Learning from Degree-Seeking Older Adult Students in a University Library

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of library resources and services by degree-seeking older adult students (aged 50 years and over) and it is driven by the role of libraries in serving this often overlooked student population. Older adult students bring many benefits to the life of college campuses; nevertheless, many of these students also face challenges in meeting their information needs in academic libraries. Design/methodology/approach – The authors surveyed degree-seeking older adult students at a comprehensive metropolitan university in the western USA. Surveys were distributed to 579 students enrolled in the spring semester 2013, 134 students completed the 15-question online survey about the use of the library, information-seeking behaviors and use of other university services. Findings – The self-reported findings confirmed that the library meets most of the information needs of this student population. Students commented on satisfaction with the library services, barriers to using the library, areas in need of improvement and use of other university services. Research limitations/implications – Survey participants were gathered from one university and a corresponding sample size of 18-24-year-old students were not surveyed. More research is needed to demonstrate how this particular group varies from their traditional aged counterparts. Practical implications – This paper can be used as a starting point for future research into the information-seeking behaviors and needs of degree-seeking older adult students to develop greater understanding of this diverse population and their unique strengths and challenges. There is an absence in the literature on this demographic group in academic libraries. Originality/value – The article includes recommendations for further study and suggests outreach opportunities directed to older adult students that can also benefit the growing diversity of college students

High-power UV-LED degradation: Continuous and cycled working condition influence

High-power (HP) UV-LEDs can replace UV lamps for real-time fluoro-sensing applications by allowing portable and autonomous systems. However, HP UV-LEDs are not a mature technology, and there are still open issues regarding their performance evolution over time. This paper presents a reliability study of 3W UV-LEDs, with special focus on LED degradation for two working conditions: continuous and cycled (30 s ON and 30 s OFF). Accelerated life tests are developed to evaluate the influence of temperature and electrical working conditions in high-power LEDs degradation, being the predominant failure mechanism the degradation of the package. An analysis that includes dynamic thermal and optical HP UV-LED measurements has been performed. Static thermal and stress simulation analysis with the finite element method (FEM) identifies the causes of package degradation. Accelerated life test results prove that HP UV-LEDs working in cycled condition have a better performance than those working in continuous condition

Envisioning carbon-smart and just urban green infrastructure

To address the inter-connected climate and biodiversity crises, it is crucial to understand how multifunctional urban green infrastructure (UGI) is perceived to contribute to carbon neutrality, biodiversity, human well-being, and justice outcomes in cities. We explore how urban residents, including youth, associate carbon-related meanings with multifunctional UGI and how these meanings relate to co-benefits to biodiversity, well-being, and broader sustainability outcomes. Our findings are based on a survey distributed among urban residents of Helsinki, Finland (n = 487) and reveal how carbon-related meanings of UGI manifest at different levels of abstraction, agency, and scale, and incorporate community values and concerns attributed to the planning, features, functions, and transformational dimensions of UGI. Core carbon-related meanings of UGI emphasize either actions towards sustainability, carbon neutrality, biodiversity, or unfamiliarity towards such meanings. Perceived justice concerns and the socio-demographic contexts of the respondents covaried with carbon-related meanings associated with UGI. The results illustrate community perceptions of how it is not only possible, but rather expected, that multifunctional UGI is harnessed to tackle climate change, human well-being, and biodiversity loss in cities. Challenges for implementing the carbon-related benefits of UGI include navigating the different expectations placed on UGI and including residents with diverse socio-economic backgrounds during the process. Our findings contribute to a holistic understanding of how multifunctional UGI can help bridge policy agendas related to carbon neutrality, biodiversity protection, and human well-being that cities can implement when aiming for sustainable, just, and socially acceptable transitions towards a good Anthropocene

