Peeling back the layers: Deconstructing information literacy discourse in higher education

The discourses of information literacy practice create epistemological assumptions about how the practice should happen, who should be responsible and under what conditions instruction should be given. Analysis of a wide range of documents and texts emerging from the Higher Education (HE) sector suggest that information literacy (IL) is shaped by two competing and incongruent narratives. The outward facing narrative of information literacy (located in information literacy standards and guidelines) positions information literacy as an empowering practice that arms students with the knowledge and skills to battle the complexity of the modern information world. In contrast, the inward facing narrative (located in information literacy texts) positions students as lacking appropriate knowledge, skills and agency. This deficit perception, which has the capacity to influence pedagogical practice, is at odds with constructivist and action-oriented views that are espoused within information literacy instructional pedagogy. This presentation represents the first paper in a research programme that interrogates the epistemological premises and discourses of information literacy within HE

Cost effectiveness of first-line oral therapies for pulmonary arterial hypertension: A modelling study

Background: In recent years, a significant number of costly oral therapies have become available for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Funding decisions for these therapies requires weighing up their effectiveness and costs. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the cost effectiveness of monotherapy with oral PAH-specific therapies versus supportive care as initial therapy for patients with functional class (FC) II and III PAH in Canada. Methods: A cost-utility analysis, from the perspective of a healthcare system and based on a Markov model, was designed to estimate the costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) associated with bosentan, ambrisentan, riociguat, tadalafil, sildenafil and supportive care for PAH in treatment-naïve patients. Separate analyses were conducted for cohorts of patients commencing therapy at FC II and III PAH. Transition probabilities, based on the relative risk of improving and worsening in FC with treatment versus placebo, were derived from a recent network meta-analysis. Utility values and costs were obtained from published data and clinical expert opinion. Extensive sensitivity analyses were conducted. Results: Analysis suggests that sildenafil is the most cost-effective therapy for PAH in patients with FC II or III. Sildenafil was both the least costly and most effective therapy, thereby dominating all other treatments. Tadalafil was also less costly and more effective than supportive care in FC II and III; however, sildenafil was dominant over tadalafil. Even given the uncertainty within the clinical inputs, the probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that apart from sildenafil and tadalafil, the other PAH therapies had negligible probability of being the most cost effective. Conclusion: The results show that initiation of therapy with sildenafil is likely the most cost-effective strategy in PAH patients with either FC II or III disease.This research was supported by funds from the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH)

“Finding the Lines to My People”: Media History and Queer Bibliographic Encounter

This article examines the materiality, construction, and circulation strategies of LGBTQ information interfaces within a longer genealogy of media practices that troubles the Internet’s predominance in understandings of queer self-formation. It focuses on a particular bibliographic project: The Gay Bibliography (1971–1980) produced by lifetime activist Barbara Gittings in her role as coordinator of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Task Force on Gay Liberation. The article examines the role of bibliographies in the gay liberation movement’s broader information activism, and develops a longer history of “queer bibliographic encounters” that connects these older practices with paper to theorizations of queer youth and online media in the present. Methodologically, the paper analyzes a collection of several hundred letters sent to Gittings to request the bibliography, in order to examine the affective economies of information interfaces in LGBTQ contexts. The article argues that the prevalence of bibliographic encounters across a range of “old” and “new” media provides a model for understanding how information interfaces construct the subjects and stakes of social movements across time, and for imagining new forms of knowledge mobilization that expand the terms of movement participation.&nbsp

The global subject of precarity

Peer reviewedPostprin

Water as the forest habitat quality differentiating factor within flooding areas of the NATURA 2000 system

Nadrzeczne siedliska leśne są terenami niezwykle cennymi ekologicznie, wiele z nich należy do sieci NATURA 2000. Niestety, warunki wodne na tych obszarach w ostatnich dziesięcioleciach uległy bardzo dużym zmianom, a zmiany te mają wpływ na ich degradację. Z tego względu podjęto badania nad różnicowaniem się siedlisk pod wpływem zmiennych warunków wodnych na terenach zalewowych, biorąc pod uwagę odrzański polder zalewowy Lipki-Oława, porośnięty lasem. W artykule przedstawiona została analiza warunków wodnych i siedliskowych wykonana w latach 1997–2000.Riverline woodland habitats are extremely valuable in terms of ecology, and many of them are included to the Natura 2000 network. Unfortunately, in recent decades water conditions on these areas have considerably changed, what is causing their degradation. For that reason, studies on differentiation of habitats determined by variable water conditions in flading areas have been curried out. The case study was Oława-Lipki flood polder, covered with forest. This article presents an analysis of water and habitat conditions executed in years 1997–2000

The dynamism of the light conditions changes in a carp pond during a breeding period

In the paper there have been presented the results of a fi eld studies performed in 2001–2003 (carp breeding period), in order to establish the dynamism of the light conditions changes in a fi sh pond. The infl uence of shade caused by vegetation growing on the shore of the light conditions in the pond has been also analyzed. The results show a great changeability of the light conditions in a breeding period characterized by the tendency to worsen of the light conditions in the pond till the extreme conditions of a complete absorption of the sunlight by the surface layers of the pond water and, observed from the middle of June, 24 hours – night on the pond bottom