User Education

You notice the flashing notification in the corner of your screen. Click: Claim Chat. Chat00568: Hi! I’m writing a paper about Black representation in opera and trying to find a copy of Fire Shut Up in My Bones. I tried googling but wasn’t able to find it. Do you know where I can find a copy? Music Librarian: What a great topic! One moment while I search for that. Furiously searches all of the standard places for a new opera score. Fire Shut Up in My Bones is too new to be commercially available but it does look like there are a few options to view or listen to a recording of a production. Music Librarian: It looks like the score is not available for purchase or rental, yet. Let me see if we have an audio or video recording. Music Librarian: Alas, we don’t have it on CD, DVD, or access through any of our streaming services. Based on my WorldCat search, a few other music libraries in the region have a copy of the DVD. Would you like help placing an ILL request? Chat00568: That would be great! Thanks! Could you help me find scholarly articles about the opera, too? Music Librarian: Sure! Why don’t we set up a research consultation for later this week? You can schedule a meeting with me using my online scheduler. Would you prefer to meet virtually or in-person . . . You start drafting an email to the opera history professor to discuss scheduling a library instruction session. As Leslie Troutman noted in the “User Education” essay for the Current State of Music Librarianship in 2000 (upon which the above interaction is modeled), “Whether we call it user education, library-use instruction, or bibliographic instruction, the goal is the same: to teach our users to be effective, efficient, and independent researchers.” The nomenclature continues to change, and today, librarians are more likely to use the terms information literacy instruction or library instruction, but the main goals of user education remain. It is the information landscape and expectations for the methods and modes of delivery themselves that are radically different. This essay will provide a brief overview of the changes and developments in library instruction, with an emphasis on music libraries in higher education, that have occurred since the 2000 essay in an effort to capture what user education looks like in music librarianship today

Generative AI and Copyright: A Dynamic Perspective

The rapid advancement of generative AI is poised to disrupt the creative industry. Amidst the immense excitement for this new technology, its future development and applications in the creative industry hinge crucially upon two copyright issues: 1) the compensation to creators whose content has been used to train generative AI models (the fair use standard); and 2) the eligibility of AI-generated content for copyright protection (AI-copyrightability). While both issues have ignited heated debates among academics and practitioners, most analysis has focused on their challenges posed to existing copyright doctrines. In this paper, we aim to better understand the economic implications of these two regulatory issues and their interactions. By constructing a dynamic model with endogenous content creation and AI model development, we unravel the impacts of the fair use standard and AI-copyrightability on AI development, AI company profit, creators income, and consumer welfare, and how these impacts are influenced by various economic and operational factors. For example, while generous fair use (use data for AI training without compensating the creator) benefits all parties when abundant training data exists, it can hurt creators and consumers when such data is scarce. Similarly, stronger AI-copyrightability (AI content enjoys more copyright protection) could hinder AI development and reduce social welfare. Our analysis also highlights the complex interplay between these two copyright issues. For instance, when existing training data is scarce, generous fair use may be preferred only when AI-copyrightability is weak. Our findings underscore the need for policymakers to embrace a dynamic, context-specific approach in making regulatory decisions and provide insights for business leaders navigating the complexities of the global regulatory environment

InstructHumans: Editing Animated 3D Human Textures with Instructions

We present InstructHumans, a novel framework for instruction-driven 3D human texture editing. Existing text-based editing methods use Score Distillation Sampling (SDS) to distill guidance from generative models. This work shows that naively using such scores is harmful to editing as they destroy consistency with the source avatar. Instead, we propose an alternate SDS for Editing (SDS-E) that selectively incorporates subterms of SDS across diffusion timesteps. We further enhance SDS-E with spatial smoothness regularization and gradient-based viewpoint sampling to achieve high-quality edits with sharp and high-fidelity detailing. InstructHumans significantly outperforms existing 3D editing methods, consistent with the initial avatar while faithful to the textual instructions. Project page: https://jyzhu.top/instruct-humans .Comment: Project Page: https://jyzhu.top/instruct-human

An Environmental Justice Analysis: Superfund Sites and Surrounding Communities in Illinois

Is there an association between Superfund sites and the socioeconomic makeup of the surrounding communities? This research analyzes the current economic and racial demographics of Illinois counties that contain Superfund sites. Specifically, variables that are indicators of environmental injustice are analyzed; e.g. race, median household income, and home ownership. Since the inception of the environmental justice movement in the late 1980s, studies have been conducted nationally and at state levels in Michigan, California, Ohio, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina (i.e. Cutter 2006; Mohai & Saha 2006; Pastor et al. 2004; Anderton et al. 1997; Bevc et al. 2007; Bowen et al. 1995). However, environmental justice research specific to the state of Illinois is largely unexplored. This research will better identify environmental disparities in rural Illinois counties that have little or no minority population. Additionally, this research adopts a distance-based spatial analysis approach in an attempt to achieve results more precise than previous unit-hazard coincidence analysis methods (Mohai & Saha 2006). Areal apportionment methodology is used to analyze demographic data from the 2000 United States (U.S.) Census Summary Files (SF1 and SF3) for the impacted counties in Illinois. This research uses ArcView GIS™ (Version 9.2) to create buffer zones of one-, two-, and five-miles centered on X, Y coordinates obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These uniform neighborhoods are used to determine percentages of racial minority, median household income, and home ownership within these radii. The results are then compared to percentages calculated from the remainder of the county population to establish foremost, if specific environmental injustice criteria are met and subsequently, examine how social and racial demographics within the buffer zone vary with respect to the distance from the Superfund site. This research yields essential data for urban and community planners within Illinois. First, this research identifies areas of environmental inequality to be targeted for future amelioration. Secondly, this research better characterizes the relationship between environmental hazards and surrounding communities, both urban and rural. Thirdly, this research will enable city planners to site future environmental hazards judiciously. Lastly, this research is a stepping-stone toward a more detailed longitudinal study of environmental justice in Illinois