A gpu-based implementation of the mrf algorithm in itk package

The analysis of medical image, in particular Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), is a very useful tool to help the neurologists on the diagnosis. One of the stages on the analysis of MRI is given by a classification based on the Markov Random Fields (MRF) method. It is possible to find in the literature several packages to carry out this analysis, and of course, the classification tasks. One of them is the Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK). The analysis of MRI is an expensive computational task. In order to reduce the execution time spent on the analysis of MRI, parallelism techniques can be used. Currently, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are becoming a good choice to reduce the execution time of several applications at a low cost. In this paper, the authors present a GPU-based classification using MRF from the sequential implementation that appears in the ITK package. The experimental results show a spectacular execution time reduction being the GPU-based implementation up to 118 times faster than the sequential implementation included in the ITK package. Moreover, this result is also observed by reducing the total power consumption in a significant amount. Keywords: Magnetic resonance imaging ? Markov random fields ? Insight toolkit ? Graphics processing unit

Similarity search implementations for multi-core and many-core processors

Similarity search in a large collection of stored objects in a metric database has become a most interesting problem. The Spaghettis is an efficient metric data structure to index metric spaces. However, for real applications, when processing large volumes of data, query response time can be high enough. In this case, it is necessary to apply mechanisms in order to significantly reduce the average query response time. In this sense, the parallelization of the metric structures processing is an interesting field of research. Modern multi-core and many-core systems offer a very impressive cost/performance ratio. In this paper two new parallel implementations for range queries on Spaghettis data structures have been carried out: one of them on a many-core processor and the other one on a multi-core processor. Both implementations have been compared in terms of execution time and speedup

A gpu-based implementation for range queries on spaghettis data structure

Similarity search in a large collection of stored objects in a metric database has become a most interesting problem. The Spaghettis is an efficient metric data structure to index metric spaces. However, for real applications processing large volumes of generated data, query response times can be high enough. In these cases, it is necessary to apply mechanisms in order to significantly reduce the average query time. In this sense, the parallelization of metric structures is an interesting field of research. The recent appearance of GPUs for general purpose computing platforms offers powerful parallel processing capabilities. In this paper we propose a GPU-based implementation for Spaghettis metric structure. Firstly, we have adapted Spaghettis structure to GPU-based platform. Afterwards, we have compared both sequential and GPU-based implementation to analyse the performance, showing significant improvements in terms of time reduction, obtaining values of speed-up close to 10. Keywords: Databases ? similarity search ? metric spaces ? algorithms ? data structures ? parallel processing ? GPU ? CUD

Exposure to Sublethal Doses of Fipronil and Thiacloprid Highly Increases Mortality of Honeybees Previously Infected by Nosema ceranae

International audienceBACKGROUND: The honeybee, Apis mellifera, is undergoing a worldwide decline whose origin is still in debate. Studies performed for twenty years suggest that this decline may involve both infectious diseases and exposure to pesticides. Joint action of pathogens and chemicals are known to threaten several organisms but the combined effects of these stressors were poorly investigated in honeybees. Our study was designed to explore the effect of Nosema ceranae infection on honeybee sensitivity to sublethal doses of the insecticides fipronil and thiacloprid. METHODOLOGY/FINDING: Five days after their emergence, honeybees were divided in 6 experimental groups: (i) uninfected controls, (ii) infected with N. ceranae, (iii) uninfected and exposed to fipronil, (iv) uninfected and exposed to thiacloprid, (v) infected with N. ceranae and exposed 10 days post-infection (p.i.) to fipronil, and (vi) infected with N. ceranae and exposed 10 days p.i. to thiacloprid. Honeybee mortality and insecticide consumption were analyzed daily and the intestinal spore content was evaluated 20 days after infection. A significant increase in honeybee mortality was observed when N. ceranae-infected honeybees were exposed to sublethal doses of insecticides. Surprisingly, exposures to fipronil and thiacloprid had opposite effects on microsporidian spore production. Analysis of the honeybee detoxification system 10 days p.i. showed that N. ceranae infection induced an increase in glutathione-S-transferase activity in midgut and fat body but not in 7-ethoxycoumarin-O-deethylase activity. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: After exposure to sublethal doses of fipronil or thiacloprid a higher mortality was observed in N. ceranae-infected honeybees than in uninfected ones. The synergistic effect of N. ceranae and insecticide on honeybee mortality, however, did not appear strongly linked to a decrease of the insect detoxification system. These data support the hypothesis that the combination of the increasing prevalence of N. ceranae with high pesticide content in beehives may contribute to colony depopulation