State-by-State Report on Permanent Public Access to Electronic Government Information

The purpose of this study was to research what, if anything, state governments are doing to meet the enormous challenges of ensuring permanent public access to state electronic government information. A comprehensive survey was created and distributed to AALL authors in each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. State authors completed the survey by December 2002 and, in addition, submitted a short executive summary based on their survey results. The survey reveals that only one state—Colorado—has enacted legislation that explicitly addresses permanent public access (effective August 15, 2003). No state, including Colorado, comprehensively addresses the challenges of permanent public access to and preservation of electronic government information. State records boards, state archives and state libraries are often aware of permanent public access issues and have often taken steps to preserve electronic information. They have sometimes taken steps to provide continuous public access or have developed guidelines for state agencies to provide such access. These efforts of state records boards, state archives and state libraries are often ineffective, however, because they lack a solid statutory foundation. Without comprehensive statutes supporting a system to coordinate and centralize permanent public access, state agencies thwart the positive efforts of state records boards, state archives and state libraries. The agencies fail to appreciate the need to ensure the full lifecycle of electronic government information, particularly Web-based publications and records. And any guidelines for permanent public access that target them do not solve the problem of agencies’ lack the expertise, personnel and funding. We envisioned that this project would be the first step in the advocacy process necessary to enact state laws that will prevent the loss of important state government information in electronic format. Toward this end, we sought to create a document that could be provided to legislators and other policymakers to educate them about the responsibility of state governments to ensure permanent public access to electronic information. An additional objective was to strengthen the GRC and WAO’s ties to AALL members at the local level, thereby forming a base of activists who could advocate for improved laws mandating permanent public access to state government information. Because AALL and other library organizations lack the manpower to tackle the problem of disappearing electronic government information in all states simultaneously, the Grant Team has identified key states to target for legislative activity

Southeastern Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting

The 2009 SEAALL Annual Meeting was held in Athens Georgia, April 16-18, 2009

The impact of immediate breast reconstruction on the time to delivery of adjuvant therapy: the iBRA-2 study

Background: Immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) is routinely offered to improve quality-of-life for women requiring mastectomy, but there are concerns that more complex surgery may delay adjuvant oncological treatments and compromise long-term outcomes. High-quality evidence is lacking. The iBRA-2 study aimed to investigate the impact of IBR on time to adjuvant therapy. Methods: Consecutive women undergoing mastectomy ± IBR for breast cancer July–December, 2016 were included. Patient demographics, operative, oncological and complication data were collected. Time from last definitive cancer surgery to first adjuvant treatment for patients undergoing mastectomy ± IBR were compared and risk factors associated with delays explored. Results: A total of 2540 patients were recruited from 76 centres; 1008 (39.7%) underwent IBR (implant-only [n = 675, 26.6%]; pedicled flaps [n = 105,4.1%] and free-flaps [n = 228, 8.9%]). Complications requiring re-admission or re-operation were significantly more common in patients undergoing IBR than those receiving mastectomy. Adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy was required by 1235 (48.6%) patients. No clinically significant differences were seen in time to adjuvant therapy between patient groups but major complications irrespective of surgery received were significantly associated with treatment delays. Conclusions: IBR does not result in clinically significant delays to adjuvant therapy, but post-operative complications are associated with treatment delays. Strategies to minimise complications, including careful patient selection, are required to improve outcomes for patients

In vitro and in vivo functions of SARS-CoV-2 infection-enhancing and neutralizing antibodies

SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) protect against COVID-19. A concern regarding SARS-CoV-2 antibodies is whether they mediate disease enhancement. Here, we isolated NAbs against the receptor-binding domain (RBD) and the N-terminal domain (NTD) of SARS-CoV-2 spike from individuals with acute or convalescent SARS-CoV-2 or a history of SARS-CoV infection. Cryo-electron microscopy of RBD and NTD antibodies demonstrated function-specific modes of binding. Select RBD NAbs also demonstrated Fc receptor-g (FcgR)-mediated enhancement of virus infection in vitro, while five non-neutralizing NTD antibodies mediated FcgR-independent in vitro infection enhancement. However, both types of infection-enhancing antibodies protected from SARS-CoV-2 replication in monkeys and mice. Three of 46 monkeys infused with enhancing antibodies had higher lung inflammation scores compared to controls. One monkey had alveolar edema and elevated bronchoalveolar lavage inflammatory cytokines. Thus, while in vitro antibody-enhanced infection does not necessarily herald enhanced infection in vivo, increased lung inflammation can rarely occur in SARS-CoV-2 antibody-infused macaques

Beyond the Basics: Finding Tests and Measurements

Learn how to use databases to locate instruments and reviews of tests to inform your choices of the most relevant measurement tools for your research.https://nsuworks.nova.edu/library_learn_all/1060/thumbnail.jp

Southeastern Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting

The 2009 SEAALL Annual Meeting was held in Athens Georgia, April 16-18, 2009

Spatial patterns of large African cats : a large-scale study on density, home range size, and home range overlap of lions Panthera leo and leopards Panthera pardus

Spatial patterns of and competition for resources by territorial carnivores are typically explained by two hypotheses: 1) the territorial defence hypothesis and 2) the searching efficiency hypothesis. According to the territorial defence hypothesis, when food resources are abundant, carnivore densities will be high and home ranges small. In addition, carnivores can maximise their necessary energy intake with minimal territorial defence. At medium resource levels, larger ranges will be needed, and it will become more economically beneficial to defend resources against a lower density of competitors. At low resource levels, carnivore densities will be low and home ranges large, but resources will be too scarce to make it beneficial to defend such large territories. Thus, home range overlap will be minimal at intermediate carnivore densities. According to the searching efficiency hypothesis, there is a cost to knowing a home range. Larger areas are harder to learn and easier to forget, so carnivores constantly need to keep their cognitive map updated by regularly revisiting parts of their home ranges. Consequently, when resources are scarce, carnivores require larger home ranges to acquire sufficient food. These larger home ranges lead to more overlap among individuals' ranges, so that overlap in home ranges is largest when food availability is the lowest. Since conspecific density is low when food availability is low, this hypothesis predicts that overlap is largest when densities are the lowest. We measured home range overlap and used a novel method to compare intraspecific home range overlaps for lions Panthera leo (n = 149) and leopards Panthera pardus (n = 111) in Africa. We estimated home range sizes from telemetry location data and gathered carnivore density data from the literature. Our results did not support the territorial defence hypothesis for either species. Lion prides increased their home range overlap at conspecific lower densities whereas leopards did not. Lion pride changes in overlap were primarily due to increases in group size at lower densities. By contrast, the unique dispersal strategies of leopards led to reduced overlap at lower densities. However, when human-caused mortality was higher, leopards increased their home range overlap. Although lions and leopards are territorial, their territorial behaviour was less important than the acquisition of food in determining their space use. Such information is crucial for the future conservation of these two iconic African carnivores