Transforming Library Service Through Information Commons: Part 1 - Introduction

An introduction to the concept of the Information Commons in libraries

Transforming Library Service Through Information Commons: Part 2 - Definitions

Definitions of the Information Commons and Learning Commons models in libraries

Histology of the Embryonic Chick Mandible Following X-Irradiation

The sensitive period for the induction by x-irradiation of reduced mandibles in chick embryos was determined to be during the 5th day of incubation. Variations in mandibular anomalies can be correlated with the incidence and frequency of cell deaths. As exhibited by control mandibles, cell deaths around the distal ends of Meckel\u27 s cartilages through the 7th day may aid distal cartilage elongation. The variety of anomalies resulting from teratogenic doses is due, in part, to differences in sensitivity between embryos and their ability to recover from radiation damage. Bone development (initial ossification) in experimental embryos was retarded from 12 to 24 hours. The mandibular bones of the experimental embryos conformed to the abnormally curved and/or bent cartilage; membrane bones were shortened and blunted in their long dimensions

Mycoplasma pneumonia : an unusual cause of acute myocarditis in childhood

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is primarily a respiratory pathogen but may affect exhibit a diverse range of presentations from asymptomatic infection to life threatening conditions. Myocarditis of varying severity is an unusual complication. We report a 6 year old with mycoplasma myocarditis, a rare age for such a presentation, and who responded well to treatment with no sequelae. Serological testing for Mycoplasma pneumoniae should be part of the routine work-up for myocarditis.peer-reviewe

The effect of organic farming systems on aspects of the environment - desk study OF0123

Key Conclusions 1. The crop rotations of organic systems maintain landscape diversity and biodiversity whilst the maintenance of field boundaries on organic units produces benefits to a wide range of organisms. 2. Inorganic nitrogen fertilisation and herbicide treatments of conventionally managed grassland has reduced the floral diversity of permanent pastures and maintained the low diversity of re-seeded pastures, greatly reducing their value as wildlife habitats. 3. Pesticide use is responsible for the removal of food sourcesfor birds and mammals in the form of weeds and invertebrates, as well as removing whole populations of potentially beneficial insects. 4. The majority of water pollution incidents from farms are caused during storage and spreading of cattle and pig slurries. A higher proportion of organic cattle and virtually all organic pigs are kept on solid manure systems and therefore are les of a risk. 5. The nitrogen balance of individual 'conventional' and 'organic' systems will depend greatly on the circumstances and management practices of the individual farms. Consequently it is not possible to generalise that one system is always better than the other in terms of nitrate leaching risk. With this qualification the literature does indicate that generally, organic systems offer less risk of nitrate leaching. 6. Organic systems are less likely to cause loss of phosphate into surface and ground waters. Both leaching and loss in eroded soil are likely to be reduced. 7. Organic management practicess such as rotations, the regular use of manures and non-use of pesticides usually increase soil organic matter contents. 8. Organic practices are likely to increase earthworm numbers compared to conventional systems. The increased numbers are universally acknowledged to benefit soil fertility although such effects are difficult to quantify. 9. Soil erosion is less of a problem on organic units. 10. Accumulations of copper and zinc in soils are much reduced in organic systems because organic pig and poultry producers do not supplement feeds with these metals as growth promoters. Copper fungicides are more widely used on organic farms and their use should be carefully monitored to prevent harmful effects. 11. The practices adopted by organic farmers can reduce emissions of nitrous oxide and methane. Ammonia emissions will not necessarily be less in organic than in conventional farming. 12. Organic farmers adopt practices which benefit the landscape. They maintain and introduce features largely because they are required by the Organic Standards to do so. They introduce such management practices because they are technically necessary for successful organic production

“What? That’s for Old People, that.” Home Adaptations, Ageing and Stigmatisation: A Qualitative Inquiry

Older people, even those living with long-term conditions or poor mobility, can be supported to live well at home, through adapting their home to meet changing need. Installing home adaptations, from grab rails to walk in shower rooms, is cost effective, may prevent falls, reduce social isolation and improve self confidence. Despite austerity cuts to public spending, the UK government increased home adaptations’ funding. However, not much is known about older people’s experiences and understanding of acquiring and living with home adaptations and uptake of home adaptations could be improved. Using wearable camera and face to face interview data, this qualitative study explored a diverse group of older people’s retrospective experiences (n = 30). Focus group discussions were also carried out with a wide range of professionals involved in the provision of home adaptations (n = 39). Findings suggest people may delay having adaptations, because of perceived stigmatising associations with decline and vulnerability. As delaying the installation of home adaptations until crisis point is known to reduce their effectiveness, such associations need to be challenged

