Is the digital library our future?

This paper explores the logistics and implications of implementing the University of Nottingham's strategy of accelerated adoption of digital resources in the library which houses our Arts and Humanities collections and serves researchers and students in these traditionally print-focused disciplines. Finite budgets, the availability of electronic resources, the importance of legacy print collections, and patron expectations and preferences all help shape the strategy's implementation in this particular context

Organic Knowledge Network Arable - D2.1 Description of farmer innovation groups

This report has been produced as part of the Organic knowledge Network Arable (OK-Net Arable) project, which uses an interactive multi-actor approach, bringing practitioners from regional innovation groups together with advisers and scientists. The aim of this report is to provide a description of the farmer innovation groups involved with the project. It covers information about the structure of the farmer innovation groups, the agronomic context, existing knowledge and skills, main challenges faced as well as potential solutions and tools to address these challenges. In total 14 farmer groups involved in the project, located in 10 countries. The groups have similarities in that they have mostly been established with an arable focus and have connections to research institutes. All groups have been established relatively recently, between 2010 and 2015. Members are a mix of new entrants and experienced organic farmers, most groups include farmers who have farmed organically for over 10 years. The members range in age from 20 to 70 years old, but most group members are over 30 years of age, and are predominantly male. The farmer innovation groups represent a range of farm types including cereal producers, organic mixed farms, including livestock and field vegetables (e.g. potatoes, cabbage, leeks etc.), horticultural farms as well as stockless arable cropping systems. In terms of typical crops grown, most groups appear to be focused on cereal crops, which is to be expected given the focus of the project. The report outlines some common challenges identified by the groups, namely: weed management, soil fertility, and pest and disease control. Other challenges were also mentioned, including: lack of knowledge and research, nitrogen management, nutrient cycling, challenges with grass and clover rotations, soil water content, cultivation issues, climatic changes, seeds and the availability of organic varieties. Recommendations for the project going forward include identifying best practice examples, ensuring that information can be found easily and consumed quickly, identifying context specific information, and provision of reliable information from trusted sources. Important areas include responding to farmer priority challenges in terms of the tools that the project tests, linking farmer perspectives with researcher knowledge and recommendations, and developing easy-to-use methods for online farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing

Erbgang und Begleiterscheinungen der familiären Trichterbrust

Die Trichterbrust ist oft Teil autosomal-dominant vererbter generalisierter Syndrome. Es ist jedoch unklar, ob auch die nicht-syndromale Trichterbrust Merkmale einer generalisierten Bindegewebsstörung aufweist und autosomal dominant vererbt wird. 76 Jungen und 25 Mädchen mit Trichterbrust im Alter von 15 ± 6 Jahren wurden untersucht. Nach Ausschluß anderer Syndrome hatten 45 Kinder mit nicht-syndromaler Trichterbrust (42%) eine positive Familienanamnese. Folgende Merkmale wurden in 5 der Familien erfaßt: übermäßiges Längenwachstum, Myopie, Zahn- und Kiefermißbildung, Hernien, Kyphoskoliose, Gelenklaxheit. Es zeigte sich eine Häufung von Zeichen einer Bindegewebsschwäche bei den Trichterbrust-Index-Fällen und bei den anderen Familienmitgliedern mit Trichterbrust, nicht jedoch bei den Familienmitgliedern ohne Trichterbrust. Somit deutet die Trichterbrust auf das Vorhandensein einer allgemeinen Störung des Bindegewebes hin. Das Vererbungsmuster war am ehesten mit einem autosomal-dominanten Erbgang mit verminderter Penetranz vereinbar

OK-net arable: progress report of the co-ordination of farmer groups (WP2)

The aims of this work package are - Co-ordinate the interaction and exchange between the national /regional farmer innovation groups to ensure good and constructive communication (Task 2.1) - Develop a framework that facilitates structured exchange of experiences in the area of arable crop production; developing conclusions for a general application in Europe based on regional results (Task 2.2) - Test innovative end-user and educational material, (e.g. manuals, web-based tools, interactive workshops etc.) and understand reasons for acceptance and successful implementation (Task 2.3- ongoing ) - Develop recommendations on the experiences (Task 2.4 – not started). The presentation shows progress and results from the work carried out until Oct 2016

