Participation as pedagogy: Student and librarian experiences of an Open Access publishing assignment

Education for Instruction Librarians has traditionally centered upon the acquisition of practical classroom skills. While this approach has merit, from a sociocultural perspective of learning, student development emerges more completely through engagement with the communal activities and values that constitute professional practices rather than through the achievement of individual competencies. Drawing upon these understandings, this paper reports on the experiences of an Open Access writing assignment that was librarian-reviewed. The assignment was designed to build student participation within Instruction Librarian practices and communities. Focused upon the 19 student and 19 librarian-reviewer experiences (38 total) of the assignment, the survey-based methodology that is used in this study reveals a lack of communication between student and practitioner Instruction Librarians as well as the importance of the assignment to both student and librarian learning. These findings demonstrate that developing student access to professional practices and communities can be beneficial for students as well as for Instruction Librarians

Seeing information: Visual methods as entry points to information practices

Recognising the importance of exploring multimodal experiences of information, this paper provides a detailed examination of the scope of visual research methods within information practices research. More specifically, the paper will use the examples from one completed study (Lloyd and Wilkinson, 2017) and one ongoing study (Hicks, in progress) to discuss and provide a detailed examination of the use, affordances and limitations of two research methods that centre upon participant-created photographs: photo-elicitation and photovoice. Demonstrating that the use of photographs helps to evoke and communicate complex meaning as well as to mediate between linguistic, temporal and spatial constraints, this study highlights the continuing need to develop research methods that privilege participants’ understandings and perspectives

Finite Element Modeling of Ultrasonic Waves Produced by a Pulsed Laser

As part of an effort to apply laser ultrasonics to stress evaluation, sequential thermal and mechanical finite element analyses were used to simulate heating a region of an aluminum surface by a laser pulse and the stress waves that result. As residual or applied stresses can be related to changes in wave velocities, time-of-flight measurements may be used to determine the stresses. The goal of the effort is to improve time-of-flight measurements, and therefore resolution of the calculated stresses, using calculated waveform shapes in model-based signal processing techniques [1]. Detailed finite element simulations of laser ultrasonics may also be used to aid development of techniques that can generate narrow band ultrasound. Because penetration of Rayleigh waves is frequency dependent, they can be used to obtain information about gradients near a surface. If the frequency of the laser generated Rayleigh waves can be controlled, laser ultrasound becomes a more useful tool for examining gradients in material properties or stresses at the surface of a part

The effectiveness and satisfaction of web-based physiotherapy in people with spinal cord injury: a pilot randomised controlled trial

Study Design: Pilot randomised controlled trial. Objectives: The aims of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness and participant satisfaction of web-based physiotherapy for people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). Setting: Community patients of a national spinal injury unit in a university teaching hospital, Scotland, UK. Methods: Twenty-four participants were recruited and randomised to receive eight weeks of web-based physiotherapy (intervention), twice per week, or usual care (control). Individual exercise programmes were prescribed based upon participant’s abilities. The intervention was delivered via a website (www.webbasedphysio.com) and monitored and progressed remotely by the physiotherapist. Results: Participants logged on to the website an average of 1.4±0.8 times per week. Between-group differences, although not significant were more pronounced for the 6 minute walk test. Participants were positive about using web-based physiotherapy and stated they would be happy to use it again and would recommend it to others. Overall it was rated as either good or excellent. Conclusions: Web-based physiotherapy was feasible and acceptable for people with SCI. Participants achieved good compliance with the intervention, rated the programme highly and beneficial for health and well-being at various states post injury. The results of this study warrant further work with a more homogenous sample

Bottom mixed layer oxygen dynamics in the Celtic Sea

The seasonally stratified continental shelf seas are highly productive, economically important environments which are under considerable pressure from human activity. Global dissolved oxygen concentrations have shown rapid reductions in response to anthropogenic forcing since at least the middle of the twentieth century. Oxygen consumption is at the same time linked to the cycling of atmospheric carbon, with oxygen being a proxy for carbon remineralisation and the release of CO2. In the seasonally stratified seas the bottom mixed layer (BML) is partially isolated from the atmosphere and is thus controlled by interplay between oxygen consumption processes, vertical and horizontal advection. Oxygen consumption rates can be both spatially and temporally dynamic, but these dynamics are often missed with incubation based techniques. Here we adopt a Bayesian approach to determining total BML oxygen consumption rates from a high resolution oxygen time-series. This incorporates both our knowledge and our uncertainty of the various processes which control the oxygen inventory. Total BML rates integrate both processes in the water column and at the sediment interface. These observations span the stratified period of the Celtic Sea and across both sandy and muddy sediment types. We show how horizontal advection, tidal forcing and vertical mixing together control the bottom mixed layer oxygen concentrations at various times over the stratified period. Our muddy-sand site shows cyclic spring-neap mediated changes in oxygen consumption driven by the frequent resuspension or ventilation of the seabed. We see evidence for prolonged periods of increased vertical mixing which provide the ventilation necessary to support the high rates of consumption observed

Genetic Determinants of Circulating Sphingolipid Concentrations in European Populations

Sphingolipids have essential roles as structural components of cell membranes and in cell signalling, and disruption of their metabolism causes several diseases, with diverse neurological, psychiatric, and metabolic consequences. Increasingly, variants within a few of the genes that encode enzymes involved in sphingolipid metabolism are being associated with complex disease phenotypes. Direct experimental evidence supports a role of specific sphingolipid species in several common complex chronic disease processes including atherosclerotic plaque formation, myocardial infarction (MI), cardiomyopathy, pancreatic beta-cell failure, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Therefore, sphingolipids represent novel and important intermediate phenotypes for genetic analysis, yet little is known about the major genetic variants that influence their circulating levels in the general population. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) between 318,237 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and levels of circulating sphingomyelin (SM), dihydrosphingomyelin (Dih-SM), ceramide (Cer), and glucosylceramide (GluCer) single lipid species (33 traits); and 43 matched metabolite ratios measured in 4,400 subjects from five diverse European populations. Associated variants (32) in five genomic regions were identified with genome-wide significant corrected p-values ranging down to 9.08 x 10(-66). The strongest associations were observed in or near 7 genes functionally involved in ceramide biosynthesis and trafficking: SPTLC3, LASS4, SGPP1, ATP10D, and FADS1-3. Variants in 3 loci (ATP10D, FADS3, and SPTLC3) associate with MI in a series of three German MI studies. An additional 70 variants across 23 candidate genes involved in sphingolipid-metabolizing pathways also demonstrate association (p = 10(-4) or less). Circulating concentrations of several key components in sphingolipid metabolism are thus under strong genetic control, and variants in these loci can be tested for a role in the development of common cardiovascular, metabolic, neurological, and psychiatric diseases