A deep learning framework for quality assessment and restoration in video endoscopy

Endoscopy is a routine imaging technique used for both diagnosis and minimally invasive surgical treatment. Artifacts such as motion blur, bubbles, specular reflections, floating objects and pixel saturation impede the visual interpretation and the automated analysis of endoscopy videos. Given the widespread use of endoscopy in different clinical applications, we contend that the robust and reliable identification of such artifacts and the automated restoration of corrupted video frames is a fundamental medical imaging problem. Existing state-of-the-art methods only deal with the detection and restoration of selected artifacts. However, typically endoscopy videos contain numerous artifacts which motivates to establish a comprehensive solution. We propose a fully automatic framework that can: 1) detect and classify six different primary artifacts, 2) provide a quality score for each frame and 3) restore mildly corrupted frames. To detect different artifacts our framework exploits fast multi-scale, single stage convolutional neural network detector. We introduce a quality metric to assess frame quality and predict image restoration success. Generative adversarial networks with carefully chosen regularization are finally used to restore corrupted frames. Our detector yields the highest mean average precision (mAP at 5% threshold) of 49.0 and the lowest computational time of 88 ms allowing for accurate real-time processing. Our restoration models for blind deblurring, saturation correction and inpainting demonstrate significant improvements over previous methods. On a set of 10 test videos we show that our approach preserves an average of 68.7% which is 25% more frames than that retained from the raw videos.Comment: 14 page

Key Issues in Agricultural Labour Markets: A Review of Major Studies and Project Reports on Agriculture and Rural Labour Markets. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 20, February 2012

This paper provides a synthesis of the empirical literature on the key issues in agricultural and rural labour markets since 1960s, drawing mainly upon studies from the United States and the European Union, but also including relevant material from developing countries. The contribution of this meta-analysis lies in its unique structure as it covers the main research questions which have been addressed in the literature and includes the most cited papers from the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Agricultural Economics, European Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Economics as well as other reports and EU funded projects. Each research question is accompanied by tabular summaries which classify the individual studies according to the methodology and the variables employed. The heterogeneous conditions across countries, the different research questions and methodologies, and the type of data employed, have sometimes led to conflicting results. Nonetheless, by comparing the results it is possible to assess the significance and the direction of the determinants of rural labour allocation and its adjustments, and thus contribute to a better understanding on the functioning of rural labour markets. Lastly, by recognising the importance of the institutional framework, the paper provides useful policy insights

The Reallocation of Agricultural Labour across Sectors: An Empirical Strategy for Micro Data. Factor Markets Working Document No. 45, May 2013

This paper presents an empirical methodology for studying the reallocation of agricultural labour across sectors from micro data. Whereas different approaches have been employed in the literature to better understand the mobility of labour, looking at the determinants to exit farm employment and enter off-farm activities, the initial decision of individuals to work in agriculture, as opposed to other sectors, has often been neglected. The proposed methodology controls for the selectivity bias, which may arise in the presence of a non-random sample of the population, in this context those in agricultural employment, which would lead to biased and inconsistent estimates. A 3-step multivariate probit with two selection and one outcome equations constitutes the selected empirical approach to explore the determinants of farm labour to exit agriculture and switch occupational sector. The model can be used to take into account the different market and production structures across European member states on the allocation of agricultural labour and its adjustments

The Theoretical Framework and Methodology to Estimate the Farm Labour and Other Factor-Derived Demand and Output Supply Systems. Factor Markets Working Document No. 44, May 2013

This paper provides a conceptual framework for the estimation of the farm labour and other factor-derived demand and output supply systems. In order to analyse the drivers of labour demand in agriculture and account for the impact of policies on those decisions, it is necessary to acknowledge the interaction between the different factor markets. For this purpose, we present a review of the theoretical background to primal and dual representations of production and some empirical literature that has made use of derived demand systems. The main focus of the empirical work is to study the effect of market distortions in one market, through inefficient pricing, on the demand for other inputs. Therefore, own-price and cross-price elasticities of demand become key variables in the analysis. The dual cost function is selected as the most appropriate approach, where input prices are assumed to be exogenous. A commonly employed specification – and one that is particularly convenient due to its flexible form – is the translog cost function. The analysis consists of estimating the system of cost-share equations, in order to obtain the derived demand functions for inputs. Thus, the elasticities of factor substitution can be used to examine the complementarity/substitutability between inputs