Working together: library value at the University of Nottingham

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to bring together the findings of two studies investigating the value of academic libraries to teaching and research staff in higher education institutions. The Working Together (WT) project was an international study, funded by SAGE Publishing, investigating the value of academic libraries for teaching and research staff in the USA, UK and Scandinavia. The Raising Academic Impact (RAI) project was an initiative of the University of Nottingham (UoN) aimed at increasing the impact of academic librarians in departments across the university by assessing perception and awareness of current library services and future needs of academic staff. Design/methodology/approach: The WT project was conducted during Spring 2012, comprising a series of eight case studies and an online survey exploring the case study experiences and findings within their wider regional and academic context. One was conducted at the UoN, and included the RAI project. The RAI project was originally a four-phase initiative conducted by academic librarians at the UoN. The first phase, which is reported in this paper, consisted of a survey of teaching and research staff, distributed in summer 2012, investigating awareness, uptake and value of existing services, as well as demand for new library services. Findings: Determining the value of academic libraries is a challenging task as very little evidence (beyond the anecdotal) is collected. Perceptions of library value vary greatly between what librarians think the value of their library is to academic staff and how academic staff actually value their library. Information literacy and study skills teaching are greatly valued by academic staff. Despite current efforts, research support is still limited, owing to a cultural barrier hampering greater collaboration between libraries and academic staff in this area. Communication and marketing are keys to increase the value of academic libraries to teaching and research staff. Originality/value: This paper presents the key findings from the two studies in parallel. It is anticipated that these discoveries will be of interest to the wider library community to help libraries develop services which are closely linked to the needs of teaching and academic staff. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era, for others revenues stagnated or even declined, and these variations motivated alternative hypotheses for determinants of fiscal and state capacity. In this study we test the basic hypotheses in the existing literature making use of the large date set we have compiled for all of the leading states across the continent. We find strong empirical support for two prevailing threads in the literature, arguing respectively that interstate wars and changes in economic structure towards an urbanized economy had positive fiscal impact. Regarding the main point of contention in the theoretical literature, whether it was representative or authoritarian political regimes that facilitated the gains in fiscal capacity, we do not find conclusive evidence that one performed better than the other. Instead, the empirical evidence we have gathered lends supports to the hypothesis that when under pressure of war, the fiscal performance of representative regimes was better in the more urbanized-commercial economies and the fiscal performance of authoritarian regimes was better in rural-agrarian economie

Corporate Governance for Sustainability

The current model of corporate governance needs reform. There is mounting evidence that the practices of shareholder primacy drive company directors and executives to adopt the same short time horizon as financial markets. Pressure to meet the demands of the financial markets drives stock buybacks, excessive dividends and a failure to invest in productive capabilities. The result is a ‘tragedy of the horizon’, with corporations and their shareholders failing to consider environmental, social or even their own, long-term, economic sustainability. With less than a decade left to address the threat of climate change, and with consensus emerging that businesses need to be held accountable for their contribution, it is time to act and reform corporate governance in the EU. The statement puts forward specific recommendations to clarify the obligations of company boards and directors and make corporate governance practice significantly more sustainable and focused on the long term

DenseNet and Support Vector Machine classifications of major depressive disorder using vertex-wise cortical features

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a complex psychiatric disorder that affects the lives of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe. Even today, researchers debate if morphological alterations in the brain are linked to MDD, likely due to the heterogeneity of this disorder. The application of deep learning tools to neuroimaging data, capable of capturing complex non-linear patterns, has the potential to provide diagnostic and predictive biomarkers for MDD. However, previous attempts to demarcate MDD patients and healthy controls (HC) based on segmented cortical features via linear machine learning approaches have reported low accuracies. In this study, we used globally representative data from the ENIGMA-MDD working group containing an extensive sample of people with MDD (N=2,772) and HC (N=4,240), which allows a comprehensive analysis with generalizable results. Based on the hypothesis that integration of vertex-wise cortical features can improve classification performance, we evaluated the classification of a DenseNet and a Support Vector Machine (SVM), with the expectation that the former would outperform the latter. As we analyzed a multi-site sample, we additionally applied the ComBat harmonization tool to remove potential nuisance effects of site. We found that both classifiers exhibited close to chance performance (balanced accuracy DenseNet: 51%; SVM: 53%), when estimated on unseen sites. Slightly higher classification performance (balanced accuracy DenseNet: 58%; SVM: 55%) was found when the cross-validation folds contained subjects from all sites, indicating site effect. In conclusion, the integration of vertex-wise morphometric features and the use of the non-linear classifier did not lead to the differentiability between MDD and HC. Our results support the notion that MDD classification on this combination of features and classifiers is unfeasible