Enhancing the Academic Library Experience with Chatbots: An Exploration of Research and Implications for Practice

© 2019, © 2019 Ayu Susan Mckie and Bhuva Narayan. This paper explores the potential of using chatbots to improve the academic research experience for university students with a literature-based discussion reflecting on a prototype being developed at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). The paper proposes that information professionals need to adapt emerging technologies such as chatbots to innovate, improve and support library services. Designing a positive experience for the user is essential to ensure that such technological solutions are sustainable. In this exploratory paper, we argue that it is important that librarians engage with the conversational design of the library chatbot in collaboration with the technology developers in order to make it useful, friendly, trustworthy, and customisable for university students

A Perspective on the Historical Analysis of Race and Treatment Storage and Disposal Facilities in the United States

Studies of environmental injustice have been intensely scrutinized by social science researchers since the publication of the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice report entitled Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States in 1987. Importantly, there has been an emphasis on analysing longitudinal data to answer the question 'which came first, people or pollution?' In addition, determining where environmental hazards are located and how demographics around those hazards are estimated has become central to any empirical enquiry on the topic. This new letter by Mohai and Saha (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 115008) adds to our emerging understanding of environmental justice by analysing the distribution of Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facilities across the United States to determine why they are concentrated in non-white and low income neighbourhoods. The researchers clearly demonstrate how longitudinal analysis and advances in geographic information system methodology can help address meaningful social questions about environmental inequality that are central to environmental policy and practice

X-ray diffraction from shock-loaded polycrystals

X-ray diffraction was demonstrated from shock-compressed polycrystalline metal on nanosecond time scales. Laser ablation was used to induce shock waves in polycrystalline foils of Be, 25 to 125 microns thick. A second laser pulse was used to generate a plasma x-ray source by irradiation of a Ti foil. The x-ray source was collimated to produce a beam of controllable diameter, and the beam was directed at the Be sample. X-rays were diffracted from the sample, and detected using films and x-ray streak cameras. The diffraction angle was observed to change with shock pressure. The diffraction angles were consistent with the uniaxial (elastic) and isotropic (plastic) compressions expected for the loading conditions used. Polycrystalline diffraction will be used to measure the response of the crystal lattice to high shock pressures and through phase changes

Threshold concepts: Impacts on teaching and learning at tertiary level

This project explored teaching and learning of hard-to-learn threshold concepts in first-year English, an electrical engineering course, leadership courses, and in doctoral writing. The project was envisioned to produce disciplinary case studies that lecturers could use to reflect on and refine their curriculum and pedagogy, thereby contributing to discussion about the relationship between theory and methodology in higher education research (Shay, Ashwin, & Case, 2009). A team of seven academics investigated lecturers’ awareness and emergent knowledge of threshold concepts and associated pedagogies and how such pedagogies can afford opportunities for learning. As part of this examination the lecturers also explored the role of threshold concept theory in designing curricula and sought to find the commonalities in threshold concepts and their teaching and learning across the four disciplines. The research highlights new ways of teaching threshold concepts to help students learn concepts that are fundamental to the disciplines they are studying and expand their educational experiences. Given that much of the international research in this field focuses on the identification of threshold concepts and debates their characteristics (Barradell, 2013; Flanagan, 2014; Knight, Callaghan, Baldock, & Meyer, 2013), our exploration of what happens when lecturers use threshold concept theory to re-envision their curriculum and teaching helps to address a gap within the field. By addressing an important theoretical and practical approach the project makes a considerable contribution to teaching and learning at the tertiary level in general and to each discipline in particular

A Remote Laser System for Material Characterization at High Temperatures

For many years, new techniques have been developed to overcome the problems involved with the generation and detection of ultrasound in materials at high temperature [1,2]. A non-contacting technique is described using lasers to generate and detect ultrasound and which can be used to study the variation in acoustic velocity as a function of temperature. Results are presented for the change in longitudinal velocity (vℓ) with increasing temperature in five polycrystalline materials, namely Dural, aluminum, AISI-310 stainless steel, iron and graphite

Keystone coleopterans? Colonization by wood-feeding elmids of experimentally immersed woods in south-eastern Australia

Macroinvertebrates on immersed woods in streams in montane south-eastern Australia respond to differences in wood taxa, according to a 4-month colonization study of experimentally positioned sticks. Xylophagous elmids (Coleoptera : Elmidae) strongly preferred local native Eucalyptus over other types of wood including non-native softer timbers (Pinus and Alnus). Where gouging elmids were abundant (in native forest streams with native riparian vegetation), immersed Eucalyptus wood supported high abundances of other macroinvertebrates; in their absence (in open grassland streams), Eucalyptus supported few other macroinvertebrates. Macroinvertebrate-gouged channels were present disproportionately on Eucalyptus sticks relative to other wood species. It is proposed that xylophagous elmid beetles are the principal macroinvertebrate modifiers of wood in these south-eastern Australian streams, where their gouging of channels increases surface area, thereby facilitating colonization by other macroinvertebrates and wood-decaying microorganisms and fungi

Lipid Thermotropic Transitions in Human Stratum Corneum

The techniques of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermal perturbation infrared (IR) spectrometry were used to investigate thermal transitions in intact, fractionated, and lipid-extracted human stratum corneum. The DSC results show 3 major and one minor thermal transition in the range of 30-120°C. Of particular interest to this study are 2 transitions seen near 65° and 75°C in intact stratum corneum and a stratum corneum membrane preparation, but absent from lipid-extracted samples. Results of IR spectrometry show that thermally induced spectral changes related to enhanced motion of the lipid acyl chains also occur in the region of about 60-80°C. The combined DSC and IR results show that the thermal transitions near 65° and 75°C depend on water concentration in a manner identical to that seen for a variety of lipid-water systems. Taken together, these results suggest that thermal transitions occurring near 65° and 85°C involve increased acyl chain motion of stratum corneum lipids

Agricultural land use weakens the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

Leaf litter decomposition is a significant ecosystem process for streams' energy provisioning, while species-specific decomposition rates often form a continuum from slow to fast decomposing species allowing for resources' availability to stream consumers over a longer time period after leaf fall. Leaf litter mixtures in streams typically comprise leaf species varying in their traits, allowing for litter diversity effects on decomposition. At the same time, agricultural land use, habitat characteristics, water quality and invertebrate composition modulate leaf litter decomposition. To identify leaf litter diversity effects and disentangle the roles of agricultural intensity, habitat characteristics, water quality and invertebrate composition for leaf litter processing in streams, we quantified leaf litter decomposition of three leaf species covering a gradient from slow to fast decomposing species, tested either individually or as a three-species mixture. The study was conducted over 21 days across 18 streams with a gradient of agricultural intensity (percent agricultural land use) in their catchments. We found leaf litter diversity effects in terms of complementarity under low to intermediate agricultural intensity, given that slow decomposing leaf species decomposed almost twice as fast in the three-species mixture compared to the observations on individual leaf species. This leaf litter diversity effect decreased with increasing agricultural intensity, suggesting that agriculture weakens the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship. However, pathways by which agriculture affected decomposition differed between single-species and mixed-species scenarios. For the single-species scenario, negative effects of agriculture appeared to be mediated through effects on the proportion of sensitive detritivore species and altered habitat characteristics. For the mixed-species scenario, altered water quality negatively affected the proportion of sensitive detritivore species, in turn reducing the diversity effect on functioning. Our results suggest that the weakened biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship under increasing agricultural intensity might be a significant factor threatening carbon cycling and food web integrity in streams