Glittering in the dark: Memory, culture, and critique in light of the history of information

An ethical and human-centered approach to Information Science requires rigorous, historically-informed analysis of both the resources that inform this discipline and the cultural role it inhabits. This session will present and discuss significant recent developments in the history and foundations of the field. ASIST has formally established a new volunteer administrative position of ASIST Curator. Kathryn La Barre, the newly-appointed Curator, will describe the role and responsibilities of this position and assess the state of Information Science history in relation to the conference themes. In two complementary reports: Michael Buckland will examine theoretical accounts of the materials made use of in Information Science; and Sachi Arafat will explain why Information Retrieval and Information Science should be integrated and rethought as a science of technology-mediated experience, and how this new kind of science relates to the pre-modern memory arts tradition

'So wide and varied': The origins and character of British information science

This paper examines some characteristics of the ‘British School’ of information science. Three main forces driving the development of the new subject in Britain are identified: the documentation movement; special libraries; and the need for better treatment of scientific and technical information. Five characteristics which, taken together, distinguish the early British approach to information science from those adopted elsewhere are identified: its subject-based nature; its broad approach to information and information science; its status as an academic subject with a strong professional remit; its involvement with, but distinction from, information technology; and its involvement with memory institutions. Lessons are drawn for the future development of the information sciences

An enhanced model for digital reference services

Digital Reference Service (DRS) play a vital role in the Digital Library (DL) research. DRS is a very valuable service provided by DL. Unfortunately, the reference service movement towards digital environment begins late, and this shift was not model based. So, a journey towards a digital environment without following a proper model raises some issues. A few researchers presented a general process model (GPM) in the late 1990s, but this process model could not overcome the problems of DRS. This paper proposes an enhanced model for DRS that use the storage and re-use mechanism with other vital components like DRS search engine and ready reference for solving the issues in DRS. Initially, storage and re-use mechanism are designed and finally, DRS search engine is designed to search appropriate answers in the knowledge base. We improved the GPM by incorporating the new components. The simulation results clearly states that the proposed model increased the service efficiency by reducing the response time from days to seconds for repeated questions and decreased the workload of librarian

Serological Markers for Inflammatory Bowel Disease in AIDS Patients with Evidence of Microbial Translocation

Background: Breakdown of the gut mucosal barrier during chronic HIV infection allows translocation of bacterial products such as lipopolysaccharides (LPS) from the gut into the circulation. Microbial translocation also occurs in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD serological markers are useful in the diagnosis of IBD and to differentiate between Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Here, we evaluate detection of IBD serological markers in HIV-infected patients with advanced disease and their relationship to HIV disease markers.Methods IBD serological markers (ASCA, pANCA, anti-OmpC, and anti-CBir1) were measured by ELISA in plasma from AIDS patients (n = 26) with low CD4 counts (<300 cells/$\mu$l) and high plasma LPS levels, and results correlated with clinical data. For meta-analysis, relevant data were abstracted from 20 articles. Results: IBD serological markers were detected in approximately 65% of AIDS patients with evidence of microbial translocation. An antibody pattern consistent with IBD was detected in 46%; of these, 75% had a CD-like pattern. Meta-analysis of data from 20 published studies on IBD serological markers in CD, UC, and non-IBD control subjects indicated that IBD serological markers are detected more frequently in AIDS patients than in non-IBD disease controls and healthy controls, but less frequently than in CD patients. There was no association between IBD serological markers and HIV disease markers (plasma viral load and CD4 counts) in the study cohort. Conclusions: IBD serological markers may provide a non-invasive approach to monitor HIV-related inflammatory gut disease. Further studies to investigate their clinical significance in HIV-infected individuals are warranted

Main nutrient patterns and colorectal cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.

BACKGROUND: Much of the current literature on diet-colorectal cancer (CRC) associations focused on studies of single foods/nutrients, whereas less is known about nutrient patterns. We investigated the association between major nutrient patterns and CRC risk in participants of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. METHODS: Among 477 312 participants, intakes of 23 nutrients were estimated from validated dietary questionnaires. Using results from a previous principal component (PC) analysis, four major nutrient patterns were identified. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed for the association of each of the four patterns and CRC incidence using multivariate Cox proportional hazards models with adjustment for established CRC risk factors. RESULTS: During an average of 11 years of follow-up, 4517 incident cases of CRC were documented. A nutrient pattern characterised by high intakes of vitamins and minerals was inversely associated with CRC (HR per 1 s.d.=0.94, 95% CI: 0.92-0.98) as was a pattern characterised by total protein, riboflavin, phosphorus and calcium (HR (1 s.d.)=0.96, 95% CI: 0.93-0.99). The remaining two patterns were not significantly associated with CRC risk. CONCLUSIONS: Analysing nutrient patterns may improve our understanding of how groups of nutrients relate to CRC

Records and their imaginaries: imagining the impossible, making possible the imagined

© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht This paper argues that the roles of individual and collective imaginings about the absent or unattainable archive and its contents should be explicitly acknowledged in both archival theory and practice. We propose two new terms: impossible archival imaginaries and imagined records. These concepts offer important affective counterbalances and sometimes resistance to dominant legal, bureaucratic, historical and forensic notions of evidence that so often fall short in explaining the capacity of records and archives to motivate, inspire, anger and traumatize. The paper begins with a reflection on how imagined records have surfaced in our own work related to human rights. It then reviews some of the ways in which the concept of the imaginary has been understood by scholarship in other fields. It considers how such interpretations might contribute epistemologically to the phenomenon of impossible archival imaginaries; and it provides examples of what we argue are impossible archival imaginaries at work. The paper moves on to examine specific cases and “archival stories” involving imagined records and contemplate how they can function societally in ways similar to actual records because of the weight of their absence or because of their aspirational nature. Drawing upon threads that run through these cases, we propose definitions of both phenomena that not only augment the current descriptive, analytical and explicatory armaments of archival theory and practice but also open up the possibility of “returning” them (Ketelaar in Research in the archival multiverse. Monash University Press, Melbourne 2015a) as theoretical contributions to the fields from which the cases were drawn

First measurement of coherent ρ0 photoproduction in ultra-peripheral Xe–Xe collisions at √sNN = 5.44 TeV

The first measurement of the coherent photoproduction of ρ0 vector mesons in ultra-peripheral Xe–Xe collisions at sNN=5.44 TeV is presented. This result, together with previous HERA γp data and γ–Pb measurements from ALICE, describes the atomic number (A) dependence of this process, which is particularly sensitive to nuclear shadowing effects and to the approach to the black-disc limit of QCD at a semi-hard scale. The cross section of the Xe+Xe→ρ0+Xe+Xe process, measured at midrapidity through the decay channel ρ0→π+π−, is found to be dσ/dy=131.5±5.6(stat.)−16.9+17.5(syst.) mb. The ratio of the continuum to resonant contributions for the production of pion pairs is also measured. In addition, the fraction of events accompanied by electromagnetic dissociation of either one or both colliding nuclei is reported. The dependence on A of cross section for the coherent ρ0 photoproduction at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon of the γA system of WγA,n=65 GeV is found to be consistent with a power-law behaviour σ(γA→ρ0A)∝Aα with a slope α=0.96±0.02(syst.). This slope signals important shadowing effects, but it is still far from the behaviour expected in the black-disc limit.publishedVersio

Denial of long-term issues with agriculture on tropical peatlands will have devastating consequences

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