An Environmental Justice Analysis: Superfund Sites and Surrounding Communities in Illinois

Is there an association between Superfund sites and the socioeconomic makeup of the surrounding communities? This research analyzes the current economic and racial demographics of Illinois counties that contain Superfund sites. Specifically, variables that are indicators of environmental injustice are analyzed; e.g. race, median household income, and home ownership. Since the inception of the environmental justice movement in the late 1980s, studies have been conducted nationally and at state levels in Michigan, California, Ohio, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina (i.e. Cutter 2006; Mohai & Saha 2006; Pastor et al. 2004; Anderton et al. 1997; Bevc et al. 2007; Bowen et al. 1995). However, environmental justice research specific to the state of Illinois is largely unexplored. This research will better identify environmental disparities in rural Illinois counties that have little or no minority population. Additionally, this research adopts a distance-based spatial analysis approach in an attempt to achieve results more precise than previous unit-hazard coincidence analysis methods (Mohai & Saha 2006). Areal apportionment methodology is used to analyze demographic data from the 2000 United States (U.S.) Census Summary Files (SF1 and SF3) for the impacted counties in Illinois. This research uses ArcView GIS™ (Version 9.2) to create buffer zones of one-, two-, and five-miles centered on X, Y coordinates obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These uniform neighborhoods are used to determine percentages of racial minority, median household income, and home ownership within these radii. The results are then compared to percentages calculated from the remainder of the county population to establish foremost, if specific environmental injustice criteria are met and subsequently, examine how social and racial demographics within the buffer zone vary with respect to the distance from the Superfund site. This research yields essential data for urban and community planners within Illinois. First, this research identifies areas of environmental inequality to be targeted for future amelioration. Secondly, this research better characterizes the relationship between environmental hazards and surrounding communities, both urban and rural. Thirdly, this research will enable city planners to site future environmental hazards judiciously. Lastly, this research is a stepping-stone toward a more detailed longitudinal study of environmental justice in Illinois

Helping the Blind to Get through COVID-19: Social Distancing Assistant Using Real-Time Semantic Segmentation on RGB-D Video

The current COVID-19 pandemic is having a major impact on our daily lives. Social distancing is one of the measures that has been implemented with the aim of slowing the spread of the disease, but it is difficult for blind people to comply with this. In this paper, we present a system that helps blind people to maintain physical distance to other persons using a combination of RGB and depth cameras. We use a real-time semantic segmentation algorithm on the RGB camera to detect where persons are and use the depth camera to assess the distance to them; then, we provide audio feedback through bone-conducting headphones if a person is closer than 1.5 m. Our system warns the user only if persons are nearby but does not react to non-person objects such as walls, trees or doors; thus, it is not intrusive, and it is possible to use it in combination with other assistive devices. We have tested our prototype system on one blind and four blindfolded persons, and found that the system is precise, easy to use, and amounts to low cognitive load

Human amniotic fluid stem cells do not differentiate into dopamine neurons in vitro or after transplantation in vivo.

Although embryonic stem (ES) cells can generate dopamine (DA) neurons that are potentially useful as a cell replacement therapy in Parkinson\u27s disease (PD), associated ethical and practical concerns remain major stumbling blocks to their eventual use in humans. In this study, we examined human amniotic fluid stem (hAFS) cells derived from routine amniocenteses for their potential to give rise to DA neurons in vitro and following transplantation into the 6-hydroxydopamine-lesioned rat brain. We show that undifferentiated hAFS cells constitutively expressed mRNAs and proteins typical of stem cells but also cell derivatives of all three germ layers, including neural progenitors/neurons (nestin, beta-tubulin III, neurofilament). Additionally, these cells expressed mRNAs of an immature DA phenotype (Lmx1a, Pitx-3, Nurr1, Aldh1a1) but not the corresponding proteins. Importantly, treatment with DA differentiation factors using a variety of protocols did not further promote the development of fully differentiated DA neurons from hAFS cells. Thus, Lmx1a, Aldh1a1, AADC, TH, and DAT proteins were not detected in hAFS cells in culture or after transplantation into the PD rat brain. Moreover, by 3 weeks after implantation, there were no surviving AFS cells in the graft, likely as a result of an acute immunorejection response, as evidenced by the abundant presence of CD11+ macrophage/microglia and reactive GFAP+ astrocytes in the host brain. Taken together, these results suggest that further studies will be needed to improve differentiation procedures in culture and to prolong cell survival in vivo if hAFS cells are to be useful as replacement cells in PD