TED-style Talk: Flying Blind: Creating a Library ORCID Integration Pilot

As part of the UNLV Libraries’ goal to determine an appropriate level of engagement with ORCID, our pre-pilot investigated the feasibility of a Libraries-led service to populate faculty ORCID profiles with citations for scholarly works, allowing UNLV to better track and promote their research. This project sought to test the requirements and scalability of using currently-available data to populate researcher profiles via the ORCID API, gauging the benefits against the cost in Library resources. We performed a field survey of similar institutions using ORCID, engaged with Libraries faculty for volunteers to create dummy profiles in the ORCID testing environment, and updated these profiles with real publication and employment data, iterating through technical issues and creating a report of our findings at the close of the pre-pilot. This presentation will cover the process and findings of the pre-pilot, including successes, lessons learned, and next steps

When middle really means 'top' or 'bottom':An analysis the 16PF5 using Bock’s nominal response model

When self-report items with a Likert-type scale include a middle response option (e.g., Unsure, Neither agree nor disagree, or ?), this middle option is assumed to measure a level of the trait intermediate between the high and low response categories. In this study, we tested this assumption in the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire, Version 5 (16PF5) by fitting Bock's nominal response model in the U.S. and UK standardization samples of the 16PF5. We found that in many cases, the middle option was indicative of higher levels of the latent trait than the ostensibly highest response option. In certain other cases, it was indicative of lower levels of the latent trait than the ostensibly lowest response option. This undermines the use of a simple successive integer scoring scheme where responses in adjacent response categories are assigned scores of 0, 1, and 2. Recommendations for alternative scoring schemes are provided. Results also suggested that certain personality traits, especially neurotic traits, are associated with a tendency toward selecting the middle option

Validation of the English language version of the Violent Ideations Scale

This study used a within-participant design to evaluate the concurrent validity and test–retest reliability of the Violent Ideations Scale in a general population, English-speaking opportunistic sample. Data from 116 adult participants (M age = 33.7, SD = 11.9, male = 30 [25.9%]) were used to compare scores on the Violent Ideations Scale and Aggression Questionnaire and responses to the Schedule of Imagined Violence. A subgroup of 27 participants (M age = 37.2, SD = 13.6, male = 8 [29.6%]) completed the Violent Ideations Scale on a second occasion, 2 weeks later. The Violent Ideations Scale was found to correlate significantly with the Aggression Questionnaire subscale and total scores, with the strongest correlations being with physical aggression and total scores. Participants were more likely to be categorized as having experienced a violent ideation based on responses to the Violent Ideation Scale, compared with the Schedule of Imagined Violence, most likely due to the Schedule of Imagined Violence underestimating the prevalence of violent ideation. A significant, strong correlation was found between total Violent Ideations Scale scores at Time 1 and Time 2. Overall, the Violent Ideations Scale was found to have concurrent validity when compared with the Aggression Questionnaire and good test–retest reliability, suggesting that it would be suitable for use with a nonclinical, English-speaking sampl

Higher bundle gerbes and cohomology classes in gauge theories

The notion of a higher bundle gerbe is introduced to give a geometric realization of the higher degree integral cohomology of certain manifolds. We consider examples using the infinite dimensional spaces arising in gauge theories.Comment: 16 pages, LaTe

ORCID Integration at the UNLV Libraries

As of spring 2018, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries is in the middle of its ORCID implementation for campus. The process began in late 2016, when UNLV became premium members of ORCID through a deal negotiated by the Greater Western Library Alliance. ORCID provides researchers with a persistent digital identifier, which disambiguates individuals and allows them to receive proper attribution and credit for their work. As premium members, the Libraries would receive reports from ORCID about researcher activity and have access to the ORCID API. With the API, the Libraries could receive notifications of our campus research activities and, if permitted by the researcher, update individual ORCID profiles. The Libraries also hoped that ORCID could bridge the different information systems on campus, such as the institutional repository (IR) and the faculty activity reporting system (FARS), allowing researcher-entered data to be reused in different campus systems without faculty having to re-enter it

The use of visible and near infrared reflectance spectroscopy to predict beef M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum quality attributes

Visible and near infrared reflectance spectroscopy was used to predict pH at 24 h (pH24) post-mortem, sarcomere length (SL), cooking loss (CL), Warner–Bratzler Shear Force (WBSF) and colour parameters (L*, a*, b*) in beef cattle samples. Samples from M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum from 30 bulls were aged at 4 C for 1, 3, 7 and 14 days and analysed for pH, SL, CL, WBSF and colour. NIRS calibrations for pH24, luminosity at 0 (L*t0) and 60 min (L*t60) showed good predictability (R2 = 0.97, 0.85 and 0.82; SECV = 0.10, 1.16, 1.36, respectively), whereas those related to the rest of the parameters were poore

Vortices and dynamics in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates

I review the basic physics of ultracold dilute trapped atomic gases, with emphasis on Bose-Einstein condensation and quantized vortices. The hydrodynamic form of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (a nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger equation) illuminates the role of the density and the quantum-mechanical phase. One unique feature of these experimental systems is the opportunity to study the dynamics of vortices in real time, in contrast to typical experiments on superfluid $^4$He. I discuss three specific examples (precession of single vortices, motion of vortex dipoles, and Tkachenko oscillations of a vortex array). Other unusual features include the study of quantum turbulence and the behavior for rapid rotation, when the vortices form dense regular arrays. Ultimately, the system is predicted to make a quantum phase transition to various highly correlated many-body states (analogous to bosonic quantum Hall states) that are not superfluid and do not have condensate wave functions. At present, this transition remains elusive. Conceivably, laser-induced synthetic vector potentials can serve to reach this intriguing phase transition.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Low Temperature Physics, conference proceedings: Symposia on Superfluids under Rotation (Lammi, Finland, April 2010