what is effective in reducing tobacco use. What it learned alongside its community partners has powerfully informed the foundation’s approach to this work and has resulted in meaningful change, at multiple levels, in the behavioral health system

From measurement to material – Preparing hyperspectral signatures for classification

Due to the possibility of classifying unknown materials fast and accurately the industries interest in spectroscopy is growing. However, reliable classification is a matter of suitable preprocessing. Existing solutions found in the literature are often very specific a particular combination of materials. In this paper we present a method to preprocesses hyperspectral data in order to enables general classification of many materials. The system is divided into five modules: selection, transformation, reduction, decorrelation and classification. We demonstrate our method in a demonstrator system that is available as both web- and standalone application